“Bad person, how?” Sara asks, and this time, I do glance back at Vic. Purposefully. I give him a long, searching look that both serves as camouflage and allows me to get a read on him at the same time. How much should I tell her? I’m wondering.
The way Vic very slowly lifts a cigarette to his mouth, I know what he wants. “I’mma go smoke this outside.” He moves away, nodding his chin to indicate that Cal and Hael should follow after him.
I wait until all three boys are outside before responding. The suspension is killing Sara; I can tell.
“She was selling foster kids to the highest bidder,” I say, giving Sara a long look to make sure she understands.
“And how do you know that?” the police officer remarks, giving me a look right back. She isn’t even a detective and yet, here she is, talking to me. Somebody, somewhere thinks she can ‘get through to me’ or some shit I’ll bet.
“She did that, to me and my sister.” I shrug and shake my head. “If she’s missing, it’s likely one of her clients that did it.” I move over to the dressing rooms, stepping inside before Sara can ask me anymore questions. “But I’m not a snitch. You saw what happened to Kali when you goaded her. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone took it on themselves to crack down on her after the party.”
“Somebody with a stab wound in their side?” Sara asks, but I’m too busy shedding my clothes and sliding into a red cocktail sheath dress with a sweetheart neckline. It’s the color of blood, and very tight. I wouldn’t, under any circumstance, call someone wearing this thing sweetheart. As Valerie Broussard sings in “A Little Wicked”, nobody calls you honey when you’re sitting on a throne.
Fuck this idiot cop, I think, opening the door and watching as Sara’s estimation of me changes based on what I’m wearing. I look like a slut, but one that she wishes she could be, and that terrifies her. It makes her hate me. Oh, look, Bernie, you’ve become a psychic overnight.
“Ask around and see how well-liked Kali is,” I tell Sara with a shrug, moving over to a raised dais and its half-circle of mirrors. As soon as I see myself in that dress, but with bare feet, I ask the salesgirl to bring me some classic black pumps. Louboutins, just because the soles are as red as blood. Bloody shoes. And now I’m singing Cardi B again in my head.
I’ve only ever liked rock or metal in the past, but she’s making me feel like a bad bitch today, so how can I say no?
Once the heels are on, and I’m standing in front of the mirrors, I know that I’m losing ground with Sara. Picking this outfit, of all things, this color … well, it may as well be the scarlet motherfucking letter.
Just to summarize: it’s a book about a Puritan chick who screws a minister, gets pregnant, and then refuses to tell anyone in town who the father is. Poor girl gets a red letter ‘A’ slapped on her chest; it stands for adulterer. That’s what I feel like today, like some fucked-up Puritan girl made pariah through no fault of her own.
“If you want to find Kali, start by looking for Mitch.” I hope the admission—while it means nothing to me—will build some fragile trust between us. Nope, not this dress. As much as my inner Prescott ho likes it, I know that it won’t gain me anything with Ophelia. The color red can either be bold … or cheap. This is coming across as cheap.
I move back into the dressing room and lock the doors.
“Already tried,” Sara continues, seemingly content to sit and wait for me. “He, and his brother Logan, have been missing since the night of the dance.”
I switch out the sheath dress for the silk one, but as soon as I put it on and look at myself in the mirror, I know that it isn’t right either. I look like a trophy wife, some old man’s arm candy, an accessory instead of a fixture.
“And? It’s been two days, Sara. Relax.” I drop the pile of silk to the floor and kick it aside with one of the Louboutin heels on my feet. Salesgirl can clean it up. Show her what it’s like to take care of someone from Prescott for a change. Usually, we’re the ones pumping gas or wiping tables and being treated like shit by Fuller folks or Oak River Heights assholes.
The next dress I try on has a price tag that quite literally makes my teeth hurt. Four-thousand, eight hundred dollars. It occurs to me that anyone that purchases a dress this expensive should likely be slapped, just for being an asshole. And this is exactly the sort of dress that everyone in that art gallery will be wearing.
