Lost Girls

by Merrie Destefano

  Chapter Seventeen

  Molly yawned and leaned back in the passenger seat, closing her eyes. One hand fiddled with her purse, pulling out her ever-present vial of thyroid medication. She thumbed the lid off and popped a pill into her mouth, swallowing it. I’d never gotten used to watching her take her meds without a glass of water, but that was the way she did it. She was crashing, we both were. Emotionally, physically. The rain was throwing shadows on us, our skin melting in rivulets. We were changing, both of us, turning into different people than we were before. I half-imagined we were going to start sprouting feathers and that we would spend the rest of our teenage years swimming across a lake that continued to grow.

  The monsters were winning. Only now, I was afraid I might be one of them.

  “That was crazy,” Molly said.

  “Yeah. Her name sounds so familiar. I thought I’d remember something, that maybe I’d gone to her house before. But it didn’t look familiar and her mom didn’t recognize me.”

  “We’ve still got three names left on the list. One of the girls lives pretty close to my house—”

  “Janie wanted to bash my head in and Nicole is dead,” I said. “We’ve already been out later than we should for a school night and I can’t handle any more of this. Not tonight.” On top of that, my head was pounding, a dull ache that began in the back of my skull and radiated out. I could barely keep my eyes focused and I kept rubbing my left arm. I was obviously craving some unknown drug that would make me feel better, and this pain was my penance.

  We drove away from Nicole’s house, heading north, back to our own side of the 210. Once I reached Molly’s townhouse, I parked. She stayed in the passenger seat, her door open, no words to say, which was unusual. I think she wanted to say something light like, see you at school tomorrow or try not to punch anyone between now and then, but I could tell by her hesitation that she changed her mind.

  I never expected her to say what she did.

  “I think you should ask your dad to help with all this, Rach,” she said, staring at the dashboard, one hand stuffed in her pocket, the other tugging up the hood on her jacket. “This is more than the two of us can handle. I mean, honestly, you might have killed that blue-haired witch earlier tonight. Not that she didn’t kinda deserve it, but do you really want to spend the rest of your teenage years behind bars? I don’t think so.” She paused, glancing at me, red curls tumbling out from her hoodie, pale blue eyes searching mine, maybe hoping I’d agree with her. “Your dad’s got lots of military contacts. Does he still hang with that group of ex-vets he toured with in the Middle East?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This doesn’t mean I’m giving up,” she continued hurriedly. “I’ll do whatever I can, but you need to remember your dad spent about half his life as a Navy SEAL, saving the world from terrorists. I have a feeling he’d like to catch whoever kidnapped you.” She shuffled in her seat, shifting her book bag from her lap to her shoulder. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  A door opened in her townhouse, a rectangle of blurry, yellow light. Her mom was waiting.

  “Are we still friends?” I asked, before she climbed out. Somehow this was the most important question of all, more than who kidnapped me or who these other girls were.

  “We’re not friends, girl. We’re best friends,” she said with a half-grin. “Always and forever. Like you had to ask.”

  And then she was gone, the one person I could talk to about all of this. She walked inside her front door, and turned back to smile and wave, feigning a lightness neither one of us felt. Then her front door closed, the light shut off, and I stared into the darkness, my pulse slamming against the back of my skull.

  I glanced down at that tattoo on my wrist, ran my fingers over the words “Always And Forever”. Until now, I’d forgotten that Molly and I used to say that to each other. It had been our little code, our way to prove we would be there for each other, no matter what. Sometime in the past year, I’d told her to get lost and, after that, I’d had these words engraved on my wrist. Maybe I regretted what I’d done, or maybe I’d been trying to remind myself who my real friends were.

  I had a feeling it was a little bit of both.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I narrowly missed Dad’s SUV as I pulled into the garage, my hands shaking, my head throbbing. It felt like tiny fissures were blossoming beneath my fingers as I rubbed my neck, like my skull had suffered an 8.0 earthquake during the evening and now bits of bone were cracking open. The headache had started sometime between Janie falling to the ground and Nicole getting beaten to death.

