The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,69

smells like grass clippings and earth, woodsmoke and green things growing. Annabelle Montor does not wear perfume.

I know this. She knows this. Lee knows this.

Lee’s phone rests in the cupholder. Annabelle reaches for it as we back out of the driveway. He tenses up, every line in his body drawn with a straight edge.

In the back seat, I make myself very small.

Chapter 54

Tress

Ribbit is naked when I glance into the atrium.

I’m surprised it took this long.

The audience is getting more difficult to impress, and Hugh has begun taking the questions and suggestions that he skipped over in the comments before—the ones that he must have decided were too intense at the time. But times have changed, and the livestream is slipping. The views aren’t quite up to where they were before Gretchen charged in and broke the momentum with her announcement about something eating her dog.

I spot her on the stairs, collapsed against the banister, red-faced and crying, nursing a beer in one hand, still holding William Wilson’s tail in the other. Her friends are around her, but not as many as before. Maddie Anho has slowly been threading her way back toward the top of the stairs—more than likely trying to get into the livestream shot. Brynn is still running Ribbit’s beers, but also moving through the crowd, feeling foreheads, propping people up, and handing out more water than alcohol.

Brynn is a good person.

Ribbit stands in front of the grandfather clock, fully naked, swinging his junk in time with the pendulum at the suggestion of a freshman, who finds it so thrilling that he blows beer out his nose. Hugh leads the crowd in a chant, counting off the seconds that Ribbit can keep himself synchronized with the clock. On the livestream, laughing emojis, balloons, thumbs-ups, and fireworks explode across the screen. Viewers are happy.

Hugh locks eyes with me from across the room, and shoots me a thumbs-up, unconsciously echoing his online audience. I scroll through comments, then shoot a text to Hugh.

Just don’t let anyone teabag him.

Or shit in his mouth

I know! People are the worst, right?

I minimize my messages app, and pull up the photo from Brynn’s phone.

“Yes,” I agree. “They are.”

Back in the kitchen I kick beer cans and water bottles out of the way. There’s a puddle of blood where I collapsed at the foot of the servants’ stairs, drying already. My bare feet stick in it as I pad through the mess, making my way to the basement door. It’s open about an inch, the pale glow from the single bulb downstairs outlining the edges.

I flip the hook behind me and take each step as an individual challenge. My legs are shaky, and my left hand is going numb. I can’t feel the wall underneath my hand, even though I’m leaning against it for support. The dirt floor is cool under my feet when I get to the bottom. It sticks to the coagulated blood and pushes up between my toes, a gritty red-brown mess.

I flop into the chair, exhausted by the walk, my arm cradled against me. I’m hit with the mixed scents of vomit and urine, and glance up to see a chalk-white Felicity hanging in her chains, eyes vacant.

Until they meet mine.

Chapter 55

Tress and Felicity

“What the hell happened to you?”

Chapter 56

Felicity

“I was attacked by a wild animal,” Tress says, and holds up her arm. It’s entirely silver from elbow to wrist, layer after layer of duct tape not quite managing to stop a trickle of blood that drips from her fingers.

“Me too,” I tell her, and rattle my chains.

She laughs. It’s a weak sound, which is nothing I would ever associate with Tress Montor, but I’m glad to even get that out of her. She looks bad. Pale as death, and her eyes are sunken deep into her skull. Her lips are drawn against the pain, and she’s so weak she can hardly keep it together, her arms and legs splayed out to either side of the chair at odd angles. As I’m watching, her eyes go dim and her head slips to the side.

“Hey!” I shout—or at least, raise my voice as much as I can. “Don’t you fucking pass out on me!”

A jolt of panic rushes up my spine. Tress is the only person who knows I’m down here. If she goes out like a light my one connection to the outside world is extinguished, too. I wish that was the only reason I’m freaked out. I wish that