You’re Next

by Kylie Schachte

  Elle continues to fidget with her necklace, not meeting my eyes. Sometimes, when people are uncomfortable, the best thing you can do is shut your mouth and let them talk.

  “And he mentioned someone. A girl. He didn’t say anything specific, but it was the way he talked about her, you know? It sounded like he killed her.”

  I remember the way Dorsey called Ava an opportunity. An obstacle. The way Matt Caine talked about Lucy. Never saying enough to incriminate himself, but I would know what he did to her.

  I know what Elle means.

  “Why now?” I ask her. “I asked you about Ava days ago, and you said you didn’t know anything.”

  She twists a strand of hair around her finger, the truest sign of vulnerability a girl like her ever reveals.

  “I was trying really hard not to see what was right in front of me. It doesn’t make me a terrible person for not wanting to admit my father might be a murderer. Would you? If your precious grandfather had killed one of your friends, how would you feel? Our relationship is complicated, but he’s still my dad.” She crosses her arms over her chest and sniffs, like she’s holding herself in. It’s a gesture I know. I’ve made it before myself.

  Fuck. Am I feeling empathy for Elle Dorsey?

  “How did your dad even know Ava?” I ask. “Had you ever seen the two of them talking or something?”

  Elle gives a tense shrug. “She came over to my house once or twice. The two of them talked about stupid political stuff. I think he mentioned something about a summer internship?” She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t think it was that weird. He’s like that with everyone.”

  It’s another one of those things that could be something, could be nothing.

  I know it’s a deal with the devil, but I have no idea how anything fits together anymore, and I need answers wherever I can get them.

  “You want me to trust you? Prove it. If you bring me something serious I will consider letting you help.”

  “I will.” Her eyes are bright and earnest. “I’ll get something big. I promise.”

  “Be discreet. I have enough problems as it is.”

  She looks at my cheek again. “Seriously, what happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” I say for the thousandth time today.

  “Did you go to the Basement last night?” Her well-groomed eyebrows are still furrowed.

  How would she know that? I stand a little straighter. “Why?”

  She looks over her shoulder, then lowers her voice. “I think maybe my dad got tipped off that you would be there. Last night, I overheard him talking to some other guy, who said he could make sure you were there. In exchange for a package or something. It didn’t make sense at the time, but now…” Her eyes drift to my cheek again.

  A cold, black dread spreads from my stomach all the way to my fingertips.

  So I was right. It was Dorsey who sent those men after me. It’s not that I didn’t already know, but hearing it out loud just makes it all the more real.

  And then there’s the other thing. Valentine is the one who convinced me to go to the Basement last night. Promised me something I wanted to get me there. He was so cagey. Nervous.

  Those guys were waiting for me, like they knew I’d be there.

  Valentine fought at my side. He beat the man who cut me into the ground. And the way he looked at me after, the things he said. The kiss. That couldn’t have been an act.

  But he was the only one besides Cass who knew I was going to the Basement, and I know for a fact that she would never sell me out.

  Elle’s been watching me this whole time. I fight to keep my face blank. She could be storing all of this away to use against me later.

  All I say is, “Thanks, I’ll look into it. But I need something bigger than that if you want to play for real.” I turn and walk away before I can break completely.

  The bathroom floor is hard and cold. I’m not going to history today. It was a miracle I even made it to the bathroom before I lost it. Now I’m sitting on the floor in the big stall, trying to hold myself together.

  With shaking hands, I take out my phone and search for the Rosalind Coalition, the nonprofit where Elle claims she befriended Ava. This I can do. Focus on a task. Ignore my feelings. Cass would tell you: it’s what I’m good at.

  Thinking about her makes my screen blur in my vision. I breathe in through my nose and swallow. Pull myself back in.

