Chapter 23 #2
“Looks abandoned,” Cassidy said. She stopped walking toward the building, but Edie continued forward.
Her steps slowed as she neared the building, but she stayed focused on the window in the front door, trying to see anything.
As she approached, she could see that light poured into a hallway from the opposite end of the building.
The hallway looked like it had several shut doors, and at the end of the building, one side opened into a kitchen or living area.
“What do you see?” Cassidy asked.
Edie shrugged. “I think you’re right.” Just then, a dark figure walked across the back of the cabin and Edie jumped. She turned and ran back to Cassidy, who was already on her toes ready to flee.
“What? What did you see?” Cassidy asked.
“Someone’s in there,” Edie said breathlessly.
Edie squatted down behind an untamed hibiscus so that she could still see the porch through the leaves but felt obscured from anyone who might be looking out from the cabin. Cassidy did the same.
They watched for a long, tense moment as waves lapped languidly behind them.
Edie felt close to standing and returning the way they’d come when a figure walked out onto the porch.
The figure stayed in the shade just in front of the door and didn’t step out far enough onto the steps for Edie to see their face.
Only their hands and wrists moved in the light.
Thick white clouds plumed off the porch and the scent of cotton candy drifted past the women hiding behind the bush.
A hand holding a vape pen appeared in the light, then the unidentified person turned their body to lean against the porch’s support beam and Edie saw a bare white arm.
Cassidy jumped up. “Daisy?”
Edie looked from Cassidy to the figure on the porch, who turned at the sound. Daisy locked eyes in their direction, released another plume of clouds, and ran back into the cabin.
“What the hell?” Edie shouted, but Cassidy paid her no mind and was already running through the patchy grass toward the porch.
You can’t trust these people, Edie thought fleetingly as she ran to catch up.
The inside of the cabin wasn’t much cooler than the beach.
It was humid and dusty and her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.
She followed the sounds of Cassidy’s steps toward the back of the structure and caught sight of her just as she ran through a door leading down to a basement. Only then did Edie stop.
Don’t be stupid. There’s never anything good in the basement.
She watched Cassidy hit the floor at the bottom of the steps and begin to round the support beam, but she stopped cold. A faint blue light fell across her face and tattoos.
“Apricot?” she called. Edie leaned into the doorway to see as far into the basement as she could from the ground floor. Then Cassidy’s expression changed to one of hurt confusion. “Rose?” she asked and turned her face up to Edie.
“Rose?” Edie echoed. She felt so suddenly lightweight that she could have flown down the stairs. Once she stepped in front of Cassidy, all the muscles in her stomach clenched in immediate regret.
Pale blue lights cast weak illumination throughout the room, which was much larger than Edie expected from the size of the cabin.
Dark figures sat on couches along the walls and grouped at cocktail tables lit by candles that failed to brighten the room any more than the blue LEDs.
One figure stood near the center of the room, drawing Edie’s attention to the nearby table.
Daisy stood next to Apricot, who sat at one of the high-top tables with a man Edie didn’t recognize.
Rose sat on the other side of Apricot, her torso half-turned to see the newcomers.
Another 50 or so people watched them in silence, as though they’d all been waiting for just this moment. In the dim light, it was hard to make out faces, but Edie thought she saw Missy Lauder and her ex-girlfriend Meggie. She didn’t have time to verify or fully feel the shock.
“What’s going on?” Cassidy asked.
“It’s fine, everyone. They’re with us,” Rose sighed, sounding disappointed to admit this to the room.
This appeared to break the spell, and everyone’s attention returned to individual conversations in hushed murmurs.
Rose waved her hand, indicating for Edie and Cassidy to join her table.
The man seated there moved away before they had a chance to see who he was, and Edie lost sight of him in the back of the room.
“Oh my god, Rose,” she said, throat thick with tears as she threw her arms around her friend.
Cassidy individually greeted Daisy and Apricot, giving each of them hugs.
“Where have you been?” Edie asked. She tried not to sound accusatory but couldn’t help the way the words fell out.
“Sit down, both of you,” Rose told them. They did so, taking the two open chairs next to each other. Daisy remained standing next to Cassidy.
