Slain (35 page)

Everyone screams as it rushes past her and bolts toward the door.
 

Straight toward me.
 

But just as I think it’s going to bite, Mrs. Hemple snatches the thing by the neck, behind its jaw.

She holds it into the air, squirming and hissing and terrifying. The grin on her face is triumphant. I doubt anyone has seen her happier.

“There’s a reason the devil takes the form of a snake in the Bible, girls. Snakes are runners. They don’t confront their problems. They’re weak.” She turns to Derrick, whose mouth is as wide open as the rest of ours. “Don’t just stand there. Fetch me a potato sack.”

Derrick races out of the room.

“Better get on to breakfast before it gets cold,” Mrs. Hemple says.

We file out past her, the snake hissing as each of us passes.

I eat my gruel in a daze, thinking, my thoughts churning to peaks of anger, making my stomach roil with anxiety and fear. That was no accident.
 

Miss Hemple said it herself. How did a snake make it into my suitcase? There’s no food up there. And with all the cleaning we’ve done, I can’t imagine the property attracts mice. Not to mention how difficult it would be to even get into the room in the first place with only one door and one window.

If it did get in, why would it skip a lower, quieter area, like under a bed, and go up into a top bunk? And then my suitcase?
 

There’s no way that was an accident. Someone just tried to kill me. Here.
 

I wanted to leave the moment I arrived. Now I have to. I’m a sitting duck.

The ever-present question pokes me relentlessly. Who? Who? Who? My mind lists the people who know where I am: my parents, Miss Hope, Pastor Pete, Mike, Paige, their parents. And who else? It wasn’t exactly a private display, their taking me. The word likely spread to the entire school before lunch. And my parents had to have told other people at church too.

My gut is telling me something, but I need more information before I’ll know for sure. And to get it, I’ll have to get out of here.

The rest of the day goes by slow and cloudy. I move through my chores and meals mechanically, watching, plotting, waiting for my chance. When we go into our dorm for the night, everyone triple checks every nook and cranny for snakes. No one finds anything.
 

And then it’s time for lights out, and I wait.

Eventually, the room goes soft with sleep. Quietly, the rhythmic breathing of twenty girls blends into a gentle hum, like the constant pull of the wind only without the ebb and flow that marks its arrival and departure. I listen, wide awake, until I can clearly hear Chloe’s droning snore, then sit up and reach for the suitcase at my feet.

The zipper is plastic, and I’m thankful for its quiet buzz as I gently pull it open. My eyes have finally adjusted to the almost total blackness, but still I can barely make out my dirty clothes smashed on top of everything else. I pull them out and feel around to see if there’s anything else useful inside the suitcase. I wish for a knife or scissors or a hanger or anything I could use to help me escape, but all I find is a nail clipper inside a small toiletry bag. There isn’t much in there, just the basics: shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, tampons, hair ties, a compact brush. But it could be useful. It would be easy to carry, and who knows how long I might be on my own? I set it aside.

I keep digging. There’s a Bible and a notebook and a new metal water bottle. There’s also fresh underwear, socks, my fluffy bathrobe, and some other clothes I can’t identify as my own. They feel stiff and new, unworn. More khaki skirts. I don’t need them. I set aside the water bottle, the toiletry bag, and a fresh set of undergarments. Everything else is useless to me.
 

I strip off my nightgown as quietly as I can and dress. Each swish of fabric over my skin feels like the echo of a gun. Out of habit, I grab a ponytail holder and reach to wrap my hair into a bun. The shock of the short hair hits me again. It’s jarring to reach up and feel nothing. It spurs me on. I have to get out of here.

I dig in the suitcase for my shoes, but don’t feel them. My hands hit something else—my mother’s note. I don’t take it with me. I don’t care what’s in there. Nothing my parents can say will ever make up for this.
 

I look for shoes, then remember that they’re nestled at the foot of the bed, right by Chloe’s head, another measure against me trying to run. Dammit. There’s no way I’ll get anywhere barefooted.

