The Wicked We Have Done (7 page)

“There isn’t enough food to feed four people for more than a week,” Casey says. “Not really.”

“We may all be dead before then.” I sit, resting my forehead on my knees. Seeing Meghan was too much. I’d forgotten the sharp, raw edge of grief.

“Hey, you okay?” Casey asks. When I don’t respond, he says, “I’ll make food. Go lie down or something.”

“You don’t have to baby me,” I say into my knees. “Doubt I’m much more traumatized or hungry than you are.”

“Evalyn.”

It might be the first time he’s spoken my name in such a sincere tone. It’s enough to get me to lift my head.

Within his expression lies a mixture of seriousness and confusion. “I don’t really understand what happened in that cave, but from what I know about psychos, they generally don’t have that much remorse over the horrible things they’ve done.”

My eyes water when I think of Meghan. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is. I’m not asking that you explain it to me, but don’t sit here and pretend that it didn’t rip a hole straight through you.”

I tear at the chapped skin on my lip with my teeth and examine the black whirlpool sucking down all that water into its center.

He’s right. It is complicated, and I don’t want to explain it to him. The exhaustion that comes with people choosing to believe or not believe my side of the most horrifying moment of my life is something I’d rather leave in the past, in the month of my trial.

Instead of responding to Casey, I study the whirlpool. It must have reversed to spit us out. Nature doesn’t do that. And that’s what is so misleading about this place. Most of what’s around us is natural: the dew dripping from the needles of the evergreens, the way the wood smokes in the pit, the rich, soft soil beneath my feet, and the morning mist that hangs in the air. But that whirlpool—there is something so mechanical about it, so concise. It’s being manipulated.

Casey rips a couple of potatoes and carrots from the earth and washes them upstream. He grabs a can of stew meat and a battered old pan from the shack, then carefully opens the can with a kitchen knife. I feel useless sitting around, even though I’m miserable, so I get up and search for firewood. Valerie’s cleared most of the ground, but I manage to scrounge up an armful of sticks while I keep the blanket pinned to me. Eventually it slips down and my bra is exposed. I huff and throw the blanket over my shoulders, kneeling near the fire and blowing into the coals. Casey watches me. I’m not sure if it’s because of my boobs or my actions.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Girl Scouts.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Kidding. All we did was sell cookies and be cute. I have no idea. TV. Why, is it working?”

He shrugs and holds the frying pan over the fire. It takes a while to warm up, and even when we eat, hovering over the pan together and picking at the concoction with our fingers, the potatoes are still crunchy. But it’s hot, and filling, and perfect.

There isn’t a whole lot of food, but when I finish I’m full, maybe because my stomach has shrunk from not eating.

He nudges the last potato in the pan toward me.

“Eat it,” I say.

He does. After he swallows, he says, “Interesting situation we have here, being stuck together when none of us are trustworthy people.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“But I don’t think any of us want to be alone either.”

“Is that why you didn’t let go of me in the lake? Because you didn’t want to be alone? I thought you said it’s better to be alone so we don’t have to watch each other die.”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You could have stayed with Jace.”

He glares at me but says nothing. I guess a response would be too difficult—I
am
interrogating him, asking him why he finds my life suddenly valid.

I stand, letting the blanket slip from me. I’m aware my underwear is entirely see-through, but I don’t wait to see Casey’s expression. Instead, I walk toward the creek. He asks me where I’m going, but I don’t respond.

I drink and wash, far enough away from the whirlpool so I can’t see it. I bury my feet in the creek bed, the grainy silt massaging me. I concentrate on the texture as a tightness shrinks my chest. I can’t let it take over—I can’t panic. If I do, I’ll lose my mind.

I lift my feet and the crevices of my toenails are caked with yellow clay. Dropping to my knees, I sink my hands into the bed, fingers closing around a substance soft and malleable. Beautiful yellow. Beautiful daisy yellow.

I take as much clay as I can carry and bring it back to camp, stacking the doughy mounds on top of a stump. Casey doesn’t pay me an ounce of attention, because Valerie’s returned with Jace.

“We Want to Compromise.”

“No, you want my client to plead guilty.”

I sat at an aluminum table. My lawyer was on my right, mom on my left. I picked at my fingernails beneath the table, scraping at my cuticles until blood flooded my nail beds.

