One by One(87)
“You must be exhausted,” I say. I try to sound soothing, but my heart is beating faster with excitement. I put my untouched tea down on the table and wipe the dregs off my mouth, and I peer into Erin’s cup. It is all but empty. “Why don’t you lie down?”
“I feel strange…,” she says again, but her voice trails off. She lets me help her to lie horizontally on the sofa. Her body is heavy. I have no idea how many pills she has drunk. Three or four, maybe? I had eight left and I put them all into the kettle, trusting to the boiling water to dissolve them. I had no idea whether the heat would damage the chemicals, but I knew that Erin would be on the lookout for me tampering with her cup, and I was right—she watched me like a hawk as I put in the tea bag and poured out the water.
The kettle was my only chance—slipping the pills in one by one as I packed in the snow, relying on the white snow to camouflage the white pills, and the strong, unfamiliar taste of milkless tea to mask any odd taste. And, almost unbelievably, it seems to have worked. Erin has drunk the whole cup. Elliot had five, ground up in his cup, and it killed him. Erin is smaller and lighter, and she had about half the water, which means approximately four pills. Four should be enough, assuming the heat of the water hasn’t degraded the active ingredient. I will have to make sure of that. I can’t take her silence for granted. But first there is something I have to do. Something quite urgent.
With a sideways glance at Erin, who is lying sprawled on the sofa, drool coming out of the side of her mouth, I leave the living room. I run as quickly as I dare up the stairs to Elliot’s room. The door is unlocked, and I open his phone again. Then I navigate to the text messaging app, and Erin’s message to Danny. SOS. Please send help. IT’S LIZ.
His reply is still there. Fuck. Erin is that you?
The precipice is in front of me—and expertly, I swerve to avoid it.
No, I type. I already told you—this is LIZ. Erin has just confessed everything—and she’s talking about killing herself. PLEASE COME NOW.
And then I press send.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
I lie completely still, listening as Liz peers into my cup and then stands over me, breathing heavily. Then she seems to make up her mind, and I hear the soft sound of her socked feet retreating into the lobby and the creak as she begins to make her way up the stairs.
I hold still for as long as I can bear, and then I sit upright, wincing at every rustle of fabric, every squeak of the sofa springs.
My arm and thigh are drenched with tea—but thank God, Liz didn’t seem to notice the spreading dampness on the sofa, only the empty cup.
The pills were in the kettle. I suspected as soon as I tasted the first gulp of tea—there was a strange, chemical acridity, and a very faint sweetness that must have come from the sugarcoating. And when I saw Liz putting the cup to her lips but only pretending to drink, I was certain of it. After that, I knew what I had to do. I had to pretend to drink too—taking advantage of the cover of darkness to slop the tea down my arm, onto the sofa, every time Liz turned away.
I had no way of knowing how long the pills should take to work— but I had to gamble on Liz’s ignorance too. She would have no way of knowing exactly what concentration I had taken, or how quickly it would take effect. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Whichever, she seemed to buy my performance of slipping into incoherence, and then unconsciousness.
Everything hinges now on whether she gave me enough to kill me. If she thinks she’s given me a fatal dose, I’ll be safe for a little while longer—at least until she comes back and notices I’m still breathing. But if she’s only given me enough to knock me out, she’ll be coming back very soon to finish me off. Will it be a pillow over the face like Ani, or a blow to the head, covered up as a fall down the stairs? Or something completely different?
Either way, I don’t want to find out. I have to get away, and the sooner the better.
Holding my breath, listening out for any sound from above, I hobble as swiftly and quietly as I can through the lobby, to the door behind the stairs, the one that leads to the ski lockers. My own ski clothes are up in my room, and I can’t risk trying to get to it, but my boots and skis are down in the storage lockers, and there should be enough spare clothing strewn around for me to put together an outfit that will at least keep me warm enough to ski in. I don’t have nearly enough layers to survive a night in the open, and I can’t walk on this ankle. I will have to get down to St. Antoine. But how? Skiing is the only option, and hope to God that the ski boot gives my ankle enough support to do it.
The door to the locker room opens with the gentle click, and I slide through, and close it with infinite care, my heart beating hard. It’s very dark inside, the moonlight filtering faintly through a window almost completely blocked with snow, but my eyes are used to the darkness, and I’m able to pick out the vague shapes of jackets and ski pants hanging from pegs, and boots drying on their once-heated poles. Hastily, my heart thumping in my throat, I yank on a pair of salopettes. It’s only when I look down at myself that I realize—they belonged to Ani. The thought that I’m literally stepping into a dead girl’s clothes makes my stomach lurch with guilt. But I can’t let myself get sentimental about this. Ani is gone—I can’t save her. But maybe I can bring her killer to justice.