Nice Girls(77)

Then there was Ron. His skin looked almost translucent under the parking lot lights.

He carried his skateboard under one arm. The top half of his body was buried beneath a puffy winter jacket. His headphones looked like ears protruding out of his skull.

While the others headed left, Ron turned right. He placed his skateboard on the asphalt and began to cruise toward the sidewalk. He was heading in my direction. I ducked down out of instinct, my hands clutching the belt and handkerchief.

My heart was pounding faster and faster. There were too many things that could go wrong, too many variables at play—

My phone suddenly lit up with a single text: GO GO GO.

I shoved open the back door and started running on the grass. It was slick with slush from the last snowfall, but I bolted for the sidewalk, sliding into place. In the dark, I could see Ron’s silhouette. I heard the crunch of his wheels as he sped toward me.

I lifted both arms out from my sides, blocking the sidewalk.

Bracing myself in case of impact.

Ron suddenly saw me—a shadow out of nowhere—and he screamed, swerving off the sidewalk. As he crashed into the slush, his skateboard went flying beneath him. Within seconds, I saw another shadow fly right past me, clambering on top of Ron. There were grunts as the two struggled on the ground, but clearly one of them had the upper hand. Jayden was sitting on Ron’s back, restraining both his arms.

As Ron started to scream, I raced over to them.

“You’re slow,” muttered Jayden to me, but I handed him the leather belt. As Ron squirmed, I wrapped the red handkerchief over his mouth and tied it. He was fidgeting so much that his saliva had gotten on my fingertips. As Jayden held him back, I looped the belt over Ron’s wrists several times and fastened it.

Within seconds, Jayden shoved the black pillowcase over Ron’s head.

Ron was all deadweight, but Jayden and I managed to drag him a few yards back to Mom’s car. Ron was groaning, tied up, his back drenched in the slush. We managed to lift Ron onto the floor of the back seat.

I locked the back doors shut.

“You get the skateboard,” I told Jayden as I rushed into the driver’s seat.

As soon as I pulled back onto Friedan Boulevard, I could already see Jayden starting the ignition in his car. Ron was groaning as I turned onto a residential street.

I realized that in the span of a few minutes, Jayden and I had managed to abduct Ron. And during that time, no one else had passed by.

It had been easy. Too easy.



It only took fifteen minutes for Jayden and me to make it down to the Sewers. We stopped at a nondescript park tucked away in a neighborhood of single-story homes. Jayden said the neighborhood didn’t see cops often and that the park was a popular spot for late-night hookups.

“Not that I’d know,” he murmured.

I couldn’t help but look behind us. We stood outside in the dark, our phone screens dimly glowing. Only a couple of feet away, Ron was still tied up in the back of my car.

“You ready?” Jayden asked, pulling up his handkerchief over his mouth.

“Yeah,” I blurted, my stomach in knots.

Jayden shoved the back door open and climbed inside the car. I followed him.

As soon as I slammed the door shut, Ron started writhing around in terror, squawking. Jayden turned on his cell phone’s flashlight to full brightness, shining it toward Ron’s head. Ron squirmed, his face covered by the pillowcase.

“Here,” said Jayden, handing me the phone. As I kept the light steady, Jayden finally yanked off the pillowcase. Ron’s mouth was wide open as soon as the handkerchief was removed.

“Help! Help me—”

From his seat, Jayden stepped on Ron’s back.

“Why you doxing people, huh?” asked Jayden as he yanked at Ron’s hair. “Why are you such a creepy piece of shit?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ron, gasping in pain.

“Then explain why my info was leaked,” I said quietly.

“Mary?” Ron asked, his eyes squinting in my direction.

“You leaked my past to Jim. You got me fired, Ron.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, breathing hard. “I didn’t do anything. But you are gonna be so fucked when I report this to the police.”

“Not as fucked as you’ll be when they find out you’ve been leaking a dead girl’s nudes,” said Jayden.

“You shut up, n—”

Jayden stomped on Ron so hard that the back of the car shook.

“You wanna say shit like that to me, you say it louder, okay?” said Jayden as he stamped down his foot again. Ron’s screech quickly died into a whimper.

I had told Jayden that I didn’t mind if things got violent, but in person, I could see all the factors that Jayden and I had missed, things like blood, hair, saliva. I could imagine a blue light shining on all of it. As Ron writhed on the car floor, he left more incriminating evidence behind. The police wouldn’t need much to prosecute Jayden and me.

We couldn’t afford to be wrong.

And it was too late—we had Ron in front of us. I needed to remember the evidence that pointed to him: the same email address that had targeted me and Olivia, the employee contact information from Goodhue Groceries, Ron’s vendetta against me, and his strange outburst about Olivia.