Eve hit the ground hard, sliding across the tile floor as whoever had pulled her in here threw her down.
Her binder hit the floor and opened, scattering now-loose pages of homework and class notes everywhere. She tracked them for a split-second with her eyes, saw several of them flip beneath beige metal doors, and realized she was in the girls bathroom. That, as if she didn't already know it, could only mean bad news.
She was on her side, one arm stretched past her head like she was reaching for home plate on a slide, the other somehow folded up underneath her. She turned to free her pinned arm, and in so doing came face to face with the girl – or girls – who had yanked her in here.
Martina Rodriguez and Ali Carter were at the exact opposite end of the high school food chain from Eve. They were at the top of the pyramid, the queens of this government funded mountain in Hell. They were both gorgeous in that vapid way that was preferred by lipstick advertisers the world over. Martina was dark, perfect skin that brought to mind exotic vacations and skinny dipping in the Caribbean. Ali was light, a California beach bunny if ever there was one, dressed like she was going clubbing instead of hitting first period. Both had nearly identical hairstyles, fashioned to look just like that bimbo on that program everyone was talking about these days, the show that should have been named Sluts Who Argue and Then Bang Dudes.
Eve felt her stomach try to escape sideways as fear ran up and down her spine on a hundred feet of ice. Not because of Martina and Ali – well, mostly not because of them – but rather because of who was always with them.
"You screwed up the curve, bitch," said another voice, and with it Eve's stomach stopped trying to escape and felt like it had decided violent implosion would be the best course.
Lilly Edwards wasn't just the third musketeer of this particular adventure, she was the leader of the crew. She was good looking as Martina and Ali were, but unlike her cronies Lilly also had a brain. Not that she was book smart. But she could come up with cruel plans and think of all kinds of vengeful nastiness for any who crossed her.
"You screwed it up," Lilly repeated.
Eve looked over, her vision focusing for some reason on the spilled papers on the floor, as though one of them might hold an answer key with the necessary information to get her out of this situation.
She forced herself to look back at Lilly. "I... don't... I don't understand," she said.
"The test," Lilly snapped. She held up her hand, which had curled itself around a crumpled paper. Eve could make out a bright red "D minus" on the top of the sheet. Now she understood. Understood, but knew that understanding wasn't going to help her stop whatever cruelty Lilly intended to dish out.
"All you had to do was miss a few," said Lilly. "But that's below you, right? So now the rest of us have to suffer." Lilly was wearing a light jacket, a spunky orange number that probably would have made Eve slightly ill to look at if she weren't already feeling completely ill from terror.
Lilly pulled a pack of cigarettes out of one of her jacket pockets, pulled a Bic lighter from another. She lit the cigarette and took a drag.
Eve thought about saying something, then realized that nothing she could say would do any good for her. Whatever was happening now, she was no doubt best off just waiting until it finished and blew over. Sometimes playing possum was the best way to get through something.
Lilly exhaled a cloud of white-gray smoke. The smell of it infused the bathroom instantly and Eve felt her throat grow hot. Cigarette smoke was not high on an asthma sufferer's list of favorite things.
Lilly put a hand on her hip and assumed an expression that Eve suspected was meant to convey how thoughtful she was being about this whole thing. She looked instead like she was having a weird seizure.
"Do you know how bad I needed a good grade on that test? I'll probably end up with a D in the class now. Probably be stuck at community college because of you." Eve thought it highly likely that would have been the outcome regardless, but again managed to remain silent.
Lilly took another puff on the cigarette, then pulled it from her mouth. She licked her lips and Eve was treated to the sight of an ornate tongue stud that looked like it had a ruby embedded in it. Entirely possible – the reason the three girls hovering above her looked so fashionable but still lived in this school district was that all three of them had parents whose primary method of earning money involved selling vast quantities of drugs.
Lilly blew on the lit end of the cigarette until it glowed red-orange, then held the cigarette to the lower corner of her test. Nothing happened for a moment, then a tongue of flame licked upward, curling against and around the paper and blackening it within only a second or two.
"I even told you," said Lilly. Her voice sounded suddenly dreamy, as though the fire had cast a spell on her. "Told you the day before the test that you should miss a few." Then her voice snapped out of its trance-sound and back to the .45 caliber crack of her usual tones as she said, "I guess you forgot."
