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Fuck.
“She’s a fucking psycho!” Noah screams down the phone.
My heart rate rockets up again. Gizmo whimpers as my fingers tighten in her fur. I’ve done nothing but hold her and stroke her and feed her treats for the last hour, but she’s still terrified.
I’m pretty rattled myself. That guy broke into our house without a trace – Mom didn’t even notice. I can’t believe Mackenzie would do this and yet… Noah had a visit from a masked stranger, too. “This guy broke into my room and wrote all over my walls in red paint. Grace found it, and she freaked out. The police are swarming all over the house.”
Poor Grace. “What did they write?”
“‘This cat has claws’!” Noah yells. “What’s she talking about? What cat?”
I pull my phone from my ear as Noah screams curse words, and scroll through my messages. It’s already blowing up. Callum, Daphne, Cleo, Brandy… everyone’s had a visit from one of Mackenzie’s shadowy men.
“Alec’s in the hospital,” Noah says. “She burned her initials into his forehead.”
“Fuck me dead.” That’s dark. But also… I can’t say I felt sorry for Alec.
Why did Mackenzie do this? Because of the party? Because of the things that had been happening at school? It’s a little crazy and yet… Mackenzie was always a law unto herself.
I open a drawer in my desk and rummage around until I find what I’m looking for. It’s a strip of Polaroids we took in a photobooth at Disneyland when we were… eleven, I think? I remember the day well. Mackenzie came to school late and ready for a fight. She sat at the back of class and refused to participate. She called the teacher a bitch to her face, then said, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ because she knew she was untouchable. A girl offered Mackenzie a cupcake, and Mackenzie pushed her into a trash can.
I saw Mackenzie closing in on George, who sat by herself on the edge of the playground. I knew this pattern of hers – Mackenzie’s father did something awful, so she came to school and lorded it over the other kids to feel good about herself. I couldn’t bear that stormy look in her eyes, and I didn’t want to watch what she had planned for George – all I wanted was to see her smile. So for the first time ever, I skipped school. We took a bus down to Anaheim and spent the day at Disneyland. It was one of the best days of my entire life. We didn’t have to pretend – we could be completely ourselves.
I hold up the photo strip to the light – the pair of us crowded inside the booth, dressed in sparkly Mickey Mouse ears and feather boas we got from a junk store. I’m wearing aviator sunglasses and trying to look staunch while Mackenzie pokes her tongue out at the camera. That day I peeled back the Ice Queen and the real Mackenzie shone through like the sun.
I run my fingers over her smiling face. I wonder if that smile still lurks somewhere inside Mackenzie, somewhere beneath this cold, calculating monster.
How does Mackenzie command the loyalty of a gang of thugs who can break into more than ten Emerald Beach mansions in the same night?
She burned her initials into Alec’s forehead… that’s fucked up.
Someone broke her. Someone snuffed out Mackenzie’s sunshine so completely she’s a stranger to me now. And I have a feeling I know exactly who it was.
Mackenzie’s right. I was supposed to protect her, and I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was only thirteen. But I’m not thirteen any longer, and no matter what it takes, I will make sure she knows that I still see the sunshine inside her.
I pick up the phone again just as Noah winds up his tirade. A chill ripples down my spine at the venom in his voice. Vowing to protect Mackenzie may mean going up against my best friend, and I can’t do that. Not after everything he’s been through. But I had to.
“Mackenzie Malloy is going to pay,” Noah hisses. And I wish, more than anything I’ve ever wished for, that I could save him from himself. “I’m going to kill her for this.”
Mackenzie
School the next day is… interesting. When I step into the corridor, students fall over themselves to get away from me. The fear rolls off them in waves, and it’s intoxicating.
They wanted to know where Mackenzie Malloy has been all these years.
They wanted answers.
I can’t be held responsible if they couldn’t handle the truth.
I should have started with this power move, I think as I reach my locker and shove my books into my bag. A note flutters out. I unfold the paper and read the neat handwriting.
“Watch out for Noah,” it reads. I glance up. Eli’s down the opposite end of the corridor, in a circle of jocks. He looks up, his eyes meeting mine, and I feel that now-familiar zip of lightning through my veins, like I’m plugged into a power socket. I think of the last time our eyes met, across his pool as he took in my surprise. I needed him to see me there, to know I don’t need his protection.
That’s what the note is really about. Eli nods at the paper in my hand. He’s trying to get in my good books again, to remind me he’s looking out for me.
Message received.
I roll it the note into a ball and shove it into my mouth, chewing it with gusto.
