Chapter Text
Kate stormed into the house, fists clenched so hard that her nails left little red crescents on her palms.
You’re so much better than this!
No, I’m not, Kate! Chess’ face, stony and defeated. I’m sorry but I’m not.
You had one more person who believed in you. One.
Fuck! Kate slammed the door behind her, hoping for a terrible sense of satisfaction at the sound. There wasn’t one. Just an empty pit in her stomach. She passed an upset Farrah, hugging herself close, in the winding halls of Riley’s ridiculous house on her way down the basement and barely noticed. Screw this hell sleepover. Nobody was having anything close to a good time.
Who knows! Maybe the drunk freshman was having the night of her life, actually. What the fuck, Cairo.
Kate paused in front of the basement door. Her hand rested on the doorknob.
Fuck. She shouldn’t have left Chess out there. The realization swept through her, a wave of cold starting in her feet and washing over her whole body.
What’s your biggest fear, do you think?
I don’t know. Failing people, maybe?
Wait, shit, that’s too deep. I was going to say, like, waking up covered in bugs.
She turned around, feeling with conviction like the consequences of doing this were going to reverberate through the rest of her life. She and Chess were unbreakable, at least for the rest of this year. They could work through anything.
Kate didn’t know if she believed in the supernatural or energies or whatever, but there was something dark and cold in the air as she made her way back to the door. Whatever it was, it almost became palpable as she saw Riley’s heavy wooden door wide open.
There was a sudden sense of urgency. Something was wrong, very and horribly wrong. The neighbor’s dogs seemed to agree, barking to high heaven. Kate broke into a sprint through the doorway and down Riley’s porch. Just around the corner, Chess would be there, and she’d be safe—
Kate whipped around the corner in time to see somebody plunge a kitchen knife into Chess’ stomach. The bloodcurdling scream echoed through her mind. There wasn’t time to think, but she had to think because holy shit Chess just got stabbed she’s bleeding what the fuck, but there was still the figure standing over Chess as she collapsed—
Fight or flight. Kate always wondered what she would do.
One moment, Kate was standing transfixed, and the silhouette was brandishing their knife proudly, as if congratulating themself on a job well done. In the next, there was a rock in Kate’s hand. One more and Kate was smashing the rock against the person’s head as hard as she could, feeling every single drop pent up anger leave her body like this was the ultimate act of catharsis. They immediately crumpled. The knife clattered gracelessly to the ground, followed by the attacker with somehow even less grace.
She didn’t even pause. Kate fell the ground next to the bench as she ripped her flannel off of her arms and pressed the green fabric onto Chess’ stomach. “Chess, can you hear me?” The girl’s eyes were filled with fear and there was blood dribbling out of her mouth. “Chess, I’m here, it’s going to be okay Chess.” Chess didn’t (couldn’t) say anything back
Was it?
They needed an ambulance. God, they needed the police, this was a murder attempt. On Chess.
Fuuuck. Oh God. Riley took all their phones.
“Help!” Kate shouted, hoping the middle-aged white parents who lived in a gated community would call the cops to complain about the noise. It was the most likely story. “Please, please someone help!” Chess weakly reached out a hand, but it just fell back down. Kate grabbed it with one hand while keeping pressure on the wound. “It’s going to be okay, we’re gonna be just fine,” Kate babbled in between calls for help.
“Yo, what the fuck?”
Kate turned fast enough to give herself whiplash. It was a pizza delivery girl, in all of her exhausted, red-clad glory, looking exactly like God to Kate. “Call nine-one-one!”
The pizza girl’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then her eyes drifted over to the slumped form of Chess and then to the unconscious body unceremoniously lying on the sidewalk. Her demeanor straightened up instantly and her phone was out of her pocket and dialing.
“We’re gonna be just fine.” Kate repeated it like a mantra while trying to ignore the blood (so much blood, too much blood). Chess had promised her that much.
-
This was not what Eva had signed up for.
She’d signed up for five dollars an hour plus tips. She had a very easy job. She drove somewhere, she handed off a pizza (and sometimes, when people were feeling extra spicy, a two-liter of soda), got a couple dollars in return, rinse and repeat.
