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So it was Kate who said, “How much coke have you done tonight? It’syourstash, isn’t it? It’s inyourpocket? Or is that your weed?”
“You think the cops won’t search you?” Billie added, threading her fingers through her hair, streaking blood all over herself. But it didn’t matter, since carrying the heavy sonovabitch into the wagon meant his blood now stained her faded-blue jeans and white t-shirt, her arms and chin and fingernails. She might as well have said silent prayers for her white sneakers, too, since they were now ruby red, laces and all.
“Sure, you could toss the drugs.” Kate’s suggestion came with a lift of the hands, a gesture around them at the treelines. “Anywhere here, or elsewhere, I don’t care. But when the cops do get here and interview us, and each one of us is messed the fuck up on drink and drugs, they’ll test us. Could even get a warrant for your house. I wonder what they’ll find in there.”
Gigi paled to the shade of seafoam.
Billie was certain she could see the blood drain right out of her face, leaving only veins and horror.
“We don’t have a choice here, Gi.” Tonya pulled away from Carmine’s grip. She took a cautious step closer to her twin, as if not to spook her, like she was a wild animal to be cornered with caution. “If the cops even suspect that we had anything to do with this… We all go down. It was an accident, yeah, but Carmine has a juvie record, she’ll go away for a long-ass time. Billie, probably for life. You, me and Kate—less time, sure, but add on a few years for the drugs. And what about dad and his…business? Once they find that—and they will—he’ll go away for the rest of his life. You want to send him back there?”
“No.”
Billie lifted her gaze, seeing Gigi through damp lashes. She stood stronger now, the mouse sturdy in the breeze, her chin raised and her voice unwavering. Still, silent tears slicked her cheeks wet.
Billie looked away. “If any one of us…” She paused, shaking her strawberry-tinted hair, once blonde but tinted by the blood all over. “If anyone says what we did—what happened here… We.All. Go. Down. So… I want to make sure we all have a say in this.”
Kate whipped around, as if to bulldoze her best friend, but stopped short when Billie held up her crimson hand to silence her—
“We need this totrusteach other. We need a vote. Right here, right now. Two choices. We take our problem to Mr. Fix It, forget it ever happened, and go on living our lives…”
“He was a piece of shit anyway,” Carmine mumbled.
Kate nodded, eyes on Billie. “Second option is, we put the body back on the road, one of us leaves to call from the payphone out front the bar in town—and we are all arrested. We’ll all go away for this—there’s no way out of that reality. Especially now that his blood is all over the trunk, because we already moved the fucking body!” Kate paused for a beat, shutting her eyes and drawing in a deep breath through gritted teeth. “But…” she added, opening her eyes and releasing a breath, “we decide as a group what we do.”
Carmine stepped around Tonya. “Best three outta five. Democracy and all that.”
Raising her hand above her head, like she was about to swear on a bible in court, Kate turned her back on the bloody puddle on the road, facing all the girls. “Those in favor of Mr. Fix It?”
One by one, hands shot up in the air.
Billie’s: Skinny, pasty, and freckled.
Carmine’s: Slender, summer-kissed, and smooth.
Tonya’s: Thick, bronze, and littered with tiny scars.
Four hands in total, raised.
Carmine said, “I never liked him,” as though it added to the reasons for her hand held high.
But all the girls knew why she didn’t like Henry Maxwell. That, when she would stay overnight with his sister sometimes, Henry would ‘accidentally’ walk in on Carmine in the bathroom after a shower or grope her whenever he had the chance. Tried to be sly about it, too. Like, ‘Oh, I just need to squeeze by you here—oops.’
He'd grabbed at Billie a few times, too, at the bar.
Wasn’t a secret with the girls that Henry was a piece of shit.
And—
“We already moved the body,” Tonya said. “We’ll get extra time for that, too.”
Still, one hand was not raised.
All four girls looked to the side, looked to the baby of the group. Tears streaked her face like a glass of water chucked all over her. Her bottom lip quivered, but slowly… Gigi lifted her hand.
Then, to confirm, gave a firm nod.
“So let’s stop fucking about here in the open. We need to get moving,now.” With that, Kate pointed right at Billie. “Hand over the moonshine. And someone get me some water. Towels, your flannels, I don’t care what, just get me what I need to clean up this blood.”
