The Lost Girls

by Sonia Hartl

  “Yes.” Rose used her most prim-and-proper-lady voice, and I wanted to scream into the void. The rolling dumpster fire just kept picking up speed.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, where a headache would surely be forming if I were still capable of getting headaches. “And Ida’s heirloom?”

  “That’s not my story to tell.” Rose glanced at Ida as she came out of the bedroom. “I’m going to wash up. The two of you should talk.”

  “I heard you found Stacey. Good work.” Ida took a seat on the couch, her black-cherry scent trailing in her wake. “I assume Rose told you the complications with her heirloom.”

  “She did.” I hesitated on my next question. Ida struck me as more of a private person. Rose had been warm and open from the start, but Ida didn’t share anything of herself unless she got something in return. “She also told me yours will be unpleasant but didn’t say why.”

  “I appreciate her trying to protect me, but I’m not that sensitive about it.” Ida twirled the chain around her neck, which had a finger bone hanging from it. “It was a long time ago.”

  When she didn’t say anything else, I pushed a little more. “What is your heirloom?”

  “A glass-and-silver figure of a horse, made for me by my younger sister, Bea. She was the sun to my clouds.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips, but sadness lingered there. “We always thought her hobby fitting, seeing as how she was also fragile. Born small and never really quite caught up. She died shortly after I’d been turned.”

  “I’m sorry.” The universal empty words to give someone when you weren’t quite sure what else to say. Even though her sister would still be dead, even if she lived a full life, losing someone you cared about had to hurt. Not that I was overly familiar with those feelings. “Did you get a chance to say goodbye?”

  “In my own way.” When I didn’t say anything, she glanced at me like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go on. I had a feeling no matter how much she told me today, she’d still keep the more personal details to herself. “We hadn’t left town yet when she caught a bad cold that turned into pneumonia. I couldn’t face my family after what I’d become, so I snuck into the funeral home after dark to pay my respects. She was my heart. The person I thought of as I was dying. So, I placed my heirloom inside her coffin.”

  I covered my mouth with my hands. “Oh, God.”

  “Yep.” Ida gave me a grim smile. “That’s pretty much the reaction I expected.”

  “We have to dig up her grave?” While she likely wouldn’t be much more than dust at this point, the idea of violating that space made my stomach churn.

  “We need to do it soon.” Ida pressed her lips together, her dark eyes like hardened steel. “Elton knows what I did with my heirloom, and I can’t count on Frankie holding out information from him forever. He doesn’t always like Elton, but he won’t help us kill him.”

  “Should we go to the graveyard first?” Even though I wanted no part of this, I wouldn’t make Ida face that alone. “We can track down Stacey later. Elton doesn’t know she has my heirloom.”

  “He doesn’t?” She blinked at me in surprise. “Didn’t you turn her the night you were turned? He must’ve seen what happened.”

  “He threw a temper tantrum over me mourning someone who allegedly tried to kill him, even though we both knew she never stood a chance.”

  I could still feel the spray of water on my face as he stamped his foot in a puddle and demanded we leave at once. When I refused, he had the nerve to act like the injured party. It never occurred to him that I could’ve had feelings for someone other than him. That should’ve been one of many, many red flags.

  “I could’ve had any girl in this school, and I chose you.”

  That was how he phrased it to me when he left in a huff. Like I was lucky to have his attention, like I was lucky I’d given up my mortal trappings for a life spent at his beck and call. Not once, not one time, had he ever considered himself lucky to be with me.

  “That sounds like Elton.” Ida stood and squeezed my shoulder, the most outward affection she’d ever shown me. “I shouldn’t even be surprised by his shit anymore, but for some reason, I always am. As to your question, no, we shouldn’t go to the graveyard yet. We’ll need the cover of night. You know where to find Stacey. We’ll deal with her first.”

  What she didn’t have to say was that she also needed time to mentally prepare for what we had to do. She might’ve waved it off like it was a long time ago, but I recognized that emptiness in her gaze, the place deep within her that still hurt for a girl who was dead and buried a hundred years ago. Maybe I was closer to Ida than I’d thought.