The month-long trial was nowhere near ending. I was numb, unprocessing. Unwilling to communicate.

“Our deal is to shift the sentence if you plead.”

“Even lessening the years served wouldn’t change anyone’s—”

“No years
would
be served. The sentence would be changed to one month in a CR.”

A Compass Room? Now my attention was caught.

The prosecutor continued, but I already knew this was the answer. Even I wasn’t sure how guilty I was, so how could my jury know? “These kinds of trials are Compass Room material anyway. The kind with damning evidence and stellar character witnesses.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Compass Rooms are only in the prototype phase.” My lawyer’s voice was riddled with disbelief.

“But they’ve already been written into the law.” The prosecuting attorney sat back, tugging on the lapels of his jacket. “What would you rather have, Miss Ibarra? A long, drawn-out trial? A death sentence? Or some prison downtime as the CRs come into play—a freedom you don’t deserve—with an opportunity to redeem yourself?”

My mother shook her head violently out of the corner of my eye. I could sense the tenseness of my lawyer. But to end the agony of the trial for good, to be given the opportunity of redemption or death—right now, even death sounded better than the fame of infamy.

The prosecuting lawyer spoke. “You want the Compass Room, don’t you?”

I nodded. The prosecutor smiled, and my mother wept.

***

The “prison downtime” the prosecutor promised was a joke.

Three weeks later, the national news announced that the CRs were ready to go, and sentences for ongoing trials were being sealed. I was the first to fill a spot in my CR, but I wasn’t alone for long.

When I was taken from my cell for dinner, it was an evening like all the others. The mess hall was the size of a gymnasium, guards watching us like hawks from a ledge around the dome ceiling, their automatics resting snugly in their arms.

I normally ate alone, or at a table of others who liked to eat alone. The sociopaths. I was too easy a target for the other girls, especially with how much media attention my trial had gotten. I wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in that mess hall knew who I was.

I always got shoved around. The day before, a girl had jumped me and slammed her fist into my kidney, but a guard broke the fight up before she could do any real damage.

Today was a verbal torment type of day.

“Ready to die, bitch?”

I’d been finger painting with my leftover mustard, and when I looked up, I wiped my hand on my pants. She was hideous. Dreadlocks, a twisted mouth. A slanted, shoddy tattoo covered half her face.

But she was nothing to be afraid of.

“Quite ready.” It was the truth. I was aching to leave. When I was dead, I wouldn’t feel my bruises, my cracked ribs. And I’d be with Meghan.

I glanced back down at the plate, at my shitty mustard sun and grass, and felt the warmth of the field, of a place I knew I’d never have the chance to see. Not alone, not with Meghan. I wouldn’t be able to watch her photograph the sunset, wouldn’t be able to see the fire in her eyes that matched the sky.

“That’s cute,” she spat, nodding to my drawing. “Bet that’s not the same as twisting up the photos that chick you slaughtered took.”

I drew my hands into fists. This kind of harassment I knew too well. I knew to tell myself that it was because so many of these sick fucks actually envied my fame and wanted it for themselves. Normally I could handle it, but today all I wanted was to slam my knuckles into her nose.

I didn’t get the chance.

Across the hall, chaos broke out. Women jumped on tables and started screaming, throwing food, kicking trays. All signs of a fight. The guards swarmed in to stop it, but they took much longer than usual. Somewhere, an authority figure blew his whistle. Even the guards above had their weapons aimed toward the mess hall floor.

“Oh shit,” Dreadlocks said.

I swiped my tray to the side and stood on top of the table. Blood streaked the concrete. I saw it as paint—beautiful and vibrant and alive. I wanted to render it into something of my own.

One guard yanked away a girl with short, bleach-blonde hair and torn-off sleeves. They spun her around and I knew her. Even with all that blood pouring from her nose and mouth, I recognized her.

Valerie Crane.

She thrashed against the guards, spitting a glob of red mucus onto the floor. Our eyes met.

I could have sworn she grinned at me.

“Better get familiar with that face,” Dreadlocks said.

“Why’s that?”

“She got sentenced to your CR today. Who knows? Being around her all the time . . . maybe she’ll end up beating the hell out of
you
.”

