Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,90

thrill. “It’s just us girls here. You can be honest.” When Headmistress doesn’t answer, Reese nods. “I’ll tell you what I think, then. I think you were always planning to get out. I think you had your escape set from the start. Just in case they couldn’t cure us, right? But they left you behind, and that’s why you needed me.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Explain it, then.”

“We knew something was happening years ago,” Headmistress says, babbling now. “It was staying so warm in the winters, and the irises kept growing, and they asked—the people from Camp Nash, the Navy, and the CDC—but it was only access they wanted. Just to test a few things here and there. But we weren’t expecting something like the Tox. I promise you: we never thought, I never thought, that would happen.”

It’s a lie and we can both tell. She knew. She knew something was wrong, before the Tox started. And she kept us here anyway.

“You mean you never thought it would put you in danger,” Reese says. “But the rest of us, we were a risk worth taking, right? My father always said you wanted the wrong things, he always said not to trust you, and now I know why.”

Person after person collapsing under the weight of this place, lie after lie, and I’ve had enough of this. Enough of these confrontations, of secrets spilling out of us like blood. I reach out, grab hold of Reese’s jacket, and tug until she looks back at me.

“Come on,” I say. At first I’m not sure she’s heard, and then something changes in her face, softens, like she’s coming back from somewhere else. “Let’s leave her with the mess she made.”

Reese shakes her head. “She could’ve saved us. She could’ve tossed that gas into the fucking ocean.”

Yeah, I know. I could’ve too.

I take a deep breath, ignore the sick turn of my stomach. “But right now we can save ourselves. Please, Reese. Let’s go.”

She glances at Headmistress, who’s quivering, watching me with wide, helpless eyes. “If she moves a goddamn muscle, I swear—”

“She won’t,” I cut in. “Right?”

“I won’t,” Headmistress says, nodding frantically.

Reese sighs, and some of the tension drains out of her. Shoulders slumping, head tipping forward. “Look for some food,” she says softly. “I’ll grab water.”

“Thank you,” I say. “We’ll be quick, I promise.”

Headmistress is pressed against the wall, her palms splayed open and empty, so I turn my back to her, leave Reese to keep watch if she likes. There’s a canvas backpack by the bookshelves that line the wall, already half packed with a pistol and a few boxes of ammo. I grab the pistol, check the safety, and hand it to Reese. Her shoulder might be injured, but I’ve never fired a pistol before, and she’ll be the better shot. With any luck she remembers what I taught her about switching her stance.

She sticks the pistol in the waistband of her jeans and crouches by the carton of water bottles. The plastic wrap has been slashed open, and a few bottles have toppled onto the floor.

“You take those,” she says, nodding at the box next to me full of jerky and packets of crackers. “I’ll take a few marine flares. And one of those first aid kits too.”

I load as much of the food as I can into the backpack. It’s strange—at the bottom of the box, there’s a layer of paper, like Headmistress has packed some of the school records. I pull them out and skim through them, Reese looking over my shoulder, but the print is small and my eye is aching, desperate for some rest, so I just shove them deep into the backpack. We’ll get to them later.

Reese goes back to the water, but a few moments later she says my name, and I squint up at her. She has one of the bottles in her hand, the cap undone.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s already been opened. The seal’s broken.”

I picture Headmistress as we came in, how she was standing over this case. There was something in her hands. I look up at her now, try to catch her eye, but she’s staring straight ahead.

“Is it just that one?” I ask.

Reese takes another from the carton, twists the cap off. “This one too.” I scramble over to her, and we pick through them. Every bottle, the cap opening easily, the seal already snapped.

“Shit,” I say, but Reese is already on her feet, advancing on Headmistress.

“What,” she says