17. We Are Gathered Here Together #4
The beautiful fifteen-year-old girl who had taken her own life now sat erect.
Her back was pencil straight, surrounded by the white-satin-and-dark-oak encasement that was meant to hold her for eternity.
Sabrina Mendez’s head whipped with terrifying speed.
Black curls fanned out, spreading that smell—it wasn’t honeysuckle, it was perfume, maybe Loveshack Fancy.
The dead body (Sabrina was dead! They were all at her frickin’ funeral, for Pete’s sake!) leaned toward the nearby cluster of teenage girls.
Yes, that was definitely Harper White. She dated Brett’s friend Will.
That was what the drama was about last year!
A pale hand sprang from the coffin and snatched the back of Harper’s frizzy hair. Impossibly long fingers yanked, and a chunk of blond locks ripped from Harper’s skull with a zipper-sounding tear. Gore spurted. Harper shrieked, and Sabrina Mendez’s lips peeled back to reveal pointy ivory weapons.
The hot poker of agony intensified from Stephanie’s hand, and she doubled over.
Her fingers were on fire. No, her hand was nearly gone.
Stephanie blinked. Lungs empty. The mother’s unhinged jaw was locked around her wrist. The diamond tennis bracelet from Stephanie’s tenth wedding anniversary now dripped ruby red.
The gargling, slurping sound of an industrial vacuum syphoned blood through angry crimson lips.
Nausea rolled through her. Dizziness. Stephanie’s knees gave out.
The room grew white with crackling starbursts, spinning and spinning in the blazing heat.
A cry shredded Stephanie’s chest, one final gasp. The burning air raced from her lungs, but Stephanie couldn’t hear the sound, because the screams filling the room had blended together into one massive convergence of pain.
“I swear that Harper girl tasted even better than I expected!” Sabrina clapped elatedly as she exited the funeral home alongside her family.
Her mouth dripped and her dress was soaked in a way that shifted the fabric from black toward burgundy.
“You have no idea how close I was to biting her in the school cafeteria. Like so many times!”
“You should have tasted her mother! I’m telling you, the chardonnay was still crisp in her blood.
I’m buzzed! Seriously. Give me a sobriety test. I’ll fail.
She must’ve been hammered,” said Sabrina’s brother, Xavier, as he climbed into the back seat of their extra-long SUV with tinted windows.
He reeked of gasoline, and his white button-down shirt was entirely saturated in scarlet from racing through bodies as if in a competition to drink the most. Sabrina preferred to linger over the flavors, savoring the subtle differences between Americans and Europeans. It extended her palette.
Steely gray plumes billowed high from the flickering orange flames of the funeral home they’d just set ablaze.
“Man, I haven’t been this stuffed in so long!
” groaned Sabrina’s sister, Margarita, from the bucket seat beside her.
“I swear, Tía Ventura and Tía Anna, whatever you were doing in Sevilla took way too long!” Margarita swiveled her neck toward the far back seat, where their aunt and uncle rubbed bloated bellies.
“We are never waiting this long to eat again!”
“?Ay bendito! It was worth it!” said Tía Anna, black curls bouncing on her forehead.
“Me encantan los funerales. We haven’t done one in so long!” Mamá agreed, a smile ringing in her voice. There was not one touch of blood in her mother’s mahogany hair, nor on her dress. She sat in the passenger seat perfectly spotless, a skill Sabrina had yet to master.
“You think they’ll buy the gas leak story?” Pop asked as he steered the SUV away from the flaming Victorian building. Fire trucks wailed in the distance.
“They always do.” Xavier burped, giggling with tears in his eyes. “I’m telling you! I am so wasted right now!”
“For me, it’s not even about the blood.” Sabrina stretched, her body languid as ebony hair dripped scarlet in a way that made her want to shove the locks into her mouth and suck like a lollipop.
But she refrained, trying to follow her mother’s prim example.
“It’s the look on the assholes’ faces when I first sink my teeth in, that’s what I love.
The initial shock—it fills me up. Really.
I feel whole.” Sabrina placed a hand on a chest lacking a heartbeat.
It wasn’t hard to play a corpse, though she hated whenever she drew the short straw and had to be the one stuffed into a coffin.
Caskets were so binding. And it was extremely hard not to laugh at the “mourners.”
“You feel whole because you just drank half of the Spring Mills field hockey team,” Margarita joked. Then she nodded to the window. “Hey, look who showed up.”
Sabrina followed her sister’s gaze and spied Naomi standing on the street, brown eyes reflecting the dancing flames.
Naomi shouldn’t be here; the cops might actually try to pin this on her.
The girl had a potential motive. The cyberbullying she’d endured was extremely public.
It was what brought Sabrina and her family here.
Only Naomi never knew who Sabrina really was.
Or what she was. But Naomi probably did now.
The two friends (Sabrina really would miss her) locked eyes through the tinted glass, and Sabrina lifted her hand to wave one final goodbye.
Naomi mimicked the gesture, her limb moving robotically with shock as she took in the face of a girl Naomi had absolutely believed was dead, a girl who’d just wiped out all Naomi’s enemies (and then some).
Naomi didn’t know it, but everything that had just happened had been for her. Vengeance—sweet and unexpected. It was what set Sabrina’s family apart from others like them. Sure, they killed. They had to, to survive. But they only killed the bad ones.
“?A dónde vamos ahora?” asked Tía Anna.
Pop drove north on the highway, clouds thundering overhead with a flash of lightning.
“I’ve been following the social media of some girls in Manhattan, at a private school,” Mamá offered. “Es horrible.”
“Ugh, I hate city blood!” Tío Ventura groaned, pretending to gag. “Está sucia.”
“You’re such a snob!” Mamá scolded. “There’s a little town in Maine. Some boy’s been posting pictures of his girlfriend online…”
“Dirty ones?” Xavier hiccupped. Mamá nodded. “I call dibs!” Xavier raised his hand.
Sabrina grinned; her brother could be so theatrical when it came to dickish boyfriends. “I’m in, too!”
“Vamos!”
All in agreement, the Mendez family continued north, rain splattering against the windshield and adding to the slosh of their full bellies.