I try it on, sliding the crepe material over my head and letting it fall into place. Someone will have to button the top button and zip it up for me, but I turn anyway and examine myself in the small mirror.
This dress has a sweetheart neckline, just like the other one, but it’s floor-length with a mesh inset at the thigh, leaving the pale flesh of my upper legs visible. There’s just a hint of a tattoo peeking through. I swipe my hand down the front of the dress, enjoying the lush feel of the fabric. It’s not as red as I’d initially wanted; instead, it’s a red to black ombre, bloodred against my collarbone and fading to ebony at my feet.
I head back out of the dressing room, swing my hair over one shoulder, and put my back to the cop. Look, my posture says, I’m not afraid of you. Not at all. You know that, right?
“Tell me where the afterparty took place,” Sara says, zipping me up and fastening the single button. Her fingers are gentle but calloused, like she does more with them than you might expect. Like, maybe she hits the shooting range regularly. “That’s all you have to do.”
I ignore her for a moment, climbing back on the dais and wishing I could just wear my wedding dress to the gala. But Ophelia would recognize it. She’d know we didn’t have the balls or the funds to get another outfit. And that, that would be a poor move in this game of chess.
Sara steps up behind me, putting one foot on the carpeted dais where I’m standing. I glance back at her, looking over my shoulder and realizing I have to do it, that I have to dye my hair before I attend Ophelia’s bullshit gala thing. Dye it the color of blood, Bernie.
I laugh and turn back to the mirror. If Sara’s still asking after the location of the party, then she doesn’t know a damn thing. Somebody will squeal, eventually, they always do, but it’ll be a while. A few weeks, at least, when they’re less likely to be hunted down by the other students to have their mouths sewn shut …
“I already told you: I’m not a snitch,” I repeat, looking at the black mesh against my pale thighs. Jesus fucking Christ, I look like a ghost. It’ll only get worse over the winter, too. But I do like that, the almost offensive contrast between white skin and ebony fabric. The dress is expensive, but not for the crowd Ophelia Mars runs with. It might not even be good enough, but I don’t care. I like the way it looks. It’s expensive. Good enough.
Plus, my side hurts too much to keep trying on dresses, so fuck it.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” Sara says, which is a good sign. She’s still ready to give me the benefit of the doubt.
“Did you look into all of the complaints against Neil?” I ask, turning around to look at her. With my hands on my hips, and the height difference from the heels and the dais, I feel like I’m looking down at a loyal subject, ordering her about. The thought makes me smile. “Because if you haven’t, then I can’t help you.”
“There’s not a single complaint against Neil Pence that wasn’t dismissed. It might come as a surprise to you, but the guilty are often the first to file complaints on law enforcement. We get them all the time.”
I ignore Sara’s ignorance and head back into the dressing room before the boys can come in and see me in this dress. I want to surprise them when I wear it for the first time. After last night, I’m feeling possessive. The last thing I want is for Sara to see the way they look at me. At best, she’ll misunderstand the hungry glint in their eyes, the way they lick their lips, the way their cocks thicken inside their pants. At worst, she’ll see that they’d do anything for me—even kill.
“Bernadette, you were never in the foster system. Tell me: how do you know Cora
leigh Vincent?”
Fuck, this woman is relentless.
I turn back toward her. There’s just something about staring into a person’s eyes. The reflection of her face isn’t good enough. I need more than that.
“I feel like you already know the answer to that,” I reply carefully, testing the waters. Sara’s face remains stoic, but intense. She does know. She knows that Neil was crooked, that he was broken in ways that can never be fixed. I’m not sure when she realized it or if she always knew and was bullshitting me, but it’s right there, spelled out clear as day in her brown gaze. “Neil didn’t want anyone to know, that’s why.”
“Where is he, Bernie?” she asks me again, but this time, I catch the slightest hint of desperation in her voice. She wants this kill; she wants to bring him in. It’s become an obsession.