“You weren’t supposed to know about this place,” she said. The disappointment in her voice sounded more like petulance to Edie, who turned back to Rose in hopes of a more private reunion.
“Why didn’t you try to contact me?”
“Mobiles aren’t allowed down here. It’s a secret party,” Rose said.
“But you still could’ve told me. I was worried sick about you.”
“James was supposed to tell both of you,” Apricot said. “He knows what’s going on.”
Edie noticed the dark figure seated at a table behind Apricot turned to listen in on their conversation.
When she scanned around the room, she realized that everyone had once again fixed their attention on their table.
While everyone else was speaking in hushed tones, she and Cassidy were nearly shouting.
She ducked her head in embarrassment. “You still could’ve told me,” she repeated in a near whisper.
“Are you kidding me?” Cassidy nearly shouted. She hadn’t noticed they were being watched. “He refused to tell us anything and threatened us when we asked.”
“Cassidy, shh!” Edie scolded in a whisper that went unnoticed.
“Were you talking shit about the festival?” Daisy asked. “Because he wasn’t supposed to tell you if you were. We didn’t want you to kill the buzz like you always do.”
Cassidy looked from Apricot to Daisy, clearly hurt. Her voice dropped from a shout but still boomed in the quiet room. “I thought something happened to you. Sorry for trying to be a good friend.”
Edie cringed away from the embarrassment she felt at Cassidy being so passive aggressive and oblivious to the attention she drew to their table, but as she looked around again, she didn’t catch anyone’s eye.
She thought maybe it was a trick of the blue lights, but her vision still hadn’t quite adjusted to the darkness.
“Apricot was worried about you, too. Does that make her a buzz kill?”
Daisy scoffed. “Apricot always just goes along with whatever you say so that you don’t lose your shit.”
Cassidy’s mouth dropped, and Edie felt a burning embarrassment for her.
To her surprise, Rose laughed—loudly. “That sounds familiar. No wonder you two ended up together.”
“Excuse me?” Edie asked, the question taking her breath away.
“Oh, Eden, don’t act daft. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
You’re so insipid and always just go along with whatever anyone else thinks.
” Rose crinkled her nose. “You never think for yourself. It’s completely unsurprising that you immediately latched onto another person to tell you what to think when I left. ”
Rose reached her hand out, as though to console Edie following this harsh declaration, but instead she ran her fingers through the short curls on Edie’s head. “This is a really unbecoming look on you.”
“Rose, I—” Edie tried to say something, but she stumbled over her words, unsure how to even process Rose’s attack.
“Come off it, you were doing it before I left,” Rose said, dropping her hand back to the table. “You couldn’t decide if you thought I was right about nothing being wrong or if Cassie was right about the island being haunted. When did you ever have your own opinion about it?”
Edie looked around the table, hoping someone else would stand up for her, but they all remained silent, including Cassidy whose head drooped and who appeared to be staring intently at the candle on the table.
“It’s no wonder you ended up with another fake, vapid nepo baby. You two deserve each other,” Rose concluded, crossing her arms.
The room fell silent, and Edie once again felt every eye focused on them, even though she still couldn’t make out any of the faces turned their way.
“Rose,” Edie said, trying to keep her voice low and composed as tears of betrayal gathered in her eyes and constricted her throat.
“If that’s the way you feel, I’ll just go.
I wanted to make sure you were safe, but now I really don’t care.
I’m going to go enjoy myself and stop worrying about fake friends like you.
” Edie stood and felt a hand on her shoulder.
“You can’t do that,” Daisy said.
Even despite how close she was to the man with his hand on her shoulder, pressing her down into her chair, Edie still couldn’t see his face. A chill went up her spine and she let him force her back down.
“We’re not going to tell anyone about it,” Cassidy said as panic made her voice pitch higher and louder. “What would we even say? There’s a room of semi-famous people in the dark basement of a shitty cabin? I’m sure people on this tropical island would really be clamoring to get in.”
“There you go talking shit about the festival,” Daisy said.
“Cassidy!” Edie curled into herself and wanted to melt into the floor. She shouted louder than she intended, but this finally got the other woman’s attention.
Cassidy looked around and finally realized that everyone in the room was watching their table. “What’s happening right now?”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Apricot said in an affectless monotone.
“But now you have to stay,” Daisy added.