  The organization’s home page has a slideshow of photos. Three young girls work together on a computer. Another girl measures bright blue liquid in a beaker. The slideshow changes again. A group photo: a dozen middle school girls, all wearing the same teal T-shirts. Some of the volunteers cluster together at the back, and there, dead center, are Ava and Elle. Arms around each other’s backs. Elle is midlaugh, like Ava cracked a joke.

  She looks like the Ava I thought I knew. Not the sterile, stripped-down version everyone seems to remember, or the more confusing version I’ve been uncovering in my investigation. This is the Ava who made inappropriate jokes and gave perfect side-eye.

  The shakes grow more violent, and I drop my phone.

  I pull my knees up tight against my chest. All of the tears I’ve held back this week come pouring out. Tears for Ava, for all of us, even for me. My stomach aches and clenches with the force of it. My cut stings with salt water. The bruises on my back and arm throb. I hold myself and fall apart.

  I paw the floor for my phone. I can barely see to write the text to Cass:

  Bathroom by the auditorium please come I need you

  I know I don’t deserve it. Maybe she won’t come. Maybe I finally pushed her over the edge. But I’m bawling on the floor of the bathroom, and I don’t know if I can get up without her.

  Ages later, the door opens, and Cass’s red Vans approach.

  She takes one look at my snotty, tear-streaked face and I can see her anger melt away. She slips into the stall and sits on the floor next to me.

  I curl up into her side as a fresh wave of sobs breaks over me.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out before she can say anything. The dam breaks completely. In an uncontrollable flood, I tell her everything I haven’t been able to say. My confusion, and want, and guilt about Valentine. The disappointment on my grandfather’s face. All the ways I’ve let Ava down in this investigation, and all my twisted feelings about the secrets she kept.

  And Cass, my best person. How I hurt her every day, without even trying.

  I talk and talk, gulping, choking, sobbing the words out. Cass lets me lean against her shoulder, soaking the sleeve of her shirt.

  When I finally run myself dry, she lets out a long exhale. “Well, Flora. I reckon you’re pretty fucked up in the head.”

  I start to laugh, but that only gets me crying again.

  She wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Oh, you complete idiot. Why have you been carrying all this shit around? Wouldn’t it be easier to talk about it before you implode?” She gestures to my wet, puffy face.

  I know she’s right, but it never feels so easy.

  “I really am sorry.” My voice is still raspy with tears. “I shouldn’t have said any of those things this morning. I know you’re in this with me. You wouldn’t bail.”

  For a second, I almost tell her about the surveillance photos. The news clippings on my desk. YOU’RE NEXT. I don’t know why, but those are the only things I held back.

  Cass pulls some toilet paper off the roll and dabs at my face, wiping away the mascara and the mucus. The gentleness of her touch sets my lip quivering again. It feels so good not to be fighting. I don’t know if I could take seeing the hurt on her face again when I tell her there are more things I hid from her. At least not right now.

  We’re quiet for a long time as Cass cleans my face.

  “Ava was running the Basement this whole time?” Cass asks eventually.

  “I don’t know what to even think about it.”

  Cass tosses the wad of paper in the toilet. “We don’t know th
e full story. She might have had her reasons. It doesn’t necessarily make her a bad person.”

  I nod. I know this, but that doesn’t make it any less confusing.

  Something else has been bugging me. “The numbers don’t add up.”

  Cass looks at me expectantly.

  I open the calculator on my phone, talking through the numbers as I punch them in. “I would guess they had a crowd of about five hundred people the times I’ve gone, and each one of them is paying twenty dollars at the door. Based on everything Valentine’s said about the schedule and his pay, the boss is still walking away with something like five grand a night after paying all the fighters. Even if there was only one fight a week—and we know there’s more sometimes—they would have made close to two hundred thousand dollars in ticket profits alone since last summer, not even counting all the gambling and drink sales. Ava’s tuition makes up less than half of that.”

  Cass nods. “So where’s the rest of the money?”

  “Exactly. She paid for school in cash. She would have needed a safe place to hide it.”

