Lost Girls

by Merrie Destefano

  She deserves to die.

  She’s worse than a cockroach, she needs to be exterminated.

  She’s weak.

  And she lay in the street in front of me, soaked to the bone, blood on her lip, staring up at me, blue hair flowing around her face like tears that wouldn’t stop, that couldn’t stop, and an expression in her eyes that I knew I’d seen before. We knew each other, Janie and I, of that much I was certain. We’d fought each other before and, just like tonight, I had won. I stood over her, triumphant, knowing that I held her life in my hands and that this wasn’t the first time.

  I pointed a finger at her and she winced as if I had just struck her.

  “Never raise your fist to me again, do you hear me?” I said.

  She nodded.

  Then I left her there, bleeding and wounded. I got back in my car, wiped the rain from my face and drove away, Molly wordless beside me, my tires spinning over rain-washed streets, gears whining as I pushed the car faster and faster. I didn’t have a destination this time. All I wanted was to get far, far away, as if that could erase what I had just done.

  Even though she had been one of the girls on my secret list, I didn’t want to remember Janie anymore.

  I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to know who I was, either.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Molly didn’t say anything for a long time. A thick tension hung in the car between us and I worried that she was afraid of me now. Now that the adrenaline had faded, I tried to focus on driving, but I kept seeing Janie’s face, that expression in her eyes when she was helpless, and it sickened me. I pulled over, right before the entrance to the 210, got out of the car, and curled over the side of the road, heaving.

  There was something awful inside of me and I had to get it out. Every breath made my face tingle, a thousand tiny needles of fear that pricked and stabbed, and all the while, rain soaked my back and neck.

  “Are you okay?” Molly asked. She’d gotten out of the car and stood beside me, one hand gently holding my arm. “Do you want me to drive?”

  “No.” I shook my head, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, then held my face up to the rain, wishing it could wash everything away. I wished I could go back to last year, to that night I fell asleep, when the only thing I was worried about was my geometry test. I wanted my life to be simple again, but somehow I knew that was never going to happen.

  “Come on, give me your keys,” she said, her hand outstretched, using a familiar tone that meant do-it-now-or-else.

  I reluctantly gave her the keys, and a few minutes later we were driving away from Pasadena—not very fast because we were now stuck in the 210 rush hour traffic that I’d been trying to avoid. Rain separated us from all the other cars, turning everyone else into blue-gray phantoms. Without meaning to, I kept rubbing my left forearm.

  “Did you—” she started to say, then paused. “How did you do that? You fought her like, like, I don’t know, what was that—Kung Fu, Jujitsu, Tae Kwon Do? One minute she was in her house, then she was standing outside the car with a gun, a mother-frigging gun, and then she was on the ground. Blam. End of story!”

  “I don’t know how I did it,” I said, glancing at her from the corner of my eye. Molly seemed proud of what I’d done tonight or maybe intrigued, completely different from how I felt.

  “What? That skank had it coming.” She gave me a look. “First, she threatened to beat our heads in with a baseball bat just for knocking on her door and then, and then, shit! Once I got back in the car, I had to grab my inhaler and take a hit before I could even watch what was going on. I was ready to dial 9-1-1 when you came running back to the car.”

  There was a long pause when we pulled off the freeway and parked in a nearby shopping center. The lights from Target and Dunkin’ Donuts and Supercuts gleamed through the rain, people hurrying to and from their cars, struggling with umbrellas and shopping carts and cardboard boxes filled with pastries.

  “You don’t feel guilty for hitting that girl, do you?” she asked. “I mean, I have no clue how you did it, but what were your options? We could both be in the ER right now if you hadn’t stopped her.”

  “I didn’t mean to do any of it,” I confessed, my thumb rubbing against my chin. Molly just stared at me. “I was scared and mad and all I wanted was for her to tell me something—anything—about who I am and why I am the way I am.”

  “I think we all want that.”

  “Maybe. But we don’t all flatten a girl in the street like she’s a bug.”

  Quiet, a blanket of silence, as far as the horizon, a long breath and another and still, quiet. And then, when the quiet got so loud that it began to whisper things that sounded like accusations, Molly spoke.

  “But how did you do that? I mean, at first I thought you’d slipped a hallucinogenic in my Frappuccino. Then I thought you’d gone to some secret, elite Ninja warrior school.”

  I sighed, rubbing my right palm against my left forearm. “I told you. I’m different now,” I said, not meeting her gaze. She was watching me. I could feel her eyes on me, even in the dark. “Ever since I came back from being kidnapped.”

  “I thought that meant you were having nightmares or taking antidepressants or struggling with some new phobia, like ‘fear of black cars because the people who took me drove a black car.’”

  A short laugh shuffled out of my chest.

  “But what, now you can fight like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  Her jaw dropped open and a frown settled on her brow. “Who taught you how to fight like this?” She shifted in her seat to face me. “It’s just, where and when did you learn how to do all that crap?” She paused and looked around, then leaned in closer. “And can you teach me how to do some of it? There’s a girl in my chem class who’s been stealing stuff out of my satchel and I’d love to give her a knuckle sandwich—except these knuckles are so delicate.” She gave her fist a little kiss for dramatic effect.

