by Jade Wright
She slings her backpack over her shoulder and as she's walking away from me I call after her.
“Well done today. You did great.”
I mean it.
Luke has pulled completely away from me. He didn't look at me once throughout the day, in fact he flat out ignored me.
I'm confused as to why I feel hurt, rejected.
I'm angry at myself.
I should be thinking about the journal and nothing more.
It's not that I'm not thinking about the journal, but Luke was the first guy I slept with after Michael.
I hadn't realised until now the emotional implications that could have.
I don't want to feel this way but there's a sense of attachment there that I can't stand.
I try and tell myself he's a bad guy. He's done something to my sister. He's a player. Yet there's still that underlying part of me that wants to feel wanted by him.
I hate myself for it.
I have to fight against sending him a message and pestering him. If he thinks I don't care then perhaps he'll come to me.
He seems like the kind of guy that likes the chase.
That's my new tactic.
The rain is still bucketing it down outside.
I'm grateful that I brought my car in today and don't have to make the walk home.
I turn the heater on in my car and watch all of the students filter out of the school doors and head to their cars.
I wait until mine is the last car in the parking lot, not wanting to leave anyone alone.
When I'm sure everyone has vacated I turn my key in the ignition.
I'm backing out of the lot when I see them together.
Luke's pinning Chloe against a tree.
It looks like she's struggling.
It's hard to see properly with the rain pelting down onto my wind-shield but I know something isn't right.
I cannot believe he is doing this in broad daylight. In public!
I rev my engine and speed over to the field, smacking my hand down onto the centre of the wheel. The hoot is deafeningly loud. They pull apart violently. Chloe is gasping for breath.
I slam my car door behind me and run up to them.
“Are you OK?” I ask her, my eyes wild with worry.
She doesn't say anything, just stares between me and Luke.
Luke sighs in annoyance.
“We were just talking,” he says, shaking his head at me.
His eyes are telling me things he cannot say. Go away. Leave me alone, you psycho.
“Didn't look like it,” I'm firm. Ready with the pepper-spray clutched in my hand.
“I'm sorry Ms. Brady. We shouldn't have been doing that on campus.” It's the first time Chloe speaks. Her cheeks are flushed. Realisation dawns.
They were kissing.
I fumble for words, trying to compose myself.
Luke looks agitated, rubbing a hand across his mouth. Wiping away traces of Chloe's lipgloss,
“I – yes. No. You should not be doing that at school,” I say.
My heartbeat is erratic.
“Sorry,” Luke mutters, not meeting my eyes.
I have to seem like a teacher. I cannot make this seem personal.
“I'm going to have to give you both detention,” I tell them and hear a collective groan.
The black spots that blur my vision are coming back.
The pills are weighing me down, taking over.
Humiliated, I get back into my car and pull away from them.
I shouldn't have done that.
The next day, Chloe is gone.
CHAPTER 10
The chloroform hadn't worked.
Chloe had thrashed around, fighting for her life.
I was surprised by the strength she had, given her tiny little body. It was only when I'd been able to grab hold of the back of her head, a fistful of her unwashed hair greasing up my hand, that I'd been able to smash her face first into the brick wall.
Her pretty, pretty face.
Blood gushing everywhere, her head lolling on her shoulders helplessly as I drive her to the location.
I drag her twitching body down to the rest of the girls, hearing the thump, thump, thump of her limbs as I pull her down the stairs. There's a crack of a bone, a shriek as she stirs with the pain.
I rip the lanyard from around my neck and unlock the door.
“Welcome to the party,” I grin, spittle spraying around the room as I heave her up into a chair.
She's cradling her wrist. Yelps when I grab it and bind her hands tightly behind the chair in a constrictor knot.
No way she'll be getting out of that.
She looks around the room, at the corps de ballet.
It is almost complete.
There's only a few more girls needed to complete the group.
One of the other girls in the room sobs, wisps of her hair falling in front of her face. She's trying to scream through the duct tape but I've wrapped it round and round her head too tightly for her to break through.
She doesn't stand a chance.
There's a scattering of rats. They're scrambling across the room, hiding behind the rusted drums and discarded cinder-blocks.
The putrid smell of mildew feels like home.
“Got a special treat for everyone tonight,” I tell the girls, my breathing laboured from carrying the dead weight of Chloe down here.
Most of them barely acknowledge the arrival of a new girl. They're getting used to it now, accepting their fate.
I slide a big tub out of my backpack and open the lid.
The smell is rich and pungent. A melange of hearty flavours overpowers the stench of faeces for just a moment.
“Puttanesca. Whore's pasta!” I roar with laugh, watching all of the girls hungry eyes desperate for their supper.
I dig my hand into the tub, feeling the sauce and spaghetti squelch between my fingers. The sauce wedges under my fingernails like blood.
