by Bella King
Molly shook her head. “I never told you her name, though.”
“I just know things, so you might as well tell me what the big deal is about her,” I said.
Molly took the longest breath I had seen from her, then began. “I used to have a crush on Bradly, you know? He was big, handsome, lusted after by all the other women. I mean, who didn’t like him.”
I nodded. “He is something.”
Molly laughed. “Well, I don’t feel that way anymore, but I used to.”
“Fair enough,” I replied, secretly relieved that she wasn’t into him anymore. That would have made this more awkward than it had to be. I hadn’t told her that I had slept with him, and even now, I didn’t think it would be a good idea.
“Anyway, Bradly was really into Anna, and I got jealous. Megan told me that he was going to try to get her to drink with him so that she would fuck him.”
My heartbeat was beating double-time now. This was the same story that Bradly had told me, or was it different?
“I did something bad. Megan told me that I could make Anna and Bradly sick if I put something in the drink. I don’t know what it was, but she said that a few shots and they would be too sick to have sex.”
My mouth dropped open as she told the story. This was all coming together now.
Molly’s hands were shaking on the wheel as she finished. “Megan was right. They were too sick to have sex. In fact, they got so sick that Anna died. I did it, Ava. I killed Anna,” she said turning her head to me with tears in her eyes.
“Woah, watch the road,” I said, pointing through the windshield.
Her eyes moved back to the road, swerving back into her lane.
“Listen, Bradly is the one who thinks he killed Anna,” I explained.
Molly sniffed, trying to keep her nose from running. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were so watery that I was concerned that she couldn’t see the road properly. “I know that. It’s all my fault. I should have told him, but Megan said that if I did, she would tell the whole school that I poisoned Anna and I would get in trouble.”
“Is there any proof of that?” I asked.
Molly shook her head. “I guess not, but my reputation would be ruined.”
Again, with the reputations. Megan was playing an interesting game, but she didn’t have that firm of a handle on these two. Neither of them had done anything terribly wrong, and it had been Megan who lied to them.
I got an idea. “Hey, does Megan still use that poison stuff?”
Anna nodded. “She made me drink it before, remember? She makes everyone drink it. It’s really bad for you, but it won’t kill you unless you drink a lot. I guess Anna was just kind of weak. She never drank before, I don’t think.”
“Fuck,” I said, remembering how close to death I was from the same substance. “If we can get ahold of some of that, we can turn this on Megan. Where does she get it from?”
“I don’t know,” Molly replied, lifting up the bottom of her shirt to dry her eyes.
“Well, you’re going to find out for me,” I said, crossing my arms.
“What? I can’t do that,” Molly insisted.
I chuckled. “It’s that or the whole school is going to know that you’re responsible for Anna’s death.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Molly said, frowning and turning red with frustration.
“All is fair in love and war. Just do what I say, and Megan never has to know, okay?” I said.
“Alright,” Molly replied, sounding defeated.
“Great,” I said cheerfully, ”Now let’s get to shooting!”
Chapter 26
One in the chamber, two down the range, and three in the person who wronged you.
Molly and I put everything behind us for one evening and pumped so much lead down the range in her father’s backyard that by the end of it, I felt half-deaf even with earplugs in. Guns are seriously loud.
Molly was the best shot I’d ever seen, able to sink a whole clip into the middle of a target in just a few seconds. My shots were all over the place, but as I learned how to steady my hands and stop jerking the gun every time that I pulled the trigger, I got good enough to hit the target most of the time.
I didn’t know whether I would need the skills that I was learning, but I figured that it would be better if I knew how to handle the gun that I had bought. A gun in the wrong hands was worse than not having one at all.
Besides the practicality of it, I enjoyed finally having some time to hang out with Molly one-on-one. I felt like she was a decent person on the inside, perhaps even more so than I was, and I genuinely wanted to be friends with her. As long as she wasn’t still secretly interested in Bradly, that was.
Jokes aside, Molly and I had a nice time together, but she wasn’t planning on staying at her father’s house overnight again. She had to drive me home, so after a few hours of having fun, we began the drive home.
“You know, I’m really glad that we met,” Molly said as she climbed into the car to start the journey home. “I stand by what I said at first. I admire you for your bravery, but I don’t think it’s foolish anymore. I think you’re doing the right thing, even if it is difficult.”
“I appreciate that. Not a lot of people seem to think like me, but somebody has to stand up to Megan. She’s a pest.”
Molly laughed. “That’s true. Do you think everything is going to be alright, though? I mean, don’t you think that this is going to end up with a lot of casualties?”
“Casualties?” I asked. “Do you mean deaths?”
“Not necessarily, but yes, it could include that,” she replied solemnly.
“It doesn’t have to if we do it right. A lot of people are going to side with us. I know it, but we need to be covert about what we’re doing. You’re going to need to find out who is providing Megan with that poison that she keeps having everyone drink, and I’m going to get Bradly onto the team once and for all.”
“Bradly? Are you fucking him?” Molly asked out of the blue.
Shit, she knew more than I thought she did, but that was always the case with Molly. She seemed to have a sixth sense like nobody else. That’s another reason why I wanted her on my side and not Megan’s other than the fact that she was fun to be around.
