Lost Girls

by Merrie Destefano

  “Like a whole year. Last thing I remember, I was studying for geometry—”

  “With Miss Wallace? That witch. I hated her.”

  “Me, too. After that I fell asleep. In my room.”

  I slipped into a familiar route, one that passed school buses and kids on skateboards until we reached the historic district of Santa Madre. Here, the streets were lined with Craftsman bungalows and Victorian cottages, which then gave way to tiny boutiques and thrift stores and coffee shops. I snatched the first parking spot I saw, one that happened to be half a block from the library and across the street from a Starbucks, our old after-school hangout. I wondered if they still made caramel macchiatos.

  Molly stared up at the sky, her lips moving, maybe calculating dates or classes or maybe just counting how many clouds were up there. “Was that before or after the spring dance?”

  “Before, I think. I don’t remember the dance.”

  We got out of the car, both of us temporarily forgetting about the library and Molly’s paper as we navigated our way across the street, dodging traffic. The door to Starbucks breezed open and the fragrance of coffee and chocolate wafted out, stirring up old memories of all the afternoons Molly and I had come here, all our conversations about cute boys and tough teachers and the deeper meaning of The Lord of the Rings.

  “As Ricky Ricardo says, That ’splains everything. Sort of,” she said after ordering a mocha Frappuccino. “You started acting like a Prima Donna Bitch at that dance, which I guess I could have handled ’cause I’m a bitch sometimes, too. But you basically told me to get lost. In front of everyone.”

  Other customers started staring at us. That happened a lot when I was with Molly. I ordered a caramel macchiato and we found a table in the corner.

  “I said that?” I asked, my voice so soft I could barely hear it myself.

  “Oh, you said that and a whole lot more. You made it really clear you didn’t want to be friends anymore. Meanwhile, you somehow became super popular. With all the wrong kids, of course.” She was snapping her gum, sometimes stretching it out of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. Once she actually dropped it on the table, then grabbed it up and stuffed it back in her mouth, lint and all.

  “I’m sorry, Moll.” I wanted to say more, but didn’t know where to start. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t even remember it. I don’t remember anything except waking up in that ditch.” My voice cracked. I blinked and looked away from her, staring out the window instead, at all the afternoon shoppers walking past, all clutching brightly colored bags. Clouds were filling the skies, casting an ominous tone on an otherwise normal scene. “After that, I spent two days in the hospital. I guess I’ve got some bizarre form of amnesia and PTSD similar to what a lot of people got after 9/11. Nobody knows if I’ll ever get all of my memory back.”

  Molly’s eyes darkened and she leaned closer, listening with her head tilted slightly.

  “Then, after I was finally released from the hospital,” I continued. “I was interrogated by the FBI and they held me for hours. I thought I would never go home—”

  “The FBI? Seriously?” Her words came out in a dramatic rush, as she sat poised on the edge of her seat, her blue eyes looking twice as big as they usually did. “You’re not making this crap up, are you? What did they want? I mean, how did the FBI get involved?”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure—”

  I paused, thinking about that list of girls I’d found in my closet, about my new group of friends at school, about Lauren smoking pot before class, about me dating a guy I’d been crushing on since middle school, about the FBI agent who followed me around in an unmarked car.

  “You can tell me,” she said in a low, conspiratorial tone. She’d always loved crime dramas. I think she secretly wanted to be Abby on NCIS, a forensics scientist, dissecting the world one DNA sample at a time. “Look, if I have to, I’ll pinky swear. And, damn, girlfriend, you and me haven’t pinky sworn on anything since sixth grade.”

  There was a long pause when she stared at me for effect. That’s the only time Molly ever got quiet. Silence was her way of using more exclamation points. I needed to talk to someone about all this. Molly and I might not be best friends anymore, but it seemed like she wanted to help.

