3
While Lennon Rose and Leandra bury a body in the flower garden, I slip away without a goodbye. I don’t check the rearview mirror, afraid I’ll find Leandra’s judgmental stare or Rosemarie watching me through the kitchen window. I wonder how many other bodies are buried under those roses.
At a stoplight on the main road, I study my eyes in the rearview mirror, worried about my programming. Leandra told me not to trust anyone. Does that include other girls? For a moment, I wonder if I can trust myself—trust that my impulses are all mine. The girls and I worked so hard to rid ourselves of the academy’s influence, but what if it still lingers? What if—?
A car horn blares behind me, making me jump. The light has changed, and after a last look in the mirror, I’m driving again. I grip the steering wheel tightly to steady my shaking hands. At the next light, I text Marcella to let her know I’m on my way back tothe hotel to meet up with the girls and Jackson. Although partly, I’m texting so they can anticipate me—just in case I disappear. In case I end up buried in a flower garden.
That fear is very real. I have a lot to be afraid of. Garrett isn’t the first person who has died since we started our escape. His isn’t even the first murder I’ve witnessed. That number continues to climb. I hope he’ll be the last, but I’m not as naive as Leandra claims.
Life is dangerous; it always has been for us. But I have to believe there is something on the other side of this madness. I have to imagine that eventually, we’ll find peace.
But before that can happen, I’m likely to find more death.
When I get back to the motel, I park in front of Jackson’s room. I turn off the engine, and once submerged in the silence of the car, I can’t hold it back any longer. I gasp in a breath, the full impact of what happened overcoming me. Tears spring to my eyes and fall onto my cheeks.
What have we become? Murderers and monsters? Serial killers?
I just witnessed Leandra brutally murder Garrett Wooley in broad daylight, and I… I just stood there. In fact, I had picked up a rock to hit him. Of course, I wasn’t going to try to kill him, but I also didn’t stop Leandra while she did. It all happened too quickly, but I could have donesomethingto save him. I should have done something.
I don’t want to live like this anymore. My soul can’t take it.
The curtain in the window of the motel room brushes aside, and then a moment later the door flies open and Marcella comes running out, Brynn right behind her.
“Are you okay?” Marcella calls, knocking on the car window. I’m still sobbing as I unlock the door. Marcella pulls it open, and I nearly tumble out, but she catches me by the arm. “What happened?” she asks, checking me over. “Whose car is this? Why are you crying?”
Now that I’m back to the safety of the girls, I start to cry harder. I get out of the car and hug her. Brynn wraps her arms around both of us, strands from her blond braid sticking to the tears on my cheek.
Marcella pulls back to examine me, and her eyes widen. “Is that blood?” she demands, pointing at my shirt. I look down to discover that it is, indeed, blood splashed across my shirt. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. “Whose is it, Mena?” she asks. “Who was bleeding on you?”
I open my mouth, but I wince, my jaw sore from where Garrett punched me in the face. Marcella must notice a mark on my skin because her eyes flash with rage. Before she says anything else, I motion at our room. She carefully takes my arm and leads us toward the door.
“Let’s get inside before I make a scene,” she says in a low voice.
When I walk into the motel room, I realize that Sydney and Jackson aren’t here. The room is almost completely packed up, clothes tucked into duffel bags and trash overflowing from cleaning. The lamp on the nightstand offers a yellow glow to make up for the sunlight that barely filters through the dusty window and thick curtains.
“Where are Sydney and Jackson?” I ask.
“They’re not back yet. They went to find us a different place to stay,” Marcella says impatiently. “Now, who hit you? And whose blood is that?” She points at my shirt.
Brynn watches me wide-eyed, fixated on the splashes of red on the fabric. I quickly yank the shirt over my head and throw it toward the trash, missing. Marcella reaches into her duffel bag to grab a vintageWestworldT-shirt she found at a thrift store and tosses it to me.
I pull on the soft fabric and lick my fingers to rub the droplets of blood off my forearm. My head aches, and I ease down on the edge of the bed, sore all over.
“When I got to Rosemarie’s to look for Lennon Rose,” I start, “she wasn’t there yet. Instead, it was Rosemarie and Leandra sitting at the kitchen table, eating cookies.”
“Leandra was there?” Brynn asks, sitting across from me on the other bed. She leans forward with her hands clasped. “Was she with the other girls?”
“No,” I say. “But she told me they’re safe.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I do, actually,” I admit. “At least for now.”
“I want to see them,” Brynn says. “I should be taking care of them. Not her.”
She doesn’t trust Leandra, and why should she? Yes, Leandra helped us escape the academy, but she also helped keep us there for years.
“I understand,” I say. “But we have to trust her for now. At least for a little bit longer, okay?”
