Girls on Fire(92)

DEX


1992



YOU WANT TO STOP TALKING now,” Lacey said, less like a threat than like a hypnotist’s command.

Nikki smiled. It was a storybook grin, one that might have been called insouciant in some British story of magic and portals. “No. I don’t think I do. Hannah, would you like to hear about the last time Lacey and I came into these woods? Once upon a time, on a night very much like tonight—”

“You really want to find out what happens if you don’t stop talking?” Lacey brandished the knife.

“It’s getting old, Lace. You want to kill me, kill me. You’ll have to, because I’m tired of secrets. That’s what all this is about, right? No more secrets.”

I wonder, now, if Lacey knew that once it started, it wouldn’t stop. A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force. Maybe she wanted to tell me, needed Nikki to make her. More games, more marionettes, all of us pulling one another’s strings, turtles all the way down.

Neither of them was looking at me.

“There are worse things than death,” Lacey said. “Maybe you need another bath.” She seized Nikki’s hair, rougher than before, shoved her face into the bucket, held her hard and tight as her limbs spasmed, and it went on and on and then on too long and I shouted at her to stop.

She didn’t stop.

I screamed it. “Stop!” and “You’re going to kill her!” and “Lacey, please,” and only then did she let go. For a long, terrifying second, Nikki didn’t move. Then she coughed up a bubble of water and took a shuddery breath. Lacey did look at me then, hurt painted across her face.

“You still don’t trust me, Dex?”

“I trust you.”

“Then why do you look so scared?”

“Gosh, I wonder why.” Nikki’s head was hanging limp, her voice hoarse, mouth wide and sucking air, and still she managed to sound smug.

“This is getting boring,” Lacey said. “We got what we wanted. Let’s get out of here. Untie her and go home.”

Just like that. She said it like a punishment, like I’d been too loud and whiny in the backseat and she’d been forced to turn the car around.

“We have her on tape,” Lacey reminded me. “She won’t tell anyone. Will you, Nikki?”

Nikki shook her head, dog obedient.

“See? It’s over. Let’s go.”

It could have been that easy. We could have gone home, the three of us, safe and sound and only a little bit f*cked up for life by what happened in the woods. Lacey set that before me on a platter, and all I needed to do was reach for it. On the other side of yes: the empty highway, our artist’s loft in Seattle with its lava lamps and dissipated men, the future we’d promised ourselves. That easy.

Nikki looked hopeful, but not only that. She looked satisfied. That’s not why I said no.

We couldn’t stop, not yet. Because Lacey was too eager; because there were still secrets. Because if I let it be over, I would never know what was true.

Secrets were a claim, and as long as they shared one, they owned each other. I needed Lacey to be only mine. We would stay in this boxcar until everything was said. For Lacey’s own good, whether she knew it or not.

“Not yet,” I said. The air hissed out of both of them. “One more confession.”

“You need a break,” Lacey said. “Let’s go sit in the car for a while, listen to some music.”

“That’s right, Saint Kurt will solve all your problems,” Nikki said. “And if that doesn’t work, you can always knock her out and leave her in the woods to rot.”

“Shut up!” Lacey screamed.

I didn’t like her losing control. Nikki shouldn’t have been able to make her do that. Nikki could have no power over Lacey. I couldn’t allow it.

“We should stay here,” I said. “We should listen.”

Nikki laughed.

“We promised,” Lacey hissed, and the we was them, not us. “You promised.”

“And you tied me to a f*cking chair and tried to drown me,” Nikki said. “Pretty sure that means all promises are void. Let her hear what you did.”

“What we did. You always forget that part.”

“I’m done with that. This sad story of how we’re both to blame. Fuck that.”

“Enough,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Hannah, I tried to spare you from finding out that your friend here is a sociopath, but you wouldn’t let me. So now you get to hear the whole truth.”

“I’ll kill you,” Lacey said, like a growl. “I actually will.”

“Right, because you’re so scared that Hannah will find out what you’re capable of that you’d kill me right in front of her? That’ll convince her you’re a good person. Foolproof plan.”

Then they were shouting at each other, about who was a monster and who was to blame, and they didn’t hear me tell them stop; they didn’t see me at all. I thought maybe I was the ghost. Maybe I wasn’t there, never had been.

“Tell me the story,” I said finally, and these were the words that summoned silence. “Tell me everything.”

“Smartest thing you’ve ever said, Hannah. See, Lacey and I use to come out here—”