I am nothing. There is nothing. And then suddenly, I am.
I open my eyes, try to figure out where I am and what’s happening. Jalen kneels over me, hollow-eyed and breathing hard. “Welcome back,” he says.
From where? My head aches, and my throat feels ringed with fire. I’m lying down as if I’ve been sleeping, but I’m not in my bed. And then in a flash it all comes back. Mrs. Shum’s face through the plastic—her eyes catlike and cold, watching me die.
Suddenly Jalen topples forward, landing on top of me. In the dim light of a lantern, Mrs. Shum is illuminated, standing over me with the tire iron in her hand. “There,” she says with satisfaction. “That ought to slow him down a little.”
I instinctively close my eyes and play dead. I feel the brush of Mrs. Shum’s leg as she moves closer, pulls him off me. I pray she hasn’t killed him.
“She must have texted him somehow, told him how to find her.” Dr. Shum says. “Check her cell.”
“The damn cell,” Mrs. Shum mutters. “We’ll have to get rid of it.” She nudges me with the toe of her shoe. “Why is it that you girls always turn out to be such colossal pains in the neck?” There’s a moment of silence, and then she says, “You ought to finish him now, Ray. I don’t think I hit him hard enough.”
My heart races, and I know that I have to do something, but what?
“Finish him?” Dr. Shum repeats. “That’s your area, not mine.”
“You think your hands are clean?” Mrs. Shum says. “You disgust me. You and your needs. Look what they’ve brought you.”
As they argue, I open my eyes a crack. Jalen lies on his back next to me. Barely visible is Dr. Shum, near my feet. My head pounds. All I want to do is close my eyes and sleep.
Lie still, Paige, Emily’s voice says in my head. Don’t be scared. This is just another game like the ones we played growing up. We played dead, but we always brought each other back to life, remember?
“Don’t you see,” Dr. Shum says patiently, “how ridiculous this is? For Christ’s sake, Julia, we’re getting a body count.” He sighs. “Emily was an accident, and Paige an unfortunate necessity. But Jalen? How are we going to explain it when he goes missing?”
“So we should just give ourselves up? It’s a little too late for that, Ray, isn’t it?”
“What other choice do we have? We have to stop. We have to stop now.”
“For a man who makes his living piecing together the past, you have remarkably little imagination.” Mrs. Shum says. “But I forgive you that, Ray, because that’s what married people do—they forgive each other. Our faults cancel each other out in the end. You don’t see it, but having young Jalen come here is actually the very thing that’s going to save us.”
There’s a pause. “You see that broken wine bottle over there? It tells a story. Two lovers who were about to be separated and decided to meet one final time here in the ruins. They’re drinking, fooling around, and things get out of hand.”
“We suffocated Paige with a plastic bag, Julia,” Dr. Shum says wearily. “How are you going to explain that?”
I nudge Jalen, but he doesn’t move. Wake up, I scream at him in my head. Wake up.
“That’s the best part,” Mrs. Shum says. “It was part of a terrible game teenagers play—a sex game—where they choke themselves on purpose to heighten their experience. Only this time it went too far, and Paige died. Jalen, out of remorse, threw himself off the cliff.” She pauses. “Don’t you see how perfect that is, Ray? We can testify to Paige’s state of mind. Even if they tie the plastic bag to us, it won’t matter. Paige has been in my studio. She could have taken it herself. All we need to do is make sure Jalen’s and Paige’s prints are on that plastic bag.”
“Julia…really?” He pauses. I can almost imagine him shaking his head. “The bump on her head…I don’t think…”
“And that’s the problem,” Mrs. Shum snaps. “You really don’t think. Do you have a better idea? I didn’t think so. Hurry, Ray, get his prints on the bag. We haven’t got all night.”
I hear the shuffle of Dr. Shum’s footsteps and then the rustle of the plastic bag. Opening my eyes a tiny slit, I can just make out Dr. Shum’s dark body bent over, pressing Jalen’s fingers into the plastic bag. I try to gather my strength, but my body feels like a marionette lying in a puddle of its own strings and parts.
“Maybe we should put the bag back over Paige’s head just to make sure his fingerprints are in the right place.” She pauses and then gives a tiny laugh. “You know, I’m beginning to frighten myself just how good I am at this. You best remember this, Ray, the next time another little girl catches your eye.”
“What’s left of my eye,” Dr. Shum says glumly. “It stings like shit.” Suddenly he gasps in surprise. “Let go. Julia, he’s got my arm. I can’t—”
I open my eyes as Mrs. Shum lifts the tire iron high and swings it at Jalen’s head. I open my mouth and force a primitive, guttural sound to come out. It’s enough to distract Mrs. Shum and the blow lands on Jalen’s shoulder. He grunts and releases Dr. Shum, who begins punching him in the face.
