Lost Girls(59)

I read her the address again and we slowed to a stop, both of us staring at a building up ahead. A row of square windows was placed high up on cement walls. Smokestacks jutted out of the roof, and a big black and white sign said HALL FOR RENT. It was a large building, but there was no rave here, no thumping music. Only a few thick-waisted, heavily muscled men in white tank tops standing outside let you know this building was even open.

“You sure this is the right place?” I asked, looking at the paper again, a strange feeling twisting in my gut. All the other raves we’d been to had been crowded with thousands of people my age. That whole safety-in-numbers thing was ringing in my ears.

“Yup,” she answered quickly, pulling her keys from the ignition.

“How’d you get these tickets and this printout?” I asked as we climbed out of her car.

“Found a manila envelope with my name on it in my mailbox this morning.”

We walked toward the building, but that sense of something being wrong wouldn’t go away. “But nobody at Phase Two knows our names or addresses. Isn’t that part of the rules? Only stage names, so we can be anonymous.”

She laughed. “How hard would it be to ask someone we hang out with what our real names are?”

“But they could get kicked out for doing that—”

She shook her head, tossing a grin to the guys who surrounded the building. One of them smiled back and opened the front door for us. “It wasn’t that hard for us when we were checking out Alexis, Shelby, Lacy, and Janie, back when we were putting our teams together.”

“True.”

“Besides, nobody would get kicked out if the guy who runs the show was the one asking the questions. Like that announcer guy with the Brooklyn accent.”

I accepted her reasoning, a sliver of excitement charging through me as we walked down a long, narrow hallway. The building’s interior was even more shabby and deteriorated than the exterior. Maybe this was an element all the rave locations had in common, something that had always been hidden because we only saw them at night, when the walls were smattered with colored lights and the floors were covered with dancing people.

“This is what we’ve wanted from Day One, girl,” Nicole breathed as we approached a pair of double doors. Loud cheering rumbled from the other side, something about it sounding different than all the Phase Two events. “To make it to the top. And since I got two tickets, we finally get to go, both of us. We never had to break the rules or fight each other. We kept it clean.” She smiled an honest grin, the kind only a true friend could give you. She was the kind of friend you’d want to keep for your whole life, all the way through high school and college and even after you both had families, still getting together for birthdays and still calling each other in the middle of the night if something went wrong.

Next to Molly, she was the closest friend I’d ever had, and we held hands as we walked through that door, a blinding light shining down on us that washed away everything on the other side.

.

I sank back in my car seat, the memory of Nicole fading away, the parking lot and the school building coming back into focus. My brother’s books and gum wrappers lay scattered about on the backseat, my shirt still sticky and damp from Red Bull. An echo of the school bell hung in the air, heralding the beginning of yet another day at Lincoln High.

That was the last time I ever saw Nicole and it was the same night I went missing.

She was murdered and I was kidnapped.

But something had happened even before that, something I couldn’t remember, and it had propelled me toward that Platinum Level door—I’d broken up with Dylan and lost my teammates and it had left me feeling raw and wounded. And, despite what everyone thought, I hadn’t been taken at school. I’d gotten into Nicole’s car willingly, eagerly, more than ready to face whatever lay on the other side of that Platinum Level door, beyond that blinding white light.

Had whatever lay on the other side been too terrifying for me to remember? Had I blocked it out and erased it?

Those questions jabbed and punched from the shadows, fists reaching out to make me stumble as I grabbed an old sweatshirt from my trunk. When I walked away from my car, my footsteps were unsteady and my concentration limited.





Chapter Thirty-Two


I did what I vowed I’d never do. But isn’t that what always happens when things get tough? We run in the wrong direction, arms flailing, calling for someone, anyone, to help. We climb up muddy inclines and wave our arms as we walk across lanes of traffic, willing cars to stop, demanding strangers to rescue us.

We walk away from danger toward any bright light that flickers.

I shuffled down the school hallway, legs on autopilot as I headed toward first period. My body was willing to keep up the charade, to attend classes and nod knowingly when teachers asked questions. My mind, on the other hand, was doing that flailing thing, forcing my hands to scream for help.

My phone was out and I was texting Agent Ryan Bennet. I was telling him everything.

I’m not even sure how coherent my end of the conversation was, since I was continually interrupted by him texting me back for clarification.

You left school grounds with Nicole Hernandez?

That’s what he wrote but I knew what he was thinking—Nicole, the dead girl, she left with the girl who got murdered, it’s a miracle they both didn’t end up dead.