As quietly as I can I climb over the edge of the bed, then I think of something. I scramble back up and pull the nightgown over my head and roll up my jeans. The nightgown is big and billowy enough to conceal my real clothes. I grab my bathrobe too, and stuff my small stash into the giant pockets, then slip it on as an added layer of concealment, even though it’s way too warm for a robe in here. The room is stuffy, airless. My temperature shoots up, but the robe will help if anyone sees me. I can ditch it later.

I slip my legs over the edge of the bunk, using every muscle in my body to make my movements slow and controlled. Chloe and Tessa cannot wake up. They just can’t.
 

Finally, I feel the floor beneath my feet and ease myself down. My shoes sit right under the bed, directly beneath Chloe’s gaping, drooling mouth. I tiptoe lightly over. One step, then another, until I’m close enough to crouch down. I reach for them, my face level with Chloe’s, my eyes only inches away from hers. I hold my breath and feel my hands close around my sneakers.

Then I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I
T
TAKES
EVERYTHING
IN
me to stop the scream before it reaches my throat. My head snaps up. Staring at me, from the bunk above Chloe’s, is Tessa. Her green eyes nearly glow out from the darkness. Her brow is furrowed. Her hair, at some point, has been cut on the other side too, just like mine. A reward for good behavior.

“I’m going with you,” she whispers. Then adds for good measure, “Please.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to say anything at all, for fear of waking Chloe. Can I trust Tessa? Will she hold me back?

It doesn’t really feel like I have a choice, though. If I tell her no she’ll wake Chloe, I’m certain of it. I nod my head yes and motion her to hurry. Tessa shoots up to a seated position, her eyes wild, excited. Chloe stirs. I whip my fingers to my lips, motioning Tessa to be quiet. She stills, and I can see the wildness behind her eyes retreat. Chloe smacks her lips and breathes deep, then rolls over and tugs the pillow under her head. Her snoring resumes.

I motion to Tessa to come down. Carefully, she swings out of bed and grabs her entire suitcase. I shake my head violently. She can’t take the whole thing with her. We need to be fast. She lifts one finger, motioning for me to wait, then points to the bathroom. She’s right. It will be quieter to gather what she needs in there. I grab her shoes for her, and we make our way to the bathroom.

Once inside, Tessa carefully closes the door behind us.

“Thank you,” she says. “I can’t stand being here even one more day. You don’t even know.”

“I know enough,” I whisper. “Hurry up. We need to go before anyone needs a midnight pee break.”

Tessa drops her bag to the floor and starts to unzip it.

“Not in here,” I say. “Someone might see you. Use one of the stalls in the dressing room.”

“Good idea.”

We make our way into the dressing room, which also happens to be the only room in this whole place with an actual window. Tessa digs into her bag and starts to change.
 

“How are we getting out? Did you nab a key or something?”

“The window.”

She stares at me blankly, stops buttoning her top. Her face looks like someone just stole her puppy.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Go out the window? That’s your big plan? I thought you were smarter than that.” She reaches for her nightgown. “That window leads to a central courtyard where all the dorms meet. They’ve got a guard out there all the time. Last week Shania tried to get out that way, and they put her in the Grace Tank. She was in there for three days. It’s basically a trap to figure out who the bad ones are right away. Otherwise don’t you think they’d put bars on it or something? They want you to run, but on their terms so they can fuck you over, just like everything else around here.”

“Do you know of any other exits? Any ways out besides the front door?”

“That’s it. The front door and the window. Unless you’ve got something strong enough to bore through concrete blocks we’re stuck.”

Shit.
 

Tessa pulls the nightgown back down over her head, giving up on escape, giving up on me. “God help them if there’s ever a fire,” she says.
 

A fire? God help them indeed.

“What if there was a fire? They must have a plan for that sort of thing. They seem to have something planned for everything else. They’d have to evacuate us, right? It’d be easy to disappear in the confusion.”

“You want to start a fire?” Her voice is harsh, skeptical, but she’s stopped herself from taking off her jeans mid-leg. “Haven’t you read the rules? No matches allowed. Lighters either.”

