I'd blacked out, but some things were coming to me.Foggy visions of Lilly and I in my dressing room came to me.
"Gatsby, or better known as Emile ‘make-a-meal-out-of-you’ Dumas, your man, is a monster."
"He was proven innocent."
"Maybe before, not now. Max found someone who told him what really goes on at those parties he throws. Did he not tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Gatsby came to lay with me. He wrapped his arms around me and let me cry. I closed my eyes tighter. Max was wrong about him. Not my Gatsby. It couldn't be true.
"He kidnaps people, spends a week tattooing them, writing their supposed crimes on them so that they'll forever be branded, and then you know what he does?"
"You're lying."
"He eats them."
It was late, and the rain had finally let up, when I opened my eyes and took in where I was.
I remembered scrambling out of the building and getting into the car. I remembered Gatsby shaking me. I remembered telling him I...
Slowly, I moved his arm off my body. He had fallen asleep holding me. I climbed out of bed and looked down. This wasn't the Gatsby Max claimed him to be. He couldn't be, could he?
Quietly, I moved around the room and paused when I saw his keys on a dresser. Carefully, I lifted them and left his sleeping quarters. I'd been with him enough times this summer, I was familiar with what key unlocked what, and I knew what key I needed now. I sorted it out of his keyring, and as if in a trance, I walked upstairs and to the only room he kept locked.
The key pushing the chambers to unlock the doorseemed to echo through the hall, as if trying to alert someone to my presence here. I turned the knob and went inside, locking it from the inside. I couldn't bring myself to turn the lights on. I climbed onto the chair, lowering the back to lie down, and broke down again. I pulled my knees up and covered my face with my hands.
I'd killed Lilly.
"What are you doing? Daisy, please, put that down. Don't?—"
Her blood-curdling scream as I took the hot curling iron off my vanity and smacked her in the face with it echoed in my mind. I'd beat her to the ground, and then abandoned it when she swatted it back at me, burning my exposed flesh.
I sat up and lifted my arm. The evidence was right there. Right over my very first tattoo. The word 'beautiful' was stained with red. It wasn't enough to scar, but it stung.
I deserved every ounce of pain.
I rolled off the chair and paced the nearly empty room. I'd killed someone on purpose… again. She'd told me that she was going to hurt the man I loved, and I saw red, just like the first time.
I went to the mirror and looked at the marred tattoo again. I wasn't a beautiful little flirt, like my Gatsby had claimed all those years ago. I was a monster. Taking his keys again, I went to the cabinet where all of his tattoo equipment was. I was no better than the criminals Lilly claimed he'd taken. I was sick and hurt people and needed to be punished. If Gatsby was writing their crimes on their bodies for everyone to see, then I had to do it as well.
I pulled out black ink and the machine with the needles. Having seen him do it enough times, I figured I could manage. I poured the ink and dipped the needles into it.
"What are you doing?"
I spun around, the machine in my hand.
"I'm doing what you would. I am a monster. I killed someone. I need to be punished." My voice didn't sound like mine. It felt unfamiliar and too calm.
"Tell me what happened." He stuffed another set of keys in his pocket and came to me, reaching for the machine. I refused to let him have it.
"I killed her. She was going to expose you, and my mind went blank. I didn't know what I was doing until it was too late."
"Who? Where? Daisy, explain what happened."
"Lilly… She was at the opera house. She was in my dressing room."
"She's dead? How?"
