by Amy Sparling
I need to find out what Jayla knew.
Riley walks ahead of me, stopping before every turn to look through the house and make sure Theo isn’t there. Luckily, it’s still pretty early in the morning, and we don’t run into anyone. When we make it to our hallway of bedrooms, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’d half expected to see Theo hanging out by my door, waiting for me to wake up. The hallway is empty, and so is the feeling in my stomach as we walk toward Jayla’s bedroom. Her name is still on the brass plate outside the door. Her death is still fresh. I wouldn’t doubt if they’re still waiting for someone to discover her body, lying splattered on the concrete where Kyle and Russell dumped her. At least then they could act innocent about the whole matter, like they had no idea she was dead beforehand.
My stomach flips at the thought. That is not the way anyone should be laid to rest.
Jayla’s door swings open when Riley tries the knob. I’d almost expected it to be locked, almost looked forward to being turned away before we started. But I press on, slipping into her bedroom and closing the door behind us.
The place is in shambles. The bed is unmade, the comforter kicked to the floor. Clothes and shoes are scattered around, and her television is on the news channel, the volume muted.
“Whoa,” Riley says under her breath. The sound sets off alarms in my mind. I grab her arm.
Don’t talk, I mouth to her. Then I bring my lips to her ear and whisper, “They could be monitoring the room. They don’t need to know we’re in here.”
She mimes zipping her lips closed and we walk further into the room, taking in the chaotic state of the place. Jayla was always so put together and beautiful. This doesn’t feel like what I’d imagine her room looking like, not at all. This is the room of someone internally tortured, someone suffering. I wonder how long it’s been since she tried to remove her bracelet and discovered the suffocating feeling of death that comes with trying to separate from the immortality stone.
Riley goes through Jayla’s dresser and nightstands, but they don’t turn up anything interesting. I check out the closet, looking inside her purses and the pockets of the dirty clothes she left on the floor.
Her computer is password protected, so we don’t bother trying to get into it. I consider stealing it and trying to guess the password back in the safety of my room, but I think better of it. The clan would surely find out if I took Jayla’s computer, and they’d want to know why.
Riley holds up her arms in defeat after a few more minutes of searching. Her eyes meet mine and I can tell she’s wondering if we should just leave because there’s nothing here to find.
I’m about to agree with her, but then I get the idea to look where I used to hide things when I lived in the group home.
I slide my hands under Jayla’s mattress. Toward the foot of the bed, I touch a notebook. I shove my other hand under the heavy memory foam and retrieve the spiral notebook, eyes wide as I show it to Riley. I set it on the bed and flip it open, but all the pages are blank. My heart sinks. Riley takes the notebook and holds it up to the light, maybe checking for invisible ink or something. Something small falls from the pages and lands on the carpet. It’s a little black SD card, like the kind they put in cell phones. I take it and shove it in my pocket. Jackpot, I mouth. Riley grins.
We turn to leave and then there’s a knock on Jayla’s door. Shit. Riley turns toward me, eyes wide. Then she points toward the closet door and rushes over to it to hide.
“Jayla?” the soft voice on the other side of the door is Nia’s. Riley comes out of her hiding place and we both stare at the closed door while Nia says, “Are you in there?”
We don’t make a sound.
“Jayla, I wish you’d talk to me,” Nia says, her voice pleading. “Whatever is bothering you, I can help. Just talk to me.”
My heart shatters for this girl and her friend who is never going to open that door again. Nia doesn’t know the grim reality yet. She still has hope, still thinks that there’s a way to save Jayla from her all-consuming depression. My heart breaks all over again.
“I’ll come back later,” Nia says through the door. “If you need anything at all, just call me, okay?”
I press my forehead into my palm as the next few moments pass. Riley just stands there, her expression solemn. After a few minutes have passed, I make my way to the door and slowly open it, peaking outside.
Nia is gone, and the hallway is empty.
I motion for Riley to follow me and we rush back to my bedroom, the memory card weighting a million pounds in my pocket.
Chapter 23
I check my phone the second I’m back in my room. I have three missed texts from Theo after he tried calling me this morning. Seeing his name on the screen sends a twinge of guilt through me. I want to see him, I really do. But some things are more important right now.
Leaving my phone on my bed, I take out the non-Wi-Fi laptop Riley stashed under my bed and power it on.
Riley paces behind me, chewing on her thumbnail. “I really hope this isn’t a dead end,” she says, walking a few steps and then turning back to walk the opposite way. “If this is some stupid stash of selfies or something, I’ll be pissed.”
“She wouldn’t have hidden if it wasn’t important.”
“She’d hide it if it’s all naked selfies,” Riley says with a sigh.
Now doubt creeps into my mind, but I shove the memory card into the computer anyway. It seems to take forever to pull up the folder on the screen, even though it’s only a few seconds. The memory card has only one folder saved to it. It’s called Untitled.
I click on it, revealing just one file. A video saved with a file name that sends a shiver down my spine.
