Their Vicious Games(99)

“No, not yet,” I say, sharper than I should, leaning back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling.

“Charles… Charles said to say hi,” Toni says after a deep breath. She still hesitates on her brother’s name, left over from her fury at how it took him twelve hours to decide to tell her what he had seen at the Remington Estate. She’ll forgive him eventually—I already have.

When I got settled in her house, I waited for their explanation. Saint was businesslike in her recounting—it was dark, their shots had missed, she wasn’t afraid of diving through the mud, and they must have been too terrified to tell the Remingtons she had gotten away. She had run as long and hard as she could until she’d reached the main road. From there, she had walked and walked, until she’d gotten to a gas station and an attendant had lent her his phone. Being rich pays, and from there it hadn’t been hard to find out who Charles—and by association Toni—were and where they lived.

As Saint talked and Toni tended to my wounds, Charles lingered worriedly in the doorway, asking if I was okay, then wanting to know what’d happened, why Pierce wasn’t picking up his phone, why no one was picking up the phone. Saint nearly bullied him away, until I looked up at him and said, “Hi, Charles. Thank you.” I’d sounded like myself in that moment, apparently.

“Good for him,” I say. Then I sigh. “Tell Charles I said hi.”

“The… funeral was this morning,” Toni says hesitantly, wringing her hands.

Three weeks to the day. A strangely long time.

I don’t say anything for a moment. And then: “Who went?”

“It was really private. For once, no one wants anything to do with the Remingtons. Charles said the police showed up to the estate and, like, not Lenox police. State police. And the Feds,” Toni explains. “Charles said their mom was there, though. She’s distraught.”

“You didn’t go with him?” I ask.

“Fuck those people,” Toni says coldly, and even now, after everything, it surprises me how people can switch on a dime, how underneath the fa?ade of kindliness, there’s always something lurking. “Penthesilea didn’t go either, apparently. She’s free while they investigate or whatever. Her doctor said she could’ve gone for ‘closure,’ and she laughed in his face.”

“And Hawthorne?”

Toni’s expression falls. “Still not awake. The infection was pretty bad.” She shifts uncomfortably. “Charles told me that there was a lot of media waiting outside, though. They were… asking about the Finish. And the other girls.”

The dead ones.

I hear the click of the front door unlocking, and I stand up suddenly enough that I have to fumble to catch the chair before it tumbles to the floor.

“We’re home,” Mom sings as she walks down the hall. “Hey, get this bag for me, babe. Oh, you’re awake! Good.”

Mom tries to be cheerful. She’s always attempting to be cheerful, but she’s stiff in it. There’s always a strain to her throat. It’s mostly because of what I’ve gone through, but I know that there’s also some due to her quitting her tenured job at Edgewater because of me. For me. That, I don’t feel guilty for. I don’t think she would want me to.

“I’m awake,” I say. Very carefully, I sit back down, spreading my hands wide over the kitchen table, attempting to ignore my father’s very worried stare. He never hides his worry.

“Slept all right?” he asks.

“Well enough,” I say shortly. “Had a nightmare—”

“Yeah, we heard,” Mom says. She clears her throat. “And you’re sure you don’t want to talk to—”

“I called Saint. We talked,” I say firmly. Mom doesn’t approve of Saint as my version of therapy. But she’s the only person who understands, fully, and she’s not here. She’s never coming back.

“I’m never going back to America, Adina. Never again,” Saint promised in the dark last night. She’d called me from Beijing. It was noon for her, midnight for me. We call at least twice a day, because someone always needs to be awake to save the other from a nightmare.

“But what about Princeton?” I whispered into the phone.

“I can’t, Adina. Not now. Not ever. I think I will go to the Sorbonne. But you will come visit me?” she asked. I’d thought she’d just want to forget about me, but she’d been forceful when she’d said that she didn’t. She never wants to forget about me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget her.

“Yeah,” I agreed softly. If I can ever afford it.

It’s easy to slip in and out of memories now, and I dig my fingers into my thighs to take me back into the now. My parents are patient, watching me find my words. They probably think I’m having another flashback. My mom is probably hoping that I’ll actually share the details of them with her, let her in.

Instead, I say, “Toni is going to rebraid my hair. It looks bad.”

“You said it, not me,” Dad tries to joke.

Mom raises an eyebrow at me, mouth twitching as she and Dad go to unload groceries in the kitchen. “You’ve been watching this bacon, Toni?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Toni says as I turn my attention to the mail. It’s easier to shuffle through trashy catalogs and weird pizza flyers than to think about how the majority of the Remington Family is being buried in their overpriced mausoleum at their personal family cemetery.