  All I wanted to do was take some Tylenol and go to bed.

  Getting out of my car, I grabbed that bag Mrs. Hernandez had given me and a photo of Nicole tumbled out. I hadn’t seen this one—it hadn’t been on the mantle or on one of the living room tables. Nicole stood in a group of girls, all with their arms around each other, all grinning like they were at a party. They were wearing white tank tops with the words “Pink Candi” written in glitter. For the first time I noticed thick streaks of pink hair in Nicole’s brown-black tresses and that all the other girls had similar stripes of color in their hair.

  They looked like some sort of athletic team.

  The more I looked at their shirts, the more they reminded me of the handful of tank tops I’d found tucked away inside that purple box in my closet. I hunted through my pockets until I found that note I’d written, folded and refolded so many times the creases had darkened and the edges were starting to rip. I’d shown it to Agent Bennet, to Lauren, and finally to Molly...

  Peace. Love. Unity. Respect. LOL. And then party like there’s no tomorrow.

  Had I been at the same party as Nicole?

  I stared down at that photo again, turning on the light inside my car to see better. There was a flash of blue behind Nicole, someone moving so fast their features were blurred, but it was pretty clear that whoever it was had blue hair. Could it have been Janie Deluca, the blue-haired girl I’d left lying in the street, blood seeping from her lip? And on the right side of the photo stood another girl, her body cropped so you couldn’t see her face.

  A purple dragon tattoo snaked up her arm.

  I pushed my door open, sending a cold flood of air rushing in, icy fingertips that moved over me, running up my legs, over my hips, across my back, and finally thudding to a halt at the base of my skull. I grabbed the steering wheel and closed my eyes.

  Nicole knew Janie and at least one of those Dragon Tattoo Girls from school.

  A rich, coppery taste like blood filled my mouth as I thought about how I’d wanted to fight those Dragon Girls earlier today, and how I’d baited Janie by kicking her bat away. I’d wanted to kick in teeth, to break noses, to flip someone onto her stomach, and knock the wind from her chest…and now the air in my own chest was coming in halting, slow gulps.

  No matter what I did, it somehow wasn’t enough, it was never enough—none of it would bring Nicole back. My feelings for her were different from how I felt about Janie and the Dragon Girls. I wanted to lock elbows with Nicole and take down the mangy crowd behind and beside her. I wanted to protect her, even though I knew it was too late.

  I held that photo in my hand and all I could see was the triumphant look in Nicole’s eyes, like she was staring right at me. I was at that party, I was certain of it.

  Because I was the one who took the photo.

  Light poured into the garage. Someone was walking toward me, concern in his voice. I didn’t notice him or hear him until he was beside me.

  “Are you all right?” Dad was asking, his hand on my arm, helping me out of the car and leading me toward the house. “Where have you been? Your mother was worried and she waited for you to come home as long as she could. She finally went in to work a few minutes ago, although she should have been there hours earlier—”

  I wanted to talk, but all I could do was stare at that picture in my hand, realizing that this girl had been a
friend of mine. A friend who was now dead. I could almost hear myself saying things like, bigger smiles, come on now, you won, let’s celebrate!

  I was at that party. I took the photo.

  Dad’s irritation and anger melted when we started to walk up the two steps that led into the house and I couldn’t walk any farther. A soft moan came from my lips and my knees buckled. My head hurt like someone had kicked me, and I ran my hand over the back of my neck, expecting my fingers to come away red and sticky.

  “Rachel!”

  Then he was catching me in his arms and carrying me into the house, so swift it seemed like it had been planned, like it was part of a choreographed dance that we had been practicing for weeks. I would start remembering things, Agent Bennet said. Strangers’ faces would look familiar, but it would all be too much for me to bear, shadows too dark.