If_I_die.mov
“Now we’re talking,” Riley says, kneeling down beside me. We’re sitting on the floor, as always, and it occurs to me now that we do almost everything on the floor out of habit from living at the group home where desks and tables weren’t abundant. I guess you can take the girl out of poverty, but you can’t take the poverty out of the girl.
Riley plugs a pair of earbuds into the computer and hands me one. We each put one in our ear to keep the noise of the video quiet. I look over at my best friend, then I double click on the video.
Jayla’s face appears on the screen. Her tanned skin is radiant like it used to be, her eyes are missing the dark circles she had this morning. Her hair, dark with soft highlights, hangs wavy around her shoulders. She looks like she’s taking the video on her cell phone, and she’s in her room, sitting on her bed.
“Okay,” she says. That one word is loaded with emotion, but it takes her a minute to say anything else. “This thing—” She holds up her wrist, twisting it around so the camera can get a good view of her immortality bracelet. “It’s evil. It’s magical. I don’t really know what it is, but it’s bad. I tried taking it off the other day because I wanted to do some painting and I didn’t want to mess it up.”
She gazes at her wrist and the camera shakes since she’s holding it up with her other hand. “I can’t even begin to describe what happened when I tried to remove it but…I felt like I was dying. No, I know I was dying. I would have died if I didn’t put it right back where it goes, here on my wrist. This clan I joined, these guys with lots of money—they gave me the bracelet and I was told never to remove it. I thought it was just a joke, like some stupid fraternity promise or something, but I was wrong.”
She looks right into the camera and all I see is fear behind her blue eyes. “I don’t know how, but this bracelet is magic. And I can’t take it off. I did some research online and I found these forums of people talking about bracelets that kill you if you remove them. I won’t say what the website is on here because I don’t want to implicate these people. They are good and honest people and they tried to help me. They told me that evil people use bracelets with powers like this. It’s sucking the life out of me.”
Chills prickle over my arms. She got that part right. I glance at Rile
y but she’s watching the computer screen intently, her jaw rigid.
On screen Jayla sighs. “It’s like they’re using me and the other girls here for some kind of magic. I don’t understand. I don’t know what they’re doing to me. I feel normal on most days, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. Every day I look at this bracelet and I want it off. The people online said there’s no way to remove it.”
I don’t hear what she says next. My hopes crash straight through to the floor and tears spring to my eyes. Riley curses under her breath.
“She’s wrong,” Riley says.
I nod in agreement but I’m not feeling very confident about that. On the computer, Jayla starts crying. “Something terrible is going on here. I’ve been following the leader of this clan and trying to figure out what he’s doing. Every few days he goes to the balcony in the library and he talks to someone on the phone. I’ve never gotten close enough to hear what they say, but when they talk on video chat, I can tell it’s a woman. She always looks pissed and Alexo doesn’t seem like the same guy he is when he’s talking to her. He seems like a scared little kid. I think she’s making him do this to us. I think she might be a witch or something.”
Riley reaches out and pauses the video. She turns to me, her expression blank. I stare at her for a moment, and then play the video again. There’s only a few seconds left and I’m too anxious to hear what Jayla has to say.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this and try to save all of the girls here. I don’t know what they’re doing to us, but it’s not good. Nia, I told you to check under my bed if I ever go missing, so if you’re watching this well…” She looks down. “That’s not a good thing. It means I failed in taking off this bracelet and it killed me. It means I didn’t succeed, but you still can. I want you to do everything in your power to find a way to remove yours, okay?” In the video, I hear the ringing of her wall tablet. She looks back, the phone camera shaking. The video turns into a picture of the floor, and then her feet as she walks over to her tablet. She brings the camera back to her face. “I’ll record more later.”
The video ends. I pull out my earbud and close the folder on the computer. “That didn’t help us much.”
“We know about the woman now,” Riley says, her voice low. “Where’s the library balcony?”
I shrug. I didn’t know the library had a balcony. There’s skylight windows at the top of the turret, but that’s all. “Maybe there’s another library?” I ask.
Riley nods. “We’ll find it. I wonder if we should show this to Nia?”
I shake my head and slam my hand over the laptop. “No way. It’ll only—” I press my lips to her ears and whisper so as not to be overheard. “It’ll only get Nia killed as well. No one can know about this and keep it a secret, it’s too much.”
“You mean no one except for us?” Riley says, giving me an evil grin.
It’s so scary I start laughing. “I am scared out of my mind,” I whisper, even as I’m still smiling. It’s not a happiness that’s soaring through my veins right now—it’s terror. Sheer, unhindered, terror.
“You need your boy,” Riley says. She leans up and takes my phone from the bed, then hands it to me. “Call him. Talk to him.”
“I don’t know about that…” I say, looking at the phone in my hands.
“Cara,” Riley says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “If you can’t trust Theo, there’s literally no fucking thing left in this life to count on.”
“Yeah.” I unlock the phone screen and press down on his number. “You’re absolutely right.”