Lilly nodded at Martina and Ali. The two girls fell on Eve like bit players in a zombie movie. Eve screamed, though a moment later she realized that the scream had been one of surprise and not pain. Martina and Ali hadn't kicked or punched or bitten her. Instead, each of them had grabbed an arm and yanked, hauling on her hands until she was laying spread-armed on her back. The tile floor was cold, but that didn't explain the chills that were twirling back and forth from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. She had expected Martina and Ali to batter at her a bit and then let go when their fury had cooled. But what they were doing was already cool. Calculating. Terrifying.
"What are you doing?" she said. Her voice came out as a thin, high-pitched wheeze, her throat closing in direct proportion to her fear. She had had the chance to scream before. Now she couldn't do it even if she wanted to.
Lilly straddled her. She was rolling the lit cigarette between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, and she stared at it with a creepy, almost stoned expression that was a mixture of elation and near-sexual satisfaction. She knelt down. Lilly was wearing a skirt so short it was basically a wide belt, and as she knelt Eve had a quick moment to see that the most powerful girl in school wasn't wearing any underwear before Lilly's knees pressed on her chest. Eve's breasts weren't the hugest in the world, but there was enough of them that having knees on her torso quickly went from uncomfortable to distressing to agonizing.
Lilly leaned close to Eve. Her breath was hot and smelled like cigarette smoke mixed with something even more unpleasant that Eve couldn't guess at. "Gonna give you a reminder," said Lilly quietly.
The girl held the cigarette between their faces, so close that if Eve so much as twitched forward the cigarette would be embedded in her eye.
"What are you...?" Eve whispered. Her voice was almost gone. She was trying not to gasp, knew somehow that to do so would be to fan Lilly on to even worse torture, but also knew she wasn't going to be able to stop it from happening in another few seconds. She gulped. The spit felt like an ice cube the size of her fist as it went down, fighting through her throat. "I'll tell," she managed. "I'll tell the cops."
"Really?" said Lilly with a smirk. She nodded to Martina and Ali again. The two girls yanked Eve's jacket off, tearing it badly in the process. Lilly remained on Eve's chest while it happened, only moving a bit when her cronies had to pull the jacket out from below Eve. They tossed the coat – one of Eve's nicest articles of clothing – in one of the stalls, where it landed mostly in the toilet.
Underneath the jacket, Eve wore a black sweater. Martina looked at it with something like offended dismay. "Damn, girl," she said. "Don't you know it's spring already?"
"Shut up," spat Lilly.
Martina and Ali, still holding Eve's arms outstretched, now shifted so that they could push her sleeves back.
"You'll tell the cops?" said Lilly mockingly. She gestured at Eve's bare arms. "And who's gonna believe a cutter like you?"
Eve didn't want to look. Didn't want to see the shame that had been laid bare for her enemies to see, to mock. But she couldn't help it. Couldn't help looking at one arm, then the other. Even the pain of having Lilly's full weight on her breastbone disappeared in the hot embarrassment that came every time she saw herself like this.
The cuts crisscrossed up the length of both forearms, and there were even a few above her elbows. Most of the scars were on her inner arms, but no part of her forearms was completely spared the scarring. The cuts had been thin at first, just quick slashes meant only to cause minor pain that would allow her to forget the horrors of her life. But over time they had grown deeper and the corresponding scars had grown thicker. They burled and curled around and over each other, a nest of white vipers that had somehow been frozen in time and would remain forever as they were now.
"Jesus," muttered Martina, then followed it up with what sounded like a short prayer in Spanish.
Yeah, that's right, thought Eve. Your daddy kills schoolchildren with drugs and you use the money to buy clothes, but you go ahead and pray.
She was surprised at the venom behind the thought. She expected to be terrified at this point. Maybe the anger at this treatment had crowded out her terror.
Of course, thinking that reversed it. The fear she had been feeling only a moment ago returned, then increased. And increased still more when Lilly moved the cigarette away from Eve's face. She should have been grateful that the burning embers no longer flickered so close to her eyes, but the look in Lilly's gaze told her worse was coming.
The burning tip of the cigarette hovered over Eve's right arm for a moment, then plunged down.
Eve tried to scream, wanted to scream, had to scream. She could feel the pain searing through her arm, up to her shoulders and down to her stomach where it sat leadenly. She inhaled, not sure if the asthma would let her cry for help but determined to try.
Martina slapped a hand over Eve's mouth.
Eve tried to scream anyway, but all that came out was a muffled "Melph" sound. Then her throat gave up fighting against the asthma and closed down completely. Eve's body bucked as she tried to draw in oxygen and found she couldn't. Her throat convulsed, triggering a gag reflex that made her need to cough. But she couldn't cough. Couldn't scream. Couldn't breath.
