I shiver. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I pay a visit, show some moral support?” Niklas asks. “It must be tough for you here, all alone. Your friends all went back home, didn’t they? Guess they didn’t want to stick around for a killer.”
“I didn’t do it,” I say quietly, before I can stop myself.
Niklas tilts his head at me. “Maybe not.” He smirks again. “But that won’t make a difference, will it?”
I take a step back as he chuckles to himself. “Found yourself a prison bitch yet? Some action in the showers?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I always wondered, you and Elise . . . I suggested you come join us, but she said that wasn’t her style. That she didn’t like sharing you.”
I glare at him. “Stop it.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Niklas looks around. “You were the ones saying I’d never make anything of my life, never be anyone, and here you are.” The smile slips, and his eyes turn hard as glass. “You girls thought you were so much better than me, didn’t you? Laughing at me, making me look a fool. Well, look where you are now.” He gestures around at the bars and wire. “And Elise . . .”
“What?” I demand. “What about her?”
Niklas stares back at me, hard and unflinching. “Maybe the bitch got what she deserved.”
VACATION
I down a shot of tequila, then another, the burn shooting down my throat like fire.
“Look at you go!” Elise whistles. “My girl’s going wild!”
I ignore her and grab another shot, this one lurid blue and peppermint-sweet in my mouth. We’re back in the bar from the first night on the island: the music still loud, the floors still sticky, the crowd still packed half-naked and sweaty in the shack of a room. I can’t believe it was only three days ago we partied here, happy and blissfully naive.
I drain the glass, wincing at the taste.
“What’s the deal?” Elise slips her arm around my waist and pulls me in close. “Not that I’m not a fan of this new party-girl you, but I thought you said you were taking it easy this week.”
“Things change.” I duck out of her embrace and cross the bar, to where Lamar’s waiting against the wall, watching Chelsea and Mel dance and spin around the room.
“C’mon,” I take his hand, pulling him toward the dance floor. “Tate won’t dance. I’m all alone.”
“The girls are out there.”
“Yes, but I need a big, strong guy to protect me,” I tease. “It’s no fun without you.”
“Just one song.” Lamar laughs and lets me lead him into the crowd. It’s a fast song, with a grinding dance bass. I feel the alcohol seep through me: the giddy lift, the sweet veil slipping over my mood. This is what I need, an escape from the doubts creeping into my mind and all the questions as heavy as the flaking pendant against Elise’s neck.
I let the music take over, swaying close to Lamar. My arms are loose around his neck, my body against his. He’s more built than Tate—muscles from the football field, taut under my fingertips as I run them across his shoulders. He backs away slightly.
“Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I spin out, and then back to his body again, close enough to feel the heat beneath his loose T-shirt. He’s still frowning, but his body moves against mine with the beat of the music, slowly relaxing.
He’s always liked me. It’s nothing he’s ever said or done, but I can tell all the same. Like the way he’ll look at me sometimes, when I’m tucked in Tate’s embrace, or when we’re all dressed up for a night out—heels and skirts and hair falling down low—and I’ll feel his eyes on me, edged with something more than friendship. I never thought of doing anything about it, of course; it was just nice to know. Validation, I guess. And there’s Chelsea, and Tate, always Tate, filling my mind until there’s no room for anything else. But now, through the gentle haze of tequila and dark, pulsating lights, I wonder what it would be like if I’d picked Lamar instead. Easy, and sweet. Fun. Not this all-consuming hunger I have for Tate, the dagger-shards of insecurity slicing through me. He would be a satellite, not my gravity, the pull so strong it scares me sometimes.
I move closer, sliding my hands down his back. He sways for a moment, leaning in, and there’s a longer moment when we’re in sync, closer than we should be, then Lamar detaches himself from me awkwardly. “I should get back, to Chels . . .”
There’s a hand on my shoulder, and Lamar’s eyes go past me. “Hey, man,” he says quickly. “We were just going to find you. She’s all yours.” He swiftly hands me off to Tate, then slips away through the crowd.
I slide against Tate, still moving, not pausing for a second. He places his hands loosely on my waist and gives me a crooked grin. “Should I be worried?” he teases.
“Maybe.” I smile back, still feeling off balance. “Maybe I’m having a torrid affair with Lamar behind your back. You ever think about that?”
Tate laughs, pulling me closer. “No way,” he says, stroking my hair possessively. “He wouldn’t dare. You’re my girl.”
I fall into his arms, until he’s half holding me up and we’re barely moving on the dance-floor, just standing there together.
His.
It’s weird and maybe wrong, but ever since Halloween—my costume pooling on the floor, an unfamiliar lust in his eyes—I’ve felt that way too, like I belong to him. Branded, by his kisses, his touch, all those nights grasping precious time and each other under the soft down covers in his room after dark. I’m as much his as Elise’s now, but the one thought that never slipped in, never even drifted across my mind, was that they could belong to each other.
Without me.
“I need to sit down,” I say, suddenly dizzy. I push him away, breaking for the edge of the dance floor. I grab on to the back of a booth, my head spinning. This is crazy, I tell myself, struggling to breathe. I don’t know anything; I shouldn’t even be thinking . . .
“What’s up, baby doll?” Elise collapses beside me. I blink.
“I . . .” I stare at her, the smudge of black glitter liner on her lids, the gentle pink swell of her lips. “I don’t . . .”
Her forehead creases into a frown. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Come on.” She takes my hand.