  “Not in her room,” Cass muses. “You searched it. Plus it’s too obvious. Her mom might’ve found it while she was cleaning or something.”

  “I feel like that’s a risk anywhere in her house,” I say. “But I can’t see how it’s safe to hide that much cash anywhere else, either.”

  “Maybe she had a business partner?” Cass throws out. “The other half of the money would be theirs.”

  It’s so obvious, I could kick myself.

  I couldn’t figure out how to make the things Austin and Elle told me fit together. I was so convinced that Dorsey was the one in charge. The whole operation of the Basement is too slick, too well organized. It always felt so unreasonable that the kids I go to school with could pull something like that off. But it doesn’t have to be one or the other.

  Dorsey and Ava were business partners. They met through Elle last summer. Dorsey could hire people like Boyd, pay off the police, handle all that cash. But he would have needed someone on the ground to recruit fighters. He wouldn’t want a bunch of kids knowing about his involvement, and no high school student would trust an adult making that kind of offer. That was Ava’s job, and she would have been good at it. She was well liked. People trusted her.

  Only something went wrong, and he wanted her out.

  I explain my theory to Cass.

  She chews her lip while she thinks it over. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but why? Dorsey’s a congressman. And he’s already rich. He has a whole lot to lose if he gets caught. Would that kind of money even be worth it to him?”

  It’s a fair point. “I don’t know.” Something Elle said a few days ago comes back to me, though. “Dorsey ran for Senate once before, but he lost. Elle thinks he’d do anything to win this time, and it’s not like you can ever have too much campaign money, right?”

  Cass raises her eyebrows. “That could make sense. Getting elected to the Senate is way more prestigious than the House, and it would be a good stepping-stone to other stuff, too. Like running for president.”

  We both lean back against the wall, thinking.

  Cass asks, “So, are you going to talk to VT?”

  “No.”

  “Flora.”

  I shake my head. “How many times does someone have to stab you in the back before you stop handing them the knife?”

  I don’t want to believe he would do that again, but I can’t deny that something was off last night. Every time I’ve doubted my instincts about him, it’s come back to bite me.

  “He saved your life,” she says quietly. “Why would he do that if he sold you out?”

  I remember the gentleness of his fingers as they smoothed the bandage over my cheek. The sweet burn of whiskey as I kissed him. His breath against my neck, unsteady with wanting.

  The idea that any of that could have been faked makes me furious.

  “I don’t know why he does anything, and I don’t care.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re crying your eyes out in a bathroom stall.”

  I ignore her.

  Cass sighs. “At least give him the chance to explain. I mean, since when do we take Elle Dorsey at her word? You have trust issues, and Elle feeds on chaos. Maybe you only believe her because it confirms all the toxic bullshit you already thought.”

  “How else would Dorsey know that I was there last night? It’s not like you told him. No one else knew.” I lean my head against her shoulder.

  “True, but there were a bunch of other people from school there, plus you ran into that man Boyd. It was a wig and some makeup, not exactly a CIA-level disguise,” she points out. “Or Elle could be lying for her own weird power-bitch reasons.”

  “I don’t know.” I think of the glassy, fragile look in Elle’s eyes this morning. “You should have seen her earlier. I think she might have layers, as wild as that sounds.”

  Cass turns her head toward me in slow motion. “Oh, my God, tell me you don’t have a crush on Elle Dorsey now.”

  “Um, what? No! I meant—”

  Cass laughs. “Of course you do, she’s totally your type.”

  It’s like a pie to the face. “Excuse me?”

  “She’s all combative but damaged inside. You’re a narcissist, Flora. You’re attracted to people who remind you of yourself.” She blinks at me innocently.

  “Are you…” I narrow my eyes. “You’re fucking with me. Torturing me because I was such a bitch earlier?”

  “Yep. But seriously, give VT the chance to explain himself.” She fishes her car keys out of her bag. “Take these. Get the real story.”

