All of a sudden, the darkness sparked something in my mind. Spots appeared in front of my eyes. I heard a whooshing sound in my ears. And then I was back in that creek bed behind the resort again, calling Laurel’s name, a hand over my eyes, a knife against my neck. Scream and you’re dead. And just like that, I saw what happened next. . . .
Chapter 18
WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?
“Scream and you’re dead,” the voice hisses in my ear, the knife still at my throat. Someone restrains my arms behind my back and ties a scarf so tightly around my eyes that the fabric presses into my eye sockets. Next they pull a gag around my mouth, the cotton digging into my cheeks. Hands shove me forward. Sandy gravel crunches under my feet and brambles scratch my legs. I hear footsteps next to me. Keys jingle.
I am pushed up a small hill. My toe hits a jutting rock, and cold pain streaks up my spine. I cry out, but then someone behind me pinches my arm. “What part of ‘Scream and you’re dead’ don’t you understand?” The blade digs deeper into my skin.
After a minute of walking, we halt abruptly. A sharp beep punctuates the air, a car door unlocking. I hear the hydraulic hiss of a trunk opening wide. “Get in.” Someone shoves me from behind, and I fall forward. My cheek hits what feels like the spare tire at the back. My legs bend awkwardly to fit the space. Thump. The trunk slams shut again, and all is quiet.
I smile to myself in the darkness. Let the next round of the Lying Game begin.
My friends had me going for a couple of minutes, but they can’t fool me for long. I can’t wait until they lift the trunk again, probably hoping to take a picture of me paralyzed with fright. Lame! I’ll scream, scaring them instead. Could you have been any more obvious? “Scream and you’re dead” was my line—I used it on Madeline when I sneaked into her bedroom last spring while pretending to be a burglar. Laurel probably said it, knockoff that she is. They’re going to pay for this though. Maybe in the form of a 150-minute massage at La Paloma tomorrow. I’ll need one to undo all the kinks in my back from squeezing into this tiny space.
Then the engine growls. The car backs up and pivots to the right, shifting me into an even more uncomfortable, Twister-like position. I frown. We’re going somewhere? What’s the point of that? I roll again when the car lurches into drive, banging my knee against the underside of the hood. “Mmmm,” I moan through the gag. Can’t they be a little gentler on me? Keep this up and I’ll be sidelined from tennis this year. I wriggle my hands to see if I can free them to remove the scarf from my eyes, but whoever bound them must have taken an advanced Boy Scout class in knot tying. Probably Laurel again. More than likely Thayer had taught her. The two of them always used to do queer Outward Bound shit like that.
Gravel crackles beneath the tires, then gives way to the smooth, even sound of freshly tarred pavement. The highway. Where are we going? I strain to listen for conversation inside the car, but it’s dead silent. No pounding radio. No high-pitched giggles. Not even a low murmur. I try to move my knee, but it’s wedged against the spare tire. “Mmm!” I call again, louder this time. “Mmm?” I kick the carpeted side of the trunk that borders the backseat. Hopefully I’m kicking someone’s back.
The car doesn’t stop. The tires buh-bump over the concrete highway. The gag around my mouth cuts into my skin. My back aches. My fingers begin to lose feeling from the tight bind. I thrash some more, but it makes no difference. The car keeps going.
And then a nervous thought sears my brain: Maybe this isn’t a prank at all. Maybe I’ve been kidnapped.
Amusement gives way to white-hot fear. I scream as loud as I can. I press my wrists against the rough rope, the scratchy fibers cutting my skin. My friends and I do crazy things to one another, but we know when to stop. We’ve never sent anyone to the hospital. No one ever gets hurt—not physically anyway. I think of that voice in my ear. It had sounded like Charlotte’s attempt at a gruff baritone . . . but maybe it wasn’t. I kick at the back of the trunk. I shift as best I can and kick at the ceiling above me, hoping the trunk will pop open. I kick again and again, the flip-flops sliding off my feet. It feels like we’ve driven far by now, maybe into the desert. No one will know where to find me. No one will even know where to look. “Mmm!” I scream, again and again.
The car finally lurches to a stop. I catapult forward and hit my chin against the interior wall. A door slams. Footsteps crunch in the dirt. I freeze, hot tears in my eyes. There’s another sharp bleep, and then the trunk latch pops. I roll onto my back, straining to see through the scarf over my eyes. I can just make out a corona of a streetlight above and a zigzagging blur of passing headlights to the left. A broad-shouldered shape looms above me, backlit by the streetlight. I can just make out what looks like deep reddish hair through my gauzy blindfold. “Mmm,” I cry out desperately.
But then, just like that, everything goes dark again.
Chapter 19
LEAVING IS NOT AN OPTION
Back in Charlotte’s bathroom, I watched Emma fumbling through the darkness. After the memory I’d just seen, I had to admit I felt a little relieved. Whatever had happened wasn’t a prank gone wrong that I’d orchestrated myself. I hadn’t lured Emma here. I hadn’t toyed with her emotions just to one-up my friends. It made me feel a little bit better about everything. I might have been a lot of things, but at least I didn’t use my long-lost twin as frivolously and expendably as a lipstick-blotting Kleenex at Sephora.
Emma finally managed to find the doorknob. Twisting it, she emerged into Charlotte’s bedroom. Five phones glowed in the middle of the carpet, throwing long shadows onto my friends’ faces.