“I’m not going swimming in jeans,” Hartley states. “You act like you’ve never seen a girl naked before.”
“You’re getting naked?” Farrah shrieks.
“Relax, princess. If it’s going to get you too hot and bothered, I’ll keep my underwear on.” Hartley drops her jeans into the grass.
We all fall silent as she approaches the shore. She steps into a patch of moonlight, and I gasp. Farrah turns away.
Across Hartley’s back is a patchwork of bruises. Some are yellow and faded, nearly healed, others violent purple-black rings that look as if they pulse with pain. There are silvery marks across her shoulder I can’t be sure aren’t cigarette-butt scars.
Who did this to her?
I’m suddenly not so sure I want to know.
“Problem, girls?” Hartley asks tersely.
I swallow hard, glancing at Lyla, whose face has gone stony. “No.”
“Good.”
She violently slaps a bug off her shoulder, then crouches forward and slips under the water. Bubbles pop on the surface, the ripples from her entrance dissipating until the water is completely still again. The sounds of the swamp come into sharp focus: chirp, croak, ribbit, shhh. We don’t talk. Don’t breathe. I can’t believe she went in there. She’s been under for so long.
Just as I have this thought, there’s a splash across the swamp. I squint and see Hartley pushing up on a reedy little island in the distance. But as soon as we see her, she disappears again, back under the water in our direction. Before long, her head breaks the surface near the stick marker, just feet from us.
“Easy-peasy,” she says, as if we can’t tell that she’s pale and gasping. She climbs out of the swamp on Bambi legs, sloshing muddy water across the shore.
“What was it?” Farrah asks.
“A tunnel,” Hartley says, shaking out her hair. “It was too dark to see, but I think it was made of roots and steel and shit. Definitely man-made.”
“So you just had to enter the door and crawl across?” Farrah asks hopefully.
“More like swim. And hold your breath,” Hartley adds.
So it’s filled with water.
If there was ever a challenge for me to fail, it would be this one. I suddenly feel sick.
“So you have to hold your breath that whole way?” Lyla looks from the marker to the island, barely visible in the distance.
“Well, you don’t have to.” Hartley winks.
Lyla drops her sweater into the grass. I’m mute with shock as she kicks off her sneakers, then unceremoniously pulls down her mesh basketball shorts and drags her T-shirt over her head. I realize she must be used to undressing in front of other girls as part of the basketball team.
She reties her blond ponytail, then unclasps her necklace and adds it to the pile of clothes at her feet.
“Wish me luck,” she says.
“You’re doing it?” I ask, though it’s glaringly obvious.
“She didn’t seem to have a problem, right?” She flashes me an uneasy smile. I nod, hoping my trepidation doesn’t show all over my face. Mud squelches as Lyla steps to the edge of the pool. She stares out at the oily water, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides, and none of us breathes a word. Owls distantly call to one another. Frogs croak in the bulrushes. And over it all a chorus of crickets rings out into the dark.
Lyla crouches low to the water, tensed and ready, as if she’s waiting for a coach to blow a whistle. But her shoulders and back are stiff with tension. She isn’t going to do it. She’s going to back out. I won’t be the first one.
Just as I have this thought, she straightens up, lifts her chin, and dives in.
It’s messier and louder than when Hartley did it, and I cringe, thinking about the wildlife she might have attracted. I pace away from the shore. I can’t imagine holding my breath for that long, can’t imagine it feeling like anything but impending doom. I fight the sudden, crazy urge to scream.
Why does the Society want us to do this? What is the point? Who would want to see us suffer like this, put ourselves at risk?
Sick and twisted people, that’s who.
There’s a splash near the little island. A moment later Lyla is back. She sucks in a big breath when she resurfaces.
The whole thing is over in minutes, but I don’t breathe right even now that she’s safe. I wonder if I’m doing as much damage to my body watching them as I would if I just participated in the dare.
But I can’t. Won’t. Not this.
Hartley gives Lyla a high five as she stumbles out, tripping in the mud.
“Holy shit,” Lyla splutters, coughing up water. “That was insane.”
“All right, I’m doing it,” Farrah says suddenly. She kicks off her ankle boots and pulls her hair into a bun with shaky fingers. Before she steps up to the shore, she looks back at us. “No jeering or sudden noises or anything like that, okay? I don’t want any of you to wake up whatever’s in that water.”
Lyla smiles, even though I couldn’t picture her doing something so cruel anyway. It’s Hartley she should be lecturing.