“Ready for tonight?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No prep, no instructions, no assigned roles. What happened to the usual protocol?”
“Bram wants to flex,” Felicity said. “Or he’s lazy. Whatever, I’m just hungry for another test.”
Yep, definite vampire vibes. “You sound excited.”
“Fear Tests are the whole point of the club. Of course I’m excited. Why aren’t you?”
I let her words linger and the silence stretched its long fingers and pointed them at me. Felicity watched me out of the sides of her eyes, her face turning into a giant snarky snarl. “Maybe you’re not such a fan of Fear Tests after failing yours?”
“I didn’t fail mine. Lux screamed.”
“Right, because of the Masked Man. Which you didn’t plan. Or did you?”
“I just want to get this over with.”
“It almost is.” It wasn’t Felicity who said it but Bram, his voice rumbling toward us from up ahead. The rest of the Mary Shelley Club—including Freddie—were huddled together behind the general store, which stood as quiet and empty as an old shoebox.
“What took you so long?” Thayer asked, bouncing on his feet, trying to shake off the cold.
“Rachel was slowing me down,” Felicity said.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Bram said. “We’re going to Pinsky’s cabin.”
“A cabin-in-the-woods trope?” Thayer said. “Gotta say, I expected more from you, Bram.”
“Not a cabin in the woods,” Bram said. “More of a home invasion.”
Flashes of Funny Games came back to me. I should’ve known he’d do something like this.
“Your tasks are simple,” he continued. “Create chaos.”
“Who’s the target?” Felicity asked.
Bram looked straight at me when he said it. “Saundra Clairmont.”
I froze, and it wasn’t from the cold. Bram knew what he was doing but still acted like it was nothing. I guess to him it was.
“No way,” I protested. “She’s my friend.”
“That didn’t seem to matter when you guys targeted my best friend and my girlfriend.”
“Revenge Fear Tests,” Thayer said. “A fun new twist.”
Bram reached inside a large backpack and tossed something soft and bulky to me and Felicity. “Put this on.”
The Black hoodies. I hadn’t noticed before, but the guys were already wearing theirs, all dressed identically. “And this.” The next thing he handed out was white with a rubbery texture. I dropped the mask as soon as I realized what it was.
The mask. From Sim’s and Lux’s tests, from my own home invasion. “Why?”
“Because masks are all the rage. And this is my Fear Test.” Bram slipped his mask over his face, and I couldn’t look at him anymore.
* * *
Felicity slipped her mask over her face like she was slipping on the perfect prom dress. Thayer seemed to examine his for a minute, but ultimately put it on. Then it was just Freddie left. He seemed to catch my eye for the millionth time that night, but he didn’t say anything to me. Instead, he said something to Bram.“What are you doing, man?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Bram said, his tone a warning.
“I’m not putting it on,” I said.
“Rule number two,” Felicity said, the mask barely muffling her glee. “You must perform the task assigned.”
Freddie, a stickler for the rules, finally succumbed. “The faster we do it, the faster it’s over,” he whispered.
“No,” I shot back. “I’m not playing anymore. I quit.”
“The game isn’t over until everyone plays,” Thayer said, echoing almost exactly what he’d said at the movie theater.
“Bram, how can you play?” I said, desperate to drill some sense into him, into someone. “Your girlfriend got hurt and we still don’t even know why.”
“You can’t quit,” Felicity said simply.
“Watch me,” I said.
“You can’t quit,” she said again. “Because if you do, we’ll tell the whole school that you killed a boy in your own house last year.”
My breath caught in my throat. I felt like I was choking. Worse, choking in front of an audience of pale-faced monsters. “What?”
But Felicity didn’t repeat herself. She knew I’d heard her perfectly. I looked around, trying to appeal to at least one of them. Freddie looked up at the sky, like he couldn’t bear to face me, even from behind the mask.
I turned to Thayer. Thayer couldn’t actually buy into this.