  Rose came out of her bedroom in a fresh dress with a cherry print in the rockabilly style she tended to favor. You could take the girl out of 1954 … “Are we ready to head out?”

  “I’m all set.” I turned to Ida. “You’ll be thrilled to know we’re taking the bus again.”

  She groaned. “One of these days, I’m going to kill someone in broad daylight on that thing, and then you’ll both be sorry.”

  “Come on.” I hooked my arm through hers. “You’ll be able to sit close to people and make them really uncomfortable on purpose. Should be fun for you.”

  The bus hadn’t been terrible. Ida flashed her fangs at three people and only threatened to kill one, so all in all, a pretty tame ride. We made it to the school with ten minutes to spare before the first-period bell rang.

  “Parker said Stacey would be by the dirt hill where everyone goes to smoke.” Nothing like that existed when I went to school here, so I hoped it would be easy to spot. I had to assume it wouldn’t be much more than some dirt in hill form. I eyed the school, looming like a brick mausoleum across the street. “Once we end this, I’m never coming back here again.”

  “I wanted to come back once.” Rose’s gray eyes became soft as summer nightfall. “He said no, but I wish I’d pushed him harder.” She shook her head and her expression returned to that of polite disinterest. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t matter,” Ida snapped. “There is nothing here for us, and anything we used to feel for this place will be gone with our memories.”

  Before the two of them could start an argument, I pointed to the hill straight ahead. It wasn’t entirely dirt. A few sad weeds clung to the surface. But the real giveaway was the little tendrils of smoke that peeked over the top before being whisked away by the wind.

  If Stacey was behind that hill, these would be the first words we spoke to each other in over thirty years. What did I say to someone who had known me inside and out but was now little more than a stranger? How would I be able to face her with the weight of all that time between us? The guilt was always there, a gentle tap on the dark corridors of my mind, a reminder that there were pieces of me missing. Pieces I’d given to another.

  I steeled myself for the confrontation I’d never be fully prepared for as I rounded the other side of the hill. Stacey had her back to me, but I had no trouble recognizing her frizzy hair, which had been pulled into a smooth knot at the base of her neck. She wore a red scarf decorated by tiny skulls. Guilt, guilt, guilt; it slammed into me in waves, washing over me, threatening to drag me under. She had been the only person I could count on before Elton moved to town, and I did this to her. I made her into whatever she’d become while trying to survive.

  She had her hand wrapped around the neck of a kid with black eyeliner and a spiked collar. He dropped his cigarette as Stacey sunk her teeth into him and drank deeply. Though he must’ve been in pain, his face was pinched in a way that suggested he was doing his very best to convince himself he liked it. He’d be dead within minutes. Once the final strings on his lifeless body had been cut, she kissed his cheek before dumping him in the dirt. It reminded me of how she used to make little snowmen out of her mashed potatoes before biting their heads off.

  “After all these years, still playing with your food,” I said.

 
Stacey turned around slowly, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Disinterest flickered over her features. The distance of every single decade stood between us. That moment right there was as close as I’d ever get to feeling the fifty years I’d walked this earth.

  Her features hadn’t changed since the night she died. Same jutting cheekbones, narrow nose, and protruding amber eyes that always looked surprised. But the way she carried herself, her expression, not to mention the heavy black eyeliner and dark-maroon lips, were all brand-new. The all-black ensemble clashed with the image I had of the girl who used to wear more neon than a crossing guard. I didn’t recognize the person before me, even if she technically wore my best friend’s face. She hadn’t just accepted the vampire life; she was thriving in it.

  “Holly.” She licked the bloody point of one of her fangs. “Wish I could say it’s good to see you, but we both know I’d be lying.”

  “Stacey.” I inclined my head, keeping my gestures nonchalant, even as a storm of emotions lashed through me. “Or should I call you Lilith now?”