“Bradly is nice,” I said dreamily.
“I knew it,” Molly said, nodding her head with pursed lips. “Oh, I’m not mad or anything, but I knew that you wanted to fuck that guy. He pulls everyone in, but the funny thing is, he doesn’t sleep around. If you two had sex, he’s probably serious about you,” she explained.
I felt butterflies in my stomach at that notion. “You think so?”
Molly nodded again confidently. “I know so. Bradly hasn’t been able to get over Anna, and he totally refused to date anyone after that.”
“Wow,” I said, not knowing that I had gotten so lucky before. I wasn’t surprised that he was so rude to me, but I was surprised that he had slept with me. I really hoped what Molly was saying was true, because I did have a major crush on him. It wasn’t just about sex for me.
“But I guess he’s finally starting to move on from that. I think everyone wants to move on from that,” she continued, staring out the windshield in deep thought while she drove.
I could tell that her mind was drifting away, back toward the memories that made her cling to Megan as though she were the only one who could save her from them. She couldn’t change the past. Nobody could, but Megan was the one administering the poison, not healing the wounds. Molly needed to understand that.
I cleared my throat. “Molly, we’re going to fix all this. I promise we will, but you need to give it your all. I don’t want you half-assing anything.”
Molly’s glanced over to me shyly. “I will,” she said quietly.
“I can’t hear you,” I said loudly, leaning down toward her.
“I said, I will. I’m not going to bend to Megan anymore. I’ll find out where she’s getting the poison from and we’
ll make sure that she can never hurt anyone again.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” I said, smiling with satisfaction. I felt much better now than I had just days before. I felt like we were about to shut this whole thing down, and Megan’s empire was crumbling before her very eyes.
“You need to promise me something else too, Ava,” Molly said.
“Anything.”
She grinned at me. “Once this is all over, will you make me a dress for Prom?”
I was taken aback. “How do you know about my dresses?”
She laughed. “Duh, I’ve been to your house. The black one that you were making that you threw out was pretty neat. I kind of want one like that.”
“Jesus, Molly. You know too much,” I said, joining her in laughter. “Stay the hell out of my house.”
We both laughed as the car rolled down the long grey highway back home.
Chapter 27
Hard work pays off.
I hunted down Bradly the next day at school, leaving Molly to do the work she had agreed to do for me. I caught a glimpse of Megan down the hallway glaring at me, but she didn’t approach me. Maybe she was scared of me. Maybe I should have been scared of her, but I wasn’t. I was on a mission, and I wanted to get Bradly in on it as soon as I could.
The problem was, I couldn’t find him. It was only after searching for half an hour that I stopped to ask one of the cheerleaders if they had seen him. If anyone knew where he was, they would.
“Why do you ask?” A tall one with asked, blowing a bubble with her gum like a caricature of herself.
I rolled my eyes. “Just tell me where he is. I need to talk to him.”
“You’re not going to try to suck his dick, are you? That’s reserved for me,” she sneered.
I wish these girls weren’t so obsessed with him. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier if I didn't fall in love with the most popular guy at the Palm Valley Academy. I squinted at her. “I’m sure he would love to get his dick sucked by you and all, but I had other business with him. Where is he?” I said firmly.
The girl sighed, as though it pained her to tell me anything. “In the locker rooms. They just had a game,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping back and turning around to head there. I didn’t have a lot of time left before class, so I would have to make this quick. Mr. Griffon was starting to get annoyed that I was either late or absent from his classes lately. I didn’t think it mattered because my grades were fine, but he had a different way of thinking.
I rushed to the men’s locker room, hoping that none of the teachers say me going in. Most of the time, they weren’t skulking around outside the locker rooms, so it was fine. They had to maintain some level of professionalism at this school. It was easy to get called a pervert if you were outside the locker rooms for too long.
I came up to the locker rooms, and thankfully there weren’t many people around. Normally if the football team was playing, there would have been girls lined up outside to see them when they got finished, but there were none. I found that odd.
Maybe it was just a light practice day, but that didn’t calm the strange feeling I had deep in my gut as I took the first careful step into the room, shielding my eyes so that I didn’t see anything that I didn’t want to as I looked for Bradly.
I should have listened to that gut feeling. It was always right.
The second step brought me into the arms of a man who I didn’t recognize. He didn’t even look like a student at the school. He was older and coarse, like someone who had crawled in off the streets instead of someone who would be changing back into school uniform after a football match.
I yelped as his arms came down on me, squeezing me so tight that I felt like my ribs would break. I couldn’t free my arms from his grasp. I shrieked but fell silent when he whirled me around to face Megan. She stood there with her arms crossed, an evil smile on her bright red lips, and a large man lifeless at her feet. It was Bradly.
“I see you’ve met my friend, Jeffery. He brewed something up for Bradly here, but I don’t think it agreed with him,” Megan said, her smile spreading as I struggled to get out of Jeffery’s tight grip.
It was no use. Jeffery was clearly quite a bit older than all of us, and he had the strength to match his age, as if every year of his life he had spent getting stronger. I went limp, focusing instead on trying to breathe while he squeezed my lungs.