“We have to stick together,” he said in a voice so low it came out borderline meek. “This ensures that we stick together. That we’re a team, through the good and the bad.”
“Are you serious?” My own voice sounded foreign to me, thick with unshed tears.
Bram stepped toward me but I stepped back, wincing. He slipped his mask up so it rested over his forehead. He whispered so only I could hear.
“You heard Felicity,” he said. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do. But we all had initiations, Rachel. Not just you. We all have secrets that could destroy us.”
He bent down and picked up the mask that I’d discarded. He pressed it into my hands and all I felt was the cold pressure of his gloved knuckles mingling with the horrid rubber.
“Did you choose Saundra because I chose Lux?” I asked him. “Because I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened to her.” I meant every word, but Bram acted like he didn’t hear any of it.
He slipped the mask back over his face. “If you want this to be over, just make sure she screams.”
38
SAUNDRA CLAIRMONT
SAUNDRA SPIT BLACK sludge into the sink. The gunk made an angry, crumbly splash on the pristine porcelain as it oozed its way toward the drain. Bits of it dribbled down her chin, spilling over her blackened lips. The slits between her teeth were stained with the stuff. When she looked into the mirror she found the picture of death smiling back at her. Not just death, but hundred-year-old-, marinating-in-death-juice-beneath-the-earth kind of death. But it was worth it. She’d been using this charcoal toothpaste every day for the past month and it’d been making her pearlies the whitest ever.
She did one more round with the toothbrush, then rinsed until the black goo was gone. She shut off the bathroom light and headed back toward her room. She wanted to look her extra best because tonight was special.
Saundra hadn’t expected the night to go like this. The most she’d hoped to get out of this ski trip was some good intel on all the random hookups that were bound to go down. But to her surprise, she—for once!—was going to have a random hookup of her own.
Rachel had been acting super sus lately, which at first kind of bothered Saundra because, hello, they were friends and they were supposed to tell each other everything. But tonight Rachel had snuck off somewhere and it turned out to be for the best because Saundra needed her privacy right now.
When Rachel had started at Manchester, she’d been like a bird with a broken wing. A tiny, little, clueless hummingbird, totally lost and shivering because her heart was beating a million times a minute. Saundra’s parents had instilled a sense of charity and hospitality in her, and when Saundra had seen Rachel she felt it was her duty to fill the poor girl in on how the school operated. Then she surprised herself by actually really liking the weirdo. Saundra knew that she (sometimes) talked a lot, and some people never wanted to stay and listen. But Rachel always did.
Still, sometimes a girl had to strike out on her own. And tonight was one of those nights. With Rachel gone, Saundra had the bedroom to herself, at least for a little while. Which meant the clock was ticking. As soon as Rachel left the cabin, Saundra had downed the rest of her mixed drink and set her sights on Aldie Kirkba. She walked over to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and without saying a word, led him away from one of his dumb board games and up the stairs.
As random hookups went, this was Saundra’
s best. Also her first, but that was a minor detail. She and Aldie lay in bed together, on top of the covers (for now), fully dressed (reluctantly), and making out (sloppily). But Saundra didn’t mind the slobberiness. It meant Aldie was excited, which reinforced how much he was into her. He wasn’t the coolest guy in school (hi, they were staying in Pinsky’s cabin), or the smartest (3.1 GPA—he’d have to work on that), or even one of the richest (his parents, Alicia and Baz Kirkba, owned their own party supply company, but Middletons they were not). Aldie, though, was a good’un. And cute.
The thing was, Saundra was having trouble focusing on his parents’ jobs, or his GPA, or anything about the boy because the only thing that was consuming her thoughts right now was his hair. As she ran her fingers through it, she could feel every single strand pricking her skin. “Did you just get a haircut?” she breathed.
“What?” came Aldie’s muffled response.
“Your hair feels … alive.”