Eva decidedly did not get paid enough to discover three girls in various states of health. Some redhead with a bloody chef’s knife beside her (unconscious), a girl whose abdomen was soaked with blood despite the flannel pressed over her wound (not looking too alive), and a sobbing girl in a baseball tee who had barked at her to call 911 (fine, at least physically... Eva was not about to dissect the poor girl’s mental state because her own was not doing so great just from being there).
“Listen, is there anyone else around? Should we do anything other than wait for an ambulance?” Eva asked, hoping the crying girl wouldn’t lash out.
“Fuck,” she said softly but with an enormous amount of emotion. “There’s like, five people in house sixteen that need to get out here. They don’t know that anything’s happened.”
Eva barely knew anything about whatever happened. She was just supposed to deliver a goddamn pizza! She felt guilt creep in soon after the thought came to mind. If she hadn’t been here, maybe the stabbed girl would have been dead.
Maybe she would still die anyways.
Eva shook the thoughts out of her head as she jogged to the house and up the porch. No more bad energy. She rang the doorbell incessantly and eyed the wide open door. No offense, but she knew the weird-ass security systems gated communities had. She was not risking that.
A pissed-looking black girl came around the hall, arms crossed. “Where’s the pizza?” Eva wished she had taken off her idiotic cap.
“Yeah, that’s not a big deal right now, your f—”
“Wait.” The girl, who Eva had taken to calling Pissed-off in her head, glanced up and down through the wide open door. “I know you.”
“Okay, yeah, maybe? I was saying, your friend—”
“West High! You’re their flyer! Eva Sanchez?”
“Your friend is bleeding out!” Eva interrupted, gesturing behind her.
“What?” Pissed-off said incredulously. Two others appeared from around the corner upon hearing this. One looked like your average horse girl and the other was rocking some sick space buns. Eva might have complimented her if there wasn’t a dying girl about fifty yards away.
“I’ve already called the police but like, there’s another one of you guys sobbing over her and there’s some redhead unconscious on the ground, too—”
“What?” Space Buns echoed.
“I don’t know! I don’t know what’s happening! I came here to deliver a pizza!”
Pissed-off almost shoved Eva out of the way trying to get out of the house. She tried not to be too offended, considering the circumstances, but only mostly succeeded. Horse Girl and Space Buns hesitated for a moment before following their friend.
To Eva’s surprise, no one was hovering over Baseball Tee and the stabbed girl. Everyone instead was staring down at the out-cold redhead.
“You’re kidding, right?” Pissed-off addressed Baseball Tee, a mix of horror and disbelief in her voice. “Riley would never stab anyone! She’s literally harmless!” Finally, a name to a face.
Baseball Tee snorted something heart-wrenching and angry. Eva couldn’t help but notice how harshly her hands were shaking. “I wouldn’t be fucking kidding about anyone stabbing Chess! And I didn’t know it was Riley until after I knocked her out!”
“How did you not know?!"
“ Chess had just gotten stabbed!”
Eva had had enough. “Aren’t there more of you guys still inside? Can you stop badgering” oh shit she still didn’t know Baseball Tee’s name “uh, her and make sure everyone else is safe?”
Horse Girl instantly snapped to attention. “Oh no. Farrah.” She looked at Eva with puppy eyes, as if she should know what had happened to whoever the fuck that was. Eva shrugged at her which seemed to set Horse Girl straight. She beelined towards the porch.
“And Mattie!” Space Buns rushed after Horse Girl.
Pissed-off plopped down onto the ground next to Riley and put her head in her hands. Eva turned away from her. The girl didn’t seem like someone who appreciated when people watched her cry.
Eva sat next to Baseball Tee and gently removed her hand from the bloody flannel. “Let me take this over, okay?” Baseball Tee looked like she was about to slice a bitch for a moment, but she let it happen.
And that was how Eva ended up with Baseball Tee clutching one of her hands like a lifeline, the other pressing a truly, truly disgustingly bloody flannel onto some girl’s stomach.
“We’re gonna be just fine, okay Chess?”
Eva listened to Baseball Tee’s affirmations until the sirens overtook them.
-
“She’s in the bathroom on the second floor,” Reese confessed to Annleigh on their way towards the house.
Annleigh stared at her. “Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?! You said you hadn’t found her!” The Lord detests lying lips, Proverbs 12:22.