I got off the table and sat back down. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s the least a little shithead like you deserves.”

She wanted me riled up, but that never worked. I didn’t like giving people in here that kind of satisfaction.

She left me then, walking back to wherever she’d come from, through the trail of blood like it was nothing more than dirt on the floor.

I never learned her name, or what she had done. She didn’t matter.

But Valerie Crane . . . Valerie would matter.

5

Everything that’s come out of Jace’s mouth has been shrill with excitement.

She thought we were dead. She thought that, unless she ran into someone else, she’d have to spend the rest of her time here hungry and alone.

“I was sure I was going to starve to death,” she says through a mouthful of canned chicken. She didn’t even bother to heat it up, pinching the hunks straight from the tin. Her shirt is off because I cleaned her cut a few minutes ago, and Valerie studies the wound, her nose only inches from Jace’s shoulder.

“She got you good for using a dissolving blade.” Valerie traces along the edges of the cut.

Jace hisses and smacks her hand. “Knock it off.” She bites back a grin.

“Then the Compass Room got Erity good,” I add, having moved on to my second meal of the day, hard cheese and fresh tomatoes. “Not that it matters anymore, but did you see that crate floating in the water?”

Valerie shakes her head. “I was hoping it had floated to shore or something—I mean, if it really
was
food—but I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“What the hell.” I rub my temples.

“A lure,” Casey says. “You needed to go into the water to get dragged into the cave.”

I allow a single shiver to ripple through me, and then push the thought far from my mind, returning to my cheese.

***

The sky holds the deep blue of twilight. After Valerie brought back my boots, bag, and pants from the beach, I searched the near hillside for wood to prepare for the impending cold night. Finding enough was difficult without an axe, but I managed a decent pile. Casey took inventory of our food and estimated it’d last us about ten days before we’d have to find a new source.

But I’m not worrying about that right now—none of us really are. There isn’t a point. At least three of us have died in the first handful of days. The horror I’ve experienced may be nothing compared to what I’ll see tomorrow.

The only thing we can do is eat while we can. Sleep while we can. And wait.

I take a tin cup supplied by the shed and head for the stream, filling it with water before returning to camp.

“You seriously going to drink that without boiling it? You know what
Giardia
does?” Valerie asks when I sit. “Have you ever heard of the phrase
explosive diarrhea
?”

Jace snorts.

“You would know personally?” I raise the cup to my mouth.

“I read. You know? Some people do it to learn things. People who read are eighty-five percent less likely to commit crimes.”

“You must be very unlucky,” Casey says.

I take a large gulp of the cool water. “Okay, well, if I end up dying of explosive diarrhea in this place, I give you permission to laugh at my corpse.”

“And perform lewd acts with it?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

***

Like last night, when the sun dips beneath the mountains, the temperature drops instantly. “That can’t b-be natural,” I stutter. “Like the whirlp-pool, it’s so unl-likely that it’d drop thirty degrees in t-twenty minutes.”

“I’m from Connecticut,” Jace says coolly, just now putting her shirt back on. “The temp doesn’t faze me much. But you’re right—it’s strange.”

“What’s their reasoning? They trying to t-torture us?”

It’s not apparent, not even when the four of us lie next to one another in the tent and try to sleep. Both Valerie and Jace are curled up under a mountain of blankets while Casey rests behind me. Even with my hood up and surrounded by bodies, I shake so violently from the cold that my back grows sore.

***

Morning light trickles through the thin nylon separating us from the sky. Outside, an animal shuffles away on the grass. I stiffen. An audible splash sounds. Whatever it was fell into the stream.

It gasps, and groans.

I kick the blankets away, crawling over both Valerie and Jace to reach the tent exit. Valerie knees me unaccidentally in the pelvis. I unzip the flap and crawl out. A boy lies faceup in the shallow part of the creek.

I scramble to my feet and run into the water, dropping to my knees and soaking my only pair of pants. I shake him and call his name.

“Water,” he croaks.

“You’re in water, you stupid boy!” I help him sit up. When he comprehends what I’ve said, he leans forward and gulps down mouthfuls of the stream, choking and gasping.

By now, Jace has crawled out of the tent and gapes at us.

“Breakfast,” I tell her. “Make breakfast, and hurry!”