“What?” he said again. Aldie was having his own trouble focusing, trying to both swirl his tongue around in Saundra’s mouth and unhook her bra at the same time.
“It keeps poking me,” Saundra said.
“What’s poking you? Your bra?” Aldie asked, his tongue still in her mouth. Then he stopped, took his tongue out of Saundra’s mouth, and looked her in the eye. “My dick?”
“Your hair.”
She couldn’t help the marvel in her voice. Hair—a boy’s hair—had never felt this glorious before.
“That’s not gonna be the only thing poking you tonight,” Aldie said.
“What?”
Aldie stopped fiddling with Saundra’s bra and unglued himself from her lips. “Was that stupid? Am I making too many references to my dick?” He waited for Saundra’s answer, but only for a split second before cursing under his breath. “That was so stupid. I’m so stupid.”
“Noooo,” Saundra cooed, trying to sound as soothing as possible. As soothing as his hair felt as she rubbed it like a genie’s lamp. “Yes to poking. I love your hair.”
Maybe it was the endorphins of making out with a cute, super-heavy guy, but his hair actually looked like it shimmered. Like someone had spilled glitter all over it.
Aldie smiled and went back to kissing Saundra with verve. His lips felt kind of rubbery, but, Saundra thought, maybe that’s what lips feel like when you’re falling in love. As they kissed, Saundra decided that from this moment on she’d call him by his given name. Aldous. If he was going to be her boyfriend, he’d have to upgrade to his proper government name.
As he returned to swirling his tongue in Saundra’s mouth, there came a crash from downstairs.
“What was that?” Aldous asked.
“Jenga,” Saundra said, pulling him back to her mouth. Even though she was sure it sounded like something shattering and not a pile of tiny wooden bricks toppling over. But, details! This counterclockwise tongue thing was interesting and she wanted more of it. She held her hand to the back of Aldous’s neck, both to make this makeout sexier and also to keep him in place. But Aldous pulled his head back, distracted.
“I don’t think that was Jenga,” he said. “Someone would’ve come to get me if they were playing Jenga. Avery and Donavan know Jenga’s my jam.”
“Forget Avery and Donavan!”
“Yeah. Okay. But they’re my best friends—”
“You’re lying on top of a girl here!” Saundra said. “In a bed. Alone. And there are stars everywhere!”
Stars and hearts and butterflies. Saundra definitely saw butterflies.
Aldous’s tongue twister of a mouth quirked up into a sly smile. “Right.”
This time when Saundra put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled, he obliged.
Except there was more noise then. Loud, terrible sounds from the first floor, rising up the stairs. She knew Aldous heard it too, because his lips stiffened and paused against hers.
“So much Jenga,” Saundra mumbled about the definitely-not-Jenga noises. The sounds only grew louder, accompanied by yelling and screaming. It was coming closer, and then the bedroom door banged open.
Both Aldous and Saundra jolted up when a masked figure skidded to a stop before them.
“Oh not this again,” Saundra said. “Don’t you knock?!”
Aldous’s reaction was a little different. He sprang out of bed like he’d just been stuck in the ass with a cattle prod. “What the hell!” he yelped.
“It’s just a loser in a mask,” Saundra said. But the longer the person in the mask stayed in the room, saying nothing, the more he gave Saundra the heebie-jeebies.
“Get out of here!” She tried to stare the masked monster down, but his edges became hazy. Blurred. It almost looked like two masked people standing one in front of the other. Now she was starting to freak out.
“Don’t just stand there, Aldous! Protect me!”
“Aldous?” Aldous repeated, confused.
“Fine—Aldie, whatever, just do something!”
The person in the mask jumped Aldous and the two fell, thrashing on the floor, all limbs and backs, looking like they were melding together. Saundra knelt on the corner of the bed, making herself as small as possible as she watched the commotion. And then it occurred to her that this was exactly what had happened to Lux and Bram. A masked madman had also come after them. She and Aldous and Lux and Bram were sharing the same experience. They were practically the same. Maybe, Saundra thought, she could talk to Bram about it. Maybe she’d get invited to sit at their table and compare notes on whoever this ridiculous prankster was.