“So fitting, don't you think? Whore's pasta!” I nod at all of the snivelling whores in the room. I want them to get it.
Chloe is the only one without duct tape covering her mouth so I saunter up to her playfully.
“You've lost weight,” I tut and ram a handful of the food into her face. She rejects it, turning her bloodied head away from me, mouth taut in disgust.
“How wasteful! You'll soon learn,” I sneer at her.
The juice from the plum tomatoes dribbles down her chin.
“Won't she girls? She'll learn not to say no when it's feeding time!”
Some of the girls squeeze their tear-filled eyes shut as they nod.
I do love it when they cooperate.
I move on to the next girl. They don't have names anymore. Don't deserve them. Won't need them anyway.
I rip off the tape which tears a chunk of the girls hair off with it. She's so weak she can hardly cry out in pain as the roots are ripped from her scalp.
“Open wide,” I say. She looks up at me fearfully, mouth wide open.
“There we go. Good girl,” I say, jamming a handful of pasta into her mouth.
She moans, chews fast.
Opens her mouth for more.
“Don't be a greedy little slut,” I say menacingly, watching her face contort into misery.
“Why are you doing this?” she croaks.
“Shut the fuck up!” I scream, pointing my finger at her gaunt face, full of olive oil.
I shove an anchovy from her cheek into her mouth and tape her up again. She chokes, struggling to swallow her food.
“See,” I say, addressing Chloe. “This is how it's done.”
I feed each of the girls just one mouthful.
Their stomachs growl for more, gurgling urgently throughout the room.
I hum one of the songs from Giselle's soundtrack, sitting in the centre of the room.
They all watch me produce a fork from my bag, a luxury they don't get anymore.
I twirl the spaghetti onto my fork a
nd take a small, neat bite and chew thoughtfully.
I dab the corner of my mouth with a serviette.
I eat until I'm full.
There's still enough pasta in the tub to give everyone a full meal, but why would I do that?
I'm in a foul mood, after all.
I'd so been hoping to play with Piper a bit longer with the Alexa Echo system I'd set up, but the bitch threw it out on the very first night.
I'd even ordered a silly Halloween voice changing gadget online so that she wouldn't recognise my voice.
I'd been so looking forward to watching the poor thing go mad. Good thing I'd picked it up out of the bin. I don't think I'm quite done with it yet, or the journal. I nabbed that back, too.
There's still so much more fun to be had... in time.
Instead of actually feeding the whores their dinner, I place the tub on the floor right in the middle of them, just out of reach.
I leave them to stare at the food they can't get to. Let them watch in torture as flies land on top of the whore's pasta, rotting slowly away just like them.
Now they truly are the ghostly maidens from their roles in Giselle.
*
When I visit the girls again the following day, the top layer of the pasta has frozen over from the cold.
The girls teeth are chattering beneath the tape, the tips of their fingers are turning blue.
I decide to play a game.
I free their mouths and position the tub further away from them, right to the other end of the room.
“Let's see who can get to it first!” I'm cackling, spectating as they start to wriggle in their chairs.
Their primal instinct is to get to the food.
They are starving.
The first girl topples to the concrete, bashing her shoulder hard. There's a shrill cry but she's so hungry she continues to drag herself to the food, still bound to the chair. Slithering along the floor like a snake.
The other girls follow suit, all except for Chloe.
She's watching in a horrified silence as the girls she once knew start trying to attack each other in their chairs.
It is carnage!
They are ravenous and will do anything to be the first one to make it to the tub.
They are no longer friends.
Gone are the days of sharing a pizza over a bottle of wine, laughing and gossiping through the night.
They can't remember what it's like to share, they are fending only for themselves now. Couldn't care less if their best friend starves to death by their side.
Two make it to the tub at the same time and bash their heads together in mortal combat, both trying to dive into the frozen pasta.
They are grunting and growling at each other like animals.
Dogs fighting over a bone. Only one can win.
The other girls make their way there, biting at the first two girls bound ankles. Drawing blood.
One girl gets a chair leg to the eye. It pops right out of her socket and dangles curiously down her face.
There's a crunch as her nose is shattered, too.
I sit and watch, clapping in delight.
I pour a glass of wine to enjoy with the show.
The Corps de Ballet will soon become the Corpse de Ballet.
CHAPTER 11
A number of witnesses come forward to say they had last seen Chloe with Luke.
I have no other option other than to go in and tell them what I saw in the parking lot.
I cannot eat or sleep from the guilt. I should have stayed or offered her a lift home at least.
If I had, perhaps this wouldn't have happened.
The police take Luke in for questioning and he fast becomes the prime suspect.
His name is splashed all over social media as a person of interest.
Chloe's parents were caught on camera screaming at Luke as he was being led into the police station.
“Where is she?” Chloe's mother's voice was guttural.
Although he doesn't have an alibi for the evening of Chloe's disappearance, he seems to have proof of his whereabouts every night that one of the other girls went missing.