***

Tanner sits on the fireside stump, wolfing down his third helping of canned chicken and potatoes.

I fill him in on what’s happened so far as Valerie cleans Jace’s wound. Tanner puts down his dish and listens closely with his fingertips pressed together in front of him, occasionally pushing up his oversized glasses with his thumbs. When I’m finished, he tells us what’s happened to him.

He was already outside when Salem’s victim showed up. Took off into the woods long before the house caught on fire, but stayed close by for the next few days.

“There was nothing. Only the dew I could collect off the leaves and my own thoughts. Until I ran into Gordon.”

“What happened?” Casey asks.

“Tried to stab me with a knife. Chased me down into a muddy ravine. Sometimes I hid in the thick brush. Found a cave once. But I couldn’t get away. He was on my tail the whole time.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why would he do that? He knows this place judges our morality. Erity died because she tried to kill Jace.”

Tanner shakes his head. “I think he knows he’s doomed. He’s having a little fun before he goes.”

“So why isn’t the Compass Room taking care of him?” Valerie says. “They’ve already taken care of three of us sadistic fuckers. They’re clearly capable.”

“Three?” Tanner asks. I forgot to tell him about Blaise.

When I do, he pales. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” Casey agrees.

“Oh, come on, guys. You’re acting like you haven’t spent the last
x
amount of months in prison,” Valerie says, pulling herself away from Jace’s wound. “Part of being a sociopath is that you lie. A lot. The guy can tote around the biggest Bible in the world but that doesn’t mean his mind isn’t all sorts of fucked.”

Tanner opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but snaps it shut. He can’t. None of us can, because none of us know what was going through Blaise’s head.

Like how we don’t know what’s going through anyone’s head but our own.

Tanner huffs. “Well, these hauntings are obviously testing us, but what they are exactly, I’m not so sure. I mean, they can’t be real. Deities, victims that can’t logically be here, dead girls . . .”

I flinch. Casey’s staring at me.

“We know that four of us have been tested so far, right? Salem, Erity, Blaise, and Evalyn. The only survivor of those tests has been Evalyn. We know the way they test us is through brain waves, so the way that Evalyn reacted to images of her crime was different from the others.”

“Obviously,” Casey says. “I mean, none of us saw how Blaise was killed, but Salem was being a creepy fuck when he died, and Erity was trying to sacrifice Jace.”

“And Evalyn?”

Casey’s eyes flicker to mine and then away. He’s about to speak when I say, “I was shocked. Panicked. I thought I was going to die.”

“You were remorseful,” Casey says.

“You don’t know that. I could be remorseful like Blaise was being repentant in the lodge.”

“Oh, give me a break, Evalyn.”

“I’m just making a point.”

“Children,” Valerie warns lowly.

“I can’t figure out what triggers these . . . events,” Tanner says. “I don’t know if we’ll all be hit, if that is necessarily what we will all die from, or if Evalyn will be hit again.”

My throat tightens.

“So then what do we do?” Jace asks.

Tanner shrugs. “Until we know the trigger, we wait. Eat. Take nature walks. Enjoy what could be our last moments. That’s all I have so far.”

So uplifting.

“Wait.” Valerie chews on the corner of her lip. “I . . . I saw my sister. I don’t think it was a test. Sure as hell didn’t feel like one, compared to the others, but she’s who led me here, to this place. Compared to what all of you have been through, I’d say it’s been paradise so far.”

So my visions of Todd didn’t mean I’m going crazy.

“Maybe some of these experiences can reward us instead of kill us,” Tanner suggests.

“I saw my brother too, Val. Back when we were in the lodge. I chased him down the hall.”

“And into my room,” Casey interrupts.

I clear my throat. “And then at the lake. He was pointing to the crate in the middle of the water that I mistook for food.”

“And that led you to your test,” Tanner finishes. “As for the lodge.”

“He led me to a fight.” I shoot Casey a heavy-lidded glare.

Jace snorts. Casey doesn’t seem very amused.

“Not sure on that one.” Tanner sighs. “I guess we’ll have to wait for more to work with, won’t we? What’s important for us to realize right now is that it doesn’t matter if we stay here or go out into the woods alone. We can’t hide from the tests. If we could, this place wouldn’t be very accurate, now, would it?”

