Undead Girl Gang(69)

I can see candlelight reflecting in the wetness of Riley’s eyes as she moves her gaze over her shoulder. Toward the door. The undulating flame makes her eyes look wild where they should be expressionless.

Cold dread settles deep under my skin, spreading all the way out to my fingertips. My lips and eyelids are buzzing with fear that I have to choke down whole.

“He’s here already, isn’t he?” I ask Riley under my breath. “He’s been here with you all day.”

Tears spill onto her waxy cheeks. “He didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

I swallow. “Aniyah. Once you clear the porch, run as fast as you can. Text me when you are home and every single door is bolted shut. This isn’t a joke. I need you to get out of here alive, okay?”

But the broken porch steps are already shrieking under the weight of footsteps. The silhouette in the doorway is distinctly Xander’s, from the part in his hair to the field of mushrooms blooming across his torso.

His voice floats out of the darkness. It freezes my bones as it whispers, “Mila?”





TWENTY-ONE



XANDER RUSHES INTO the living room. His chest is pumping like he’s been running. The mushrooms have spread across his chest and down his stomach, covering the front of him in fungi that end abruptly at the elastic band of the black pajama pants I saw him in last night. His feet are bare and caked in mud and blood.

I wonder if the blood is his.

June and Dayton make a dead-girl wall between Xander and me and Aniyah. Riley stands to the side, rubbing her broken wrist.

Xander pauses on the threshold of the living room, visibly recoiling.

“Mila,” he says, making eye contact with me from over June’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Is she okay?” Aniyah asks, pushing past the zombies. “What the fuck is wrong with your skin?” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Is he dead, too?”

Her attention is diverted for a second too long. Xander sinks his hand deep into her hair, fisting his fingers around the roots of her barrel curls.

“Don’t!” Riley shouts.

Arm shooting out, he flings Aniyah sideways. Her head cracks against the handle of the open basement door, and she crumples to the ground, lying very still.

“No!” I try to rush forward to get to Aniyah, but Xander meets me halfway, his hands wrapping around my forearms. His lips curl into his most disarming smile, the one that makes his eyes sparkle like sapphires. But that sparkle means nothing. It’s just glitter with no substance.

“Mila,” he repeats. He pushes my hair out of my face so hard that I can feel strands breaking. “Riley told me everything. She told me it was an accident. I’m not mad. You’ll fix it. I’ll help you fix it. I know you didn’t mean to bring them back. You didn’t know what you were doing. I told you that I’m not mad about”—his eyes flick down to his chest, but he looks away quickly, his jaw tense—“any of it. I saw that you took June’s lip gloss out of Riley’s room that night I gave you the necklace. I’m not mad about that either. You didn’t know it was special. Just like Riley didn’t know not to take my shoe. I should have told you sooner what the lip gloss meant to me. And what you mean to me. You wouldn’t have had to do this on your own. I should have been there to help.”

The lip gloss. I can only faintly picture it now. Too fancy to be purchased in Cross Creek. The plastic melted down to a goo before the grave swallowed it.

It was June’s. And if Dayton had ever borrowed it, it would have her DNA, too.

Stomach acid splashes all the way up to my front teeth. I yank my arms back.

“You can’t help me,” I say. “You killed June and Dayton.”

“That’s what you’re mad about?” He goggles at me and spreads his arms wide. “Jesus Christ, Mila. Look at me!”

The floorboards squeak. Xander turns to see June and Dayton leaning over Aniyah, trying to help her to her feet.

“Get away from her,” he warns, taking a threatening step. I see something red glinting in his pocket. The handle of the ceremonial dagger, bobbing. It isn’t sharp enough to tear through the deep fleece pockets, but with enough force behind it, it could draw blood. I wonder if he meant to use it against Aniyah. Was he going to bother staging her death as another suicide?

Riley jumps in his way, putting her hands up to stop him but not actually touching him. “Let them leave,” she pleads. “Just let them go. You don’t need them.”

“Shut up, Riley,” he sneers, maneuvering around her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You spent a week living with them!”

She circles around him again, her voice breaking. “You were friends with them for years!”

Dayton holds her hands out to help Aniyah get to her knees.

“I said leave her there!” Xander snarls. I’ve never noticed the vein in his temple, how it leaps up and down when he talks. There’s another one pulsating in his neck. He reaches for the closest taper and throws it into the kitchen. It misses the girls but lands among the shattered glass. The essential oil erupts into flames, a perfect line of fire that slices across the kitchen and licks at the doorframe.

Of course. He’s too smart to not have booby-trapped the exit. He meant for Aniyah to die here.