  “Been spying on me, have you? I didn’t know you cared.” She pouted, her thin mouth still glistening from the leftovers of her kill. “You just had to crimp your hair the night you died, didn’t you? What a pity.”

  “Not nearly as much of a pity as your neck.”

  Her eyes flashed. That chasm between us grew wider. I shouldn’t have made that comment about her neck, but she didn’t seem to have any interest in playing nice, either.

  Maybe I should’ve been buttering her up, considering she likely had possession of the one thing I needed most, but I couldn’t stand the way she looked at me with that disdain. I saved her life, damn it. And this whole time I thought she’d been wandering around, horrified by what she’d become, when in actuality, she seemed to be relishing it. Yet in all the cities we’d lived in, over all the years, she never once tried to contact me.

  I smothered the hurt with anger. A survival tactic I’d learned long before I ever became a vampire. As my gaze hardened on Stacey, Ida drilled her elbow into my back. I’d forgotten about her and Rose for a moment.

  “You brought friends.” A cruel and bloody smile touched Stacey’s lips. “How adorable.”

  “This is Rose and Ida.” I motioned to them like I was a flight attendant and they were my exit doors. “They’re also exes of Elton.”

  “How did that guy manage to sucker three of you? Jesus, he wasn’t that good-looking.” She sneered at the three of us. “But then again, I guess the desperate aren’t that picky.”

  “Can I pull off her arms now?” Ida whispered beside me.

  “If you came here to taunt me, I’m afraid I’ll have to pencil you in for next week.” She checked her watch. “I’m very busy these days, and I don’t have time to reminisce.”

  “Yet you’ve had time to stalk me all over town.” I gave her my sweetest smile, the one that promised I’d see her in hell, but I’d bring a dessert to pass.

  “I wanted to know why you dragged me back here.” Her clipped tone was sharper than the razor edge of her fangs. “Thanks for warning me that I’d be stuck trailing behind your sorry ass for all of eternity, by the way. It was real fun figuring that one out.”

  Part of me wanted to apologize for all the things I should’ve known or considered before I turned her, but the other part of me just wanted to get my locket and be done. “I’m not here to fight with you, Stacey. I’m in a situation that might be of interest to you, but we can’t really talk out in the open. If you’ll come with us—”

  “Nope.” Stacey held up a hand. “I’m not going anywhere with you. How do I know the three of you won’t tie me up and starve me?”

  “I’m not going to starve you.” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my voice. Even though we hadn’t stayed friends, she knew me better than that. I had no interest in becoming more of a monster than necessary. “I can’t say more out in the open, but would you feel more comfortable if we went to your place?”

  She was alone now, but I had no idea if she’d hooked up with a small coven. I sincerely hoped she operated alone. Offering to walk into her nest with no guarantee that she even had my heirloom wasn’t my brightest idea, but I had no alternatives. She obviously didn’t trust me, and I wasn’t willing to say more than this so close to where Elton spent his days. I had to take the chance.

  Stacey stared at the three of us for a small eternity before finally relenting. “Okay, fine. We’ll go to my place. But if you make trouble for me, I will find a way to starve you all.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. We’d just gotten one step closer to ending this.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stacey heaved the dead-eyed Goth boy over her shoulder and carried him to the river, where she dumped his body. I was long past caring what would happen to the people we left behind. It used to bother me. Killing had been one of the hardest things to get used to when I first turned, but I found a system that made it easier for me. These days, I hardly gave it a thought anymore. Just part of the food chain.

  Stacey took us on a meandering route through a residential neighborhood, close to where she used to live. A toddler with haunted eyes sat on the uneven steps of a front porch wearing nothing but a full diaper and drinking Mountain Dew from a bottle. She watched us pass without so much as a flinch. Too young to already be so jaded.

