The Thrashers(74)

“Okay, so if we’re in the rose garden, then we’ll just be within view of a streetlamp—”

“One blink for yes, two for no?” Jodi added drily.

Kiera shrugged. “Maybe!” She smiled brightly and stole her milkshake straw back from Zack.

“How many séances have you done, Kiera?” Julian leaned forward in his chair, mocking her with his attention.

“Well, not strictly a séance, but I’ve sat in on summoning with my sister and her coven.”

“So, this is your first.”

“Uh-huh!” She beamed. Her eyes were obnoxiously green.

“That’s so exciting for you!” Lucy trilled in condescending enthusiasm.

“Luce,” Zack warned. Kiera just smiled between them, unable to read the room.

“What do you need from us?” Zack flagged over Mr. Burr for the check. “Do we need to do anything to prepare ourselves?”

“I guess, have an open mind? I dunno.” She shrugged. “But this will be super interesting. I didn’t get to meet Emily since I moved here after she died, but obviously my whole class talks about her!”

Jodi narrowed her eyes. She already knew about Kiera being a transfer student. Lucy and Paige had done a full background check on Kiera when Zack started hanging out with her. But Jodi didn’t like this chipper enthusiasm for “meeting” Emily. As if she was being initiated somehow.

Lucy leveled a stare at Kiera that made her shrivel. “You do understand that no one can know what we’re doing or find out what happens tomorrow night.”

“Yeah! Yeah, got it. I don’t want you guys in any more trouble.”

Jodi met Lucy’s eyes as Kiera asked Zack for the crusts of his turkey sandwich. Julian shifted in the chair across from her. For the first time, Jodi realized what it was like to live inside Paige, Lucy, and Julian’s heads, knowing that this girl had to go.

She had to be Thrashed.



* * *



Rosa always said that Sacramento had the best kind of Februaries. No snow, but just cold enough to bundle up. As someone who had only seen her first snow two years ago, Jodi disagreed. But she was thankful now that the forty-degree evening in the rose garden wouldn’t drop to eighteen degrees while they were there.

She wore two pairs of leggings, UGG knockoffs, and three layers on top with a beanie around her ears.

Julian scanned her up and down. “You look like you’re about to rob a bank.”

She glared back at him and tugged the beanie off her head under the pretense of straightening her hair, and then never put it back on. She slipped into the back seat of Zack’s car beside Paige.

Lucy had offered to pick up Kiera, something that surprised Zack, but he didn’t argue. Jodi had the feeling that Kiera was about to get a taste of what it’s like to be on Lucy Reed’s bad side, and she didn’t even feel bad about it.

They pulled up on the other side of McKinley, a lush park that sprawled two square blocks, with a library, a pond, tennis courts, a castle for a jungle gym, and—on the south side—a rose garden. They parked next to the tennis courts and made sure to keep quiet for the nosy neighbors who always had eyes on the unhoused population inching east from the freeway on-ramps.

It was almost one, and the traffic from H Street, the thoroughfare on the south side, was dying down. Paige led them to the spot she had in mind, a patch of dirt where the pathways in the garden converged. This was the place the five of them and Emily had smoked pot last year. It was within sight of a streetlamp.

“If she wanted us to ‘go to the rose garden,’ then this is what she meant.” Paige plopped down and crossed her legs.

Jodi walked down the center aisle, trying to read the descriptions of the flowers. Zack joined her after a second.

“So, what do you think of her?”

Jodi’s molars ground together. “Who?”

“Kiera. Come on.”

She moved down to the next row. “Honestly? I don’t think you should be dating anybody until the trial is over. It’s not a good look, Zack.”

“You’re right. I know you are. But…” He smiled wistfully. “I like her.”

“Be serious!” she snapped. “You’re under investigation for statutory rape. You’re eighteen, Kiera is seventeen. End of story.”

His face twisted up before he nodded at the ground, and Jodi’s heart sank.

“She’s sixteen, isn’t she?”

“Birthday in May.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Look”—he pushed his hand through his hair—“I don’t have to sleep with her! I just wanna go out with her. Date her.”

Jodi buried the stab of pain and turned to face him, crossing her arms. “And what happens if it doesn’t go well?” His brows drew together and she clarified, “What happens if she gets Thrashed before the trial?”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Thrashed. What does that even mean? Fucking stupid word.”

“It means something to the people who’ve been Thrashed,” she said. “To the people who feel like we use them up and throw them away.”

“But we don’t do that.”

“Don’t we?” A night breeze rustled up Jodi’s hair, and she resisted the urge to tug her beanie back on. “Were we going to keep hanging out with Emily after the school year? There are people telling everyone who will listen that we bullied and hurt them. Your old bio partner. Reagan—”