Don't Trust Her

by Elizabeth Boles

  “Not to mention the fact about Charlotte,” Faith says. “We all wanted to forget it.” She sips her wine. “But if it makes you feel better, I always thought you acted the same to me, Court. I wasn’t disappointed in who you were.”

  “I’m not saying that I was disappointed,” Blanche clarifies. “All I’m saying is that she was different. I mean, you and Tal used to not have anything to do with each other, and then within weeks, bam! You were dating.”

  “They were both mourning. I’ve read about things like that happening before.” Faith downs the last of her glass. “Besides, you’re one to talk.”

  “True,” Blanche says. She finishes her wine and smacks her lips. “Ugh. The last bit tasted off. Was yours okay, Faith?”

  “Mine was fine, but that was the end of that bottle. I gave you the last little bit. Sorry,” she squeaks.

  Blanche rubs her head. “I don’t think I should drink anymore. Things are starting to blur.”

  “Well, I’m not done.”

  My water has run out. “I need more to drink. Want me to get you another bottle?”

  Faith grimaces. “Yeah, but there aren’t any more up here. The only wine that’s left is in the cellar.”

  “Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to care if we drink it,” Blanche says with a heavy slur.

  Her eyes start to shut, and I take the glass from her hand before she drops it. “Maybe it’s time to tuck you in.”

  She inhales quickly, eyes popping open. “No, no. I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

  “A little drunk. If you keep at it, you’ll be too hungover to walk out of here tomorrow.”

  “Hell no, I won’t be.” She flexes her fingers, silently requesting her wine be returned to her. I comply. “There’s no way in hell that I’m staying another day in this godforsaken cabin. The place is cursed.”

  “It’s definitely something,” I murmur.

  “It is,” Blanche insists. Her eyes are wild from the drink. Normally she wouldn’t talk about such silly things. But wine does that to her, lowers her inhibitions, makes Blanche think. “Everything that’s happened here is just too insane. Before this place, we never would’ve turned our backs on each other. But now?” She shivers. “I don’t know what it is, but the whole atmosphere with those stupid dead trophies—it gives me the creeps.”

  “It makes me want to drink more.” Faith giggles and shakes her glass at me. “Want me to fetch your water?”

  I wave her away. “No, no. I’ll get it. Blanche, don’t pass out before I return.”

  But her lids are already bobbing down and up. She’s the complete opposite of Faith, who looks ready to down an entire bottle by herself.

  “Be right back,” I say.

  We haven’t pulled back the rug to the cellar since Friday night. I kick it back, deciding to get the worst part over with quickly.

  I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. The battery is nearly gone. I hope that there’s enough power to make it to the road tomorrow.

  I stare at the metal ring that looks like something a bull would have through his nose. “Do you want another white?”

  “Yeah, they’re in the back of the cellar.”

  Of course they are.

  The metal is so cold it nearly burns my fingers as I lift the ring and open the tongue of wood. I gently lay the square flap on the floor and head down.

  The smell of damp earth assaults me. I slowly make my way down and feel around until my hand brushes the single bulb dangling from the ceiling. I pull the cord and harsh light buzzes to life.

  The wasp eyes of the bottles are all aimed at me. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, telling myself that this glass won’t crash in, that these walls will not suffocate me.

  Best to be quick.

  I scurry across the floor, beelining for the green bottles filled with white wine, when my gaze snaps on something.

  Tucked into an empty hole is a black cord coiled into a sphere.

  “Is that…?”

  It comes out easily, and a quick inspection of the ends makes my heart drum with fury. “Faith! Blanche!”

  Hope clambers up my throat, and I whirl around. Forget the wine. This is more important. My foot hits the first stair when the door crashes down, sending a shock wave flooding my body.

  A scream bubbles from my throat as I fall. My tailbone hits the dirt floor, and sharp pain reverberates all the way to my jaw.

  The light above me swings wildly. The bulb slaps against its pull chain, and its bright glow dims.

