26

Kaki

Tuesday, January 10

Kaki slept for twenty-four hours straight. Lana’s hidden bottle of vodka under the bathroom sink was still there—right next to the container of cleanser. She drank it all down in one go behind a closed bathroom door. She still had a couple of sleeping pills, too. She’d taken those as well. And blissful, all-consuming sleep had taken her from Sunday night into Tuesday morning.

There had been arrests. She had been one of them. Then they’d questioned her for over an hour. They’d asked her about Damien—they knew all about him, it seemed. Then they’d questioned her about Sydney. Her heart hurt with the memory of her friend. They were still looking for her. Still wondering if she was alive. And I know where she is. She couldn’t tell them. Damien had sworn he would kill her. Maybe he still would. But nothing mattered anymore.

Kaki stumbled from her bedroom into the hallway.

Brandon was there, sitting on the floor by her door. He slid his back up the wall and his eyes looked like a startled animal. “Dad!” he called out. “Dad! She’s awake!”

“Shh,” Kaki’s head hurt. “You don’t have to shout it out to everybody.”

Her dad’s footsteps clumped up the staircase, and he seemed out of breath when he reached the top. He grasped at his chest. “You’re awake. Oh, thank God.”

“It would be better for everyone if I’d just died.” She turned away and closed the bathroom door. She filled a disposable cup with water and gulped it. She met her own eyes in the mirror. Disgusting. Disgusting. Ugly, nasty ho. You are the most hideous thing that ever lived. She swilled a mouthful of water and spit it at her reflection. I hate you.

Opening the cupboard, she looked for anything—aspirin, ibuprofen, anything she could swallow in large quantities. Anything that might kill her. But everything had been removed. With a scream of anguish, she sank onto the toilet, pulling at her hair. She could feel the sweats coming on. Could she text Damien? She couldn’t remember what had happened to him…

Her skin was crawling...and itching. She looked at the inside of her forearm. Blue and black ink. Scabbed over. No. No! No! She turned on the faucet, immersing her hand in the running water, scrubbing the image and the words—MOS.

You’re a Masters of Sin girl now. You belong to us. You belong to me. You’re my slave.

“No!” she shrieked long and hard, her voice echoing in the tile of the customized bathroom.

Someone was knocking on the door.

She had to remove this tattoo. She scrubbed and scratched until the skin burned, stung, and then broke open and bled. Only then did she sink to the floor with a sense of relief, her head dropping to rest on the tops of her knees, her tangled, dirty hair falling over her face. The blood would wash away the pain and the stain. But that wasn’t just any blood. That was something about the blood of Jesus…

“Hey, Kaki.”

She gasped.

“Hey, what’s there to do around here…you know, like, for fun?”

Shaking uncontrollably, Kaki raised her head, peering at the source of the voice through a veil of blonde strands. A girl with a long, black ponytail and cat-eye makeup shimmered before her. The image was blurry, but the voice was unmistakable. “Sydney?”

“What are you doing? Why haven’t you told them where I am? Do you know how cold it is out here in the woods? Do you know how gross it is being buried under a bunch of dirt and leaves and stuff?”

She reached out to touch Sydney’s form. She couldn’t feel anything. The image disappeared. “Sydney!” she screamed.

“Girl, you’d better tell them where I am. I’m gonna come mess you up if you don’t. You’d better…”

Kaki choked. She gasped, clutching at her throat, and crawled toward the door…

“Kaki! Unlock the door! Kaki! Come on, let us in!” The voices of her brother and father eclipsed that of Sydney’s familiar, scolding tone.

She flipped the lock and flung the door open. Then her dad was sitting on the floor with her, holding her in his arms. “It’s OK,” he breathed against her ear. “You’re OK. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”

“I need to tell someone—I need…” she screamed.

“What do you need to tell me? I’m here, baby. I’m listening.”

At first the words wouldn’t come, they were stuck at the back of her throat, constricted behind a sob like Celia’s breath-defying shrieks. When the words came, it was as though they were shot out of a cannon. “I know where Sydney’s body is. I know where she is!”