Wilder Girls(66)

“Hurry!” Cat yells. Reese hits the door and disappears inside. Cat reaches out to me, and the control leaves my limbs, breaks my stride as I crash into her, let her shove me into the main hall.

“Come on, Lindsay,” she calls. And Lindsay was right behind me, I swear she was, but I hear her cry out and then a scream, fractured and hoarse. The sound rakes down my back, terrible and scraping. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

   Cat braces the front door, and Reese fumbles with the lock, throws the deadbolt across. Over it all, wet snarls and pops of bone. Lindsay whimpers once, and never again.

“You okay?” I say to Cat.

She’s got no color left in her, and her eyes are bright, but she nods. Stoic and strong, the way they teach Navy daughters to be. “For now.”

We wait—thank God the room has no windows—and pray the bear won’t try to break through the door. The lock is strong, but it won’t hold for long against something like that.

“Let’s go,” Reese says, “while we can. We have to warn Headmistress.”

Ali comes dashing down the stairs, the two Gun Shift girls at her heels. “Shit,” she says. “Where’s Lindsay?”

“Where’s Lindsay?” Cat pushes past Ali and grabs the nearest Gun Shift girl. It’s Lauren, the one who took my vacant spot. “Where the hell were you?”

“I’m sorry,” Lauren says, stumbling over her words, and the other girl, Claire, steps between Cat and Lauren.

“It’s not her fault.” She swallows, a blush visible on her cheeks even in the dim light. “We were taking shifts and it was my turn. I fell asleep.”

Cat releases Lauren’s jacket. “You fell asleep?”

Claire won’t look at her. “It was an accident.”

   “Tell that to Lindsay,” Cat snarls.

Light, then, showing at the mouth of the north corridor, and Headmistress comes hurrying into the hall, her head down. I can’t think of any place in that direction where she could keep the canister, but she knows the house better than I do.

“Hey,” Reese says, and she jumps. Stares up at us with wide, nervous eyes.

“Girls. What’s going on?”

Reese explains it all. The sound we heard, the bear, how it broke through. She leaves out Lindsay, leaves out that Gun Shift fell asleep. It doesn’t matter anyway.

Headmistress’s mouth opens and closes, a sore flashing vivid red on her tongue, and finally, she clears her throat. “How did it get through?”

Me, always me, bringing this school crashing down. Reese is angry, and I know she’s thinking about it, about telling Headmistress my half of the truth. I won’t fight it—I’ll deserve it if she does. But she shakes her head. “We don’t know.”

“Okay,” Headmistress says, more to herself than to any of us. “Okay, okay.” And then she looks at me, and she looks at Reese, and disappears into her office.

“Well, shit,” Reese says. “What do we do now?”





CHAPTER 20


What we do is wake everyone up. The house won’t hold on its own, and it’s only a matter of time before the bear breaks through. Too many doors, and the dining room windows, so tall and spreading the whole length of it, but we can at least stay alive as long as possible.

Cat and I go upstairs, march down the hallway room by room, knocking on doors and shaking the littlest girls out of sleep. There’s Julia, there’s Carson, and without prodding they start herding the others into groups and down the stairs. Candles light and girls start trickling into the hall, bleary-eyed and frowning.

Without Welch, though, we need somebody to take charge. Not Reese, but somebody the littlest girls aren’t afraid of. Somebody like Taylor.

I’m not sure exactly which dorm is hers, but I know some of the girls in her year bunk down at the end of the hallway, separated from the others by a few empty rooms. This one used to be Emily and Christine’s, that one Mary’s. I walk past them, try to ignore the rising chatter coming from the main hall as the girls assemble downstairs.

   At last, a few doors before Mona’s, there’s a room with a small flicker of light and the rustle of movement inside. I knock, step back, and Taylor wrenches the door open, her hair mussed as she finishes pulling on her shirt. There, set into her chest, a cord of muscle the width of my thumb, running down to disappear past the waist of her jeans. Pale blue and twisting, almost braided, with a pulse to it like it’s alive.

“Seen enough?” Taylor snaps.

I look away quickly. Is that some kind of vein? “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“What is it?”

I clear my throat. “It’s just…we need you down in the hall.” I tell her about the fence, about the bear, and watch her face drain of color.

“Where’s Headmistress?” she asks.

“She went to her office, but I—”

She pushes past me, one of her broad shoulders knocking mine. I can feel my body relaxing as I follow her toward the mezzanine. If she’s in charge, we’ll figure it out. She’ll know what to do.

Down the stairs, past the last few stragglers joining the others in the main hall. I catch Reese’s eye, watch relief sweep across her face as Taylor wades through the crowd. But it’s jumping the gun. Just like Headmistress, Taylor ignores the girls gathering and breaks into a jog as she heads for the office.