  I rested my head on Dad’s shoulder.

  The hallway lined with our family photos reminded me of the pictures on Nicole’s mantle. The single light that glowed in the kitchen reminded me of that porch light that would stay on forever, calling a dead girl to come home. The living room wrapped in warm shadows reminded me of Nicole’s mother, sitting all alone as she stared into the fireplace.

  Meanwhile, our living room sofa loomed closer and closer. Someone was covering me with a blanket, and someone else was placing a cool cloth on my brow.

  Was I hot? Was that why I had this horrid headache?

  “You should have come home hours ago, Rachel,” Dad chided me while he slid a thermometer between my lips. A long moment passed, then, “You’ve got a fever. What were you doing out there? It’s almost nine o’clock and you’re soaking wet. Kyle, run upstairs and get your sister some dry clothes, something comfortable.”

  I waved my hand, trying to push the covers off. “Where’s Mom?” I asked. She was the one who was supposed to take care of me when I was sick.

  “She’s at work. Have you eaten anything today? You haven’t been eating lately, not since you came back—”

  “Cookies, I think.” But I realized I’d forgotten to eat lunch, and now I had missed dinner, too.

  “Here, put these on. Take it slow.” Dad handed me some dry clothes, then he and Kyle went into the kitchen where they whispered about me, all their words slurring together. I took off my wet jeans and tugged on a pair of sweatpants. Shivering, I removed my jacket and shirt, then pulled a long-sleeved flannel top over my head. For an instant I saw my reflection in a mirror that hung on the wall across the room, but it didn’t look like me. This was a strange, imposter me, a girl with dark circles beneath her eyes and short, dark brown hair that exposed her ears and her neck and her jaw.

  “Who am I?” I whispered, thinking about that uncontrollable blood lust that would come over me when I least expected it, that desire to beat my fist against people I barely knew. And the way I had casually ordered Lauren around earlier today, how she had acted like it was completely natural.

  The way Janie had fallen into the street when I slammed my car door open, how I had kicked her like I was a lethal weapon.

  I moaned again. My hands were on my knees, my feet were bare and cold, and my head was down. It felt like I’d never be able to raise it up again.

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder, Kyle sat beside me. One of them handed me a cup of hot soup and pressed it against my lips until I took one swallow and then another, warmth flooding my throat, my stomach. I looked up at Dad and pushed the cup away.

  “I think I almost killed someone tonight,” I whispered.

  He nodded. Kyle sat really still, like he was afraid to move.

  “Who?” Dad asked, kneeling before me.

  With halting words, my voice never rising above a whisper—like I sat in a confessional and didn’t want my words to carry—I told him everything. Janie’s name, where she lived, what had happened, how she came at me with a gun when all I’d wanted was answers.

  “I didn’t want to hurt her,” I said. “Not at first. But then, when I did, when she was on the ground—”

  Kyle’s eyes were big and his mouth hung open, and he didn’t move for a really long time, like he was afraid I’d notice him there.

  “When she was on the ground, I was glad.”

  Dad nodded again. He didn’t write down her address or name. He didn’t need to. He could remember things like that easily, like he had a whiteboard in his head and was secretly writing down everything with colored markers and arrows and exclamation points. “Don’t worry,” he said, a calm authority in his voice that chased away the chill that had crept into my bones. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I glanced at Kyle from the corner of my eye and he was staring at Dad, with that same shell-shocked expression he’d had while I was talking. He didn’t move. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. My nightmarish past was taking over our house. It was going to swallow us whole.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to my brother.

  His eyes met mine and for the first time I realized he wasn’t afraid of me. Now that he’d recovered from his shock, his muscles were flexing and his jaw clenched, and his hands rolled into tight fists. “She’s lucky I wasn’t there with you,” he said, his words hot. “I’d have grabbed that bat from her the minute she walked out the door.”

