Dirt and mud clung to her skin. The bruise at her hairline was a sickly shade of purple and green. It looked like the kind of thing you might find floating on a pond at the end of summer.
The only light came from the night-light Liz had plugged into the outlet by the sink on the first day of seventh grade, and yet it was easy to see the mud and grime. My hoodie was gone, somewhere—covered with Dr. Steve’s blood. New bruises blended with old, up and down my arms. The mirror began to fog, closing in on me like I was about to lose consciousness, but I had to stay awake.
“Cammie.” It was Liz’s voice, her familiar, faint knock on the bathroom door. “Cam…”
“I’m fine,” I said, for what felt like the billionth time. “I’m…” And then the words didn’t come.
I’m not fine.
I looked at the girl in the mirror, staring back, broken and bruised.
I’m not her.
The thought shook me.
I’m not her! I wanted to scream, but it was like I’d lost my voice as well as my memory.
That girl had come back from summer break. She had taken things from me. Zach and Bex. My summer. My life.
I had left, but that girl was the one who had come home.
And that girl was different.
I looked down at my hands. They were sore and red and stained with Dr. Steve’s blood.
That girl had blood on her hands.
Her hands knew things I wasn’t supposed to know. She did things I didn’t want to do.
I hated that girl, hated her as much as I hated the Circle. Distrusted her more than I distrusted Zach’s mom. Enemies are nothing compared to traitors, after all. It’s the people you hold closest who have the most power to make you bleed. And that girl…she was as close as anyone could possibly be.
I didn’t mean to do it, but in the next second, a hair dryer was flying through the air. It hit the mirror, and I watched the girl shatter; but she was still there. I could see her. So I grabbed Macey’s curling iron and hurled it at the image, and another piece of mirror cracked and crashed; but the noise was nothing compared to the banging on the bathroom door.
“Cammie, open this door!” Macey yelled. “Open this—”
“Cam!” Bex yelled, and a split second later the doorjamb splintered and Bex was rushing toward me, yelling, “Cammie!” She took one look at the shattered glass and the look on my face and said, “Cam, are you okay?”
But I didn’t answer. I was pulling open drawers and scavenging inside, saying, “I hate her. I hate her.”
I looked crazy. I was acting crazy. But I knew exactly what I was doing when I picked up the scissors.
“Cam!” Liz yelled.
But I just reached for the black hair that didn’t feel like my own, grabbed a handful, and…
“Cammie, no!” Bex snapped, like you might yell at a dog for chasing cars. It was a warning that I didn’t want to hurt myself. “No,” she said again, and with one motion, she twisted the scissors from my hand.
“I killed a man, Bex.”
“He would have killed me,” she said slowly, swagger gone. Ever since I’d known her, Bex had seemed practically bulletproof; but standing there, with blood on her sleeve, she trembled. “I would have died.”
“I don’t even remember picking up the gun,” I said, realizing that that was the most terrifying thing of all.
“I’m alive because you picked it up,” Bex told me.
I turned to the mirror and gently pulled the scissors from Bex’s grasp. “She did that.” I reached for a piece of hair and was just about to cut when Bex caught my hand again.
“Don’t do that,” she said, and for the first time in months, I saw Bex smile. “I seem to remember a bangs incident in the eighth grade that taught us you are not the person who should do that.”