The Night of the Fall #2
Does she dare hope it might be true? This mess might resolve itself neatly, with Mia cast as the perfect scapegoat.
A surge of satisfaction floods Chloe's veins. She watches Mia's face crumple with horror. This is unfolding more perfectly than she could have orchestrated. Leah silenced, potentially forever. Mia implicated. All of Chloe's problems wrapped up in one tragic "accident."
She frowns as Mia begins a treacherous descent down the bluff, clinging to exposed roots as she climbs downward, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Stop! Come back here!" Chloe commands in a harsh whisper. "What do you think you're doing?"
Mia's hands shake violently as she navigates the steep slope. The darkness swallows her small form as she disappears. Chloe creeps forward cautiously, peering over the edge. In the moonlight, she can barely make out Mia kneeling beside Leah's motionless body below.
A sound drifts up from the darkness. Mia's voice, choked and frantic. "Leah? Leah, please. Please wake up."
The sobbing that follows is low, guttural. Like an animal.
Chloe feels nothing but mild impatience, a calculation of risk. How long will Mia stay down there? Will she touch the body, contaminate the scene with her fingerprints, her DNA? Good. Better, actually.
"Mia, get back up here!"
"Call 911!" Mia cries.
"Get up here now!"
Mia moves as if underwater, shock rendering her compliant. She climbs back up the bluff, slipping twice, her hands covered in dirt and something darker that gleams wetly in the moonlight.
"I didn't—I didn't mean to," Mia stammers when she reaches the top. Her eyes are unfocused. "I thought she was fine, she just took a step back, what—what happened?"
"You pushed her, stupid," Chloe snaps, her patience thinning. "Really hard."
"No—I—"
Chloe grips Mia's shoulders, feeling the tremors running through the other girl's body.
"Look at me. You were mad. You pushed her.
She fell. Now she's dead." She leans closer, her breath warm against Mia's tear-streaked face.
"If you call 911, what do you think happens next?
The cops will throw you in jail and toss away the key. You did this."
Mia crumples. A wounded sound escapes her throat.
"I'm going to help you." Chloe softens her voice and molds her features into an expression of sympathetic concern.
"We stick together, tell the same story.
She came out here alone and fell. She was always clumsy, right?
Literally tripping over her own feet." She gives Mia a little shake.
"But you have to do exactly what I say. I'll save you, but you can't be stupid.
You and me, we're a team now. Do you understand? "
"I don't—I can't—what if she's only hurt—what if—"
Chloe shakes her harder. Anger flashes behind her carefully constructed mask. Hysteria won't serve either of them. Mia has always been too sensitive, too emotional, too weak to handle the hard stuff. "Listen to me. She's gone. There's nothing you can do. Think about yourself."
"We can't just leave her—"
"Shut up!" Chloe hisses. "You can't think about her. She's gone. She's dead! You can't bring her back. You call 911 and admit what you did? You're going to prison. Forever. You'll destroy your mom. Is that what you want?"
"No, but—"
"I'm the only one who can save you. Are you with me or not?"
Slowly, dully, Mia nods.
"Good. Here's what you're going to do. Go back to the basement, change your dress in the bathroom, and get into your sleeping bag.
Go to sleep. Do not get up for anything.
Wipe your puffy face and stop blubbering.
When you wake up tomorrow morning, you have no idea what happened. That's it. Now go."
Chloe picks up the camera from the grass, shoves it into Mia's limp hands, and pushes her toward the house. She watches as the other girl stumbles across the manicured lawn, moving sluggishly, like a sleepwalker.
Once Mia disappears inside, Chloe turns back to the bluff's edge. She activates her phone's flashlight and directs the beam downward.
The body moves. A small, pained groan floats up from the darkness.
Chloe's breath catches in her throat—not from horror, but from the sudden recalibration required: a live witness can speak, a corpse cannot.
Her heartrate accelerates. This complicates everything. Leah can't wake up. She can't climb back to the world of the living and tell everyone what she knows, especially not now.
Chloe recalls the moment of recognition in Leah's eyes just before the push, the dawning awareness, the determination that had flared across her face like lightning. Leah was turning on Chloe. She was going to pick Mia, no matter the consequences.
Then there would be nothing to stop her from ruining Chloe's life utterly. She could testify to everything Chloe has done, including the push.
Chloe needs to do something. To silence her permanently.
Chloe studies the steep incline, glances down at her gown, and considers her options with methodical precision. Mia barely navigated the treacherous descent without falling. No way is Chloe attempting it, especially not in her current outfit.
Besides, this will get messy. She'll need to touch the body, the blood. No. It'll ruin her brand-new Valentino gown. There must be another way.
The lake breeze intensifies, carrying the scent of damp earth from last night's rain. Chloe shivers, though not from the cold.
She needs to think clearly, carefully. The way her mother taught her.
When faced with a problem, calculate every option. Choose the one with the least risk to you.
Her mother's words echo in her mind with perfect clarity. Her mother is rarely wrong.
Chloe takes one step toward the bluff edge. The soft earth sinks. Her heel catches, and she stumbles a mere foot from the drop-off. Swiftly, she steps back, heart thumping.
Chloe's hands shake. She can't go down there. She can't risk being seen. But her mother never shakes. Never doubts, never blinks.
Chloe straightens her shoulders, decision made. Her mom will know what to do. Always clean up your messes, her mother constantly reminds her.
Well, this mess has grown too large to handle alone.
She turns away from the bluff, her mind already crafting the narrative she'll present, the frantic tears she'll summon on command, the trembling voice with which she'll describe what happened, and how terrified she is now.
Her mother will help her, she always does.
After all, her mother helped resolve the sleeping pills incident that put annoyingly perfect Taylor Everett in the hospital and made Peyton swim captain.
It had gone sideways a bit, but Chloe hadn’t minded. Standing there by the diving board, watching that girl slip under the surface of the water, so still and quiet, the water making barely a ripple. The way her hair had shimmered like a mermaid’s.
Her phone screen reads 12:52 a.m. Chloe calculates quickly. Her mother took an Ambien around ten p.m., so she'll be groggy, possibly incoherent for another hour or two.
And downstairs, Mia has just gone inside. She’ll be awake, moving around, and possibly some of the other girls too. Going to her mother now, with potential witnesses stirring, with her mother barely lucid, would be a mistake.
Judging by all the blood, Leah isn't going anywhere for a while.
Chloe can afford to wait.
She walks back toward the house. Her footsteps are oddly light despite the weight of what has transpired. A curious sense of relief floods through her veins, as if she's shed something cumbersome, something that's been dragging her down.
She'll slip inside, change her dress, wash her hands, then lie down quietly in the basement and wait until everyone is dead asleep. Then she'll climb the stairs to her mother's room, let the tears come, and tell her mother everything. Well, almost everything.
Her mother will save her.
That is, after all, what mothers do.
I hope you enjoyed The Guilty Ones!