But as she thought about this, Saundra noticed that the masked person wasn’t even interested in Aldous. No, he was fighting back Aldous, reaching for her.
Yeah, she was nope-ing the hell out of here.
Saundra scurried off the bed, skipping over the tangle of Aldous and the Masked Man and running out of the room. The living room, formerly bumping with life, was eerily quiet now, engulfed in darkness and disarray. Ceramic shards on the carpet, food on the rugs. Where had everyone gone?
Saundra turned and saw a group huddled together behind the couch: Avery, Donavan, and Julie, the people Aldous had been playing with. Their eyes widened in terror at something behind Saundra and she whipped her head back.
And then, suddenly, there was the masked person again. But he didn’t come from upstairs. He came from the kitchen. Saundra squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. Was she seeing double? Or had this guy chased her downstairs? Things that were supposed to make sense became muddled in her mind.
This Masked Man saw her—watched her—and Saundra’s first instinct was to point to the huddled, snively guys in the corner. “They’re the ones you want!”
But the Masked Man barely glanced in their direction. He still wanted her. It was just her luck that so many guys wanted her tonight and none of it was going her way.
Saundra ran. She ran through the kitchen and the Masked Man chased her. She was the mouse now and he was the cat and she did not like those odds. She ran out of the kitchen and back to the living room and this time Saundra had the wherewithal to grab a heavy bookend off a shelf. She spun around, knowing the masked guy would be right behind her and she wasn’t sure if he ran into the bookend or if she really crashed it into his head, but either way the guy went down in an explosion of a million glittery shards.
She’d done it. She’d defeated him.
Saundra took a moment to catch her breath, wiping sweat from her forehead. The first floor took on its eerie new quietness again. But out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of black cross the hall.
Saundra needed to get the hell out of there. She ran for the front door. But as soon as she got there another masked figure popped up in front of her.
“Why are there so many of you!” she shrieked. She must’ve been imagining things. There were too many of them, it was all in her mind. She blinked over and over again but the new masked person didn’t go away. She’d always hated whack-a-
mole.
Saundra turned back and flew through the living room and up the stairs. Her plan now was to get back to the room, find a closet, and lock herself in there. Aldous would be there—he would know what to do. But when she got there, Aldous was gone. Instead, there was a masked figure. Another one, or the same one from before, idling like they were waiting for a party to start. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
Saundra fell to her knees, tired, confused, dizzy. She’d once seen on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy that when someone threatened to kill you, you were supposed to tell them your life story in order to gain sympathy. Luckily for her, if there was one thing she was good at it was talking about herself.
“I was born three weeks early in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record on the island of St. Croix. It ruined my parents’ fourth-anniversary trip—” She would’ve gone on, but the Masked Man interrupted her.
“Scream,” he said.
Except it wasn’t a he. The voice was female. Actually, the voice was familiar. It sounded echoey and distant, but Saundra knew that voice. She’d heard it often enough, every day at lunch.
“Rachel?”
A heavy pause filled the room as the two looked at each other, Saundra from her knees and the person through the mask. And then they—Rachel—spoke again. “Just scream!”
Rachel or not, Saundra didn’t have to be told a third time. She angled her head back and let one rip, her scream shrill enough to shake the house. Or at least that was what it felt like.
Saundra caught her breath and the Masked Man … woman … (Rachel?) … stood there a moment longer, then fled.
39
THERE HAD BEEN a time not so long before when the anticipation leading up to a Fear Test felt kind of delicious. Like the blood in my veins was spiked with something sweet and bubbling—a high no drug could possibly touch. And the moments after a Fear Test—the comedown, when the worry of being caught mingled perfectly with the elation of pulling it off—were the best part.
The Mary Shelley Club Page 21