Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,76

saying. “I swear I didn’t.”

Shock, numb in my nerves. The blood dark and sticking, seeping out to the edges of the pier. Soon it’ll blossom in the water. I can picture it spreading across the surface like oil, shiny and slick and red, red, red.

Julia steps around the box, canister still gleaming inside, and bends to press her fingers against Welch’s neck.

“Nothing,” she says.

She’s dead, and she’s taken her secrets with her. I can’t work out how to feel. Thankful that she can’t hurt me. Angry that I’ll never find out what she knew, that my chances of finding Byatt are slipping through my fingers. And under it all, under everything, so familiar it’s like breathing—guilt eating away at my heart.

I tuck my gun back into my waistband, bend over, and brace my hands on my knees. Welch had to be telling the truth about our families. There’s no reason for her to lie. And that means my mom is out there, and she isn’t counting the days until I come home.

“Do we tell the others?” I say. I sound hoarse, like I’ve been screaming for hours. “About our families?”

When I straighten up, Julia is shaking her head. “I’m not breaking that news,” she says. “I wish I didn’t know.”

Me too. But there’s no time for any more about it. The day’s passing, and we can’t be out here after dark, especially not without Welch.

I take a quick glance at her body. Her fingers haven’t turned black. Her and Headmistress, sick but not like us, and there’s my proof. “What do we do with her? Carry her back to the house?”

Julia looks past me, to the trees. Blood heavy on the air, a tang like copper in my mouth.

“No,” she says. “The body’ll slow us down. Attract attention we don’t want.”

There’s only one option. Carson is starting to cry, so I take her shoulders, urge her away. Julia and I will do this ourselves.

She takes the feet, and I take the arms. Welch’s body is still warm, limbs still loose, and when I move her hair off her face, I’m looking into her still-open eyes. I want to close them like I’ve seen people do in movies, but when I reach down, her lashes brush against my fingertips, stiff with cold, and I recoil. Mr. Harker felt like this. Soft, with no tension left in his body.

“Let’s do it quick,” Julia says. She’s crouched by Welch’s knees. “Grab her keys, and then we’ll just push her in.”

It’s nothing, I tell myself. It’s what has to be done.

The ring of keys is clipped to her belt, and my hands shake as I work it free. There, the key to the gate, long and iron. There, the key to the barn even though we never lock it. And there, at the end, a key to her old classroom. Still on the ring, like she was hoping for those days again.

Enough. I hook the keys to my own belt and then bend over again, rest my hands on either side of the bloody slice in Welch’s chest. “On three.”

The first push gets her right to the edge, and Julia sits back, clenches her fists. She’s working up to it, but I can’t take any time, I can’t wait because the more I wait, the louder Carson’s crying gets, and it has to be now. I wedge my shoulder against Welch’s and shove against her hip. It’s slow and scraping, but finally, legs first, she tips off the pier.

A splash. Water clinging to my face, chill seeping into my skin. I wipe myself dry.

“Thanks,” Julia says quietly.

Welch floats. Hair drifting out, blood leaking.

I let myself feel it all—the hurting, and under it, a small part of me violent with satisfaction—and then I stand up and turn away. Sooner or later something will come from the woods to take the body. I’d rather not be watching when it does.

After that there’s just the question of the canister. We gather around it, face resolutely away from the water.

“What the hell is in this thing?” I ask.

“I don’t care about that,” Julia says. “I care about what we’re doing with it. And I vote we toss it. Don’t mention it to anybody. It’ll just make a mess. I mean, look what it did to Welch.”

Carson flinches. I expect her to crack, crumble, but she draws herself up, sets her shoulders. “It’s coming with us.”

I watch Julia’s face go slack with surprise. I’ve never seen