Lost Girls(67)

Chapter Thirty-Five


One wall in the dressing room was covered with floor-to-ceiling curtains. Behind that stood a two-way mirror that overlooked the fight and the undulating crowd. A guard had opened the curtains and turned on a loudspeaker, broadcasting the fight into our room. The familiar sounds of oof and uuh flowed into the room as two girls slugged and kicked each other on the distant stage.

“Who’s fighting?” Lauren asked. She stood beside me at the window. We were both trying to ignore the people behind us, the guards and the girls who were what we could become, if everything went as planned.

I stared through the glass, squinting, my hand shading my own reflection. The girls onstage were so far away it was hard to see their features. But I was sure I knew them. I recognized their fighting styles. “I’m pretty sure it’s Cyclone and Komodo,” I said. “And it looks like Cyclone’s double tapping—”

“Triple,” Madison said. She was awake again and she now sat in one of the chairs behind us, an ice pack on her cheek. Her words were slightly muffled, like her mouth was swollen. “Two Pink Lightning and one Blue Thunder. We have anything you want. E, Meth, all the usual stuff. Or if you want some espresso, we have that, too. Whatever it takes to get your engine purring.” Despite the fact that she’d been beaten by one of the guards, she still treated Lauren and me like we were honored guests and she was our hostess.

“Who are we supposed to fight?” I asked, never taking my eyes off the stage. I could see a dim reflection of Madison in the window. She was watching me with curious intent.

“That hasn’t been revealed yet,” she said. “But I’m sure it will be a good match.”

Lauren took my hand and spoke in a low whisper. “You tried to get me to change my mind about this place. I should have listened.”

I matched her tone. “I just would have taken your tickets away. I still would have come.”

“Why?”

“I had to know.”

She hung her head and chewed on her lip. “You know what I did, don’t you? I could tell by the way you acted in the car.”

This must have been the time for absolution. Both she and Dylan were hiding something and I needed to know what. Instead of speaking, I released a heavy sigh.

“I didn’t sleep with him,” she confessed. “It just looked that way.”

My head snapped up.

“We were all at Brett’s party, two days before you went missing. You and Dylan were broken up. He got so wasted, he went into one of the bedrooms to pass out, and I followed him in. At first, he thought I was you—”

I stared at her, not believing what was coming out of her mouth. I wanted to stop the words, as if it could change the past.

“When you came down the hallway, he had just realized who I really was and he was leaving the bedroom—”

My chest tightened, my skin two sizes too small.

I could see it, Lauren with her arm around Dylan’s shoulders, the lipstick on his cheek, her hair messed up and both of them staggering toward me, their clothes rumpled. He kept trying to push her away, saying things like, enough already and get lost.

But when her eyes met mine, I saw the true story.

She thought she’d finally gotten my boyfriend. When he was drunk and high and we were broken up and I’d quit the Swan Girls. It was like she’d been waiting for that moment since we’d become friends. She now had my boyfriend and my team. She’d beamed proudly, her chin lifted, her eyes half-closed.

I’d wanted to smash that pretty face with my fist.

Dylan had continued to shamble closer, unaware that I was just a few feet away. He licked his lips and tried to untangle the arms that were wrapped possessively around him. Then he lifted his head. Shock filled his eyes when he saw me, then sorrow, then shame, all within an instant.

I had spun on my heels and stormed out, leaving the party and my pretend friend and my former boyfriend behind. I didn’t care that he was struggling with drug addiction and needed help. I only knew that they had both betrayed me and I never wanted to see either one of them again. I almost got my wish. I desperately needed to blow off steam, so when Nicole showed up after school, a pair of Platinum Level tickets in her hand, the primal urge to fight came back.

I had said yes, hell yes.

Lauren had become Odile to my Odette. She was my evil twin and the Black Swan. She had tried to steal the prince’s heart, and it had driven me to destruction.

And I’d almost died because of her betrayal.

Now she stared at me, wanting forgiveness, hoping I would tell her that everything was okay. But it wasn’t. It would never be okay again. Nicole was dead. And as far as I was concerned, it was all Lauren’s fault.

“Go to Hell,” I said and turned away from her.





Chapter Thirty-Six


A moment later, the fight between Cyclone and Komodo ended. Cyclone won, her hand held high above the screaming crowd, her blue hair drenched with sweat, a thin smile on her face and an insane look in her eyes. Komodo had been badly beaten, so many bruises on her arms you could barely see that dragon tattoo. She shouldn’t have accepted the challenge today—she hadn’t recovered from our fight the other night and she now sprawled on the floor, a mess of broken pieces that looked like they might never fit back together again.

Lauren tried to get my attention, her eyes pleading, her words fast and quiet because she didn’t want the guards standing behind us to hear.