The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,27
down, which made them even madder. That’s what they wanted most of all, to know they hurt her.” Becca tucked her hair behind her ears. “Then they got the idea to feed her dog poisoned meat.”
I growled and brought a finger to my lips, teeth pinching the skin. She knew I hated when animals got hurt. Even Cujo, a rabid dog that killed people. “Did the dog …”
“Yes, and the girls’ hearts were broken. The dog was pretty much their best friend. The kids laughed about it, said it was just a stupid old dog. For the first time, the girl cried in front of them. All they did was laugh even more and said they were going to kill her little sister next and then her dad.
“So she asked the Red Lady to help her.”
“How? And how did she know about her?” I said, my finger mushing the words.
Instead of answering, she said, “The girl asked every night for two weeks. She promised she’d do anything, give her anything, to protect her sister and her dad. One night, when her dad worked late and her sister was asleep, she went in the backyard, and the Red Lady stepped out of the shadows.”
I felt a sting and tasted blood. When I pulled my finger free, a tiny drop of blood welled to the surface of the ragged cuticle.
“She had long, thick hair like yours, except hers went all the way to the ground. Her skin was bone white. Her lips were cherry red and her eyes were all black, like they were colored in with a marker. Like shark eyes. And you can’t look at them. If you do …”
“What?” I said. “What happens?”
“They’ll find you in the morning with a mouth full of dirt.”
“Dead?”
“Dead.”
I hunched my shoulders all the way to my ears.
“Instead of hands,” Becca said, “she had bloody stumps, and when she opened her mouth, more blood dripped out. Worst of all, when she walked she left a trail of blood, and since her hair was so long, it dragged through it.”
“Ugh,” I said, but my voice barely made any noise at all.
“It’s not her fault. The blood is the one thing she can’t fix. She’s always bleeding because of what the people did to her. And sometimes you won’t see her, but you’ll see the blood and know she was there. But then it goes away, disappears, so no one else will know she was there.
“Anyway, the Red Lady waited to see if the girl would run away, but she didn’t. Even though she was scared, she was more scared of the kids. The girl told her what they did to her dog and asked if she could bring the dog back and keep her sister and dad safe. The Red Lady said, in the girl’s mind, she couldn’t bring the dog back—once an animal is dead, it’s dead forever—but she could keep them all safe if the girl was willing to pay her price.”
I exhaled, long and low. “What was her price?”
Becca leaned close and said, “Her eyes.”
I swallowed. Hard.
“That’s what the Red Lady does,” Becca said. “If you ask for help, you have to really mean it. She’ll know if you don’t. And she won’t help everyone. She decides who sees her, who she helps or not.”
“What did the girl say?”
“She agreed, and the Red Lady vanished.” Becca clapped once, and I jumped. “The next day they found the bullies buried in a hole, all the way to their necks, their mouths full of dirt. The leader was the only one alive. When they pulled him out, his tongue was cut out so all he could do was make weird noises. Then he died. When they did the autopsy, guess what they found in his stomach?”
“What?”
“His tongue.”
“She made him eat it?”
“Uh-huh. A couple nights later, the Red Lady came to see the girl. She was ready to give up her eyes, even if the Red Lady had to scoop them out, but all she did was say a few words, and the girl couldn’t see anymore. Just like that.”
“Then what?”
“Her sister and her dad were safe. The girl had to learn how to do things without being able to see, but she wasn’t dead. And sometimes she felt the Red Lady watching over her.”
I shivered, and Becca giggled.
“Would you,” I said. “If she was real, would you ask her for help?”