Lilly pulled the cigarette away from Eve's arm. It left a perfect circle of charred skin, third-degree burn that would slough away and leave another scar to join the snakes on her arm.
But Lilly wasn't done. She rammed the cigarette down again. The pain wasn't as bad this time – much of the heat had been stubbed out of the cigarette when it was ground against her arm the first time – but it was enough to trigger more convulsions, more gagging. Everything started to unfocus, like someone had smeared Vaseline over her eyeballs. But she could see enough to tell that Lilly had pulled the cigarette back and was going in for a third perfect circle of pain.
A noise sounded in the bathroom, bouncing off tile and porcelain. It was usually a sound Eve hated since it signaled the arrival of the next eight hours of hell, but this time it sounded better than an angelic chorus. It was the school bell. Students had one minute to get seated in their first classes.
Lilly put the cigarette back to her lips. She sucked on it for a moment, though the part of Eve's mind not totally engaged in simply trying to breathe wondered if she could actually smoke the thing after it had been stubbed out against human flesh twice over. Then the unofficial queen of the high school nodded to Martina and Ali. The two let go of Eve's arms and she immediately jabbed her left hand – the right arm was too sore to use – into her pants pocket and pulled out her inhaler.
She moved the inhaler toward her lips, but felt her wrist grabbed and then Martina's fingernails dug into the meat of her palm until she dropped the medicine. Martina scooped the inhaler off the floor. "What's this?" she said. She sounded genuinely intrigued.
Eve couldn't find the breath to muster a full answer. "Mine," she wheezed.
Martina's expression hardened. "Mine now, bitch," she said. She put it in her pocket.
The three of them stared at her for a while longer until finally Lilly – flanked on either side by her henchwomen – nudged Ali and Martina with her elbows. They turned away as one, moving with parade-ground precision, and were gone.
Eve lay there gasping for a moment. She clawed at the floor, trying to flip herself over so she could get to hands and knees. From there, hopefully, she could stand and either the attack would subside or she could get to the school nurse.
Unfortunately, her hands couldn't seem to get any purchase on the overly slick-seeming floor, either to push herself forward and sit up, or to flip herself over. She suddenly remembered a nature documentary she had seen once, a scene in which a turtle had been knocked onto its back and the British narrator calmly prophesied the reptile's death before moving onto other, luckier subjects. She had thought it stupid at the time – what kind of animal dies if it falls on its back? – but it seemed considerably less stupid now that she found herself in a similar position.
Her throat was closing. One hand left its position, no longer clawing at the floor and instead clawing at her throat. Bright blue jellyfish seemed to swim in front of her eyes, flashing stroboscopically. Then the blue jellyfish were joined by black clouds. One of the clouds enveloped her, obscuring almost everything from her view, and when it dissipated she saw someone staring at her.
It took a long moment before she realized that the eyes looking at her were her own; another moment before she realized how that was possible. She must have gotten to her feet somehow, and was now leaning on the bathroom wall, both hands gripping a wall-mounted soap dispenser.
At least my hands won't be dirty when I die.
Eve giggled. Tried to, at any rate, but the giggle emerged as a rasping squeak. A part of her knew that she was dying, that her oxygen-deprived brain was shutting down, and that part of her mind started screaming at her to get to the nurse get to the nurse get to the nurse. But the rest of her just kept laughing that starved pseudo-laugh.
Something clicked, and the soap dispenser – plastic so cheap it barely qualified as plastic – gave up trying to hold her and pulled apart in her hands. One arm pinwheeled as her body tried to stay upright. The other attempted to follow suit, but just slammed into the wall hard enough that a jolt of pain shot up her wrist. It was enough to drive her hysteria away, which was far from a blessing since it meant she felt every instant between losing her balance and crashing to the floor again.
This time she fell face-first. She felt her nose hit the floor, felt something warm on her lip. And it turned out that being on her stomach and chest wasn't much different from being on her back. She still couldn't move.
The jellyfish had fled. The clouds had closed in over her vision almost completely. A silver lining was still there, still present at the edges of her sight, but even as she noticed them the gossamer threads of light fled. There was only blackness.
Eve faded into unconsciousness. She thought she dreamed that someone was holding her, was lifting her to a light, flying with her toward a bright star in the night.
Then the star disappeared as well.
She was alone. Just her and the dark.