Girls with Sharp Sticks

Sydney lets go of my hand and walks to the door. It occurs to me then that it must be Jackson, and I ease Annalise against the wall and tell Sydney to wait up.

Brynn holds out Guardian Bose’s key chain and I grab it on my way to the door.

I hand it to Sydney and she finds the key and opens the locks. She pulls the door open with a wide swing. I sigh when I find Jackson standing there.

“You made it,” I say, relieved. “And you got through the fence.” He looks awful—dirt on his entire left side, a bit of road rash on his cheek. He leans against the doorframe.

“Yeah, about that,” Jackson says. “Quentin helped me scale the fence. Didn’t go so well. I busted up my leg pretty good. It’s probably sprained, but . . .”

His voice trails off when he looks down and sees that my pants are covered in blood. And the blood quite literally on my hands. He swallows hard.

“Is any of that yours?” he asks.

I hold his eyes. “Not much,” I say. “It’s mostly the Guardian’s.” I expect to shock him. Scare him.

But instead, he lets out a soft sound of concern and murmurs, “Good.”

Then Jackson notices Annalise’s condition and immediately limps past me to check on her. He grabs a dish towel from the stove and replaces the blood-soaked pillowcase. He tells Annalise to hold the towel to her wound instead. When he turns around to us, his expression is grave.

Jackson runs his eyes over the blood on my clothes again. He sees the bruising on Sydney’s neck. His jaw tightens as he grows fierce. Protective of all of us.

“Yeah, so let’s go,” he says, pointing out the door.

“We can’t,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?”

“She needs to get to the skin grafts,” I say, motioning to Annalise.

He stares at me, and then glances at Annalise. “The what?”

“Long story that we don’t have time to explain,” Sydney says. “Now come on.”

Marcella and Brynn help Annalise, and Sydney tells me to grab the key from the drawer. I locate the small silver key, still wondering why Leandra left it for us. Why she didn’t just let us escape.

As the girls disappear down the hall, I turn toward Jackson and find him reaching for the plate of cookies still next to the tea kettle.

“Don’t,” I say, suddenly. He glances at me, startled, but holds up his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, embarrassed. “When I get nervous, I . . .” He pauses, sweeping his eyes over me. “Wait. Why shouldn’t I eat one?”

I furrow my brow. “Because they’re too sweet,” I murmur, thinking about those words.

“Mena,” Sydney calls urgently from the stairwell. “Come on.”

Quickly, I take Jackson by the sleeve and lead him toward the basement.

He winces with every other step. He says he’s sure his ankle is sprained, but my guess is it’s broken. I keep my arm around his waist as I help him down the stairs, the girls ahead of us.

“I’m still sorry I didn’t tell you about my mother,” Jackson says, glancing sideways at me. We both know it’s not high on our list of problems right now, but I appreciate the apology and tell him so.

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you kidnap us from the movie theater,” I say in return.

He laughs and then sucks in a sharp breath, pausing to take the weight off his leg. He puts his arm around my shoulders to start walking again so we can catch up with the others.

Sydney stops at the bottom of the stairwell and looks up at us. “You ready?” she asks.

Everyone nods that they are, so I nod too. Jackson takes his arm from around me and hops down on his own the rest of the way.

Sydney steps aside. I place the small key into the lock and turn it with a click. My heart beats wildly as Sydney pushes open the door. It’s dark and Marcella flips the light switch. They flicker on with a buzz.

The room is large and mostly empty aside from storage shelves. There are two gurneys on opposite sides of the room. It takes a moment for me to realize that there are bodies on them, covered in white sheets. I fall back a step, bumping Jackson, who nearly trips because of his injured leg.

“Who is that?” Brynn asks quietly, pointing to the closest one with a shaky finger. We all stare at the body covered in white fabric.

No one answers. But as I look at the sheets, I wonder if Valentine is under one of them.

I walk to the first table and pause next to it. I am absolutely terrified when I reach to pull back the white fabric. My entire body jolts as I look down, my vision beginning to swim. Sydney gasps behind me.

“Mena,” Jackson says, coming closer. His voice is only a whisper, lost and faraway.

I can barely breathe. A suffocating pressure is building in my chest, crawling up my throat.

Jackson takes a step toward the table, hesitates, and then takes another before looking down.

A pale white body lies naked on the table. Her perfect flesh is exposed; her skull is split open along the hairline. The space that would normally house the brain is instead a tangle of wires—hundreds of tiny wires, varying in sizes—their ends exposed and unconnected as they mix with veins and nerves.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jackson says, moving back.

I dart my eyes around the room and see the shelves, some with jars. Pink organs floating in fluid. And in one is a brain made of metal.

I look down at the girl again. The girl.

“Do you know her?” Jackson asks.

“No, I—” But I stare at the motionless face. I’m not sure that I don’t know her. She’s beautiful, like she’s asleep. “I don’t know her,” I finish.

But it’s obvious that she’s a girl like us. Her freckle-free skin, her arched eyebrows, and her straight nose. I have the irrational desire to peel open her eyelids and examine the color of her irises.

Everything feels irrational. I’m slowly spiraling out of control; my thoughts are a whirlwind of accusations and terror.

Jackson takes my arm, and when I turn, I see he’s horror-struck.

There’s a dead girl on the table, only she’s not really dead. She’s just never been alive. She’s waiting—like the flowers in the garden. Waiting to be beautiful and admired. All the while, her roots will grow stronger. Waiting to join with others.

None of us girls can speak, the truth of this just out of our reach. Or maybe it’s there, but we’re hesitating to understand. We don’t want to accept it yet.

And then suddenly, Annalise goes limp in Marcella’s arms.

Frantic, Marcella lays her on the floor. Annalise’s eyes are closed, the wounds on her face clotted, but a steady stream still flows from her neck.

“She’s bleeding out,” Jackson says, going over to show Brynn where to hold her hand to stop the bleeding. Then he limps over to the other table to grab the sheet, and hands it to her to press against the wound.

But when the other body is exposed, Brynn cries out. We all turn and see Valentine lying motionless on the gurney. I nearly crumble when I see her again. I murmur her name like I can wake her up.

Our friend is dead. We’re too late.

Jackson stumbles over, leaving Annalise to Brynn, and stares down at Valentine. He examines her open skull. As I step next to him, I see the inside of Valentine’s head.