Chapter 21
With just a few hours left until Death’s deadline, we gathered out back by the pool to talk, needing the fresh air.
Monica, after several failed attempts to lure Skye away, retired to her room.
At first, no one really had much to say.
It was almost awkwardly silent. A few false starts at conversation dwindling off.
The sound of water lapping gently at the walls of the pool.
In the distance, the mountains of Joshua Tree loomed over us like a threat.
We were running out of time.
“It should be me,” said Naomi. “I’m the oldest, so—”
“No chance in hell,” Shiloh cut her off. “I was the one who brought this group together. I eat the consequences. You guys can continue on without me.”
“Out of the question.” Naomi shook her head, and Iona nodded in agreement. “You lead us. We don’t have a group without you. You’re the last one who should be offered up. Death will tear us apart after you’re gone. You’re the only one who knows how to reason with him.”
“We could still fight back.” Skye sounded timid and terribly afraid, though she was probably the only girl in the group who had complete immunity.
“Fighting back will only result in all of us dying.” I knew on gut instinct that Naomi was right. “Better one dies than all of us.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” Riley picked at her nails. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we need a name. We have to give up someone, and soon.”
But no one wanted to give up the name of the girl they thought should die. People had their favorites, of course. To pretend that we were all equally close was a farce that we usually liked to ignore, but that night, it became painfully obvious where the respective loyalties lay.
Shiloh, as the leader of the group, had ties to everyone. We relied on her guidance, and for that reason alone, she was probably safe. None of the other girls, except Riley, would allow her to sacrifice herself. And even if we did agree on that, something told me that Death wouldn’t have it.
Shiloh was his first girl, after all. His favorite.
Skye was also immune, due to her young age; that was one thing all of us could agree on.
Naomi was the oldest, and she’d been a mother to all of us.
She kept track of medications and made sure the RV was stocked with enough toilet paper and food.
Shiloh had brought us together, but Naomi had made us a family, or something close to one, at least.
She was the best of us, and we knew it. I couldn’t imagine anyone voting for her.
There was Riley, whose bluntness—and at times cruelty—had created friction in the group. As far as I could tell, none of the girls were particularly fond of her. Chloe was the only one who really seemed to like her.
But Riley had her assets. She was the only girl in the group who could drive the RV reliably, maneuvering through tight streets and winding roads, even parallel parking it in a pinch.
She was also good at dispatches, especially the violent ones—the murders and dismemberments, the particularly gruesome car wrecks, worse even than Corbin’s.
Everyone respected her for that, myself included.
To lose her would mean that we’d have to shoulder the grim burden that she’d been bearing in silence all these months.
Then there were Iona and Chloe, who weren’t leaders like the older girls, and yet I couldn’t imagine the group without them.
They filled our days with laughter and color.
After the darkest dispatches, they always found a way to make us smile, and as a result, they were both well-liked by everyone. No, it couldn’t be one of them.
Then there was me, the newest addition and, by proxy, the one with the weakest ties.
I wasn’t supposed to be an official part of the group anyway.
Shiloh had chosen to spare me out of guilt over what had happened to Adeline.
Riley, and perhaps some of the other girls, too, had never really wanted me to be a part of their caravan in the first place.
And sure, I’d taken to the work of Death well enough.
I did my part. Death seemed pleased with me, and in time, I’d come to count myself as a competent asset to the group.
I considered myself close to the girls, but because I was so new, I wasn’t sure how much those bonds counted.
The fact remained: I was the newest girl and the only one who hadn’t been chosen by Death. It would make sense to pick me.
“We need to vote,” I said. “It’s the only way. The easiest way.”
Shiloh nodded and looked to Skye. “Grab us some pens, paper, and some kind of bowl or pot.”
Skye nodded, pale and drawn, and disappeared into the house. She returned with a mixing bowl, paper, some pens and colored pencils, and a pair of kitchen scissors. Her hands shook as she began to cut up the paper into little strips, equally sized. Naomi distributed them.
“We’ll write down the name of the girl we think should die, and whoever has the most votes is the one we offer up,” said Shiloh, remarkably calm given the circumstances.
“What if we have a tie?” Chloe asked. Her face had drained of all color; she looked like she was on the verge of passing out. And she wasn’t the only one. I glanced around the group and saw that every single girl looked similarly stricken.
I realized, with a start, that every one of them thought it would be them.
Shiloh took a pencil and slip of paper from Naomi. “If two girls get the same number of votes, we’ll vote again and again until the matter is settled.”
Riley tore the cap off her pen with her teeth. “This is bullshit.”
“I agree.” Skye looked down at her pencil and paper, her face contorting. She snatched the paper and crumpled it. “We don’t have to do this. We can still fight back—”
Shiloh’s eyes were on her paper. “There’s no fighting Death.”