  I recognized the area but didn’t want to confirm my worst suspicions about where we were going, so I kept my mouth shut while we trudged toward a more wooded part of the neighborhood. A small forest grew wild behind the houses on this street, unable to be leveled because of the wetlands at its center. At the end of the culde-sac, overgrowth swallowed the remaining sidewalk. The rooftop of a house peeked over the tangle of short trees and bushes out front. It wasn’t until she pushed open a gate choked with ivy and vines that I recognized the place I’d thought of as a second home while I’d been alive.

  The white siding had turned gray. Fat flakes of peeling vinyl littered the ground like ash. Broken windows smeared with dirt watched over the scraggly yard like dead, filmy eyes. A crooked shutter creaked in the wind. Not even the haunted house that went up every Halloween on the east side of town could as effectively create the creepiness that oozed through every crack. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that actual ghosts had taken up residence there.

  “What happened to your house?” I walked up the front steps where I’d once spent long and lazy summer days drinking lemonade. The dry wood splintered beneath our feet.

  Stacey gave me a look that could’ve melted the skin off my bones. Apparently, her anger hadn’t cooled a bit since our happy reunion. “A kidnapping and double murder tends to bring down the property value.”

  Stacey and I both lost enough blood the night we became vampires to be ruled a double murder without our bodies, and since Stacey’s mom left the slider unlocked, the investigators determined we’d been kidnapped. If Stacey hadn’t followed me, everyone would’ve assumed I’d been a runaway. Which had been my original plan when I left her house with a backpack full of clothes.

  My spine stiffened. “I hope you’re not seriously suggesting I take responsibility for this.”

  Stacey whipped around and grabbed my throat, her movements so swift it took me by surprise. Pain radiated through my neck, and a burning sensation fused the muscles in my back to my spine as she snapped my bones. “If you had stayed at home instead of sneaking out of my house to meet your boyfriend, none of this would’ve happened. Do you even know what life was like for my mom after we died? She blamed herself for our deaths. She never got over it.”

  I didn’t know because I made it a point to never look back. I chose death. This was my eternity now. And taking on more regret wouldn’t do a thing to change that. Ida broke Stacey’s wrist, forcing her to release her hold, and my neck healed within a minute. I tilted my head from side to side as the lingering soreness drained out of me.

  “Please don’t tell me your mom still l
ives here,” I said.

  “So nice of you to ask about my mom, but you’re about thirty-fours years too late to give a shit.” She clenched her jaw, wearing her molars down to nubs as she looked like she was fighting an internal war with herself. “She died ten years ago. I couldn’t even go to her funeral because I’m attached to wherever you are, and you were in Texas.”

  “I’m sorry.” I thought a lot about the consequences of immortality over the years, but not enough about the ripples that rolled over everything we left behind. “If you had come to me—”

  “You would’ve what? Talked your boyfriend into coming home?” She faced me with fangs bared, like she might rip out my throat, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d try to stop her if she went through with it. “Tell me, when did he ever do one thing that wasn’t for his benefit?”

  Never. When we first moved to New Orleans, he killed a couple in the French Quarter so we could have their honeymoon suite for the week. He drew a bath, added some candles, and made it seem as if he’d gone to so much trouble to make me happy, like I owed him a favor because he turned on the hot water and lit some matches. In actuality, he set me up with the bath so he could have fun on Bourbon Street without having to drag his girlfriend along. We got in our first fight the morning he came home smelling like he’d spent the night rolling around in a pile of mortals, and he still wouldn’t admit any wrongdoing. He didn’t need to check in with me. It was my fault for being worried. I was too sensitive.

  From that point on, I learned every one of his grand gestures came with a condition.

  “No one bought the house? I know it’s a fixer-upper, but …” Ida put her hand on the molding around the front door, and it crumbled to dust at her feet. “Okay, forget I said anything.”

  “It used to be in better shape, but it’s been a tough sell since it’s rumored to be haunted by my ghost. Which is just ironic enough to amuse me.” Stacey smiled at the sky, cracking the blood that had dried on her chin. “Anyway, it’s technically for sale, but I’m not concerned about a realtor showing a loving family with two point five kids the open floor plan.”