Page 10 of Requiem

God, you could curdle milk with how smug these two bitches look right now. “No,” Beauty Mark says. “Butweknowyou. We know everything there is to know about you. Sorrell Voss. Seventeen. From Orange County. Mommy’s a housewife. Daddy’s a chemical engineer. You ran track last year and sucked at it from what I heard.”

Holy fuck, if this isn’t all extremely entertaining. These girls think that by gathering information about me, they somehow have power over me? Maybe that would be true, if every little piece of info they think they know about me wasn’t a fucking lie. Except for the track thing, I guess. I did run track last year, and I did kinda suck at it.

I shrug. “You forgot my drug addiction. And the fact that I was the first fourteen-year-old at my school to get checked into rehab.”

“What? Seriously?” Theo Merchant’s biggest fan gapes at me.

“Uhh. Well. No.” I lean in close, jerking my chin at them, signaling that I want to impart a secret. They lean in close too, unable to help themselves. “I actually got pregnant at the end of Freshman year. I mean, it was fine, but kind of hard to study when you have a newborn hanging off your hip, y’know?”

Their eyes double in size. The girl on the left has lost all motor function; her mouth flaps open and closed, while the one on the right takes a step back, as if teen pregnancy is catching. “Called it, Ash,” the girl with the beauty mark sneers. “Didn’t I say she looked like a slut?”

I could crush her trachea and end her life in a matter of seconds.

I could break her face so badly that she’d spend the next five years having reconstructive surgery andstilllook like a bag of hammered shit.

This knowledge warms immensely as I tip my head to one side, studying them. I point a finger at them in turn, laughing softly. “Y’know, I actuallydothink I know a little bit about you two. I address Beauty Mark first. “Margaret Elizabeth Johnson. You go by Beth. You’re a Virgo. You tell everyone that you lost your virginity to Spencer Harris last year, but that’s not true, is it? You lost your virginity to Lance Campbell when you were fourteen. Lance Campbell, your father’s forty-seven-year-old business partner. Morbidly obese, right? One hairy dude. Your father bartered you off to him to settle a debt he owed him. Told you that you were such a good girl for helping him. And now when you fuck Lance…” I step in even closer, lowering my voice an octave. “Because you still fuck him, don’t you, Beth? Now when you fuck him, you do it because you like it. Because your daddy watches you on the cameras he’s hidden in your bedroom, and the thought of his dick getting hard as he watches his fat slob of a friend pump his tiny little dick into you makes you all tingly, between your legs, doesn’t it,Beth?”

My head snaps to one side when she hits me; the sound of her palm connecting with my cheek rings out like a gunshot in the hallway. Fifty people stop in their tracks, conversations halted, all turning to see what the fuck is going on. Beth is white as a sheet and vibrating with fury.

Of course I knew who she was from the moment I laid eyes on her. I’ve memorized the profiles of every single senior at Toussaint—profiles that were very comprehensive. Ruth was meticulous in her research. Always has been. The things that go on behind closed doors in some of these kids’ homes is literally criminal, not to mention darkly depraved. The information I know about these kids could put quite a few people away for life and make the devil blush at the same goddamn time. I gave my new classmates nicknames when I first started analyzing their files to help me remember the sordid little details of their lives, though. Sometimes it’s still easier to call them by those nicknames in my head.

“LanceCampbell?”Ashley hisses. Ashley Rainier, also seventeen. Has a penchant for beating her little sister. She’s been in and out of therapy since she was eight because she can’t stop eating her own hair. There’s far more sinister shit going on with Ash, though. Far worse secrets I could weaponize to humiliate her if I chose to. I keep all of my stored facts about Ash hidden as she continues to stare at Beth. “That gross dude that was at your house on Christmas day?” she says. “What the fuck is she talking about?”

Beth’s cheeks burn red as coals; the high color makes her look pretty in a way. From time to time, even our worst moments make us shine. “She’s fucking lying. What the hell is wrong with you?” She shoves me, and I allow myself to be pushed back against the lockers. A loud clang rings out down the hall—the sound of my head bouncing off the metal door. “You’re sick in the head,” Beth spits.

“I don’t know about that. My history seems pretty run of the mill in comparison to yours, wouldn’t you say?”

I wouldn’t be able to spout this line if she knew the truth. The skeletons in my closet are stacked so high and tight that it looks like a mass genocide took place in there. There’s movement off to the right—a flurry of activity, heading towards us that tells me this little tête-a-tête is about to be broken up. I allow my eyes to become glossy and full of fear.

“Beth Johnson! Have you lost your mind?” A woman in a floral print dress charges toward us, parting the crowd of bystanders like Moses parting The Red Sea. Her skin is a warm brown, her hair a mass of tight curls. From the pictures I’ve seen of her on Toussaint’s website, I know for a fact that Principal Ford’s eyes are usually kind and soft, but right now they are far from it. “If you don’t want to be expelled in the next three seconds, I highly recommend that you take your hands off that girl.”

Beth shoots me a hard, hateful look but complies, giving me one last shove as she releases me.

“Beth!”Principal Ford blinks, shaking her head. Looks like her brain just can’t compute what she’s seeing. “I have no idea what’s gone on but hear this right now. Whatever it is, it isn’t going to fly. My office. Now.” She turns to me, looking me quickly up and down. I can’t decide if she’s trying to remember my name, or is she checking me over for injuries.

“You’re coming too, young lady. I will get to the bottom of this. You’ll both sit in my office until I hear something that sounds like the truth.”

Beth’s cheeks flame, turning even redder. Her eyes are full of rage, but a pitiful shame resides there, too. She doesn’t want to tell Principal Ford the truth. She doesn’t want to even tell her what happened, because if she did, she’d have to tell her what I accused her of. And that? No. She’s not going to dothat.

“I was making fun of her,” Beth blurts out.

Ford frowns. “And why would you do that?”

“Because I heard she was repeating her senior year.”

Ford, slender and tall, makes a disapproving sound, folding her arms across her chest. “You’re joking, right?”

Beth sets her jaw. “That’s what I heard.”

“Sorrell isn’t repeating her senior year. And even if she was,whywould you pin her against a locker for it?”

“Beth’s boyfriend broke up with her,” Ashley says, stepping forward. “She’s had a really hard morning, and she just—”

Beth glowers at her best friend, and her message is clear:shut the hell up. You’re not helping.

“I don’t care if your boyfriend broke up with you, or your dog died, or a plane engine fell through your ceiling à laDonnie Darko. You donotphysically assault another student because you’re having a bad day!”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Beth hangs her head, and the tips of her ears are scarlet.

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