Mrs. Shum swings the tire iron at me, but I see it coming and roll to the side. It strikes the ground near my head with a heavy clunk. I struggle to my knees but then a wave of dizziness hits me and I fight hard not to pass out.
To the side, I glimpse Dr. Shum and Jalen locked together into one dark shape, struggling on the ground. I hear the sickening sound of fists striking flesh, and then they knock the flashlight into the hole in the floor and the room goes dark.
Something whines. Instinctively I block my head with my arm. There’s a cracking sound, like two rocks smacking together, as the tire iron connects with my forearm. Intense pain shoots up my arm, so strong it drops me to my knees. Something hot trickles down my arm. Blood.
“Will you just stay dead, you little bitch?” Mrs. Shum screams. I brace myself for another blow, but then she topples forward as Jalen tackles her from behind.
As Jalen knocks Mrs. Shum to the ground, I struggle to wrestle the tire iron from her hands, but she clings to it. Blood streams down my arm, and I use it like a weapon, letting it drip into her face, hoping it’ll blind her or gross her out or do something to loosen her grip on the tire iron…
Suddenly Jalen grunts and releases Mrs. Shum. There are more sounds of flesh striking flesh.
Without Jalen to stop her, Mrs. Shum gathers herself into a crouching position, shifts the tire iron in her hands, and then rises to her feet. In the beam of moonlight, her hair hangs wild and loose to her shoulders. As she stands over me, she seems gigantic, stretched like a macabre shadow. I wiggle feebly away from her, my knees scraping the stone ground with every step. She follows me with the unhurried steps of someone who knows that escape is impossible.
I know a moment of hope when Dr. Shum cries out in pain. Maybe Jalen will get away. At least one of us will live.
“Jalen,” Mrs. Shum says sharply. “Let Dr. Shum go before I bash in your girlfriend’s head.”
“Jalen,” I yell, “don’t! She’s going to do it anyway!”
“It’s over, Paige,” Mrs. Shum says gently. “Just hold still for a moment. I won’t miss again. I promise.”
“No,” Jalen yells.
I manage to move another few inches. The rock slices my skin. More blood—more evidence, I think, for the police. I feel Mrs. Shum’s shadow draw closer and look around in the darkness for Jalen, for one last look.
Suddenly Dr. Shum says, “Good God.”
I look around. Framed in the moonlight, a man stands in the entranceway. He’s naked except for a white loin cloth wrapped around his gaunt frame. His hair is long, very straight and silver. Where his eyes should be are two black holes. He lifts his arms and says something in Navajo. He clicks on a flashlight, illuminating the room, and then opens his mouth and gives a primitive, bird-like screech.
Distracted, Mrs. Shum stares at the figure. “What the…”
She doesn’t have time to finish. The si’papu is right behind her. I kick her as hard as I can.
She loses her balance and steps backward, tripping as her foot rolls on the broken wine bottle. She almost catches herself, but then takes one more step backward. For half a second, I see her expression change, and then she’s gone, falling through the floors. I hear a muffled thump as she hits the ground, and then there’s silence.
Dr. Shum releases Jalen and runs to the edge of the passageway. “Julia!” he shouts. “Julia!”
The man in the doorway steps forward as Jalen climbs to his feet. In the light, I recognize Jalen’s uncle. He and Jalen rush over to Dr. Shum, who brushes off their grip on him. “Let go of me!” he shouts “I have to go to her! We have to help her!”
“Ray…” Mrs. Shum’s voice floats out of the darkness below. “Help me.”
“I’m coming,” Dr. Shum says. He turns to Jalen. “Please,” he says. “She’s hurt. She could be dying.”
“Did you help Emily when she begged for her life?”
One of Dr. Shum’s eyes is blood red. The rest of his face is swollen and battered. “Julia didn’t mean to hit her so hard. And then what was I to do? Emily would have been dead before we could get her off the cliffs. It would have ruined my career! All for what purpose? She was dying. I put her in the most sacred place that anyone could ever be buried in—a si’papu.” He glances down the hole again. “Please,” he says. “Julia needs help.”
The world starts to spin as a new and terrible thought occurs to me. “Emily was alive when you sealed her in the si’papu?”
“I told you. There was no hope for her. Now let me get to Julia!”
You’re a monster, I start to tell him, but he is suddenly moving farther and farther away from me, traveling down an endless hallway. My words echo in my head, which feels so light it might detach itself and float away. The ache of my arm feels less intense, as if it’s something I’m remembering rather than feeling. I’m suddenly so dizzy it’s an effort to stand.
“Paige,” Jalen says, but any words after that fade into the darkness.