Chapter 24
With a heavy sigh, I look down at the phone screen. Theo didn’t answer.
“I’m sure he’ll call right back,” Riley says, giving me an encouraging smile.
I know she’s right because Theo always calls back, but this feels important. It feels cosmically important, like something he needs to know now. I shouldn’t have kept Jayla’s death from him this long. I shouldn’t have ignored his call this morning. I need Theo’s advice on everything that’s going on.
“We should destroy this,” I say, holding up the tiny memory card. There’s nothing on it that’s so important Theo would need to see it. We’ll just tell him what happened. Right now, I’m terrified of Alexo paying us a visit and seeing what we’re up to.
“Fine, fine,” Riley says loudly. She holds up her hands in surrender. “I am a terrible artist. Destroy it if you have to, and I’ll just try to create something better next time.”
I snort because she’s still trying to make it sound like we’re not up to anything special in here, should anyone be listening.
“I think I’ll set it on fire,” I say, heading over to my desk where there’s a lighter I use on my scented candles.
“Do it in the metal trashcan so you don’t burn the place down,” Riley says.
I take out my scissors and cut the tiny thing into pieces, and then, holding up each piece with a pair of tweezers, I put the lighter to it. They burn and curl up and warp in shape and when I’m pretty sure it’ll never be able to have information extracted from it, I scatter them in three different trash cans, throwing away other stuff on top of it for good measure. All the while, I’m waiting for Theo to call me back. I kind of want to go down to his bedroom and see if he’s there. But if he was, he would have called me. So I wait.
Riley goes back to her room, but not after giving me strict orders to call her as soon as I hear from Theo. I get tired of waiting around by the phone, so I take a hot shower. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to wash away the horrors of this morning until the water splashes on my skin and rolls down my face. I let the shower steam up and I toss my head back and let my hair get soaked. The hot water is searing, turning my skin pink, but I don’t make it colder. I like the pain. I like knowing I still feel it. I am alive and Jayla is not. Her fate could have easily been mine or Riley’s, had we been caught.
We have to be safer.
We have to be careful.
We have to take down Alexo and this whole fucking clan.
All the mirrors are foggy when I finally step out of the shower. My fingers are wrinkly, but I feel a little better. Jayla’s death was a horrible injustice, but it has made me stronger in my resolve. I will fight with Theo to find a way to save not only me and Riley, but the other girls. I will find this woman, find whoever is in charge of Alexo, and I will take them out. I don’t know what that means for the future of Theo and me, but I do know that living as a lifeblood is no life at all.
When I step back into my room, the scent of Theo’s cologne fills my lungs. I look around for him, but no one’s here. There’s a note on my nightstand and I rush over to it.
Didn’t want to disturb your shower. Call me when you get this.
-Theo
I grab the hair tie off my wrist and wrangle my wet hair into a messy bun on top of my head, and then I call Theo.
“Hey love,” he says, his voice gruffer than usual.
“Come over,” I say.
“I uh, I can’t right now.” There’s a shuffling sound on the phone.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I’m whispering into the phone because I can’t help myself.
“I’m fine, love. I’m just—” a sigh, “Busy. Give me a little bit, okay? I’ll come see you soon.”
I exhale and fight back the urge to tell him to get his ass over here right freaking now. Whatever he’s up to, it’s clearly important and related to the clan. We still have to keep up appearances.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “I just miss you.” I let my voice get all sweet and loving, just in case anyone is listening.
“See you soon,” he says quietly.
I head over to Riley’s room next door, hoping she can calm me down. I am so sick of waiting and so sick of needing answers and not having them. I’m also getting really tired of my mind replaying Jayla’s death over and over again. Though I didn’t see the moment the life left her eyes, I did see her bo
dy collapse to the floor. I may never stop seeing that image in my mind.
Riley has her TV turned on to a movie about three housecats who have adventures while their owners are away. It’s clearly for kids, but there’s something about the innocent fun of the movie that makes me feel a little better right now. I can’t handle real life at the moment. I’ve been given entirely too much reality to last a lifetime.
I sit next to Riley on her couch, my head leaning on her shoulder while we watch the movie. Half an hour passes in what feels like five hours and I still haven’t heard from Theo. Whatever Alexo had him doing when he took him a few days ago, it’s probably been interrupted by Alexo’s need to murder Jayla. Maybe they’re back to doing whatever they were doing.
I’m sure Alexo doesn’t shed tears for the girls he disposes of. We’re all just batteries to him. Disposable, replaceable.
My phone sits in my lap, screen up so I can see if he calls. By the time the credits roll on the movie, I’m starting to go completely insane with worry and impatience. “What the hell is taking him so long?” I say, staring at my phone in my hand.
Riley turns up the volume on the TV, making the song playing over the movie credits impossibly loud.
“I love this song!” she shouts, cupping her hand to her mouth. “Let’s dance!”
Only she doesn’t get up to dance. She stays right here on the couch with me, turning so that our knees are touching.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says quietly.
I snort sarcastically. “Me too.”