He was with Bibiana the evening Jessica went missing from her supposed date.
The sports teacher had confirmed Luke had been with him when Corrie had disappeared on her way to buy milk.
He had an answer for every evening besides Chloe's and with no hard evidence, the police had no other choice than to let him go.
He unwillingly made a statement to the press the next day.
He looked dishevelled as he looked into the camera and told the town that he promised he has nothing to do with this.
“Yes I was with Chloe the evening she went missing. We had gone on a few dates before her first attack and I wanted to make sure she was OK when I saw her back at school for the first time,” his eyes were ablaze with sincerity.
I stole a glance over at Bibiana while he made his speech.
She looked furious.
I wonder if she'd known Luke and Chloe had something before her. Or maybe even during...
He'd tried to go up to her after the statement was done but she'd pushed him away from her.
His head had dropped into his hands.
I had no idea what to think.
It's the first time I've seen genuine emotion on his face.
I hadn't told the police about what I'd found in his house.
The sex tape, the journal.
I could get fired or worse, arrested.
Luke being subordinate, I could be accused of so many things.
I could lose my teaching license.
It doesn't matter that I truly never tried to use my authority over him. Selfishly, I can't afford that to happen at the moment.
I still want to get my hands on the journal and find things out for myself before I go forward with what I have, but I still don't know how I could ever go forward regardless.
I see no way around the consequences and that makes me feel like an awful person.
That night I'm home with River, pouring over various newspaper articles on the missing girls. I'm sipping butternut soup from one of my mugs when there's a knock at the door.
River's head shoots up and she grumbles from her bed. She's not as boisterous as she once was.
I grab a cricket bat that I keep close to me at all times now and call out from behind the door.
“Whose there?”
There's a shuffle of feet, a clearing of a throat.
“It's me,” Luke calls back. I grip the bat tighter.
“What do you want?” I ask, pulling my phone out of my back pocket, ready to call the police.
River hobbles up by my side and sniffs at the door.
“Please... I have no where else to go.” It sounds like he's crying.
I don't know why I do it. I feel like it's a scene from a horror movie. When the main character does something really stupid and you're sitting shouting at the screen, telling them not to open the door like they can actually hear you.
I unlock the door.
His face is ashen, his eyes swollen.
He looks at the cricket bat in my hands and his face crumples in despair.
“What happened to your dog?” he asks, looking down at River. He's hovering in the doorway. I don't answer him.
Instead, I usher him inside and lock the door behind us.
I'm instantly aware of how messy the cottage is compared to his house. My shoes I'd kicked off earlier are lying on their sides.
My dirty socks are strewn on the floor next to them.
There's a pile up of dishes I haven't bothered washing, some coffee cups growing peculiar looking things inside of them.
He follows me into the kitchen where I pour us each a glass of wine.
He notices the newspapers scattered across my sisters dining room table. There's one already printed with his face on it, an article about him being exonerated.
“My name is everywhere,” he whispers.
I swipe the papers away and sit across from him.
“Are you OK?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
He shakes his head.
“My life is ruined.” Big fat tears fall down his cheeks.
I feel a surge of unexpected emotion for him.
I've never seen him look vulnerable before.
It's the first time he looks his age. It's the first time it hits me.
This is just a boy. A seventeen year old boy.
It's as though I'd been hallucinating before. The man I had thought he was is no more.
“No one believes me, Piper.”
Carefully, I reach my hand out and stroke his arm. I am not scared of him anymore.
River is lying by his feet. She can pick up his sadness.
“I'm not a bad guy!”
I tell him I know he isn't, even though I don't know that at all. Nothing adds up. The things I've seen and the things I've heard him say all scream otherwise.
“Have you read the article?” he gestures to the paper clipping with his photograph on it.
I nod my head slowly, watching as he grabs it from the pile of papers.
“Chloe Evans, seventeen, has gone missing from her local high school after last being spotted with fellow student, Luke Archer,” he reads aloud, emphasizing his own name.
“The Evans family are desperately looking for answers after Luke was released from questioning at the station. Her alleged abduction is said to be connected to the recent disappearance of her dance teacher, Robyn Brady, shortly followed by the disappearances of her fellow classmates,” he reads all of the missing girls names out to me even though he doesn't need to. I've memorized them all already.
“This is the sixth young lady to go missing from the area in just a few short months and the perpetrator is now being dubbed The Pirouette Predator.”
He stops reading, tosses the paper onto the table and takes a big gulp of the wine I gave him.
“My name is everywhere. I'm associated with this. My friends are looking at me differently. My mother phoned me in tears for fucks sake! She asked me if I did it! My own mother!” his hand slams onto the table, making me jump.
“I'm sorry,” he places his hands to his lap and once again he looks like the lost boy I just let into my sisters home.
