The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(43)

Alexis crouches next to Grace, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” she murmurs into her ear. Even Riley crosses the attic to kneel next to her. She closes her eyes, and her lips move in a silent prayer.

I move toward Grace, but Brooklyn lifts her head before I can crouch next to her. Her eyes widen, and she leans her head toward Grace. She’s trying to tell me something.

All at once, it clicks. Grace is an addict—addicts have drugs.

No wonder Brooklyn was egging Grace on. Drugs mean freedom—escape. If Grace has pills with her, I can find them and put them in the wine they’ve all been drinking. If I add enough, they’ll pass out.

Riley whispers “Amen,” and her eyes flicker open. She picks up the wine and takes a deep drink, staring at me over the top of the bottle.

I twist my face into what I hope is a sympathetic expression and stoop beside her, looping one arm over her shoulder and the other over Grace’s.

“Amen,” I whisper.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


“Who’s next?” Brooklyn asks. She’s trying to distract them. If they keep admitting their sins, they won’t pay attention to me. And I’ll have enough time to find Grace’s pills.

“How do you know all this?” Grace wipes her tears away with her palm as she turns to Brooklyn. Alexis pulls away from her, pushing her hair back behind one ear.

Brooklyn smirks. A wild thought flies through my head—maybe she reads minds. Maybe Brooklyn already knows everything we’ve done.

“Grace stares at the floor when she lies,” Riley says before Brooklyn can answer. “Anyone can see that.”

Grace blushes and pushes herself to her feet. She backs into an alcove just off the main area in the attic and presses her body against the wall, like she’s trying to disappear into the wood.

Brooklyn’s eyes linger on her. “It’s almost worth the fire, the drowning, and the brutal torture to hear about how shitty you all are,” she says.

“Do we need to gag you again?” Riley motions to the duct tape on the floor, but she leans over to pick up the wine bottle instead.

“What’s the matter, Riley?” Brooklyn groans, struggling to move beneath the layers of rope binding her in place. “Afraid what your friends will think when you really admit your sins?”

“I already admitted them,” Riley insists. She pushes a sweaty lock of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, then drinks deeply from the wine bottle.

I scan the attic while Riley drinks, wondering where Grace stowed her pills. But Brooklyn’s words stay with me. Afraid what your friends will think when you really admit your sins?

I push the question away, and my eyes fall on the black backpack sitting by the stairs. Grace was the one who brought the bag up here. It would’ve been easy for her to slip a bottle inside.

“Or maybe you should go next, Lexie.” Brooklyn shifts her eyes to Alexis. “You could tell everyone why your sister’s really in a coma.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alexis hisses.

“I know more than you think.” Brooklyn’s wolf grin deepens.

Riley lowers the wine bottle. “What’s she talking about?”

Alexis leans back on her heels and grabs a lock of hair, winding it roughly around her finger. I think of the way she looked standing in that empty room with wispy locks of white-blond curls piled at her feet, like a fairy-tale princess stuck in a horror story.

“She’s just making things up,” Alexis says. The skin around her fingernail starts to turn blue, but still she winds the hair tighter.

I edge my way closer to the staircase and the backpack. Nerves pull at my skin like tiny, pinching fingers and my heart jackhammers in my chest. I move slowly toward Grace, inching my feet across the floorboards. She hums a pop song under her breath, her eyes fixated on her shoes.

“You said you hoped she’d never wake up.” Brooklyn allows each word to hang in the air for a beat before she continues. “That’s not the first time you wanted her dead, is it?”

Alexis shakes her head. “I never wanted that!” There’s a faint sound, almost a rip, and the hair drifts away from her fingers. Alexis pushes herself clumsily to her feet, nearly stumbling into me as I inch along the wall behind her. Before she reaches for another lock of hair, Riley takes her hand.

“Just tell us what happened, Lex.” Still holding Alexis’s hand, she drinks from the wine bottle again. Her words slur a little when she says, “We all have to admit our sins before God.”

Grace hums louder. The song tugs at my memory, just out of reach. She takes a step toward the stairs and lifts the faded black backpack from the floor, hugging it to her chest like a teddy bear. I drive my teeth into my lower lip. Damnit!

“Are you nervous?” Grace asks me. I’m so distracted by the backpack I almost don’t hear her.

“What?”

“About telling your sin.” Grace hums another line from the song, and now I remember where I heard it before. It was at that party I went to, the one at the house by the train tracks, where the jocks rated every girl who walked through the front door. Karen invited me to that party.

“No,” I say, but I am nervous. Not because I don’t want to tell my sin, but because I don’t want to relive it. Grace starts humming again, and now it’s too late. I’m there, at the party. The entire house trembles as a train rolls past. . . .