“She’s more than you think she is,” Kali purrs, her corpse hanging from a chandelier above me, head thrown back, mouth gaping as she cackles. Fuck me, I have a vivid imagination.
“Sara, you’re smarter than that,” I say, swiping my palm down the front of the dress. “As I’ve said before: even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.” I maintain eye contact with her for a full minute. It’s not that easy to do with anyone, let alone a near stranger. Try it. But for every second that the standoff lasts, I gain something. Eventually, it’s Sara who looks away.
“Don’t be a stranger over the winter break, okay?” she offers, turning away from me and collecting her purse. She glances back over her shoulder just once before leaving. “If you can choose any dress, get that one. It suits you.”
Her sneakers are loud as they squeak across the shiny floors, but I don’t wait to see her go, waving the salesgirl over so she can unzip and unbutton the dress. As soon as I get back into the dressing room, I slump onto the bench seat and curl my fingers around it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t decide if that just went really well … or horribly.
“You’re going to screw everything up,” Kali proclaims from inside the mirror. She doesn’t exist anywhere else because she isn’t fucking real. She isn’t real, and yet I’m letting her torment me all the same.
A rapping of knuckles against the changing room door startles the shit out of me.
“You okay in there, Blackbird?” Hael asks, his voice laced with concern. It’s a voice that says if you don’t reply back to me in five seconds or less, I’m coming in there. I can’t decide if I should smile or scowl. I like that they watch over me, that they want to protect me. But I’ve always, always, always wanted the luxury of being able to protect myself. “Do you want to do a fashion show for us? According to Oscar, I have cheap taste, but I can at least tell you how fucking hard you make me.”
“I’m fine; I picked a dress.” I strip down to my bra and panties and yank my regular clothes on as fast as I can. I would not put it past any of them to force their way in here. Callum would climb over the top, Hael would shimmy underneath the door, and Victor would break it down.
As soon as I’ve yanked my sweater over my head, I open the door to find all three of their huge bodies blocking the exit. They stare down at me with equal but vastly different flavors of intensity. My skin pebbles, and I struggle for the briefest of moments to find my breath.
“This is the one,” I say, lifting my arm up to indicate the dress that’s draped over it. Both my side and my head hurt, but that’s to be expected. They’ll heal, in time. It’s my sense of self-worth and my pride that I’m concerned with.
“You picked it without us?” Hael asks, pretending to be butt-hurt about it. But he must see something in my face that softens his mood, reaching up a hand to cup my chin with soft fingers. “Did that bitch say something to upset you?”
“There’s a fervor in her that scares me,” I admit, and Hael drops his hand to his side, exchanging a look with Victor. Callum never takes his eyes off of me.
“Don’t worry about cop girl,” Callum tells me, his voice like a bell in a quiet, country church, one that’s covered in cobwebs and hasn’t been used in years but which calls all the lost souls to its shuttered doors. “We’ve adjusted our plans a bit already.” He gestures with his head in the direction of the store’s front entrance. “Constantine was here, too, waiting outside.”
“We can talk about this later. Let’s get the dress and go,” Vic says mildly, glancing back at the salesgirl. She’s on the phone with … someone. Probably her boss, explaining the situation. Four white trash nobodies from across the tracks have come in; they’re spreading their poverty and filth everywhere. “God and the devil only know who else might be watching this store.”
After everything I learned about the GMP in the car on the way over, I figure Vic’s not exactly talking about cops. Between Ophelia, this new gang testing the waters of our turf, and the cops, I think Sara Young is the least of our worries.
“Buy the dress but forget the shoes,” Cal says with a terrifying smile. “I want to see if I can steal them without the little mouse noticing.” I shiver at his words, giving the salesgirl a quick glance and noticing that her sweater is, in fact, patterned with little gray mice. How appropriate.
“It’s your funeral,” Vic says, which is just an expression, but a terrifying one nonetheless. At some point soon, I’m sure there are going to be plenty of funerals in Springfield. I just hope none of them are ours.