“She asked me not to!” Reese defended herself. Annleigh felt the fight leave her. There wasn’t time for this, what if Riley had gotten to Farrah first? How long had she gone? Was it enough time to get to two victims?
Annleigh took the steps two at a time. The bathroom door was cracked open, the light on. Her heart beat a million times every second as she moved to burst through the door.
In her mind, she pictured blood spattered on the shower tiles, pooling around the drain, and Farrah’s motionless body slumped in a terrible heap, having died thinking that Annleigh despised her. She saw Clark, slouching over the toilet, unmoving as blood gushed from a gash in the side of his head. She saw all of her happiness performing a vanishing act that would confound every magician in the world.
But it wasn’t reality. Farrah was sniffling and pouring the contents of her beloved flask down the toilet, perfectly healthy except for the obvious intoxication, and was wearing a confounded expression at Annleigh’s sudden entrance. Annleigh threw her arms around her, sending the half-empty flask clattering to the floor.
“What the fuck?” Farrah mumbled into Annleigh’s shoulder. She tentatively hugged back, causing Annleigh to squeeze even tighter. How could she ever let her think that she hated her? Or anything less than adored her?
“I’m just,” Annleigh hiccupped. She hadn’t even realized she’d started bawling until she tried to get more words out. “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Farrah leaned into the hug and Annleigh found herself wishing that she never had to let go. “A little alcohol never hurt anyone, Annleigh. Lighten up.” Her voice was still unsure but had the usual haughty tone in it that Annleigh hadn’t known how much she would miss if it were gone forever.
She decided to live in this little bubble for just a little while longer.
Clark’s confused voice interrupted the girls. Oh, crap. In the midst of… everything, Annleigh had nearly forgotten that he was in the house. That he had just proposed before Cairo walked in.
“Annleigh? Farrah? Is everything okay?” It just made Annleigh sob harder. She felt Farrah’s arms shrug at Clark helplessly.
“She just, like, came in here crying and won’t let go.” Annleigh took a deep breath when Clark rested a hand on her shoulder, and then another. Inhale, exhale, until she could talk without choking up.
“Chess, she got…” Annleigh pushed the lump in her throat down and finally let Farrah go just in time to see the disgusted look on her face. “Riley tried to kill her,” she forced out quickly, dread seeping into her stomach. Riley tried to kill Chess.
“What?” Clark and Farrah said in unison.
“You’re joking,” Farrah laughed uncomfortably. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”
Annleigh shook her head and couldn’t stop the tears when she saw Farrah’s face turn from disbelief to horror.
“Everybody’s outside,” she whimpered. “I thought you… I don’t know, I was so scared that…” Farrah was the one who hugged Annleigh then, squeezing the air out of her lungs in one big whoosh. Clark wrapped his arms around both of them as if trying to shield them from the harsh reality.
Even that couldn’t make the pit in Annleigh’s stomach disappear.
-
Reese was guiding Mattie down the front steps of the porch. The poor girl was so dazed, from alcohol and from knowing that a girl she’d known for maybe an hour just tried to kill another. In all honesty, Reese couldn’t believe it herself. It was Riley, the same Riley who started crying in fourth grade when she couldn’t get through her book presentation. The same Riley who made her a Rainbow Loom bracelet in the seventh grade! She was harmless!
Or maybe not so much, Reese reconsidered as she watched the EMTs load Chess onto the ambulance. Kate was begging some EMT to let her ride with them, but the woman shook her head.
Reese felt Mattie’s body shutter at the sight of Chess’ limp body, the flashing lights, the policemen mulling around the crime scene.
Crime scene. It just wasn’t right.
“Don’t look,” Reese told Mattie as gently as possible, guiding the younger girl away. “You don’t have to look.” Mattie was scarcely there at all, with an emptiness in her eyes. Reese wasn’t good at this! She’d already failed at comforting another drunk girl tonight, and that was before she knew that someone she looked up to had tried to kill someone else!
Out of the corner of her eye, Reese spotted Annleigh and Farrah, accompanied by Clark - Clark?
The night couldn’t get weirder.
Mattie was silently leaning into Reese’s arm. For support or for comfort, Reese had no clue, but she wasn’t about to mention it and set her off. She rubbed her shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture as she observed the rest of the squad.
