Page 40 of Blade

And Ana told her the truth. About how she’d just pretended to pass out after she realized he thought she already had because the beer madeher dizzy, and because she had somehow detached from the whole scene by making plans to escape.

Indy shook her head. “That’s fucking pathetic.”

Then she kissed Ana on the cheek and laughed.

Ana laughed with her, but with the laughter came a release of a million other things that had been trapped inside. Indy’s fall at the show, the bruise on her hip, the marks on her own neck, and the feel of Wiry’s hands up her shirt and down her pants, his tongue in her mouth when she didn’t want it there, and how she could still feel all of those things like they were still happening. Maybe more so now that she was safe, here with Indy.

And then her face flushed and her eyes welled with tears, even though she was laughing so hard her stomach hurt and she actually did have to pee.

“Indy,” she started to say, thinking she needed to tell her how scared she was in that van, but how the fear had disappeared. How a switch was flipped inside her, a reckless acceptance of what was happening. Maybe even wanting it to happen so she wouldn’t have to fear it ever again, and how stupid was that?

But before she could begin, they saw Hugo running out of the tree line and across the weeds, weaving through the parked cars. He reached them breathless and didn’t speak as he got in the front seat of Jolene’s car. The keys were in the ignition, and he started the engine.

“What happened?” Indy asked.

Hugo drove through the open spaces between the cars until they got right up to the first row of evergreens.

“Stay here,” he said, and they did. They stayed right there, this time frozen with a new kind of fear.

Both girls leaned forward, staring at the trees where Hugo had disappeared—until they saw them. Three figures emerging from the woods. Hugo on the left. Jolene on the right. And in between them, draped in their arms, was Kayla’s listless body.

Chapter Fifteen

Ana

Now

I’m stunned when Shannon tells me about Kayla. How she attacked her mother, threatening her with the heel of her blade—the same way Emile was killed. We heard rumors about Kayla mouthing off to them, but that wasn’t unusual. She never elaborated, and we didn’t ask. We didn’t go near any topic related to the night in the field. And then she was gone.

I tell Artis I need to see Kayla and I need to go alone. We’ve planned to meet with Dawn after speaking with Shannon at Avery Hall, but this feels more urgent. I don’t tell him why—how Shannon’s story has struck a nerve.

When that girl in the video, Tammy Theisen, told Grace toask Emile—he knows the truth—we both assumed it was the truth about taking Dawn’s skaters to California, breaking up the program and not bringing Grace with him. Grace was devoted to Dawn. She would never leave, from what Jolene told me.

Maybe this angered her because of what it would do to The Palace. Or, maybe, we didn’t know the nature of her relationship with Emile. That thought has been with me from the start. That Grace and Emile were in a sexual relationship. But Shannon said he was paternal with her, like a father. And he was so much older than when we were here,when he was just starting as a coach. He’d been a skater right up to the year before we arrived. One of us.

Still, there is another possibility—one Artis wouldn’t know about. The other things Emile knew. Things from the past.

I have to see Kayla, one of the four Orphans who shared this story.

It’s just past noon. The morning is gone, and the storm has fully arrived. Half an inch of snow covers Artis’s car when we leave Avery Hall.

“Let me drive you,” Artis offers, as he turns on the wipers and waits for the windows to clear. “This is just the start of it.”

“I’ll be fine,” I insist. “I’ll take Jolene’s car. You should see Dawn—and Westin—about Emile’s plans to move the skaters. Find out what they knew and when.”

“I don’t see how Kayla can help,” Artis says. “What could she possibly know about Grace and Emile?”

“You were there,” I remind him. “Shannon brought up that story about Kayla and her mother for a reason. And the fact that Kayla lives an hour away.”

Artis steadies his face and says what I’ve just come to suspect is in his mind.

“Do you think it’s a possibility? That Kayla killed Emile?”

“No,” I say, shutting this down. “That would mean she framed Grace. Put Emile’s blood on her skates.”

“Exactly,” Artis says. “So we need to stay focused on the here and now. This new information is clutch, Ana. You know that. There must be a dozen skaters who are pissed off about Emile leaving and not taking them along. Not to mention their crazy mothers. The cops have a lot more to investigate before they can charge Grace.”

I don’t know how to explain it—my need to see Kayla—without telling him about the story, and the connection to Indy. So I don’t try. Artis—reluctantly—drops me back at the condo, where I tell Jolene that I need her car, that I’m going to see Kayla. At first, like Artis, she doesn’t understand. But then she bites her lip and nods. “She knows what’s happening. I’ll tell her you’re coming.”