“We understand,” Viv says, still holding her phone tightly. “We understand completely. You’re safe here. We’ve got you now.” She glances down at her phone, tapping the screen as if checking thetime, and then sets it down on the mirrored coffee table in front of us.
“What happened? During the boating accident?” This comes from Piper, who is suddenly morbidly interested.
“She doesn’t have to tell us if she doesn’t want,” Fiona says quickly.
And I don’t want, but I also get the sense that they’ll ask again eventually, and I’d rather get it over with now. “Sage was doing what we used to do together—writing on the boat, drinking, swimming as a reward for solving a plot hole or planning the perfect twist. But this time she was alone. She forgot to drop the anchor or something. The boat floated away from her. It got too far, dragged by the current, and she got tired, and she…” I pause, dropping the words.
“It’s horrible,” Rachel consoles, grabbing my hand. “And there was no way to call for help?”
“Sage’s phone fell off the boat when it was floating away; it’s still at the bottom of the lake somewhere,” I reply, disliking the detached tone of my voice. But it’s the only way I can get through this.
“No one saw her trying to get back onboard?” Piper asks. She’s greedily slurping from her drink, but the tension in her shoulders and the slight lean of her torso toward my love seat indicates she’s more engaged now than she was during the rest of the meeting.
“According to the authorities, no one noticed until it was too late. It’s a huge lake, it looks like an ocean from the shore. There were a lot of people nearby; swimming, boating, not paying attention.Milwaukee in the summer can get rowdy. Big drinking culture.” I steel myself, trying not to imagine Sage’s last moments. “Drowning is quiet. You’re there one moment, the next you’re under the waves, inhaling. It can be hard to spot sometimes. Sage…slipped under.”
“Jesus. What a scary way to go,” Fiona says.
My stomach is an immovable rock of pain. They know so much. But they don’t know everything. They don’t know about the woman I thought I saw in the water earlier. She had dark hair like Sage. What if she was—
That wasn’t real.
“If you need anything, Char, we are here for you,” Viv finally says. “Anything at all.”
“Thank you.” And because I have their attention, because I can’t think about Sage for one more second, I decide to ask. “Last night I saw something…weird in my bathroom. Someone traced a message on the foggy surface of the mirror.” I don’t mention the incomprehensible timing, how the mirror steamed up out of nowhere. I don’t mention the faces lurking behind my reflection or in the water. I don’t know how to explain them without sounding nuts. “Were you guys pranking me or…”
“Uh, no,” Viv scoffs, arching a brow. “We’re not a YouTube channel for twelve-year-olds. We don’t ‘prank.’ That’s not on brand.”
“What’d the message say?” Rachel asks.
I pause before answering. “It was about Elena. The girl I replaced.”
Piper stops drinking. The twins share an identical twitch. Fiona’s jaw tightens. Viv stiffens, her soft gaze melting to reveal a stony expression.
The room goes dead silent.
Chapter 12
Rachel gets up, as if she doesn’t want to be associated with me anymore, and hurries back to where her sister is sitting. She grabs her water bottle and drinks deeply, pretending that was her reason for abandoning me alone on my love seat.
It takes a minute of fractured breathing to realize the others are—either subconsciously or purposefully—turned to Viv, awaiting her response.
I don’t know much about these people yet, but it’s clear there is an undercurrent of power at play among the group. They follow Viv, their leader, but they take opportunities to quietly undermine her as well: Fiona with the beer, Piper with her attitude. I think about how quickly Rachel revealed the truth about her sister’s Instagram, how Fiona got conspiratorial with me when talking about some ofEmpress’s features.
The surface of this group is a shiny oil spill, rainbowed and beautiful, and easy to miss as toxic.
“Sorry,” I finally say, breaking the awkward silence. “I don’t know if something happened between you all. If it’s a sore spot, I apologize.”
Viv sighs, shaking her head. She visibly relaxes, and the rest of the group follows suit. The strain in the room starts to dissipate. “No, it’s okay. You deserve to know.”
“By all means, go ahead,” Piper interjects, taking a long, slurping sip from her drink. “Tell her the truth. We’re all a family, right, Viv?” Her knuckles are white against the glass and her face behind the sunglasses has paled a bit. “But I’m not going to sit around and listen to this shit. I have work to do.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be chugging vodka then,” Ashley snarks.
Piper ignores her and sweeps away to the stairs, taking her glass with her.
Viv rolls her eyes in exasperation before turning back to me. “Piper and Elena were close. Not as close as Elena andme, but Piper’s taking her quitting hard. Look, we don’t really talk about Elena because our parting was not very amicable.”
Behind Viv, Rachel and Ashley share a glance. Fiona twists her fingers together and stares at the floor, chewing on her bottom lip.