Riley was being loaded into a police car, hands cuffed together. She was conscious now, and there was a bandage on her head. For a moment, they locked eyes. Reese was shocked by her cold glare, so used to her cheerful and excited nature.
Riley had tried to kill Chess. Reese knew that, but it struck her through the gut once more. Riley. She was going to throw out that damn Rainbow Loom bracelet the moment she got home. Or maybe a fire would be more appropriate.
The wail of the ambulance shook Reese from her bracelet-burning fantasy. Mattie drew in a shaking breath beside her. God.
“You know you can’t drive like this? Right?” the pizza girl was saying. Reese glanced up at her and Kate.
Oh God, Kate. Her face was red and blotchy, and every one of her breaths seemed like a battle. She held her crumpled-up and blood-soaked flannel tight enough to turn her knuckles white. “I have to get to the hospital.”
The pizza girl grimaced and shook her head. “I’ll take you, then.” She moved to grab her bag, previously abandoned on the pavement, but an officer stepped up to them.
“Excuse me, ladies, we need to ask you a few questions before you leave…”
Reese turned her attention to Cairo, sitting painfully still on the curb. Cairo was always doing something, always gesticulating, always making some unwanted comment, always the life of the party.
But everything Cairo about her was gone. It was so horribly wrong that Reese had to stop looking immediately.
Annleigh, Farrah and Clark were all getting separately questioned by other officers. Farrah seemed to have sobered up, or could at least act like it.
Kate and the pizza girl were the first to be able to leave, followed shortly by Annleigh, Farrah and Clark. None of them spared Reese or Mattie a single word, didn’t even give them a glance.
Reese hugged Mattie closer unconsciously. No-one deserved to feel invisible.
(Icy eyes flashed in Reese’s mind. No-one deserves to be seen but seen so cruelly.)
“Miss?” Reese snapped to attention and she felt Mattie doing the exact same thing. A policeman stood there with a notepad in hand. He probably would have seemed threatening, a middle-aged white man with a gun, if Riley hadn’t looked like she had.
All through questioning, Reese had no clue what she said. Mattie, a few yards away, trying to make herself smaller and smaller as the tears in her eyes grew larger. Cairo, still on the curb, giving curt answers to the officer assigned to her and staring at nothing.
Book presentation, frozen eyes, Rainbow Loom, bloody knife flashed in Reese’s mind. All somehow Riley when that girl being herded into the back of a police car could not have been the same Riley that she knew.
-
Chess was used to feeling distant from herself, used to dizziness and an extreme lack of concentration. This was something new. Blissfully unable to understand what was going on, but with piercing flares in her gut. Like she was on fire. Burning and burning and burning.
She had been holding Kate’s hand, or at least she thought she had been. There was the ghost of a memory of her touch. She missed it, or she would if she could do much thinking.
Chess’ conscious drifted around, in and out and in and out.
There was shouting and then a mask placed over her face.
She drifted out.
-
*********
Mattie tried to quell the panic, she really did. She didn’t want to disappoint the officer because she couldn’t answer his questions. She didn’t want to put a burden on Reese more than she already was. But it just didn’t work this time.
As the officer moved on, heading towards his colleagues, Mattie felt the familiar anxiety coming to a beastly head. Reese’s hand on her shoulder was too much when it had been a gentle protection a moment before. Her palms became sweaty, there was something burrowing inside her chest and getting heavier and heavier, there was—
“Mattie?”
When had she stood up? Mattie hugged her arms closer to herself. She couldn’t move her mouth to speak, she wanted to, she needed to, her skin itched and itched and she wanted to, needed to leave—
“What’s wrong? How can I help? Um…”
—nauseating, overwhelming, she wanted to, needed to prove that she wasn’t an annoying mess, she wasn’t, but why else would any of this be happening—
“Can I touch you? Do you need a… hug?”
—this was her fault, she must have done something so horribly wrong that Riley, no don’t touch don’t touch her skin itched, itched and ached, tiny crescents indenting her arms where she gripped herself tightly not tight enough, not enough to stop this—
“Reese, stop.”
—not enough for the team, not enough for anyone, not enough, thank God she let go, Cairo was here to make her drink more alcohol, here to tell her off—
“Mattie, will you look at me?”
