Final Girls(109)

Quincy drove her rental car back to the city, squinting against the sunset reflecting off the snow that’s been pushed onto the highway’s shoulder. The scenery passing the window was underwhelming at best. A dull line of strip malls, churches and used car lots full of vehicles stippled white by road salt. Yet one business caught her attention—a sliver of storefront squeezed between a pizza place and a travel agency closed for the weekend. A neon sign glowed pink in the window.

TATTOOS.

Without thinking, Quincy veered into the lot, shut off the car and walked inside. A tinny bell over the door chimed her arrival. The woman behind the register had ruby bowtie lips and a constellation of pink stars inked onto her neck. Her hair was the same color Tina’s used to be.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Quincy said. “I think you can.”

An hour later, it was finished. It hurt, but not as much as Quincy expected.

“Do you like it?” the pink-starred girl asked.

Quincy turned her arm to examine her handiwork. The ink there was still wet and stinging, dark against the peachfuzz of her wrist. Pinpricks of blood bordered each letter like lights on a marquee. Still, the word was easy to read.

SURVIVOR.

“It’s perfect,” Quincy said, marveling at the tattoo. It was a part of her now. As permanent as her scars.

She was still staring at it when breaking news flashed on the tattoo parlor’s TV. Quincy had snuck a few glances at it while all that black ink was being pushed just beneath her skin, too focused on pain than whatever it had to offer. But now she was riveted, held in place by what she saw.

Several teenagers had been found dead at a home in Modesto, California, the news anchor announced. In total, nine people were killed.

Quincy rushed from the tattoo parlor, driving fast back into the city.

Once home, she spent the rest of the night flipping among the cable news channels for more information about what was being called the Massacre in Modesto. Eight of the victims were high school seniors—attendees at a house party held while one of the kids’ parents were away. The other person killed was a maintenance worker at their school who showed up unannounced with a pair of sharpened garden shears. The only survivor was an eighteen-year-old girl named Hayley Pace, who managed to escape after killing the man who slaughtered her friends.

It didn’t surprise Quincy when one of the newscasters mentioned her name. It was the first incident of its kind since Pine Cottage, after all. Her phone had buzzed all night with calls and texts from reporters.

At three in the morning, she switched off the TV. By five, she was at the airport. When the clock struck seven, she was in the air, heading to Modesto, pain from the tattoo still pulsing at her wrist. Quincy waited for the press conference before sneaking into the hospital. The news vultures flapping near the front doors were too distracted by a progress report from Hayley’s doctors and parents to notice her rushing inside, hidden behind owl-eyed sunglasses picked up at an airport gift shop.

Inside, she had no trouble sweet-talking the motherly woman at the information desk into giving out Hayley’s room number.

“I’m her cousin,” Quincy told her. “Fresh off a plane from New York and dying to see her.”

Hayley’s hospital room was dim and solemn and choked with flowers. Like a church sanctuary. Like Hayley was already in the process of being enshrined.

She was awake when Quincy entered, propped up on a pile of pillows. She was a plain-looking girl. Pretty, but no knockout. Straight brown hair and a pert, little nose. In a crowd, she would have been easy to overlook.

Except for those eyes.

They’re what drew Quincy deeper into the room. As green and bright as emeralds, they flashed strength and intelligence, even in the midst of deep pain. Quincy saw a little bit of herself in those eyes. Tina, too.

They were radiant.

“How are you feeling?” she asked as she approached the bed.

“I hurt,” Hayley said, her voice slurred slightly by that uneasy mix of fatigue, painkillers and grief. “Everywhere.”

“That’s to be expected,” Quincy said. “But it will go away in time.”

Hayley’s eyes never left hers. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Quincy Carpenter.”

“Why are you here?”

Quincy clasped one of Hayley’s hands and gave it a tender squeeze.

“I’m here,” she said, “to teach you how to be a Final Girl.”