  I gave him a weak smile, looking at those eyes that sometimes reminded me of Mom and sometimes of Dad, but most of the time they just reminded me of all the years we had been together, him laughing and joking and playing pranks because that’s what little brothers were supposed to do. Him hiding in my closet and listening while Molly and I talked about boys, him drawing big smiley faces on my Barbies with black marker, him taking the last handful of cookies, even though I hadn’t had any yet.

  Him saving his allowance for half a year to buy me new Barbies on my birthday, to make up for the ones he had wrecked.

  “There’s more,” I told them as I held out that photo, still clenched in my fist. I told them about Nicole, how I knew she’d been a friend of mine, and that she was dead now.

  Dad stood and began to pace back and forth while I talked. He was quiet for a long time, gears shifting inside his head, the muscles tightening across his cheekbones, his eyes taking on a glassy, faraway look.

  “As much as I hated the idea at first, I think Agent Bennet was right to follow you today,” Dad said. “I know he wants you to start wearing a tracking device. He and I had a long talk about it when you were in school and we both agree—you need to wear it. I should also let you know I’ve activated a GPS chip in your phone. You need to keep it with you all the time. If there’s ever a problem, you can just send me a text. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “I think you should take some Tylenol and go to bed,” he said to me. Then he glanced at Kyle to make sure he was listening. “And I don’t want either one of you to say anything about what happened tonight to anyone else—especially not your mother. She wouldn’t be able to handle it if she found out one of Rachel’s friends was dead.” He gave me a thin smile. “Your mother deals with death and pain on a daily basis at work, but that never translates into how she reacts when something happens to one of you.”

  He looked down at his hands folded in his lap, his words ripping me apart because I knew he wasn’t just talking about Mom. He was the same way, except he didn’t get weak when one of us was hurt—he got tougher. That SEAL inside him came to the surface, his face turned impassive, and he went into some sort of autopilot mode. It had happened when I was in the hospital for two days, when the therapists and doctors were running tests on me, and I wanted to come home and Mom’s eyes filled with tears every time they let her in to see me.

  Dad had made two phone calls—I saw him through the window in my room. The blood vessels in his temples stood at attention, his eyes narrowed, and his lips barely moved, like the words he had to say were so threatening they could melt his cell phone. After the second call, he switched off his phone, slid it into his pocket, and not even ten minu
tes passed before a doctor hurried into my room, scribbled something on my chart, then stopped to talk to a nurse at the nearest station. If I hadn’t been watching, I’d have missed the way the doctor gave my dad a quick nod when they passed each other in the hall, both of them with no expression on their faces, like two spies signaling each other in a foreign country.

  When my father said jump, the other guy said, how high.

  I was released from the hospital within half an hour. Not even Mom realized that Dad had somehow orchestrated it.

  Sometimes I thought Kyle and I were the only people in the world stupid enough to disobey him. Maybe we were the only ones—besides Mom—who knew that he would still love us. Even if we messed up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I wanted to go to sleep, but ever since I came back, nights have been the hardest time for me. The house would shut down, from basement to attic, everyone tucked in their beds and sleeping. Outside my window, all of Santa Madre softened until it became muted and still, like a painting. The only thing I could hear was the distant whoosh of cars speeding down the 210, a river of wind that never stopped flowing.

  I used to fall asleep with my earbuds in, listening to music.

  I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t dare.

  I needed to stay alert. It was part of my new survival plan.

  I stumbled upstairs, two tablets of Tylenol in my system, my fever starting to fade, that headache softening—although it was hard to say whether eating had taken it away, or whether it had been the drugs. Mom had called and it had taken a long time for me and Dad to convince her I was all right and she didn’t need to come home. But Dad, Kyle and I all agreed she didn’t need to know that I might have seriously injured another girl tonight.

  I wasn’t sure how Dad was going to ‘take care of it,’ but Molly had been right. He was the right person to turn to during an emergency. Between him, with his quiet strength, and Mom being a nurse, I’d grown up completely sheltered from the world.