Page 119 of Good Girls Lie

Have I actually been kicked out of Ivy Bound? Is this even possible? She was talking about sisterhood and love and friendship and now I’ve been cast out, cast aside.

I didn’t mean to do it.

How could she? Howcouldshe?

I am so dizzy. The room is spinning, and the air seems like it’s wavering in and out. I don’t feel the ground when I hit it. I don’t feel anything at all.

* * *

I wake to chilled air sweeping around my body. I am on the floor in my room. I don’t know how much time has passed. I am thirsty, and I crawl across the room to my water bottle. I gulp down the contents, but it’s not enough, I need more.

I drag myself to my feet, and that’s when I fully realize cold air is pouring into the room. Where is it coming from? My windows are closed, my door is closed. But cool, damp air is bleeding in.

Someone must have left the hallway window open to the fire escapes.

And someone has been in my room. In my bed. A gift has been left on my pillow.

The bird is small, soft in its mutilation. The nail is driven straight through its tiny heart, impaling both the body and the note, written in red ink—or the bird’s blood, I don’t know which—which says in big block letters:WHORE.

I stumble backward, away from the horror.

Fuck. Fuck. They’re sick. Sick and twisted and wrong. How could I have ever wanted to be a part of this group?

I flee into the hall, retreating away from the mess, and see the door across the way is wide open. The draft is coming from a window on the far side of the darkened space. The sash is fully raised, letting in the cool air.

I trip almost immediately when I walk into the room, fall to my knees. I’m unsteady anyway, still feeling some of the effects of whatever drug they gave us, but someone has moved things around in here. Must be the janitors. And they left the window open. And something smells funny.

Cigarette smoke, I manage to put together. Someone was smoking out the window.

So much for the bright, shiny lock. If they leave the room open, what difference does it make?

I haul myself to my feet. I’ve skinned my knee, but I ignore the sensation of blood running down my shin. There is a shadow in the corner that has my full attention. My vision is adjusting to the darkness, the moon’s glow gives enough light to make out the strange shapes and lumps through the room.

The planks of wood that used to lean against the wall are stacked up in front of the door, that’s what I’ve tripped on. With them moved away from the wall, for the first time I see what they were hiding.

There is a door.

And it is open.

My first thought is to run. My second is more jumbled. Perhaps it was all a test. Perhaps I am not kicked out of Ivy Bound. Perhaps Becca is waiting for me. She complimented my strength. I need to be strong now.

Hope flickers in my chest. All is not lost after all.

I take a deep breath of the strange, dirty air and step through. There are stairs, winding down, gray concrete with black dots on them. It must be mold of some sort—the air here is overwhelmingly musty—but there is something lodged in the corner of the railing. It’s a piece of cloth. I pull it from its spot. It is black and stiff. I notice a small piece of plastic flapping in the breeze, staked to the banister with a nail, rotted through. It is yellow, with black writing, but it’s unreadable because of the holes and tears.

The black dots on the stairs... It’s blood. And someone, or something, must have wiped their hands off on this piece of fabric and left it behind. And the yellow plastic—is this crime scene tape?

The blood on the cloth is old, dried. It flakes off onto my hands when I touch it like I’ve been doused in ashes from the fire. Gross. I wipe it off on my jeans.

Why do I have a feeling I’ve just discovered the real red staircase?

Something terrible happened here, of this there is no doubt. The pervasive dread creeping along my spine makes me want to turn around and launch myself out the window. I should turn back. Go to my room, lock the door.

But there is truth here, I can feel it. Though the truth about what, I don’t know. Logic tells me this is the path to another variation of our secret society cabin, and I’m curious enough to follow the stairs down to see if I’m right. Especially if there is forgiveness on the other end.

The door above me closes softly. All the hair rises on my body.

Someone has shut me in here.