“Well, I’m not going to vote on which of my friends should die.”
“That’s your right,” said Shiloh. “But it’ll still have to be someone. He’ll make us choose or else we all go. Is that what you want?”
Skye’s chin wrinkled with the effort of holding back tears. “That would be better than betraying my friends.”
Naomi sat down beside her, rubbed circles into her back. When she looked to Shiloh, her eyes were filled with something I can only describe as grief. She took a fresh piece of paper and placed it into Skye’s hand. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I clutched my pencil so tightly I feared it would snap in my hand.
I thought of abstaining from the vote, the way that Skye suggested we should, but it didn’t sit right with me.
I could almost hear Adeline’s voice in the back of my mind telling me to suck it up, not to be a coward.
I knew that, if she were here, she would’ve found a name to write down.
She could be cold that way, if the situation demanded it.
I tried to channel her, tried to think of a girl to give up, but the only name that surfaced was my own.
And that scared me.
It scared me because it wasn’t the first time I’d allowed myself to consider the idea of following my sister. I didn’t believe in heaven or hell. But I knew that whatever was on the other side of death was where Adeline had gone, and in the moment, that felt like…peace to me.
I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to be close to her. I had wanted that since I’d lost her.
So I wrote down my own name on the paper, got up, and put it in the bowl.
I was the first girl to vote. Skye went next, looking self-assured despite her vehement objections to the vote. Naomi voted after her. Shiloh followed Chloe, and Iona voted next.
Riley was the last to put her slip in the bowl.
I was surprised to see her fighting tears as she scrawled down a name on the paper, crumpled it in a closed fist like trash, and tossed it cleanly into the bowl from where she sat.
She scrubbed furiously at her bloodshot eyes, wouldn’t look at any of us.
I wondered why she felt so guilty when she’d made it obvious she was going to vote for Shiloh, that we all should.
With all the votes cast, Shiloh got up stiffly and walked to the bowl. She selected the first piece of paper and read the name aloud. “Skye.”
Everyone froze, except Skye, whose eyes were trained on the dark and distant mountains.
Shiloh pulled another slip of paper. “Iona.”
A chill raced up my spine.
She read the next vote. “Chloe.”
Chloe, like Skye, remained expressionless.
Shiloh plucked another piece of paper from the bowl. Frowned. “Roslyn.”
I stopped breathing for a moment, my hands shaking in my lap.
Shiloh pulled another slip of paper. “Naomi.”
I went rigid at the mention of Naomi’s name. I hadn’t expected that anyone would vote for her. As far as I knew, she was beloved by all the girls in the group.
Shiloh read the last two names. “Shiloh and Riley.”
I froze, realizing the implications of what had just occurred. There was one vote for each of us.
Was it possible that every girl in the group, even Riley, had voted for themselves just like I had?
I guessed that Shiloh had also done that, and I suspected that Naomi had too.
Then there was Skye, who despite her moral qualms had voted without hesitation, which didn’t make any sense unless she—like me—had offered up herself.
I looked to the other girls in the group, the frightened smiles, the relief.
Even Riley was laughing in disbelief, head hung, shoulders shaking. “We’re screwed,” she kept saying it over and over, but with this wry, slightly crazed smile. “We’re fucking screwed.”
“You all voted for yourselves, didn’t you?” I asked, looking at the girls.
Every one of them nodded.
—
There was some deliberation about what to do next, in the three hours before the midnight deadline.
We silently agreed that we wouldn’t vote again, choose a girl at will or at random.
Ultimately, we chose to force his hand, leave the decision up to him.
Opting to suffer his wrath and die together before giving up one of our own.
An hour before the deadline, we retreated inside, piling ourselves onto the couch.
Skye procured pillows and blankets, and we tucked ourselves in, nestled together so tightly that we seemed like one body, breathing together, our hearts beating as one.
I lost track of my own limbs, whose hands belonged to who.
And I remembered thinking, as I drifted off to sleep, that this was what I had been searching for my entire life—in Adeline and within myself—a completeness that had always seemed so elusive until now.
“Roslyn?” I heard Skye whisper. She was sleeping closest to me, and I could feel her warm breath blooming against my cheek. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “What is it?”
“I just…Thank you. For coming to the pool party. For being my friend. I’m sorry that it turned into this. I wanted things to be good for you.”
“Come here,” I said, and shifted to face her, wanting to look her in the eye one last time.
But Skye fit her head into the crook of my shoulder before I could.
She was so small, and I felt an almost painful urge to protect her, from Death, from everything and everyone that could possibly hurt her.
I wondered if this was what Adeline felt like on the rare occasions when she’d held me.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.
We’ll figure this out somehow. It’s going to be okay. ”
“I know,” said Skye, and I could tell that she really believed it.