Lost Girls(54)

Nothing except my iPhone resting in the palm of my hand.

I shivered, pulled my arms closer, tucking the phone into my pocket, hoping that no one else had noticed it. All the while, I struggled to catch my breath, and my mind fought against what had just happened.

My father had found a way to return my cell phone to me. He knew I snuck out. And I had a feeling that homeless creep was the same guy I’d seen on the Santa Monica Pier seven years ago.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


There weren’t any lights on in my house when I got home, but I knew Dad was in there, awake and waiting for me. The other girls were still running in high gear, all chattering and laughing and passing a joint around the car. At first, I thought about protesting. Then I realized that if I walked in the front door smelling like marijuana it wasn’t going to make this any worse.

I pulled down the visor and stared in the passenger side mirror, grimacing at what I saw. My right cheek was swollen and red, my lip was cut, and blood had dripped down my chin. Fortunately my other injuries were hidden beneath my clothes, bruises on my arms and my rib cage where Komodo/Sammy had pummeled me repeatedly.

“Holy shit,” I murmured.

“What’s up?” Lauren asked, her eyes narrowing as she sucked down another hit from that dwindling joint. The girls had all relaxed a bit since they started smoking. This must have been what Lauren meant earlier, when I saw her in the school parking lot. Weed took the edge off Pink Lightning and got rid of the headaches. I wondered if Lauren, Zoe, and Stephanie struggled with night terrors and tremors like I did, or if that only happened during withdrawal. I still didn’t know what that drug did, but I guessed it improved performance when we were fighting. Maybe it improved mental clarity or memory, too. If so, that might be the reason why my grades had gotten better in the past year.

“My face,” I said. “I can’t go in the house looking like this.”

“Nobody’s awake,” Zoe said, sitting up to lean against my seat. “Just slip into bed and put on some makeup in the morning. You should have some stage makeup in your kit, the one you keep in the closet.”

I frowned. Is that what that box was? Even so, I wouldn’t make it to my room before running into someone. “My dad’s already up.”

“Here.” Stephanie had been digging through her purse ever since I pulled down the mirror. I thought she was looking for another joint. “Turn around and face me.” She had a makeup kit unrolled on her lap, slender brushes and jars of powder and tubes of concealer and pots of blush. “Lean closer. You’re a four, no, wait, a three.” She pulled out a numbered tube and squeezed a dab of flesh-colored paste into her palm. Alternating between her finger and a brush, she smoothed makeup over my cheek and lips, dusted them with powder, then added some color. After that, she combed my hair, teasing it a bit and following it with a spritz of spray. “Check it out. Look in the mirror again.”

I studied my reflection, turning my face from side to side. I looked pretty good, completely different than before. My cheek was still swollen, but my hair and the makeup covered it up. My lips looked completely natural. I grinned.

“Blame it on ballet practice,” she said as she began to pack away her kit. “We all say we were injured during sports.”

But as soon as that statement slipped from her lips, I knew I wasn’t interested in ballet—not like I was before. With every punch I’d delivered back in the ring, blood had rushed through my veins like dark music and my muscles had been singing. It felt like I’d been singing this song all my life, but only understood what the words meant tonight. Part of it reminded me of ballet, how all my muscles needed to work together, how I needed to be limber and flexible and strong, how I had to push through the pain and when I did, it was as beautiful as any dance. Except this was a dance that could deliver broken bones and cracked teeth, it could make my opponent bleed and wince and cry. Something about that last part, the bleeding and the pleading, frightened me. Not because I didn’t like it.

Because I did. Maybe too much.

I thought about the bruise on Dylan’s cheek. He said he’d been wrestling, but had he really been injured in a Phase Two event?

Stephanie seemed to be the only one telling me what I wanted to know, so I decided to ask a question or two. “Do the boys take Pink Lightning, too?” I asked, wondering if Dylan and Brett were taking the same stuff we were.

She shook her head. Lauren and Zoe had lost interest in our conversation and were passing the last of the joint between themselves.

“They take Blue Thunder. It makes them stronger, but it also makes them more aggressive. Probably why Dylan and Brett got into a fight at the party. Sometimes they can’t control it. Side effect, I guess,” Stephanie said. She was slipping her kit into her purse, then applying a fresh coat of pink gloss on her lips.

“What is it? Amphetamines, steroids, muscle memory drugs?”

She shrugged and yawned, stretching her arms in front of her. “I don’t know. Maybe a combination of all three?”

“Is there really such a thing as muscle memory drugs?” Zoe asked with a tilt of the head.

“I don’t know. It just seems like that’s what this stuff does—oh, holy freaking crap.” The light over my front door just flicked on and it blinked three times. “I’m being summoned. To my death.”