Undead Girl Gang(57)
Riley moves toward him, grabbing a fistful of hair from the top of his head and yanking it back until he has no choice but to look at her. “So you decided to make her go? You’re a sick fuck, Caleb Treadwell.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, his eyes going wide. The scaliness that I spotted on his arm has started to crawl up the side of his neck. The skin around the silver chain is shredded and raw. “You’re the ones who faked your deaths.”
Riley lets go of him like his hair has caught fire. “What?”
“No, we didn’t,” Dayton says, placing an indignant hand to her chest.
“Yeah, you did.” Caleb frowns around the room. “You’re here. You’re alive. Aniyah’s writing an article about how this was all a hoax. Bitch is going to take the Rausch Scholarship in a sweep when it goes national.”
“Don’t call women bitches, you fuckface,” Riley says.
“Wait,” I say, holding the mason jar aloft. I should have thought to bring a colander. There’s a chance he’s going to choke on an acorn cap before we get the information we need. “What does Aniyah Dorsey have to do with this?”
Caleb tries to shrug but can only twitch his shoulders since his hands are tied. “She saw Dayton walking downtown the week after she supposedly died. There have been other sightings, too. At gas stations, at school. Angel, Sky, Diamond, and Dawn have been having meetings with the school shrink because they told everyone that June is haunting the cafeteria. I thought it was tabloid bullshit until I got the message from June. She was the only person who knew about the necklace, so it had to be her.”
Riley yanks at the ends of her hair, frustration vibrating around her. “You saw part of my skull and you think we’re just fucking with you? How would we even pull that off? Real life doesn’t have CGI.”
He shakes his head, his usual smile appearing. “It doesn’t matter. June is alive.”
“Stop saying her name like that,” Riley snaps. She yanks the mason jar out of my grip and throws the lid to the floor with a ringing clatter. She thrusts the glass against Caleb’s lip. A thin stream of the potion dribbles down his chin.
“Caleb,” June says tightly. “Drink it. Please.”
He shuts his eyes and chugs the frothing mass, sputtering when the acorn caps bump into his teeth. When he finishes, he has an airy white foam mustache. “Is that a new kind of kombucha? It needs fewer chunks.”
“How fast is it supposed to work?” Dayton whispers to me.
“No clue,” I whisper back. “I guess we’ll know when he starts admitting things.”
Caleb licks the foam off his lip and cranes his head toward June. “Are you mad I didn’t come looking for you sooner? I would never have guessed you were staying in an abandoned house. I thought maybe a hotel? Definitely somewhere with running water. You deserve so much better than this shithole.”
Riley looks over at me, one eyebrow raised. “That’s not much of a truth test. This place is the dictionary definition of a shithole.”
“Caleb,” I say loudly, “why don’t you wear jeans?”
“I don’t like how they press into my stomach,” he says automatically. “They leave lines in my skin that make me feel ugly.”
“Why don’t you like your stepmom?” June asks him.
“She never wanted kids,” he says. “After I go to college, I don’t think she’ll pretend to like me again. She wants to turn my room into a home gym.”
“Aww,” Dayton says. “You poor thing.”
“Fuck a duck, Dayton. Don’t pity the murderer,” Riley mutters.
“Why are you so obsessed with the Rausch Scholarship?” I ask.
“The winner of the Rausch Scholarship usually gets a bump in their popularity. I want people to like me. I even plagiarized my application to try to beat Aniyah.”
Above us, the ground rumbles. It sounds less like an earthquake and more like a thunderstorm. But the sky was completely clear when I was waiting in the woods.
We all look up at the ceiling as though there’s anything to see but more cement. I take a step toward the stairs, but Dayton stops me.
“You’re the only one of us with anything to lose,” she says gently. She holds her palm up. “Give me your walkie. I’ll check it out.”
I slip the walkie-talkie out of my pocket and hand it to her. I feel a tightness in my chest as I watch her skip up the stairs.
“It’s probably just FedEx,” Riley says, sensing my concern. “Who knows what else I bought?”
I nod, hoping she’s right. After all, what reason could anyone have to follow Caleb Treadwell to an abandoned house?
“Caleb,” I say, “where were you the night of Saturday, October seventh?”
He swings his head to look at me. His relief at seeing June hasn’t made him any happier to talk to me. His mouth twists into a sneer. “My dad and stepmom were on an overnight trip to Napa. I was with June for most of the night. She called Dayton for a ride home at around midnight or one.”
June moves too quickly for me to stop her. She topples over the grimoire, pulling the ceremonial dagger out. She must have hidden it there when I was outside. The ruby in the handle flashes as she whips the blade toward Caleb, the silver tip pressing into the raw patch of skin at his neck. He hisses in pain, tears starting to roll down his cheeks again.