  “Are you asking me to beat her up?”

  “I never thought of that, but yeah, okay.”

  I grinned. Molly always had a way of seeing the practical, logical side of things. I, on the other hand, always went for the emotional side. Maybe if I was more like her, I’d have been better able to control my anger and wouldn’t have left Janie so messed up back in Pasadena. Already that blue-haired Katy Perry look-alike was haunting me, her eyes black with fear, her hands shaking after I’d knocked her gun away. “Do you think Janie got hurt? Like maybe she needed to go to the hospital?”

  Molly leaned back with a sigh. “One can only hope.”

  I punched her in the arm. Not hard, though. Not like I would have if it were Kyle. She pretended like it hurt and flexed her arm, wincing and moaning. Then, when I acted repentant, she punched me back.

  “How long before you have to be home?” she asked.

  I sent Dad a text when Molly and I were in Starbucks to make sure it was okay if I stayed out past dinnertime. “About forty-five minutes.”

  “You want to check out another girl on your list?”

  “Should we? I mean, seriously, what kind of person attacks somebody who knocks on their door? What if all the other girls on my list are like this? Maybe this was a list of people I never wanted to see again—”

  “If any of the remaining girls start a convo with ‘Hey, bitch,’ then we should probably turn and run,” Molly said. “Other than that, yeah, we should keep going. You want to find out what happened, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for my response. Instead, she flicked through those addresses on my GPS, picked one, and hit the go button. “Let’s see if Nicole Hernandez is home.”

  I drummed my fingertips quietly on the armrest, fighting the hesitation that surged through me whenever I heard Nicole’s name. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but I knew she wouldn’t be home when we got there. She was a Lost Girl. Somehow that knowledge made her seem even more frightening than Janie.

  “Let’s go,” I said.r />
  Nicole might be the Big Trigger that changed everything. She could push me over the edge. But I’d been living on the edge since I came home and I was tired of it.

  I stared out the window as a computerized voice gave us directions. I pretended Molly and I were on a quest, looking for the missing Orc sword that had killed an Elfen queen, plunging the kingdom into darkness. I imagined we drove down a winding road that led through web-infested forests, that goblins watched us behind picket fences, and trolls lurked inside every doghouse. It was a strangely comforting fantasy, made from familiar memories of long nights Molly and I had spent together as pre-teens, planning our own excursion into Middle-earth.

  But this was nothing like The Hobbit—it was more like The Bourne Identity, and I didn’t want to be Jason Bourne, some guy with a secret past who suddenly knew how to kill people. I just wanted to be myself, the old me, the girl whose worst secrets were the fact that she might flunk geometry and that she probably wouldn’t get the lead role in the upcoming ballet production.

  ...

  We reached Arcadia and rolled to a stop in front of a stucco ranch-style home. There were only two lights on here—the porch light, as if whoever was inside was waiting for someone to come home, and a flickering light downstairs, maybe a fireplace, where the owner sat, trying to keep warm despite the chill and the rain. Molly and I were just about to get out of the car, both of us with our fingers on the door handles when I spoke, saying what I couldn’t hold in any longer.

  “Janie had track marks on her arm. Just like mine,” I said.

  Molly blinked. Twice.

  “She said nobody was buying her drugs anymore, but it sounded like it was somehow my fault. And she told me to ask my ‘own girls’ if I had questions. But who are my girls?” I thought about Lauren, sporting a tattoo on her neck that matched mine—but she had adamantly refused to tell me anything about Phase Two. I doubted she’d be much help with any of my other questions, either.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said. Rain streaked my windows, casting eerie shadows on her face, making it look like her face was melting. “Maybe some of the other girls on your list?”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I nodded anyway. We got out of the car and walked up to Nicole Hernandez’s house. I was still hoping to find answers. And quietly praying that this time I could have a conversation that didn’t include me slamming my fist in someone’s face.

  ...

  It was a nice house with short, clipped grass and orange daylilies and a fence covered with pink bougainvillea. Brown shutters hung on the windows, but they were ornamental, since no one needs shutters in California. A stone walk curved from the curb, past short, squat palm trees, and rain dripped from all the foliage. Everything about the house whispered something, soft and repetitive, something that should have been sweet but somehow put me on edge.

  It was like it was saying, come home, please, please, come home.

  I pressed my finger on the doorbell, wishing I could turn around and run, no longer wanting to know what was behind Door Number Two. Molly took my hand in hers, holding it, probably trying to give me courage. Or maybe she was trying to stop me from punching anyone.

  The door opened and a tormented-looking woman stood before us. Dark circles colored the skin beneath her eyes and her cheekbones were sharply pronounced, as if she couldn’t eat or sleep. Long, narrow fingers toyed restlessly with the sweater that hung crooked on her shoulders, the buttons fastened wrong. An ache emanated from her, a bone-sharp loneliness that made the night feel even colder than before.

  I fidgeted, longing for something to replace the words I needed to say, wishing I was selling magazine subscriptions or candy bars or time-shares, that I was here for some other reason. Molly jostled my hand, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak.