  I stare at the keys dangling from her hand. I want so badly to take them.

  If he did betray me again, it’s going to hurt a thousand percent more this time.

  “No, I’m a mess as it is.” I gesture to my red, puffy face. “Any more emotional crap will have to wait.”

  Cass gives me a wry smile. “I think that’s the motto on the Calhoun family crest.”

  I pound on Valentine’s door. It’s 6 a.m. on a Saturday, and I don’t care if I wake the entire city. My head isn’t any more sorted than yesterday, but waiting to talk to him has only converted all my hurt and confusion into fury.

  Valentine opens the door. His eyes look drugged with sleep, and his long hair sticks out in different directions. The adorableness of it makes me a thousand times more pissed.

  I slam past him, into the apartment. “I want the truth. No more games.”

  He shuts the door behind me and yawns. “Mornin’, Cherry.”

  I point at him. “Cut it out with the cute nicknames. Tell me. Did you set me up the other night?”

  He looks more awake now. His silence is the only answer I need.

  Even though I saw it coming, the pain of it nearly levels me to the floor.

  “Right.” I turn for the door. “I’m done. Stay out of my life.”

  He reaches for me. “No, wait—”

  I slip away. I don’t want him to touch me. Don’t know what I’ll do if he touches me.

  “Please. You gotta hear me out.”

  I grab the door handle. “I really don’t.”

  “I have a lead I think you’ll want.”

  The ability to shoot laser beams out of my eyes would be really useful right about now.

  “Funny how your ‘leads’ are always either nothing or nearly get me killed.” I walk out into the hallway.

  This is the last time I’ll ever see him. I stomp all over the little voice reminding me of that.

  Fuck him. Fuck the soft Valentine, and the vicious one. I’m done trying to figure out which one’s real. It doesn’t matter anymore.

  He follows. “I got a stack of documents that belonged to my sister. Think it might have something to do with Dorsey.”

  I pause.

  His wild, desperate eyes search my face, like he was afraid of never seeing me again, too. I don’t know how that can be true, thoug
h, considering how many times he’s lied to me.

  “Speak.” I brush past him back into the apartment.

  “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.” He shuts the door behind him. “Boyd approached me the other day. Said he had something I wanted, if I could get you to the club. Something from my sister.”

  “I guess everyone has a price,” I snap.

  Just like that, the earnest, pleading look is gone and he’s ready for a fight. “I’ve been searching for my sister’s killer for a year. You think I’m going to give up on that because a pretty girl walks by? Would you?”

  I guess that answers my questions about the kiss and what it meant. Good. Makes this easier.

  “No, but you asked for my help,” I remind him. “Side by side, isn’t that what you said? Didn’t think you’d throw me under the bus first chance you got, but maybe I’m naive.”

  He shouts back, “You should have been fine! I was going to be with you the whole time. I thought I could get what I needed from Boyd and keep you safe. Two birds, one stone.”

  “But you didn’t!”

  “You think I don’t know that? You’re such a goddamn stubborn lone wolf that of course you ran off on your own. Don’t know why I didn’t see that one coming. If you’d stayed put like I told you, none of this would have happened.”

  My blood scalds me from the inside out. “So we’re back to this being my fault? You set up this insane plot without filling me in, but I’m to blame when everything goes to shit?”

  He tugs at his hair. “No! I know I fucked up. You think I felt nothing, watching that piece of trash cut into you like that?”

  “I don’t know what you think or feel. Every time I think I have you figured out, you tell me some sob story about your past, or stab me in the back, or kiss me, and I don’t know what any of it means! And now you’ve lied to me. Again. I trusted you.”

  The words take me by surprise. I didn’t realize it until now, but in spite of everything I did trust him. I don’t think this would hurt so bad if I hadn’t.

  The cut on my cheek throbs again.

  The dreamy way he looked up at me as I drove the getaway car.