Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(75)

Vero’s voice sounds funny. I study her carefully and discover she is crying.

“You’re sad,” I whisper. I don’t know why this surprises me. Of course she’s sad. The memory of a kidnapped little girl. She should be devastated.

“The secret realm, the magical queen,” she singsongs now. Her hair is starting to fall out in clumps, the white of her skull showing through. “Once I had a life. Once I had a story. I told you those stories. Over and over again. Because someone had to know. Someone had to remember what was real.”

“I understand.”

“Chelsea doesn’t have a story. Even before the dollhouse. There was no magical queen, no secret realm. No one has ever loved her, not even you. No one wants to be her”—she eyes me slyly—“not even you.”

“She was jealous.”

“I stole her room, the best room, the tower room . . .” Vero’s voice is no longer sad, but smug. A look flitters across her face. Not little girl at all, but devious. Suddenly, I’m nervous.

“Once, she was the princess, but when I came, I was younger, more beautiful.” She preens. I step back, even more uncomfortable.

“I took it. I claimed the tower. I commanded all of Madame Sade’s attention. I was the youngest, the brightest, the best. Of course she spent all her time on me. I was worth it!”

“You were a little girl—”

“A diamond in the rough. But I learned. I learned everything. And when I was twelve and the time came, she gave me to her most special of friends, the richest, the most powerful, the most commanding of them all. The others knew. Of course they hated me for it.” But Vero’s not complaining; she’s boasting.

Maybe she should. For six long years she was locked away, all alone except for her teacher’s company.

“Who are the other girls?” I ask, for things are shifting again in the back of my mind. Except this time, I don’t turn away. I step closer.

“You know. You know you know. We are a family. A f*cked-up, twisted family, fashioned by the world’s most f*cked-up, twisted mother, Madame Sade herself.”

And for a second, I can almost picture it. Family dinners, yes. All of us sitting around the formal dining table. Except Madame Sade’s family only has girls—yes, no?—four of us. Two older, two younger. Chelsea and I are the younger pair, positioned at the far end of the table. Where we watch the two older girls, with their carefully polished faces and poofed-up hair, whisper between themselves. Every now and then, almost on cue, their heads rotate to stare at us. Their expressions are harsh, knowing. We quickly look away. We’re scared of them. They are our future, and we know it.

Vero whispers in my ear, “No one ever leaves the dollhouse. Only way out is death, death, death.”

But there is something else here, something else I know I need to grab on to, study harder.

I hear myself say: “You didn’t keep the tower bedroom.”

Vero jerks back. More patches of hair fall from her skull. Followed by pieces of her face.

“There is no one younger and prettier than me!” she snarls.

“You moved into the room with Chelsea.”

“Jealous. No one ever loved her. Not even you. No one wants to be her, not even you!”

“But she . . .” I hesitate; then the words simply come out. I don’t know if I’m speaking the truth, as much as I simply have to speak. “Chelsea loved you. In the beginning, she was jealous. No, she was afraid. But by the end, she loved you very much. Living in this room with you; it was the first time in her life she didn’t feel alone.”

Vero won’t look at me anymore. She spins away, half flesh, half bone. Half girl, half ghost.

She is dancing on the rug, I realize. As if daring me to see it.

Outside, the sound of the lawn mower, moving closer. I want so badly to go to the window. I don’t want to be trapped in this room anymore with Vero. I want to peer out over the vast, sweeping lawn. I want to feel the sun on my face. I want to see him.

But I don’t move. I stay where I am, watching Vero, and I realize for the first time, she is holding a needle in one hand. As I watch, the insides of her arms fill up with track marks. Identical to the marks on the older girls, I realize now. Our future selves. Because in the beginning Madame Sade offers a beautiful bedroom, a roof over your head. But by the end, it’s not enough. It takes a more compelling incentive to keep the girls working.

To keep them dependent.

Vero catches my stare. She laughs louder, spins more wildly.

“Please,” I try to tell her. “It wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened, whatever you did. You shouldn’t have been put through this; you shouldn’t have—”

“Loved to fly?”

I can’t talk to her anymore. There is a look on her face . . .

I’m afraid again. More frightened than I think I’ve ever been, my fingers sinking into the edge of the mattress. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk to her; I don’t want to remember.

But I still don’t leave. A process has been started. It’s too late to turn back now.

“There’s only one way out of the dollhouse,” she cries now, twirling on the rug, dancing on the rug, toe-tapping across the rug. “Death, death, death!”

“But I didn’t die,” I protest.