dam. Motionless while, all around her, there’s sudden frantic activity.
Not toward, but away.
Fucking cunts are all so terrified they’ll get into shit for this, they won’t even check to see if she’s still breathing—
Because she’s not, because she’s dead, that’s why she’s floating, not swimming, moron, and they know it, and they’re pissing themselves
—my darling.
I fumble in the wet, in the dark, before grabbing her arm. Her hair plasters itself over the back of my hand.
Everything’s moving so slowly, so peacefully, it’s like the universe has decided to send one final fuck you my way before it all ends.
My heart’s going to explode. The cold has seeped into my bones. My jaw locks, which is fortunate—if it hadn’t, my teeth would be clicking together like the reaper tapping out the Hemp Fandango on his piano.
“Help me!” I yell, swinging around as I drag Candy against me. “Sylvester, you fucking cunt, help me!”
His laughter trails off. Suddenly, the only sound is the splashing of choppy water. The slap as it hits the cement walls around us. My heart pounding a thousand times a second.
“Help me get her out.” This time, my voice is low. Steady.
Sylvester swims over. “I’s jus’ kidding around,” he slurs. When he lays his hands on Candy, he fumbles her. Her head splashes back into the water.
“Get away.” I kick out, more to distance us from him than anything else, but managing a strike to his thigh at the same time. “Get the fuck away from her!”
There’s something wrong with my voice. It’s rough, broken, demonic.
“Josiah, over here.” Someone bobs up beside me. A girl. Her voice sounds familiar, but her face is a black mask. “I’ll help.”
“Me too.” Another girl. I don’t know this one. I don’t know any of them.
Candy’s so heavy.
Motionless.
Dead.
A light flickers, and for a moment, I’m sure I’ve imagined it. But then it grows, floods.
Someone put on their cellphone torch, and it’s just bright enough to paint the surface of the water a dark gray and to cast a shimmer on some of the nearby faces.
To highlight the dark rivulets over Candy’s face.
Hair in her face. When I brush it away, my fingers only touch skin.
Not hair.
Blood.
Rivulets of blood that smudge away to nothing when my wet hands touch them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Josiah
Someone’s crying. I grit my teeth and will them to stop. It’s already hard enough keeping count without having to contend with—
“Trinity, enough!”
Could have kissed the girl who just snapped that out like a bullet. But I’m too busy counting.
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
My dry lips against Candy’s cold, wet ones.
Exhale.
Candy’s chest rises.
Candy’s chest falls.
Exhale.
Rise.
Fall.
Exhale.
Ebb.
Flow.
One, two, three, four, five—
Brackish water floods my mouth. I wrench my lips away from hers, gagging as bile and dam water coats my tongue. When another retch threatens, I grab Candy’s shoulders and drag her onto her side.
Suddenly, there’s a huddle of girls around her, some more hysterical now that she’s showing signs of life than before when she could have been a department store mannequin someone had found floating in the dam after a wayward prank.
She’s gasping and gagging as I stumble to my feet. I force back the urge to hurl, and instead drag my hair out of my face and haul enough air into my lungs to push my chest out.
A hand lands on my shoulder. “Jo—I—dude, I’m so fucking so—”
My fist cracks into Sylvester’s jaw. His head spins to the side.
For a moment, I think I imagined everything. That I’m light headed from standing up too fast or some shit. But then someone gasps, and Sylvester stumbles, tumbles, falls with a grunt.
My knuckles creak. I stomp closer, blood singing in my ears as my fist begins to ache.
But hands, arms, urgently low voices stop me.
“Josiah, don’t.”
“He’s sorry, man.”
“…Was an accident…”
“…get punished if…”
White noise.
A low drone.
My breath stops as my body solidifies, and a strangely calm logic floods my brain.
Not now, Jo. You’re so close. Keep it together, or you’ll be stuck here like them. Just another teenage reject.
I take a step back, and I could be moving through tar.
Another.
Another.
“Josiah.”
I wave my hand at the voice. I’m done. The anger’s fading. Everything’s coming up fucking unicorns.
“Josiah!”
That familiar voice lures me from a seductively dark introspection—a place I should never go back to, should never have been in the first place.
Candy.
I turn, see her sitting up. I think she’s naked, and my eyes drop on instinct before my brain can wrangle sense into me.
A pink shirt, that’s all. Pale pink, skin-colored, nude, whatever the fuck they call it. I can