A large mirror hung in the hallway outside the stalls, where women and girls sat on benches, lacing up Chucks and rolling on deodorant. Seeing herself, she stopped to stare at her reflection as though the girl in the glass was someone else, someone unknown and unknowable. Her black hair looked wild, with bits of twigs and leaves stuck in it. The skin around her eyes was dark as a bruise, probably half from sleeplessness and half from smeared mascara that she made worse when she’d splashed her face with water. Even her blue eyes looked gray under the harsh overhead lights. Her once white dress was as bad as she’d guessed, brown at the hem where the root beer had soaked into it, striped with dark streaks of blood and dirt. There were at least two visible rips in the fabric, and her high boots were spattered with grime and mud.
But the worst part was her expression. She made herself try to smile, but it came out wrong. She’d once seen a bunch of vintage mug shots in a magazine and there’d been one she’d stared at for a long time. There’d been something off about the girl in it. Now Tana saw that strangeness in herself.
She wasn’t okay. She really, really didn’t look like someone who was okay.
Going into the stall, Tana hung her pocketbook, towel, and bag of clothes on the hook farthest from the nozzle, unlaced her boots and tied them together, so they could hang with her other things. Then she pulled off her mother’s baby doll dress, her bra, and underwear and tossed them into a corner. Her muscles felt stiff and sore, her hands fumbling over the most basic tasks.
When the hot water hit her shoulders, it felt so good she groaned out loud.
She washed her hair twice and combed it through with her fingers to get all the twigs out. She scrubbed her skin with her fingernails, not caring if it abraded, caring only that she was clean. The water cut off after her fifteen minutes were up and she leaned back against the tiles. Her heartbeat hammered against her chest in alarm, but nothing was wrong. It was just leftover terror.
She didn’t feel chilled through anymore. She didn’t want to attack the woman in the next shower stall. She felt exhausted and scared and scraped up, but other than that, she felt pretty much the way she always had. She felt fine.
She thought about Aidan out in the parking lot and about Gavriel’s bare arm. If Aidan drank enough of Gavriel’s blood, maybe he’d be better for a while, but they were just buying time in scraps and tatters.
It had been almost seven hours since the vampire’s teeth scraped her leg. Too soon to let herself hope she’d be okay, but she found herself hoping anyway. She thought of her own bed in her own room and imagined herself curled up there, her cat sleeping on her feet and Pearl doing her homework in the next room. She thought of bright light streaming through the windows and her phone ringing because Pauline wanted to go to the pool hall where the cute guy worked to play game after game of darts as they’d done all last summer, scoping him out between throws. And she thought of how, once Pauline and the guy finally dated, they’d all snuck back in there one night with Aidan and thrown stuff at the board—first kitchen knives, then forks, then even broken pieces of a glass someone had dropped.
It had turned into an oddly surreal night, but not as surreal as this one.
After a few moments, she forced herself to dry off as much as she could with the small towel and to step into her new clothes, tossing the old ones into the boutique bag. Without a bra, the thin fabric of her new dress showed the outline of her nipples, but she couldn’t bring herself to put on any piece of clothing she’d been wearing for the last thirty-odd hours, no matter how bare she looked.
She reached into her purse to see if she had a comb and some lipstick—anything to make herself seem less sickly—when she noticed that her phone was flashing. She had six new messages. Her mailbox was full. She must have turned her ringer off at some point at the party and not remembered to turn it back on.
Stepping out into the dressing area, she put the phone back into her bag and found a comb to draw the tangles out of her hair. As wavy as it was, it would tangle again fast, but at least she’d look a little less messy. Maybe by some alchemy it would make her feel less of a mess, too. She brushed her teeth in the sink, over and over again until her gums bled.
Then she listened to the messages.
The first one was from her father, giving her hell for not coming home in the morning. The next was from her father again, asking her where she was, saying the police had called. Then there was a message from Pearl, twelve-year-old arrogance dripping from her voice, saying that Dad was worried and that she was sure Tana was fine, but could Tana call please, because listening to him was boring. Then there was a call from a police officer, leaving a number, saying that he understood she’d been at a party the night before and he needed to talk to her. Then her sister again, saying to please, please, please call; this time she sounded frightened.
The last message was from her father.