THIS IS REAL, I THOUGHT. But many things were real. Foggy memories of hands on skin were real. Evidence captured on videotape was real. The swooping lines of black permanent marker I’d scrubbed off my skin, the taste of puke and stranger I’d brushed out of my mouth, the creeping fingers doing exactly as Nikki commanded. Real, real, real.
Surfaces were deceptive. Nikki had taught me that better than anyone. The trappings of evil were for scary movies and school assemblies; the real devil wore pink and smiled with pastel lips. And here, in the dark, we all knew who she was.
“Don’t think we’re going to feel sorry for you,” Lacey said, and she was right.
Real was the hollow space Lacey had left behind, and the lies Nikki had told to make me leave her. I’d believed the witch, let her put a curse on Lacey. All those days and weeks she’d spent sleeping in her car. While I was slurping frozen yogurt at the mall and debating whether Aladdin could be fuckable even if he was a cartoon, Lacey had been alone. Because I left her that way; because Nikki had made me.
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
Lacey snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’ve been here for fucking ever!” Nikki shouted. “And I’m thirsty.”
“Idea,” Lacey said brightly. Lacey loved an idea. “Dex, go get that bucket we saw outside.”
I set the bucket before her. It was corroded by what seemed like centuries of rust, filled almost to the brim with brackish water.
Nikki shook her head. “No.”
“You’re thirsty, right?” Knife in hand, Lacey grabbed her hair and yanked her forward, hard enough that she toppled, chair and all, onto her knees, until her lips were nearly on the bucket rim. “Don’t you want a drink?”
“Let go.” It was a whisper. “Please don’t make me.”
“So picky,” Lacey said.
Together, we righted her; she was heavy, but she wasn’t fighting us anymore. That made it easier.
“You realize this is kidnapping, right?” All the trembly vulnerability was gone from her voice, nothing left beneath the flab but hard, pearly bone. “You’re going to be in huge trouble when you let me out of here.”
“You’re not giving us much incentive,” Lacey said.
“What are you going to do, kill me?”
“It’s so cute when you pretend to be fearless.” Lacey turned to me. “Dex thinks you’ll never tell. She thinks you’ll be too piss-scared of what people would think. Look how well she knows you.”
“Better than she knows you. Not as well as I do.”
Lacey closed in. I held the flashlight steady. The beam glinted off the blade.
“I want you to tell her what you did,” Lacey said.
Nikki tried to laugh. “I really don’t think you do.”
“At that stupid party. You tell her what you did, and you apologize.”
“How much is that going to mean, Hannah? You going to believe I’m sorry with a knife to my throat?”
The knife wasn’t at her throat.
And then it was.
“Lacey,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
It was fine.
“Tell her,” Lacey said. “Tell me. Let’s hear your confession.”
When Nikki swallowed, her throat bulged against the knife. “You want me to talk, step back,” she said, barely moving her lips. Keeping her head very, very still.
“I want you to talk carefully,” Lacey said.
Nikki swallowed again. “We were just having fun. You remember fun, don’t you, Lacey?”
Lacey kept her gaze on Nikki. “Did you have fun at that party, Dex?”
“No, I did not.” I’d brought along a bottle of my parents’ scotch, for courage, like they said in the movies, and now I took a burning swig. It was cold outside but hot in our boxcar, or I was hot, at least. Fizzing and tingling. Fire licking my throat.
“You let her drink too much,” Lacey said.
“She’s a grown-up.”
“You let her drink too much, and she passed out, and when she did . . .”
Nikki didn’t say anything.
I didn’t see Lacey’s hand move, but Nikki moaned. Then, “When she did, we had a little fun, like I said.”
“You took off her clothes.”
“I guess.”
“You let your idiot friends touch her.”
“Yeah.”
“Feel her up.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck her.”
“Lacey—” I said. “Don’t.”
I wanted to know; I didn’t want to know; I couldn’t know.
I drank more.
“No,” Nikki said. “I’m not a fucking sociopath. Unlike some people.”
“Just a perv,” Lacey said, “who filmed the whole thing on her daddy’s camera. Tell us how you made them pose her. That’s still assault, you realize that, right? That’s still called rape.”
“Stop,” I said.
“I never touched her,” Nikki said.
“Of course not,” Lacey said. “Not yourself. You don’t get your hands dirty. You just make things happen.”
“Enough,” I said. Too much.