The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(46)

Heart hammering against my chest, I kneel and pull the backpack to my side. I grope against the fabric inside until my fingers enclose a plastic cylinder. I pull it out and quickly turn it in my hand to see the label.

AMBIEN, it reads. My heart thuds against my rib cage. This is it. This is finally it.

A floorboard creaks. A chill streaks down my spine, and I look up. Grace’s dark eyes are turned toward me, watching me.

Time freezes. My mind moves at hyper-speed, trying to come up with some excuse, some reason to be digging through the bag for the pills. But I can’t think of a single reason, and all I can do is wait for Grace to call out to the others and tell them what I’m doing.

Grace considers me for a moment. Then she lifts a finger to her mouth, shooting a look over her shoulder at Riley and Alexis. Neither has noticed us. Yet.

Satisfied they aren’t watching, Grace sets the wine bottle on the floor next to me, then turns back around, as if she didn’t see me with the pills at all.





CHAPTER TWENTY


I ease the bottle open and pour the pills into my hand. Ten white pills tumble onto my palm. I don’t know anything about drugs, but ten seems like a lot—definitely enough to take out a teenage girl. I pry open one of the capsules and dump the fine white powder into the wine bottle.

Riley’s jeans scratch against the floor as she paces around the room. Grace is angled in front of me to keep Riley from seeing what I’m doing, but I still freeze, certain I’m about to be discovered. The powder from the pills sticks to my fingers and the mouth of the bottle. I swear under my breath and try to brush it all into the wine.

“I thought you two were so close,” Brooklyn says, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. If either Alexis or Riley notices she’s making fun of them, they don’t show it. They only seem to see each other.

“You were always a shitty friend,” Alexis yells, her voice cracking. She wraps a long blond strand of hair around one finger and gives it a sudden, violent tug. “The only reason we even hang out is because you can’t stand to be alone.”

“I think you have that backward, Lexie.” Riley’s voice is quiet and even, barely above a whisper. Alexis stands in the middle of the attic while Riley moves around her, an animal circling her prey. “The only reason we’re friends is because you need someone to obsess over. You’ve been pretending to be me since you were eight years old. I just can’t get rid of you.”

The quieter Riley speaks, the more outraged Alexis grows. “Why not? Because God wouldn’t want you to?” Alexis shouts. “You hide behind God so no one will see how screwed up you really are.”

“I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done,” Riley continues, rounding back on Alexis. “But you have everything to be ashamed of. You tried to kill your sister! How can any of us ever trust you again?”

Alexis’s breathing gets heavier, and she starts to cry. Grace stiffens in front of me. Alexis must’ve pulled another clump of hair out of her head, but I refuse to look up and watch her. My fingers feel thick and clumsy as I work them around the pills.

“You’re wrong,” Alexis says.

“Am I?” Riley’s voice takes on a cruel, almost gleeful edge. I recognize that tone by now—it means she knows something the rest of us don’t.

“If I’m so wrong, why are you still hiding?” Riley continues. “You’re keeping secrets from all of us.”

The floorboards creak as Alexis takes a step back.

“Stop it,” she says. I have the final pill pinned between two fingers, but I peer around the corner to see what’s happening.

Riley has Alexis backed against the wall. I can’t see Riley’s face, but Alexis looks broken. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she releases a choked, gasping sob. She shakes her head and covers her hair with her hands.

“No,” she whispers. “Riley, please.”

Riley slaps Alexis’s hands away and pulls her forward by the head, brushing her long, beautiful hair back with one hand. Beneath the top layer of perfect blond locks, Alexis’s entire scalp is red and raw, spotted with still-bleeding scabs.

Alexis pulls away from Riley and tries, desperately, to smooth her hair back in place. Her face crumples, and she drops to her knees, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She lifts her hand to the hair just behind her left ear and starts compulsively winding a lock around her finger—tighter and tighter—until it comes off in her hands. Blood spots the skin at her scalp.

“You’re disgusting. Soon you won’t have any hair left.”

Brooklyn releases a slightly hysterical-sounding laugh at the exact second the pill hits the floor. Frowning, Riley pivots to face her.

“What’s so funny?” she hisses.

“Hurry,” Grace mutters under her breath. I refocus my attention on the pills. I wedge my thumbnail into the last capsule and pull it apart. The white powder dissolves into the wine.

“Your little catfight is just adorable,” Brooklyn says. “Which of your friends are you going to turn on next?”

“Shut up,” Riley spits out. She crosses the attic and kicks Brooklyn in the shin. Brooklyn makes a big show of squeezing her eyes shut and yelling out in pain, but I know she said those things for me, to distract Riley from what I’m doing.