Toxic

31 THE WAITING GAME

Emily suggested the girls all sleep together at her place, since no one wanted to go home alone. They scampered into her garage as Emily opened the door to the house. The room was silent and dark, the lights and the TV off. The faint scent of a blown-out candle lingered in the air.

“You have some explaining to do.”

Everyone screamed. A light flicked on. Emily’s parents sat in the loveseat in the corner. Her dad was still in a suit, her mom still in her flowered dress and heels from the Rosewood Rallies party. Mrs. Fields’s nose and eyes were red, like she’d been crying.

Emily lowered her eyes. Her friends had all handled their situations with their families on the drive home. Emily knew that calling her parents would have been the right thing to do, too, but somehow she couldn’t will her finger muscles to dial their number. Her mind was too distracted, her thoughts still on Ali and the pool house and whatever had happened.

Mrs. Fields rushed over to her and took Emily by the shoulders. “Where have you been?”

“We . . .” Emily shrugged and shook her head. She had no idea what to say. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just left the party without telling you.”

“Sorry?” Mrs. Fields’s eyes boggled. “You disappear, and all you can say is you’re sorry? You weren’t picking up your phone, you weren’t here. . . . We feared the worst.”

Emily’s father frowned deeply. “We were considering calling the police.”

“It’s my fault,” Spencer piped up, her voice cracking. “I gathered everyone together and asked that we get away for a few moments. We all felt kind of traumatized being at that front table, everyone looking at us—it brought back some tough memories. We grabbed a bite to eat. That’s it.”

Emily lookd at Spencer gratefully. It was the same story the other girls had told their parents, but she was astonished at how Spencer could lie so expertly to her mom’s face. It was kind of the truth, except for the eating part. They had been traumatized. Just for different reasons.

Mr. and Mrs. Fields exchanged a glance. Mrs. Fields looked like she was going to start crying again. “We’re just so concerned,” she scolded Emily. “You’ve been so . . . troubled lately. All those things you said about causing those bruises on your neck yourself. And you’ve been spending so much time in your room. I know you’ve been sleeping in your closet instead of your bed. And I’ve heard you crying. . . .”

Emily could feel her friends shifting uncomfortably. She kept her eyes on the ground. Maybe she should have told her mom about Jordan a long time ago. Maybe now her mom would understand . . . and get off her case.

“If you didn’t want to go to the party, you should have said something,” Mr. Fields added gruffly.

“I didn’t know I had a choice,” Emily mumbled, the words coming out a bit harsher than she’d intended.

Mrs. Fields sighed. Emily didn’t know if it was a sign of confusion or disappointment—maybe both. She was too numb to really care. “We’re going to have to ground you,” Mrs. Fields said. “Two weeks. No more going out. Anytime you leave the house, one of us is going with you.”

Emily could barely react. Why did she care if she was grounded? There was nothing for her on the outside anymore.

She looked up at her mom. “Can my punishment start tomorrow? Can they at least stay here tonight?” She gestured to her friends. There was no way any of them were sleeping alone.

Mrs. Fields tapped her lips, then looked at the others. “Have you called your parents? Do they know where you are?” Everyone nodded, and Emily’s mom shut her eyes. “Fine. It’s late, so you can sleep here. But no TV. And if I hear you girls up much later, I’m sending you all home.”

Then she and Emily’s dad padded out of the room. The stairs creaked as they retired to their bedroom.

Spencer looked at Emily, one eyebrow raised. “Sleeping in your closet?”

“It’s a long story,” Emily mumbled.

“Why did you tell your parents you gave yourself those bruises?” Hanna asked.

Emily looked at her exasperatedly. “What was I supposed to tell them?”

Her friends exchanged a glance. It was that look again, that Emily’s lost it look. But she was too worn out to care. So they were worried about her. So her parents were worried about her. Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone?

Aria flopped on the couch and hugged an embroidered pillow to her chest. “What do you think the police are doing right now? Do you think they’re at the house?”

It was a question they hadn’t dared to ask. When Aria had been connected to the police station, she’d told an Ashland officer that they’d been hiking around in the woods, it had gotten dark on them quickly, and they’d stumbled upon a pool house whose floors were covered in blood. The police officer said they’d send someone to the address immediately, but when he asked for Aria’s name, she’d hung up. The police didn’t need to know it was them. They’d go there, they’d find Ali’s prints—for there had to be some. And once Fuji was involved, she’d form that conclusion on her own.

Emily walked over to the closet near the den and pulled out blankets and pillows the family kept there for sleepovers. “I hope they’re surrounding the pool house right now. Maybe they even caught Ali in the woods.”