  Grit descends from the wooden slats and lands in my eyes. Every time I blink, it feels like I’m grinding rocks into dust.

  It takes me a moment before I realize exactly what has happened. The door is shut. It didn’t occur on its own. Someone closed it.

  Someone has trapped me in the cellar.

  There are only two guesses as to who did it, and the first one doesn’t count.

  Faith has locked me down here.

  Chapter 43

  The walls seem tighter as my throat shrivels. A thousand glass eyes stare at me, and a thousand of my reflections stare back. The lightbulb blinks, sending shadows scattering like roaches across the floor.

  I cannot let this undo me. I must get out of here. My tailbone aches as I drag my hands in front of me and push myself into a seated position.

  “Blanche! Faith!”

  No answer.

  I claw my way to the top of the stairs, ignoring the pain in my body, and push on the wooden door. “Faith! Faith! Let me out!”

  It doesn’t give. Dust enters my mouth and fills my lungs. I cough into my elbow as I pound.

  “Faith!”

  I was so stupid to have let myself get trapped in here. How could I have let her do this? But I have to think. If I’m going to escape, I have to put the pieces together.

  My mind works backward. I see Faith, her back turned as she fixes Blanche’s drink. Blanche then quickly becomes tired so soon after swallowing most of it.

  Oh God.

  Faith drugged Blanche, and then she sent me to the cellar to get the wine. She planned on locking me in here the whole time.

  My blood chills. What is Faith going to do to Blanche? She doesn’t have a gun or any other weapon.

  Stupid—there’s a butcher block in the kitchen filled with knives.

  I beat on the wood, sending dust like sparks raining down. “Faith, stop it! Whatever your plan is, give it up right now! It’s not worth going to jail over. This is not worth it!”

  Something scrapes across the floor—furniture being dragged. I bunch my shoulder under the heavy door and push, but the damn thing still doesn’t give.

  I’m breathing heavily now. Even though it’s cold in the cellar, I’m sweating. I’ll be even colder if my perspiration doesn’t dry on my clothes. Cold wet clothes will lower my body temperature. Not that I think I’ll freeze, but I won’t be comfortable.

  I pound again, pushing away tears that clot my eyes and a sob that knots my throat.

  A return knock follows. I hear shuffling, a body moving, clothes swishing against the wood. Where the door was sawed out of the floor, there is a gap. I stare into the dark slit but see only a black line.

  I hear Faith sigh into the crevice.

  When she speaks, her voice rings loud and clear. “You can’t get out, Court, so don’t even try. You’re stuck in there until I’m done.”

  My heart clenches. Oh, God. Done with what? “Faith, what are you talking about? You’re not going to hurt Blanche, are you?”

  “Hurt her like she hurt Paige, you mean? No. I’m not going to sink to her level. All I want is for her to admit what she’s done.” Anger grinds in her voice. “That she killed Paige. I’m not going to jail, Court. I’m innocent.”

  Not anymore. “If you harm her, you’ll go to prison.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her,” she snaps. “All I want is for Blanche to confess. That’s all. Plain and simple. As soon as she does
that, I’ll let you out. Then we’ll wait until the ice melts and leave.”

  “How will we do that? We don’t have a car.”

  “Someone will come for us.”

  She’s lost her damn mind. I push my lips to the crack in the wood. “Faith. I have the Internet cord. Paige left it down here. Listen, just let me out and I’ll get the Wi-Fi working. We can call someone. Get the police out here. They can help Blanche.”

  “No,” she screams. “Not until I have her confession.”

  “By the time you get it, the generator will be out of fuel.” I work my fingers along the wood, feeling for any weakness in the floor, but it doesn’t give. Faith is probably lying on top of it. “Please, Faith. Listen to me.”

  “I have been listening to you, Court,” she coos. “I’ve been listening to you ever since we arrived. I’ve heard everything that you’ve said. That’s why I’m keeping you out of this. You’re too good a person to be involved. I know that because you lied for me.”