***

Camp atmosphere after the huddle-up isn’t all too good. I can’t help but mull over what Tanner has said. He has to be right. There would be no point of the Compass Room if we could hide from these tests.

Our temporary haven isn’t safe. Nowhere is.

The good news is that I found a bar of soap in our outdoor pantry. Jace chastises me for washing in the creek—something about killing the fishes—and I counter that it’s not my responsibility to show this place an ounce of respect.
And
I haven’t seen a single fish.

I wash downstream, far away from the whirlpool, scrubbing all of my clothes thoroughly with the soap before laying each garment on the rock to dry. The shirt I wore when Erity was killed is permanently stained pink. I’m rinsing out my hair when Valerie sits on the near bank, dipping her feet in the water.

I cross my arms over my bare chest. “You mind?”

“Not at all,” she says, and then, “We have a problem.”

She explains to me that the group is torn on what we should do about Gordon, the lone psycho ranger wandering out in the woods. Tanner thinks we shouldn’t worry, even though he was chased for days by the bastard. He’s convinced that he won’t be able to kill us if we aren’t supposed to die.

I shake my head, sinking into the pool. “I’m not quite comfortable with that idea.”

“Casey thinks we should booby-trap our food.”

“Too complicated. We can’t pair off in shifts to keep guard at night?”

“Thank you. There
is
some sanity left in this world.”

I return with Valerie to camp, wrapped in a blanket and wringing out my hair when she delivers the news. The fact that I’ve volunteered myself and Casey for the first night shift doesn’t make Casey very happy.

“Having two people on guard doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to try and hurt one of us,” he argues. His hair stands on end from grease, his T-shirt brown from soil and ash. I kind of want to push him in the stream because he’s so filthy. And also because he’s pissing me off.

I avoid making eye contact with him by helping Jace prep dinner, our makeshift cutting board a loose plank from the pantry. We plan on disassembling the entire shack for firewood as soon as we can figure out how to do so without a hammer or axe. I slice up red onions near the fire pit as Casey hovers over me, waiting for my response.

I toss the onions in the soup pot. “I don’t know what else you expect us to do. Build a fortress out of twigs? Make everyone practice their knife throwing?”

“Knives dissolve,” he says, missing the point.

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has proven how psychotic they are in a Compass Room. I’m almost positive that he’s already dead. Look how quickly Erity was killed off.”

“Oh, so you expect the people who created this place, who stuck us in here, to protect us? Great thinking, Evalyn. Genius, even.”

“The knives disintegrate when they touch flesh. We know this.”

“There are ways to kill a person without stabbing him.”

I inhale, keeping my patience. “I’d say we’ve been working very well as a team of misfits, Casey. Please don’t ruin it so soon.”

I return to my vegetable cutting, and he stalks off. Fortunately for me, since I have to spend half a night with him, he cools his temper by taking a bath.

As I wait for nightfall, I sit with Tanner by the edge of the creek. “You okay?” I ask.

“Okay as I can be.”

I nod. A valid answer for the occasion.

“You like me, don’t you?”

I laugh in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Ever since the train, since you offered to scratch my nose with your teeth.”

“You’re endearing.”

“Why?”

“Because you care enough to want to know the answer for everything.”

“And I look like a little kid.”

“And you look like a little kid.”

“At least you’re honest.” His brow crinkles with worry. “The jury found me guilty. Only reason I’m here is because—well . . .”

“Because you were taunted.”

“I said I was defending myself.”

I remember the story. Tanner pushed his bully off a cliff that the kids fished at in his hometown.

“
Were
you defending yourself?”

“Essentially.”

I can decode that. For anyone bullied, ridding themselves of their bully is defending themselves.
Essentially
.

“Why did he pick on you?”

“Why does any boy pick on anyone? It happens—it’s a part of history. Some of us grow up and we’re unacceptable—smarter or smaller or gayer or darker than what we should be. So we get picked on or change who we are. My dad told me to stop being such a pussy, so for once in my life I listened to someone other than myself, and look where it landed me.” He picks up a stone and chucks it in the water. “He followed me to the river. I was taking a walk along the cliff by myself. . . .”

He drifts off for a moment.

“Dark thoughts come over me, Evalyn. Sometimes it’s hard to erase them.”