  “There are other girls who have been kidnapped, just like I was. Except I guess I’m the only one who got away,” I told her, guilt flashing through me and making my chest ache. “And I’m not the same anymore. I’m—different.”

  “Girl, you always were different.”

  We both smiled. Our order was up and she went to get our drinks. That’s the way Molly was, a bitch most of the time, but nice when you needed her to be. A moment later we were both sipping on drinks laced with caffeine, syrup, and whipped cream. Neither one of us talked for a few minutes.

  “How are you different?” she asked at last. “I mean, is it because you can’t remember anything? Or is it because you realize you’d been a different person last year and now you feel normal?”

  “A little bit like that last one.” I glanced around us to see if anyone was listening, then I lowered my voice. “I found a note I left for myself.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out the slip of paper, and showed it to her. “I wrote that sometime before I was kidnapped.”

  She read one side, then the other. “Sounds like you turned into a rave rat. Who are these girls on the back?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was planning to go see a few of them after school today. Maybe one of them will know something.” I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so I didn’t mention the fact that I had tackled my brother like a Ninja, using skills I didn’t know I had. “And there’s this,” I told her while I rolled up my sleeve, revealing the needle marks on my arm.

  “What the eff?” She ran a finger over the fading purple bruises, then stared up at me. “Are you an addict or something? Is that why your memory’s gone?”

  “I don’t know.” My bottom lip trembled when I spoke. “I don’t even know if I was doing this to myself, or if it was something the kidnappers gave me.”

  She gave me a pensive glance, her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’ve been taking something for a long time. Maybe that’s why you’ve been such a bitch this past year.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, maybe if you quit taking it, whatever it is, I could stand hanging around you again.”

  I gave her a weak grin. That was one of the things I loved about Molly. She was tough on the surface, but deep down she was someone you could always depend on. I took a quick look around the coffee shop, then checked the time on my cell. “Hey, I need to get going. I need to connect with some of those girls on my list before I head home.”

  “You’re gonna do this on your own?”

  I nodded.

  “You want some backup?” A loud slurp followed as she sucked the last of her drink up the straw.

  “What about your paper?”

  She gave me a sly grin. “I lied. I don’t have any homework tonight.”

  I smiled, glad that Molly was with me. She might still be mad at me for the way I had acted this past year, but as far as I was concerned, she was still my best friend and I trusted her like nobody else.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The California sunshine had already begun to disappear, and dark clouds were gathering overhead, pale gray fading to thick black. Soft rain pattered down as we headed toward my car. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the universe was weeping over what was up ahead. But I shook that thought off, refusing to give in to the nervousness I felt, flicking on the windshield wipers and then running my fingers through my hair, brushing the bangs out of my eyes. We had a lot of options and needed to figure out which ones were best.

  “These two girls, Alexis and Lacy, live too far away. One is down in Irvine. There’s no way we’d make it there and back in rush hour, not if we want to get home by dinner,” Molly said. “Same thing for Lacy in Compton. We should focus on the other three
. Wait.” She looked up at me. “Did you want to call these girls or see them face-to-face?”

  “Face-to-face. It might help me remember.”

  “Why don’t we head over to Janie’s house, she’s in Pasadena.”

  “Good idea,” I said, glad we weren’t heading to Nicole’s house first. I had a feeling I’d find some key piece of information at Nicole’s and, whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. It might be that Big Trigger my therapist kept talking about. Maybe meeting another girl first would help.

  I’d already preprogramed all the addresses into my GPS, so we set off on our journey. My palms were sweating and I had to keep wiping them on my jeans while I drove. We avoided the freeway—rush hour combined with rain had turned the 210 into a tangled snarl—so we zipped down one side street and over another, instead. Twenty minutes passed with us listening to Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream while the windshield wipers thwacked back and forth.

  “There it is.” Molly finally pointed a chubby finger toward a small cottage on the left. I slowed my car, pulled alongside the curb, and we both sat there, staring at the house.

  “Do you want to come with me?” I asked.