—here to tell her she was off the team, tell her it was all her fault and she’d be right—
“Can you breathe with me?”
—yes, she could breathe, she wasn’t that dumb, Cairo thought she was that dumb—
“In. Out. You got it.”
—in hold out in hold out in hold out in hold out.
In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Mattie followed Cairo’s exaggerated breaths as the attack ebbed. There was still the underlying panic, the type that was reasonable in this situation. Mattie sharply inhaled. She’d been rooting for Chess all the way up until the Olympics and she had gotten stabbed and…
“I’m going to drive her home,” Cairo said suddenly. Mattie stared at her, unsure about how to respond. Reese stood with the same confusion on her face, with fear and uncertainty (her fault, her fault).
Mattie tried to find a reason to object but couldn’t. Things like i don’t want to be alone and how can i trust you when riley is your best friend seemed like the worst things to say for entirely different reasons.
Reese finally spoke up. “I’ll… head home too. Um, take care, okay?” It took Mattie several moments to understand Reese was talking to her. She smiled and hoped it didn’t look as terrible as she thought it did. Reese smiled back before she grabbed her bag and left.
Cairo took a deep breath and put her head in her hands. Mattie stared at the ground. Neither of them said a word for an uncomfortable amount of time. She tried not to notice Cairo’s stuttering breaths because if she didn’t know she didn’t have to talk about them or think about them and think about what they mean.
“Okay. We’re leaving.” When Mattie looked up at last, Cairo had her perfect facade up again.
The drive was silent. Cairo gripped the steering wheel with both hands for the whole trip and didn’t even turn on the radio to fill in the emptiness. There was just Mattie murmuring directions to the big empty house on Pine Hollow and Cairo’s unwillingness to acknowledge her except by going the right way.
When Mattie stepped into her house, the first thing she did was turn on every light she could. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
*********
-
The house was way too quiet.
Farrah knew she couldn’t blast her music like she wanted to, so she had settled for headphones. Not as satisfying, but better than nothing. Better than silence.
The opening beats of Titanium blared and Farrah her ripped headphones off of her ears faster than she even realized what she was doing. The sudden and shockingly vivid memories of warm-ups from last year were too loud. Farrah could see Chess and Kate goofing off and singing along like it was last year again. And she could see Chess bleeding and bleeding and bleeding as they loaded her into an ambulance.
Farrah threw her phone next to her. It landed with a soft thud on her bed as she rolled off of the mattress. When Clark had driven her and Annleigh home, Mr. and Mrs. Clarke had just told them to go to bed. As if Farrah would be sleeping at all tonight.
She slipped out of her room, closing the door silently and sticking close to the furniture so the floor didn’t creak. Too many nights spent sneaking out meant Farrah had gotten good at getting around the house without a sound. Before she had moved in, her room had been the guest room, and all of the other bedrooms were upstairs. That made this particular mission a bit more difficult.
Farrah passed by Clark sleeping on the couch - the Clarkes trusted Annleigh with a lot of things but there was a line. He snored obnoxiously and Farrah rolled her eyes.
The stairs creaked lightly under every footstep, hopefully light enough that the Clarkes didn’t wake up. Luckily Annleigh’s room was right at the top of the stairs.
She opened the door slowly and poked her head in. “Annleigh?” Annleigh shot up, clearly not having been asleep.
“Oh, hey,” she said wearily. Farrah stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. It was quiet but the air buzzed with things that needed to be said.
Farrah broke the tension first. “I was listening to music and Titanium came on.” She glanced at Annleigh and crossed her arms. “And I freaked. And I didn’t want to be alone.” Annleigh tilted her head like she was waiting for something else.
“That’s it?” Annleigh asked. Farrah’s stomach plummeted. This was dumb. Of fucking course this was dumb, Annleigh hated her, Annleigh didn’t want a sister.
She covered up the overwhelming dejection with a scathing look on her face. “Sorry, I guess, God,” she spat and whipped towards the door.
“No, wait,” Annleigh fumbled around. “I’m sorry, don’t leave.” Farrah paused and turned around on her heel. “I meant… I don’t know what I meant, but it wasn’t that.” She sat up and patted the space next to her on the bed. Farrah plopped down beside her, arms still crossed. The unsaid words were all still there.