“What did you do to him?” I snarled, my eyes fixed on Bradly's body, praying that his chest would rise to show that he was breathing.
“Jeffery made him a stiff drink today. What can I say? He’s not feeling too good, but I’m sure he’ll feel better when you’re sleeping right next to him. You two like doing that, don’t you? Sleeping together?” Megan said, her mouth forming a mocking pout as she spoke.
“You’re disgusting,” I spat.
“You could have had him without all this, Ava. I want you to know that. If you had just kept your little mouth shut and stayed in line, you and Bradly would have had a nice life together, but you had to go and do some really stupid stuff. People are talking, and they’re not saying good things about you. They don’t like you one bit.”
I laughed. “You’re one to talk.”
“Shut up,” she snapped.
“Never,” I said, my eyes leveling with hers.
She smiled but made no attempt to hide the insanity written all over her face. “Maybe a drink will help change your mind.”
I struggled against Jeffery’s grasp again, but it didn’t help. I was stuck, and in a rather bad position. I told myself that I wasn’t going to get caught off guard, and what do I go and do? I get caught off guard. This was the consequence of my cockiness.
“I have something delicious for you to try. Jeffery has been making some tweaks to the recipe after it didn’t kill you the first time,” Megan said, pulling a bottle from behind Bradly’s limp body and shaking the contents. Clear liquid sloshed around inside.
She stepped over Bradly and shook the bottle again. “He’s how the story goes. You and Bradly get drunk together and both die of alcohol poisoning, naked and passed out in the men’s locker room. Real classy, if you ask me.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I replied, my heart drumming a thousand beats per second in my chest. I felt like I could faint, but I had to stay conscious if I was going to make it out of here alive.
“No, you won’t,” Megan said, unscrewing the lid from the bottle and tossing it to the floor. It bounced at my feet, then rolled to a stop at my toes.
I kept my mouth sealed shut as she came toward me, but that wasn’t good enough. Her thin claw-like fingers pinched the side of my mouth, squeezing my jaw painfully hard. She tilted the bottle to my lips and poured it over my mouth.
I felt the cold sting of the poisonous alcohol against the thin skin of my lips, but barely any got into my mouth. I was going to give her hell in return for what she had done to Bradly, and what she was trying to do to me.
“Drink it,” Megan shrieked, slapping me hard in the face.
I shook my head, keeping my mouth shut as Jeffery’s grip tightened around my arms. I could barely breathe, but I wasn’t going to give in.
Megan gave me little choice, though. She pinched my nose, waiting for me to gasp for air, and shoved the glass bottle into my mouth so hard that it chipped my tooth. Liquid poured like fire into my throat. Some of it went down, while the rest of it tried to work its way into my throat.
I coughed and sputtered as the drink burned my insides. It felt like nothing I had ever drunk before. It was like drinking lighter fluid or gasoline. I felt sick almost immediately, and the fumes alone were enough to make me lightheaded. I wouldn’t last long like this.
As I coughed and tried to clear my lungs, Megan came at me again, tilting the bottle into my mouth and pouring its wicked contents in. She dumped as much of it in before I managed to turn my head away, spitting it back out at her.
“How dare you,”
she growled, throwing another slap at my face.
Her hand hit me so hard that I could feel a welt forming on my cheek just seconds after. My whole body screamed at me to do something, to get away, but I couldn’t escape from Jeffery. It was like his body was made of steel.
I felt the effects of the first drink begin to take over my body already. I was weak, growing flushed in the face from more than the slap, and my heart was struggling to beat properly. It had been racing before, but now it had slowed down to an unnaturally slow crawl.
“Open up, buttercup,” Megan said in a sing-song voice, bringing the bottle to my lips again.
My eyes began to flutter closed, and I opened my mouth accepting my fate. There was nothing I could do now but pray that I didn’t die from this. It was unlikely though. This was probably the end for me.
Chapter 28
There is more than darkness in the world.
“Don’t move, bitch!”
My head snapped around toward the familiar voice, knocking the poisonous liquid away from my mouth. It was Molly, standing ten feet away with a gun gripped tightly in both hands. Her legs were in a wide stance, and she was aimed straight at Megan.
“What the fuck are you doing, Molly?” Megan shouted.
“What I should have done a long time ago. I’m done bending to your authority. It’s time somebody put you in your goddamn place,” she said, her soft lips curling upward in distaste.
I sighed in relief as Jeffery loosened his grip enough for me to drop to the ground. My knees buckled as I became accustomed to my own weight again, and I struggled to get up.
“What are you going to do now, Molly, shoot me?” Megan challenged, waving the bottle around wildly in front of her, splashing its contents everywhere.
I scrambled to my feet and jumped on top of Bradly, trying to shake him awake as Jeffery and Megan stood frozen with their hands raised. Bradly wasn’t moving, and I could barely feel his pulse. We needed an ambulance here, and fast.
“Call the police, Molly,” I said, looking up at her and starting to panic. Even though I had escaped the poison, Bradly looked to be in bad shape. We had to get him to a hospital.