  “Does the Pope like Easter bunnies?”

  I gave her a look. Decoding her bizarre phrases was sometimes more work than it was worth. I bolted from the car, one hand shielding my head from the rain that had gotten more serious in the past ten minutes, Molly following behind me. She tried and failed to miss the ankle-deep water that gushed down the gutter on the other side of the street.

  “Eww!” she said, shaking one of her feet. Apparently water had gone down inside her boot. Now there was a squishy sound with every step she took.

  We raced up the sidewalk, then huddled on the cottage porch beneath a short roof overhang, me knocking on the door, rain falling all around us. To our right, lacy curtains parted and I thought I saw someone peek out through a smudged window, but by the time I turned to look, they were gone. The curtains remained parted a few inches. All I could see inside was darkness.

  A snap of thunder kaboomed overhead.

  My heart felt like a fist, hammering against my chest, knuckles bruising my ribs, and my breath came in short puffs. This was exactly where I had wanted to be, standing on the doorstep of one of those girls on my list, but now that I was here, a new emotion wrapped itself around me like an anaconda. The closest thing I’d ever felt was when I’d grabbed Lauren and tried to force her to tell me more.

  It was like the thrill of doing something illegal and getting away with it. It made my stomach queasy.

  I was just about to knock again when the door flew open and a girl my age stood in front of us, her hair dyed blue, the same bright shade as her eyes. For an instant she reminded me of Katy Perry…if Katy was strung out on heroin. She held something behind her back and I couldn’t stop glancing down at her right hand, wondering what she was hiding and why.

  “Bitch, what you doing at my house?” she demanded.

  I sputtered, taken off guard, fighting a dark part of me that struggled to rise to the surface. “I—did—are—” None of what I said made sense, so Molly jumped in.

  “Are you Janie Deluca?” she asked.

  “What if I am?” The girl took a step out the door, revealing a baseball bat in her hand. “You’re breaking the rules and if you come any closer, I’ll kill you. Both of you!”

  I shoved Molly behind me. She missed the step and almost fell to the ground with a loud curse. Nobody was going to hurt Molly, not now, not ever. My gaze focused on that bat, on the fingers that held it tight.

  “Get out of here ’fore I break your head open!” the girl yelled.

  I tossed my car keys back toward Molly. “Get in the car and stay there,” I told her. Then I focused on the blue-haired girl. “Put down the bat.” My words came out like a warning, my voice surprisingly calm. “I only want to ask you a few questions. There’s no reason to act like I’m here to start a fight—”

  She lifted her chin. “You’re gonna get kicked out for doin’ this. I got the right to protect my own turf—”

  Kicked out. The same cryptic phrase Lauren had used earlier. But I didn’t have time to contemplate the similarities or to wonder why this girl was on guard. Janie had seen me hesitate. Hesitation got people killed.

  Before she could say anything else and before I could make a more rational decision, I slammed a lightning-quick fist to her jaw, my knuckles connecting with her flesh and bone. She blinked, her eyes rolled up, and she staggered backward, her grip on that bat loosening. I kicked it out of her hand and sent it flying back into the darkness of her house.

  It was like watching a bizarre video of myself—every part of me acted on raw instinct, like this was how I handled every difficult situation. Except it wasn’t. The last time I remembered being in a fight had been in ninth grade and I’d failed miserably, spending the rest of the day in the school nurse’s office.

  “I only wanted to talk to you,” I said, although the tone in my voice said something else. I was daring her to hit me, to take this one step further. Some part of me wanted her to lift her arms and step back out that door toward me.

  The wind made the rain blow sideways, hitting the girl in the face, turning her hair into blue stripes that stuck to her cheeks. She looked young and vulnerable, her lip bleeding, a grinding fear in her eyes like a wounded animal. An unexpected impulse caused her to rub her left arm, accidentally tugging up her sleeve, revealing a row of track marks that looked suspiciously like mine.