My memory tries to grasp at something, something that seemed stupid at the time, silly. A movie? A joke? Then Tessa’s eyes light up again, and whatever it is I was thinking of slips away.

“We could wait until tomorrow. I bet there’s some matches in the shed by the outdoor chapel. We’ve only been there during the day so far, but there’s a fire pit out there. I think they use it for graduation.”

I remember what it was that my mind was grasping at.
 

Tessa continues. “They have to have a way to light it, and it’s kind of far from the rest of campus so maybe—“

“We don’t have to wait until tomorrow. I know how we can start a fire tonight.”

It was a couple summers ago, at Youth Council Retreat. The summer was nearly over. After the sun goes down up in the mountains, August feels like October. We all thought it would be fun to build a bonfire. That’s what made me think of it. The fire pit. The bonfire.
 

The boys were showing off. They wanted us to see how strong and smart and wilderness-y they were. Only in the church crowd would guys think the way to impress a girl was a bragging about the survival skills they learned in Brothers In Christ. As if any of them had ever been more than a couple miles from somewhere that could sell them a Coke, or ever would be the rest of their lives. But to their credit, they did know what they were doing. There were plenty of matches, but they didn’t use them.

I remember Nicolas’s hands guiding mine, remember the spark as it started, the glow of it in the night.

Tessa is staring at me, her face tentative but hopeful.

“Get dressed,” I say.

She obeys, tugging her jeans back on, gathering her things. She can sense the excitement behind my words, hear the sureness in my voice. I leave her on her own and race into the bathroom.
 

There’s got to be some in here, we’ve been using them for all our chores. I slide open the cabinet under the sink, and sure enough, it’s right there with all the other cleaning supplies. Steel wool, the cheap scratchy kind that gnaws at your fingers with every scrub. Of course Mrs. Hemple wouldn’t spring for the gentle plastic ones. I wonder, not for the first time, what my parents are paying for me to have the privilege to scrub toilets with steel wool.
 

It doesn’t matter. Only escape matters now. I grab the steel wool and a roll of single-ply toilet paper for tinder and head back into the dressing room. Tessa is almost ready.

Whatever these buildings were originally built for, it wasn’t to house teenage girls. There are no electrical plugs for curling irons or hairdryers anywhere. The only electricity piped into the place is for a single overhead light in each room. But the dressing stalls are against the wall, away from the center, and would be dark without extra light. And no good comes from girls left to their own devices in the dark. What easier way to illuminate them than mounting a battery operated tap light in each stall?

I go to one of them and twist it until the housing pops off of the base. The tab slides off easily, and I pop out exactly what I need: a 9-volt battery.

I hold my breath and rub the nub end of the battery against the steel wool. A tiny, orange spark lights into the air. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. Tessa stares at it, at me, in amazement.

“How’d you know to do that?” she asks.

“Long story. You ready?”
 

She nods yes. Her robe pockets bulge just like mine, but she’s been smart. She’s only taking what she can carry, no more. I notice her Bible on top of her suitcase. It didn’t make the cut.
 

I imagine that places like this turn you into two types of people. The first are people like Chloe who will never trust themselves again and cling to the church even harder once they leave, praying for guidance on every decision in their lives from college to which peanut butter to buy. She’s the kind of girl who believes every bad thing anyone in authority ever says about her, or anyone else for that matter.
 

The second are people like me and Tessa, people who may have been on the fence about God before coming here, or at least close to it. We’re the kind of people who can trust no one but ourselves afterward, especially not the church. Especially not God.

Please let this work, I say to the great someone or no one at all. Please let this work.
 

I scan the room again. I don’t want to hurt anyone. All we need is a few minutes of chaos to escape out the window while everyone else is racing out the door. I lug an old metal waste basket directly under the smoke detector that’s closest to the entrance of the dressing room.
 

“Open the window just a crack,” I say to Tessa. It’s covered with some type of frosted plastic to obscure the view. “See if the guard’s out there.”