  I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Then I tried again, disappointed when words rolled out of my mouth, vibrations making my vocal cords tremble. I longed for silence, because I didn’t want to know what the woman was going to tell me.

  The inside of the house continued to whisper while I spoke. Where are you, why don’t you come home, come home, come home...

  “Good evening, Mrs. Hernandez. Is Nicole home?” I asked, hating the sound of my own voice. I knew what her answer was going to be, Agent Bennet had already told me that Nicole had been kidnapped and I was the only girl who had made it back home. That ache rolled from Nicole’s mother to me and back again, sucking the air from my chest and making it difficult to stay standing upright. I braced myself for a different kind of battle than the one I’d had back at Janie’s.

  I didn’t think I was going to survive this one.

  She stared at me, running a quick gaze over my features, maybe wondering who I was and what I wanted. “Did you go to school with my Nicole?”

  Molly jumped in. “No. We met at a football game last year. We haven’t seen her in a while.”

  The woman nodded. “Then you don’t know.” She pulled herself straight, staring off to the right, getting ready to tell us something she’d repeated so many times she probably had it memorized. “Nicole went off to a game with a group of her friends a few weeks ago, but she never made it there. She disappeared for a while, two whole days, before somebody found her on the side of the road—”

  With every word she spoke, the night air around us got heavier and thicker and more ominous. I slid an apprehensive gaze toward Molly. Mrs. Hernandez didn’t say anything else for a long time, as if there was no end to this story, as if she’d just gotten the call that told her where her daughter was and she was now heading off to get her. That was why her sweater was on crooked and why she seemed so distracted.

  “Is she, is Nicole—” I didn’t know what to say. At that point, words refused to come out.

  “She’s dead.” Her voice was flat and a long sigh followed, her eyes closed now that the worst words of all had been spoken.

  I stopped breathing.

  In my mind, it was me who was dead, sprawled on the cement, broken and bloody.

  I unconsciously took a step backward, not wanting to hear more. But Nicole’s mother wasn’t finished. Now that she had a live audience, she had more to say. A lot more.

  “Somebody beat her to death,” she said, every word striking me across the face and kicking me in the gut. “She was covered with so many bruises and had so many broken bones that I almost didn’t recognize her at first. I didn’t know my own little girl.” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes but they didn’t fall. They stayed there reflecting the light, making her eyes look unearthly. Her chest heaved beneath the weight of her words, yet she didn’t stop. “They just threw her out on the side of the freeway, her poor little body broken to bits. She might have been alive at first, but in too much pain to get up and cry for help.”

  I thought of myself and how I’d desperately climbed up the side of that gully, clawing my way up through mud and rain, how I’d poised, wavering and weary, on the side of a busy freeway. Had Nicole been kidnapped, like I had, or had something else happened to her?

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—”

  “The police say they’re looking for whoever murdered her,” she said. “But they don’t have any leads.”

  “Did the FBI contact you?” I asked.

  She nodded and the motion kicked those tears loose. They tumbled over bronzed skin, sliding down until they reached the corners of her mouth. “Do you know something?” She reached out and took hold of one of my hands. “Is there something they’re not telling me?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say at first, but I knew that my mom would want to know everything if our situations had been reversed and I was the one found beaten to death.

  “I was kidnapped, too,” I confessed. “But I lost my memory, that’s why I wanted to see Nicole. I found her name written on a piece of paper and I thought she might know something.”

  “Did they beat you, too?” Mrs. Hernandez asked, a concerned expression on her fac
e.

  “No, I wasn’t beaten.”

  “But you think the same person took my Nicole?”

  I paused, not sure if I should tell her the truth. Even if it was the same person, that still didn’t mean we’d ever be able to find them. “I do,” I answered at last. “I definitely think it was the same person.”

  ...

  Mrs. Hernandez made us come in for hot chocolate and cookies, which we ate sitting in cozy, overstuffed chairs in front of the fire. The mantle was covered with photos of Nicole. One showed her playing varsity basketball—she’d been hoping to get a scholarship to UCLA—while in another she wore soccer shorts and a T-shirt. There was a snapshot of her as a little girl standing before a Christmas tree—she was dressed as an angel with broad, white wings—and a large, silver-framed photo showed her in a floor-length, white quinceañera dress, a glittering tiara holding her long, dark, curly hair in place.

  She was here and she was not here; she was a ghost who would never leave; she was a teenage girl who would never come home.

  Still, the house where she grew up continued to call her to come home, come home, please.

  Molly and I stayed longer than we planned. I couldn’t leave. I quickly thumbed a message to Dad, when forty-five minutes turned into an hour and then two as Nicole’s mother told us stories about her lost daughter. The woman needed to grieve and we needed to properly exchange phone numbers and email addresses. Just in case one of us found out anything. We finally parted with hugs and she gave us something, a bag of cookies, I think, and we all mumbled good-bye. It wasn’t until I was hugging her that I realized she was crying and probably had been from that first moment when she told me Nicole was dead.

  All the parents of the missing girls were weeping and their tears were creating a lake—just like the one in Swan Lake. The water was getting deeper and deeper, rising around my ankles, lapping against my thighs.

  I had a feeling that if I didn’t find answers soon, we were all going to drown.