Aria helped her spread the blankets on the floor. “Do you really think it’s that easy?”

Hanna dug her phone from her clutch. “Let’s check surveillance.” They’d periodically looked at the camera feed on the drive back; the loop was still playing on camera four, and the other angles showed no movement. They’d even rewound the tapes to see if there were any flashes of someone getting into the house, but there weren’t. Ali must have gotten into the house through a way the cameras didn’t see.

But now, surely, the cameras would show something different. Police investigating the space. Forensic teams testing the traces of blood.

Hanna tapped the screen and logged on to the site. Her mouth dropped open. “Uh-oh.”

“What?” Emily rushed over and looked at the screen. Every one of the camera feeds said No Signal. The video images were gone.

Spencer’s eyes widened. “Ali shut them down?”

“Maybe that’s good,” Emily said. “Maybe she was disabling the cameras as the police rolled up.”

Aria twisted her mouth. “Or maybe she got away.”

A lump formed in Emily’s throat. If Ali got away, that meant she could be coming for them. She looked at the blankets and pillows strewn on the floor. They were right in front of a huge window. The lock on the garage door was flimsy at best.

Straightening up, she rolled an armchair in front of the door. Then she moved the couch to block the windows. Her friends seemed to sense what she was doing because Aria ran into the kitchen and barricaded chairs against the sliding doors to the back. Hanna checked and rechecked the bolts of the front door, too.

There was nothing to do after that except change into T-shirts and pajama pants Emily lent everyone and huddle under the covers together. For a long time, they were very quiet, listening to the sounds of one another’s breaths. Emily considered turning on the TV, but she knew none of them would watch. She didn’t even know what to talk about. She kept refreshing her phone, thinking something would be listed about a murder at the Ashland property. But there was no news. Hanna brought up the surveillance site again and again. The lines were still cut, the images of the house gone.

Knock.

Emily shot up. The hair on the back of her neck rose.

Knock.

“What was that?” Hanna whispered.

Emily thought she might throw up. It sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. She listened hard. Then, a barrage of banging sounds followed, and the girls screamed and held one another even tighter. But then Emily realized what the sounds were.

“It’s the ice maker,” she whispered, rising and pointing to the fridge through the kitchen doorway. The appliance was older; sometimes the ice hit the bucket in one big, loud clump. Feeling brave, she peered into the dark room. The kitchen chairs were still against the sliding doors. The clutch her mother had brought to the party sat on the island, its silver clasp glimmering in the single beam of light from over the sink.

“Ali’s not here,” Emily said as she turned back to her friends.

Aria twitched. “Not yet.”

They returned to the blankets. Emily stared into the darkness, her mind frantic and alert. The hours crept past. Every noise, every tiny click, sent her into a panic. She felt herself drifting off every once in a while, jumping back to consciousness after only minutes of sleep. The final time, when she awoke, the smell of vanilla hung heavily in the room. A figure stood over her. Emily blinked hard. Ali’s blond hair hung in knotted tendrils down her chest. Her eyes were hollow, her posture stooped.

Emily sat up hurriedly, her heart leaping into her throat. She’d been anticipating this, but it was still horrifying. “Please,” she said, scuttling backward. She glanced at her friends. Astonishingly, they were all still sleeping. “Please don’t hurt us.”

Ali tilted her head and offered Emily a smile. “Oh, Em. I didn’t hurt you. You hurt me.”

“What?” Emily whispered. She looked at her friends, but still none of them stirred. “What do you mean?”

Ali’s smile didn’t waver. “You’ll see.” Then she climbed over the chair Emily had pushed in front of the garage door and slipped through. A faint giggle trailed behind her. She slammed the door loudly with a bang.

Emily shot up and looked around. Pale light streamed through the windows. The room no longer smelled like vanilla. She ran her hands along the back of her sweaty neck. Had she dreamed that?

There was another bang, but this time it was her father opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. Hanna stirred next to Emily. Aria rolled onto her side. Spencer shot up, her eyes wide. “What time is it?” she whispered. “What’s going on?”

“It’s morning,” Emily said groggily, staring at the empty room again. Ali had seemed so real. “And nothing happened.”

Everyone looked at one another, blinking hard. Nothing happened. It was actually more shocking than Ali breaking in.

“Maybe they got her,” Spencer whispered.

Aria’s mouth dropped open. “Maybe this is over.”

“Maybe,” Emily said shakily. But she couldn’t stop thinking of what Ali—or dream-Ali—had said. I didn’t hurt you. You hurt me.

It meant something. Emily just didn’t know what.