  “What are you taking?” I asked, pointing to her bruises.

  “You know I’m dry as a bone after what you did!” she said with a scowl, dark circles under her eyes like she couldn’t sleep any better than I could. “Nobody’s buyin’ me nothin’ anymore. You got questions, you should ask your own damn girls.” She kicked the door shut with her right foot, the deadbolt latching with a dull thunk a split second later. But I could still hear her shuffling about on the other side.

  She could have shouted at me, but she didn’t. Instead she spoke in a voice so calm it was almost scary.

  “This here is your only warning. Get off my property now. I’m goin’ to get my gun, then I’ll fill your skinny ass with more holes than you can count.”

  Her footsteps retreated into another room.

  She was going to get a gun and, despite the terror that fingered its way through my gut, I wanted to wait for her to come back. I wanted to grab the gun from her hands as soon as the door opened and knock her in the face with it. I wanted to force her to tell me what drugs she was taking and who was giving them to her. I shifted my weight from one leg to another, my skin tingling, a thick coldness pouring over me, suddenly aware of everything around me. A bark of excited laughter rose from my chest, but I reminded myself that I hadn’t come here to fight. I’d come looking for answers and had gotten more questions instead.

  I forced myself to turn and jog back to the car, feet sloshing through puddles, head tilted down to shield my face from the rain. Molly was waiting inside, just like I’d told her to do. She was safe and that was all that really mattered. My hands and legs trembled when I climbed in the driver’s seat. If I’d been alone, I would have gone for a run. A long run.

  “Should I call the cops? Did she hit you? Are you okay?”

  Molly’s voice filled all the empty spaces in the car, her words like little teeth, gnawing at me. My right thumb worked the muscles in my left forearm, kneading those track marks as if it would jump-start some hidden reservoir lodged beneath my skin, releasing a floodgate of what—what was I craving right now? I leaned forward, head against the steering wheel, eyes closed.

  Who am I and what kind of person have I turned into?

  My stomach heaved, bile in my throat. At the same time, I felt stronger, bigger, taller than I ever had.

  That girl had recognized me and, for some reason, she was afraid of me. There were track marks on her arms, just like mine. She knew the same secrets as Lauren,
but neither of them would tell me what I needed to know.

  I slammed my fist against the dashboard, unable to hold back that urge to fight that was making all my muscles tense, even the muscles in my gut, the sound of my hand hitting the dashboard almost masking the footsteps that were splashing toward my car, the sound of someone running through puddles, a chaotic rapid-fire rhythm—

  “Holy shit, Rachel, she’s got a gun!” Molly screamed.

  I didn’t bother to look. I knew I’d see hatred and terror in the blue-haired girl’s eyes as she came to a stop just outside my door. Again, I reacted by instinct, something that was fast becoming second nature for me, no matter how weird it felt.

  No, not weird—right.

  I sensed her presence even before I heard her approach or Molly’s scream. My left hand grabbed the handle and I kicked my car door open, body slamming Janie Deluca and knocking her on her ass in the street. I was out of my car in an instant, rain streaming down on both of us. Janie struggled to gain control of that gun, holding it with trembling hands, trying to lift it and aim it at me. I kicked her in the side, in the arm, in the gut, each strike causing her to curl this way and that, and sending new moans from her chest.

  It was almost like someone else was inside my body, calling the shots, someone both cold-blooded and vengeful. My fourth kick sent that gun tumbling away from her, skittering across the street into a storm drain where it disappeared from sight, a glittering bauble that dissolved in darkness.

  Molly gasped, either before or after I started kicking the blue-haired girl, I’m not sure which.

  Janie lay crumpled on the ground, hatred in her eyes giving way to complete fear, her weapon gone, her body bent at the waist, her arms and legs stretched out.

  Even though Janie had tried to kill me, I wasn’t afraid of her. I was angry. Strange, disconnected thoughts started buzzing through my head.