Girls on Fire(86)

“So picky,” Lacey said.

Together, we righted her; she was heavy, but she wasn’t fighting us anymore. That made it easier.

“You realize this is kidnapping, right?” All the trembly vulnerability was gone from her voice, nothing left beneath the flab but hard, pearly bone. “You’re going to be in huge trouble when you let me out of here.”

“You’re not giving us much incentive,” Lacey said.

“What are you going to do, kill me?”

“It’s so cute when you pretend to be fearless.” Lacey turned to me. “Dex thinks you’ll never tell. She thinks you’ll be too piss-scared of what people would think. Look how well she knows you.”

“Better than she knows you. Not as well as I do.”

Lacey closed in. I held the flashlight steady. The beam glinted off the blade.

“I want you to tell her what you did,” Lacey said.

Nikki tried to laugh. “I really don’t think you do.”

“At that stupid party. You tell her what you did, and you apologize.”

“How much is that going to mean, Hannah? You going to believe I’m sorry with a knife to my throat?”

The knife wasn’t at her throat.

And then it was.

“Lacey,” I said.

“It’s fine.”

It was fine.

“Tell her,” Lacey said. “Tell me. Let’s hear your confession.”

When Nikki swallowed, her throat bulged against the knife. “You want me to talk, step back,” she said, barely moving her lips. Keeping her head very, very still.

“I want you to talk carefully,” Lacey said.

Nikki swallowed again. “We were just having fun. You remember fun, don’t you, Lacey?”

Lacey kept her gaze on Nikki. “Did you have fun at that party, Dex?”

“No, I did not.” I’d brought along a bottle of my parents’ scotch, for courage, like they said in the movies, and now I took a burning swig. It was cold outside but hot in our boxcar, or I was hot, at least. Fizzing and tingling. Fire licking my throat.

“You let her drink too much,” Lacey said.

“She’s a grown-up.”

“You let her drink too much, and she passed out, and when she did . . .”

Nikki didn’t say anything.

I didn’t see Lacey’s hand move, but Nikki moaned. Then, “When she did, we had a little fun, like I said.”

“You took off her clothes.”

“I guess.”

“You let your idiot friends touch her.”

“Yeah.”

“Feel her up.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck her.”

“Lacey—” I said. “Don’t.”

I wanted to know; I didn’t want to know; I couldn’t know.

I drank more.

“No,” Nikki said. “I’m not a f*cking sociopath. Unlike some people.”

“Just a perv,” Lacey said, “who filmed the whole thing on her daddy’s camera. Tell us how you made them pose her. That’s still assault, you realize that, right? That’s still called rape.”

“Stop,” I said.

“I never touched her,” Nikki said.

“Of course not,” Lacey said. “Not yourself. You don’t get your hands dirty. You just make things happen.”

“Enough,” I said. Too much.

“It was harmless,” Nikki said. “Look, it was stupid, I know. I’m a bitch, I know. But it was harmless.”

That word. That she could say it. Harmless. It erased me from the picture. Without me, there was no one to be harmed.

“She wants to hear you say you’re sorry,” Lacey said. “And I suggest you try to sound like you mean it.”

I never loved anyone the way I loved Lacey that night. She was like a wild thing, a storm in a bottle, so much rage compressed into a tiny black-eyed body and channeled in my defense. It was glorious. Like watching a sunrise, blazing Crayola pinks birthing a new world, meant only for me.

“I’m sorry,” Nikki said, quietly. “And for what it’s worth, that’s actually true. I am sorry, Hannah.”

“Her name is Dex.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Dex.”

“You buy that, Dex?” She didn’t ask whether it made anything better. What made it better was forcing Nikki to admit what she’d done. And knowing I had the power to make her suffer for it.

I wasn’t supposed to be that kind of person. I was a good girl, and good girls weren’t supposed to take pleasure in pain. But I did, and I found there was no shame in it.

“I wish everyone could hear what kind of person she really was,” I said. “Imagine if they knew.”

“They know,” Lacey said. “They just don’t give a shit.”

But they didn’t know. It wasn’t just Nikki’s parents who were fooled, the gullible teachers and women at her church, the kids on the outer fringes who looked unto her as a god. It was her own: They knew she was a carnivore, but didn’t understand she was a cannibal. They didn’t know how many of their boyfriends she’d screwed, how many of their hearts she’d contrived to break, how many of their secrets she’d handed to me, how many of them she’d hurt just because she was bored, just because she could. There was no leverage in me knowing that—no use in threatening to expose her. She didn’t care about them, wouldn’t care about alienating them and being left alone; that wasn’t what appealed to me about forcing her to confess. It was the prospect of forcing her to do what I wanted. Anything I wanted: Nikki stripped bare, limp and helpless, a marionette under our control.