“Oh… Mom? Mama?”
“Adina? Is that you?” she gasps excitedly.
“Yeah, Mama, it’s me,” I whisper.
“Oh, Adina, my darling. Your father went to the grocery store! Oh, shoot! Maybe I should call him back—”
“No!” I bark, probably too loud. I glance over at Leighton, but she just flips the page of her article. “Sorry, it’s… I only have twenty minutes.”
“Oh, wow, they’re really working you hard, aren’t they?”
I look down at the fading bruises underneath the fresh dark-plum marks on my thighs, where my shorts bisect them. “Yeah, they are,” I confess. I swallow the excess saliva in my mouth, taking a deep, shuddering breath to dry it all out. “I miss you so much. Like, so much.”
My mother laughs softly. “Already? You’ve only been gone a few days, Dina.” She hasn’t called me Dina since I was a kid; she misses me too.
“I know, but… it feels like millennia,” I whisper into the phone.
It’s been five days since she dropped me off, and everything has changed so much. I’ve changed, and I worry that she won’t recognize me when I get out. If I get out.
“Are you okay, honey? You sound… off,” Mom says.
I want to tell her. I want to tell her everything. I want to be back in my living room, choking on my own tears as I tell her this terrible, terrible story about dead girls and acceptance to a family, to a society, that I’m not even sure I want any part of anymore. The truth is gummy on the roof of my mouth, waiting to be spit out.
“I’m okay,” I say instead. “I made a friend. Her name is Saint.”
“Saint? What kind of name is that?” she asks.
“I think she named herself after Yves Saint Laurent. She’s from China, but she went to school in Switzerland.”
“Oooh, fancy. Tell me more.”
I tell her what I can. I tell her about the other girls—the ones who are left. I tell her about the fancy dinners and the card games. I tell her about how beautiful the Remington Estate is, that it feels like a foreign, magical place. I tell her about learning to ride a horse.
I don’t tell her about Graham. He’s too wrapped up in the truth, and I know how far away I have to keep my parents from it.
“That sounds… that sounds amazing,” my mother says, and I can tell that I’ve spun a tale of awe. She’s properly impressed and I think even Leighton, who is “not” listening, is too. She won’t ask any real questions. She’ll be safe.
“It is,” I whisper, trying to match her excitement. “It’s hard too, though.”
Leighton said my mother and father will be safe as long as I play by the rules. But one round in and I’m already exhausted.
“You just need to try your best, Adina, you hear me?” she says. “Try your best.”
What does my best mean in a place like this?
“Hey, Mom, I have to go,” I say quietly. I know that my twenty minutes aren’t up yet, because Leighton twists to look at me, raising an eyebrow, but I can’t keep this up.
“Oh, already? Man, your dad is going to be upset he missed you. When can you call again?” she asks.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I say, forcing a smile into my voice and skirting the question. “Just another week.”
It feels like another long eternity ahead.
“Well, all right, my dear, I’ll—”
“Mom, wait,” I stop her, realizing something. She stops and I swallow hard. I’m not stupid enough to not at least try to create an exit strategy. My parents can’t help me, but I do have someone in my corner with resources. I don’t look at Leighton as I say, “Can you tell Toni something for me?”
“Oh, sure. Toni was by here the other day, looking for one of her shirts. What is it?”
“I ran out of my Suburbia Sweet lotion from Bath & Body Works. Tell her to get me a new one while she’s out?”
There are so few people I’ve ever talked to about my Suburbia feelings. Only Toni knows the extent of how much I wanted to leave it. Any mention of it while I’m in a place like this would confuse the hell out of her. It’s not concrete but it’s a first clue.
“What kind of nonsense is that?” Mom asks. “I’ve never heard of that scent.”
I laugh. “She has. You’ll tell her for me, won’t you, Mom? Oh, and that I miss her. I know she misses me anyway.”
My mother sighs. “Yes, Adina.”
“Thanks, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says warmly, like always, like nothing has changed.
The phone call ends with a sharp click, but I’m still breathing heavily into the receiver. I can’t manage to put it down. My eyes sting but I blink away the feeling sharply. Steeling myself, I finally set the phone down and turn to Leighton.
She’s stopped pretending that she wasn’t listening. She leans forward, tilting her head, and I hold my breath, waiting for her to question my words, the code, meant for Toni. She doesn’t. Instead, she asks, “What’s changed?” That’s when I know she sees that the blinders are off. There’s no more pretending that the Ride wasn’t set up to push us together, to create violence. There’s no more pretending that death isn’t going to happen in the Finish this time, that I won’t have to kill or be killed to win. No denying that for the Remingtons, deaths are preferred, simpler, tidier, and baked into everything they’ve set up for us. “What’s changed?” is a stupid question with a simple answer.
In short? Everything.
“Me,” I say softly instead.
Leighton smiles a secret smile, and the way she looks at me is as if she’s looking at a very fond memory. “Adina, do you know what happens when one applies pressure to carbon?”
“Yes. It turns to diamond,” I say.
“It must be unpleasant for the carbon, but wouldn’t you say it’s worth it in the end?” Leighton posits, “Think of the Finish as a becoming, of sorts. What will you be when the end comes?” She doesn’t expect an answer. Instead, she leans back in her seat and tilts her head to the door, dismissing me.
CHAPTER 18
AFTER MY PHONE CALL WITH my mother, I return to my bedroom with a resolve to tell Saint we need to come up with a proper plan for the next event. But I return to a girl who doesn’t look altogether whole. She lies back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, letting out a long, shuddering sigh, the kind I feel in my rattling bones. “I’m so tired.”
In that moment, that moment where she slips, she looks my age with all that entails. Young. Uncertain. Afraid. But then as usual, Saint seems to blink herself awake and she is steel wrapped in silk again, sharper than a knife’s edge. She’s so aware for someone higher than a kite.
“You should sleep more. Tomorrow’s your brunch. Maybe Pierce will slip and tell you about the Raid,” I suggest. Yesterday’s Ride was draining on everyone. Even Penthesilea.
Saint closes her eyes, and I think she’s fallen asleep when she says, “There are so few secrets when a person revels in their own wickedness.” And then she really is asleep.