“I’m sorry I got drunk again,” Farrah finally said. Annleigh took in a slow breath. Farrah didn’t want to have this conversation either. “Don’t worry, I’m not getting too deep into my childhood trauma,” she tried to joke. Annleigh’s face fell further. Damn. “I shouldn’t have, I know I’m irresponsible, and you were worried, and Clark had to drive all the way over to another county and… I shouldn’t have done it. I should have been a better… person.” Farrah bit her tongue. Sister.
“Sister,” Annleigh unknowingly echoed Farrah’s thoughts.
“Huh?”
Annleigh grabbed Farrah’s hand suddenly and the affection washed over her like the hug in the bathroom had. Comforting. Warm. Safe. “You’re my sister.”
“But—”
“I know what I said and I shouldn’t have said it. Maybe you shouldn’t have been drinking but I…” Shit, was she starting to cry? Again? “Who knows who Riley was going to go for next? You could have died thinking that I didn’t love you.” Shit, Farrah was going to cry, too. “You are a good sister, like, the best sister.”
“I really didn’t mean to get… so fucked up,” Farrah insisted through the lump in her throat.
Annleigh blinked at her. “It’s okay.” Farrah let out a shaky breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and leaned into Annleigh’s shoulder as the tears came. “Whatever happens next, we’re in it together, okay?” Farrah nodded, not trusting her voice.
Annleigh hugged her closer and laid her head on Farrah’s. “We’re going to heal.”
For some reason, it was exactly what Farrah needed to hear.
-
Cairo slammed the car door shut, trying to relish the brief satisfaction it brought. She was pissed. She was confused. Mostly, she was sad.
Any attempt to reconcile Riley with the girl who had stabbed Chess just didn’t work. Riley was sweet. Riley was over-enthusiastic, and anxious, and thought too much about what other people thought of her. Riley was eccentric, and wonderful, and Cairo loved every part of her so much that it hurt and hurt and hurt.
But now there was a part of Riley that was murderous and dark and nothing like Cairo’s Riley. How could she not have known about this? Spotted any signs?
I’ve got a game plan, Cai.
The house was dark and quiet. Cairo’s parents were asleep, probably had been for hours. They had no clue that they’d never see their “long-lost daughter” ever again, that she was going to be tried for murder, that everything they knew about her must have been all lies.
Cairo vaguely realized she was going to start bleeding if she kept digging her nails into her arms this tightly. She relaxed, shook herself out, but it had already sent her back to the memory of Mattie panicking and Mattie panicking sent her back to the memories of Riley—
Sometimes I’m just so afraid of everything that I can’t stop. Tears running down Riley’s face, her hands trembling. She paced back and forth and back and forth. And I know that I’m overreacting, Cai! That doesn’t help!
So Cairo learned how to help.
They were a team, Cairoandriley, Rileyandcairo, inseparable since fourth grade. Not anymore, a nasty voice in her head said. Unless you wanted to kill people, too.
When she reached her room, Cairo threw herself down onto her bed. She and Riley had been here just a few nights ago, one last hurrah before school started. They’d been planning the sleepover, or more accurately, Riley had already done all of the planning and wanted Cairo’s approval.
It’s going to be great, Riley, she’d said.
What could go wrong? she’d said.
Riley had smiled so genuinely then, filling Cairo with affection. But now the thought of it made her want to throw up.
All the late nights laughing and whispering in elaborate pillow forts. Laying around and spilling the latest gossip. Fourth grade, when Cairo stayed behind before recess to see if the new girl who everyone made fun of was okay. Getting soaked to the bone after goofing off in the rain for hours. The night of the eighth grade dance, when Cairo got appendicitis and Riley sat by her side until the hospital staff forced her to leave.
Midnight at a New Year’s party during junior year. Moving closer as the countdown approached zero.
Happy New Year, Cai.
They never spoke about that.
It didn’t matter anymore anyways. That Riley was gone. Riley had attempted murder. Riley might have succeeded, because there hadn’t been any updates from Kate.
But who was she without Riley?
Cairo knew the answer but she couldn’t acknowledge it. She just burrowed into her blankets and let the tears come.
She was alone and nothing, nothing, nothing.