  “About pushing Brittany, you mean.”

  “Yes.” It comes out like a hiss. “That’s how I know what’s really going on.”

  “What are you talking about?” But I already know what she means. It’s instinctive, the feeling, as it burrows way down into the well of my stomach. “I don’t follow.”

  “We both know what happened on the bluff. Well, I know, and now you know that I did the shoving. That’s how I figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “What Paige was blackmailing you about. I understand why you lied to us.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Shh, it’s okay. I want to protect you, just like you were going to protect me. You would have lied for me, and I’m returning the favor. I’m going to keep your secret. That’s also why I’m not going to give up until Blanche confesses to the truth about Paige.”

  My fingers scrape over toothpick-sized splinters in the wood. “My secret?” My mouth is numb when I say the words. It could be from the truth. It could be because the cold is now launching into my bones, scraping away at my resolve.

  “Yes. I don’t want to keep you down there any longer than I have to, so I’ll be quick. When you confessed to shoving Brittany and I asked you about it, I saw a look in your eyes.”

  “What look?”

  My voice trembles, and I hate it. I want to be strong, to be fierce, but the cold, the claustrophobia of the room prevent it.

  The floor sighs as if her hand slides over it. “A look that told me you didn’t know what had happened on that bluff. You admitted guilt. But you and I both know that there’s only one reason why you didn’t know that I pushed Brittany.”

  “Why?” I croak.

  My throat burns from dust and screaming. Anger pushes up in me. I want to strangle Faith, crush her throat, and yet the very idea sickens me. I have to keep myself together.

  But then all the old pain from the bluff crashes down on me. I remember standing on the edge, fighting with my sister, slinging words like spears.

  This is what Blanche had tried to tell me. She knew it was Faith who had done the pushing, and she’d acted like I should have known. I should have, I suppose. I should have known a lot of things.

  I speak. “Why did you do it? Why did you push her?”

  Now anger rings in her voice. “Because Brittany was being rude and mean, because she wasn’t being respectful. She never should have said those things. Charlotte was a slut. So I walked up behind Brittany when her back was turned and I shoved.”

  I close my eyes and choke down a sob.

  Faith continues without remorse, without regret. “I pushed her, and then we covered it up. I had the idea to blame it on Charlotte, never thinking it would get so out of hand. You went along with it, remember?”

  “Yes,” I say quietly.

  Even through the floor I can hear her tsk. “Now, now. We both know that’s not the case. You don’t remember because you weren’t there, were you? You were at the hospital being worked on.”

  “Faith,” I plead.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to hide from me anymore. Like I said, I know the truth. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret, Brittany.”

  Chapter 44

  It’s strange being referred to by a name that I haven’t been called in over ten years. It’s almost as if the word exists in a separate place, a tunnel that’s been dug deep into the earth. It’s a seed that’s been covered and left in the ground for years, buried beneath frozen earth that’s finally beginning to thaw.

  Brittany.

  It’s a ghost of a word, one that doesn’t quite make sense, but at the same time makes all the sense in the world.

  My secret is so well stashed away that I never even told my own mother for fear of being discovered. But she knows. That’s why she sometimes calls me Brittany, because she knows who I really am.

  It’s impossible to fool your own mother. Oh, she goes along with it because by this time she has realized what is at stake—my entire family.

  Tal knows, too. He guessed it almost immediately, and of course I had loved him for years and wouldn’t keep such a secret from him, even though the burden of it on him is criminal as well.

  But to hear my name drip from Faith’s mouth through the slit of wood between us makes me sick to my stomach.

  She is a fucking bloodhound, one that’s way too damn smart. It’s a miracle that I kept the secret from her for this long. Blanche never would have suspected. She would never have had any reason to doubt that I’m not who I say I am.

  But Faith…she caught me in a lie, one I didn’t even know that I was telling.