“They will be, if you don’t grow a fucking backbone,” Kali purrs, but I ignore her, tossing the dress onto the counter and smiling as Victor whips out a credit card with two fingers and flicks it at the woman. Behind us, Hael chuckles in bemusement.
“Wrap it up real nice for my wife,” Vic growls, and the girl rushes to comply.
“This plan you have for Sara Young,” I start, drawing his endless dark stare over to me as the girl charges the card and seems surprised to see the purchase go through without a hitch. “Am I going to like it?”
“Oh, trust me,” Victor says, scrawling his name on the iPad the salesgirl hands him, “this is right up your alley. Poetic justice, personal choice, and wrongs made right.” He tosses the iPad back, grabs the box, and then places it in my arms. When he looks down at me, I swear to fuck I can feel the weight of his stare like the universe settling on my shoulders. “Just one of many gifts I’m going to give you, Bernadette Channing.”
Vic moves away from me, lighting a cigarette before he’s even out the doors of the boutique.
I’m so busy clutching the box and breathing hard to fully appreciate the look of terror on the poor salesgirl’s face.
I slump against the shower wall with a groan, hurting all over and wondering why I thought it was totally fucking cool to have a gangbang when I’d just been stabbed. Or go shopping. Or hang Christmas lights on the tree we just put up.
“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” Vic asks, leaning against the counter. I didn’t even hear him come in, that’s how goddamn tired I am.
“Like you didn’t enjoy fucking me the other night,” I retort, the shower curtain pulled back just enough that I can see him. Water splashes onto the floor, but I don’t give a shit. I’ll clean it up later.
Vic laughs as he stands up, grabbing a towel from under the sink and laying it on the floor to catch the extra spray. He stays crouched down, looking up at me from under lashes that are too long and too beautiful to belong to a man. It softens some of the meanness in his face, takes away some of that brutality that I know is lurking inside of him.
He choked Logan Charter on the floor of Prescott High, I think, but even though the thought should bother me, it doesn’t. Havoc isn’t all that bad. In fact, they’re almost nice sometimes. In order to keep control of the underground, certain things must be done, no matter how unsavory.
Things like … killing Kali.
I turn my face to the spray to hide my frustration with myself. There are red splatters all over the walls, dripping down my skin in macabre stripes. It looks like blood, but it’s just hair dye. It seems stupid, but I almost cried when
I covered up the pink. That was Pen’s color. But red is … mine.
“Goddamn, this is torture,” Vic murmurs, and I look down at him, shrouded in steam and tattoos and watching me like he owns me. He does, really, but he doesn’t need to know that. “You, naked and wet but wounded.” Vic’s mouth twitches as he rises to his feet, and I’m forced to look up at him. “We should not have done you like that, you know? I should’ve controlled myself better.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, but my heart gets all fluttery at the concern in his voice. He swipes a hand over his face, looking me over in just such a way that I know I’ll have to fix the lock on this stupid door if I ever want to get a moment of peace. Actually … he’d probably knock the door down to get to me. Some males are wild when it comes to their mates. “More than fine, actually.”
“More than fine,” Vic repeats with a deep chuckle, seemingly content to lean against the wall and stare at me. “You say that, but I think you’re lying to me. I’d be pissed if I didn’t think you were lying to yourself, too.”
I scoff at him, grabbing the bar of sweet peach soap I bought at one of the shops today. I stole three more bars of it on my way out, but hey, it’s from France and it’s fancy as fuck. Victor’s black eyes follow my every movement as I soap my body up, working carefully to clean the bit of dried blood around the stitches. I’m not supposed to get them overly wet, but it’s a struggle. I just want to be clean.
“Why do you think I’m lying to myself?” I ask, feeling my wedding ring slick across my skin as I wash my body with thick, peach-scented lather.
“Because I can see inside your soul,” Victor tells me, pointing at his face with two fingers and then turning them on me. “You are me, in female form. We’re the same person, Bernadette.”
Anarchy at Prescott High Page 15