Wilder Girls(74)

It takes everything I have to stay standing, the guilt pressing down on me, and it’s like drowning except I can’t show it. I can’t let Headmistress know it was us.

“Too great a risk for too small a payoff,” she continues. “They can’t cure this. Maybe if they’d been able to do a broader range of testing—”

“A broader range?” It’s knocking at some memory I can’t quite find, and I shut my eye, filter through the last few days until it comes burning back. Welch, on the pier that day, right before she died. They wanted to test all of us, to experiment on the food, she said, but she wouldn’t let them.

“Welch was on our side,” I say. “Wasn’t she?”

Headmistress frowns. “I’m not sure what constitutes your side, Hetty, but she was adamant that we not subject the whole student body to testing, that it would lead to unnecessary suffering.” She smiles nervously. “Personally, I think it’s clear she was mistaken.”

“She killed herself.” I’m shaking, and Reese presses in closer, lays her hand on the small of my back. “She did that because of your plans.”

“Let’s not forget,” Headmistress says, a flash of annoyance crossing her face, “she was a grown woman capable of critical thinking. She made her own choices. I won’t be held responsible for them.”

   She’s right. Welch did choose—she chose us every time she threw out the contaminated supplies, every time she had us lie to Headmistress about it.

And I was wrong. I had her wrong the whole time.

I can’t be here anymore. Every mistake I’ve made, digging us in deeper, and the whole place will be better off without me, even when the jets come.

“Hetty,” Reese says behind me. Out in the hallway I can hear talking, louder and louder as the other girls raid a nearby classroom for desks and benches, anything they can barricade the doors with.

I look back to Headmistress. “How long until the jets?”

“They’ll be here by dark.”

That’s it. A day. That’s all Raxter has left until a squadron of jets blows it off the map. I can hear my father in my head, and he’s telling me to run, as fast and as far as I can. I will. But there’s still one thing left. “Why bother with the water, then,” I ask, “if we’re all dead anyway?”

Headmistress coughs delicately. “It’s more humane.”

“Humane?” I nearly laugh. I can’t believe her. “Where was that when you tried to gas us?”

“Gas?” Reese says from behind me, shock tight in her voice. I’d forgotten she didn’t know.

“It should have worked,” Headmistress insists. “I don’t think your dose was concentrated enough. It worked on your friend, after all.”

   For a second I’m not here anymore. I’m on the ferry that first day, watching Byatt watch me. Her smile like something I’d been waiting for my whole life, her smile like I was something special.

“No,” I say. “No, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“Your friend. Miss Winsor.”

My breath catches. Reese swears softly.

But Headmistress keeps on. “From what I hear she was very helpful.”

“?‘Was’?” I say. But I know; I know what’s coming.

“She’s dead.” Headmistress shrugs. “The CDC administered her dosage of the gas sometime yesterday.”

I feel hollow, like the center of me has vanished. Ripped clean out of me. She can’t be gone. Tears pricking at my eye, and my whole body shuddering. “I don’t believe you,” I say. “I don’t, I don’t.”

“Well, that hardly matters.”

I’m across the room before I realize it, my hand clawing at Headmistress’s face. She cries out, and blood streaks over her skin as my nails tear a stripe down her cheek. Reese grabs me around the waist and hauls me back, my legs kicking wildly as she drags me away from Headmistress.

“She’s lying,” I say. “She doesn’t know Byatt. She doesn’t understand.”

“I know,” Reese says in my ear. “You’re right. You are. But we don’t have time. Like you said, okay? We have to go.”

   “Yeah.” I swallow hard, force my body to relax. “Just one thing first. Dump the bottles. Except one.”

“No,” Headmistress says, “no, no, wait.” Reese lets me go, lets me press my forearm against Headmistress’s neck.

“It’s over,” I say. Behind me Reese starts pouring out the water. The floor turns dark and slick, and Headmistress is crying.

Byatt isn’t dead. I won’t believe it. Headmistress has lied before, and she could be lying now. I’ll find Byatt like I promised I would. And when I do, I’ll be able to tell her I did this in her name.

I drop my arm from Headmistress’s throat. Reach back toward Reese, and she presses the last water bottle into my working hand. For Byatt, for Mr. Harker, and for us.

“We were supposed to drink this?” I say, holding the bottle up to my lips. She nods.

“It’s what’s best for you,” Headmistress says. “You don’t want all that pain. I promise, it’ll be the easiest thing in the world.”