  This is why I don’t know who pushed me from that bluff all those years ago. I told them exactly what Court had told me, that she had accidentally shoved me. When she turned to leave the bluff, her backpack had connected with my shoulder and launched me over the side.

  But I’d never quite believed it. Even though Court insisted it was her fault, an accident at that, I knew my twin had lied.

  Twins always know.

  Now I listen to Faith’s breathing, and it sounds very confident, like she has all the answers. I want to strangle her.

  Think, Brittany.

  We’re on our second day of using the generator. We don’t know when it clicked on, so there’s no way to know for sure how many hours or minutes we have left. The power could go out in thirty seconds or in three hours. I don’t know.

  “Brittany,” Faith says. “It’s okay. Your secret is safe.”

  With her—with the woman who shoved me.

  And now I’m angry. Rage rushes through my veins like fire. All these years and never, not once did Faith say anything to me or apologize for having done it. She put me in a cast, made me undergo surgery, and not once did she ever say sorry. She blamed someone else for her mistakes. Now, when her freedom is possibly on the line again, she wants to make sure that she doesn’t get locked up.

  “I understand why you didn’t tell me the truth,” she says, as if that’s the most important thing. “You had to keep it a secret, of course. But you could have said something.”

  Why? The word bubbles in the back of my throat but refuses to surface. I scratch my fingers against the wooden slat, grinding shards of sawdust under my nails.

  Everything that happened to me, from the moment of the accident until now, is all Faith’s fault.

  If Faith hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t have needed pain meds. Even now, my back aches and my legs are weak from the hunched position I’m twisted up in.

  If I hadn’t turned to drugs, I never would have been in rehab. My family never would have picked me up that fatal day, and my sister would still be alive. My father would be alive. Paige never would have hated us so. She never would have wound up being raped by a police officer. She never would have wound up ruined and then wanting revenge. For God’s sake, she wouldn’t be dead.

  I pound a fist on the door. “Let me out, Faith. Let me out of here.”
r />   “I’m afraid that I can’t do that. This part has to be done by me and me alone, Brittany.”

  Then a memory flares in my head, hot and bright.

  Suddenly I’m back there, on that day, leaving rehab. I’m walking past other residents, who snicker at me, their mouths twisted in little bows of triumph. They know that I’ll return. They know it. Their thoughts are like lines of silver floating into my head. I can almost see them, their innermost notions that it won’t be long until I return. When I’m gone, they’ll probably cast bets on how long it takes before I’m behind these taupe-colored walls once more.

  Once a drug addict, always a drug addict, they say.

  But I am bound and determined not to be a statistic, not to ever set foot in these halls again. I have a plan—throw myself back into school, get my degree, a job. It will all work. It will have to.

  Then my family is arriving and I see my sister, who I haven’t set eyes on in months. I remember thinking how much more we look alike now than when I first arrived. I had glanced in a mirror when dressing, and my body has filled out from food. The circles under my eyes have vanished, and my face is rounder, no longer full of sharp edges.

  I don’t look hard and haggard anymore. The weight I put on in rehab makes me look healthy. Meanwhile Court has lost a lot of the baby pounds she had gained.

  She smiles and holds up Jonas. It’s like looking into the sun. I welcome the comfort it gives. Such a small gesture, a smile. It’s amazing how it can fill you with hope.

  My parents, bless them, hug me. I cry when I hold Jonas. He is love itself. Though he stares at me with cautious eyes, shooting looks to his mother, he quickly relaxes and starts laughing. A bubble forms in his toothless mouth, and I cuddle him close, inhaling the perfect scent of his hair.

  Then we leave and the sky parts, a great slit that sends barrels of rain falling on us. We fall silent, and Jonas loses his pacifier under the seat. It’s between my sister and me, just out of view.

  “I’ll get it,” I tell Court.

  Court shakes her head. “Don’t be silly. I’m closer.” So she unbuckles her belt and halves herself, her fingers scraping over the carpet. Jonas cries.