The Wicked We Have Done (10 page)

7

Stella hugs her knees as she sits next to the fire, mutely staring at the flames as they eat away the wood near our feet. Her arms are scratched and scabbed, face mottled with bruises and two black eyes.

Her slender figure has gotten even scrawnier in the past few days. But she doesn’t eat. Valerie cooks up the best meal we’ve had in this place—two cans of cubed beef, carrots, and caramelized onions. The smell is so good it’s painful. But even with a heaping plate in front of her, Stella gazes at the fire, her once golden curls now a haloed rat’s nest.

“Something fucked her up out there,” Valerie states between mouthfuls of beef.

If it was anything like what I just witnessed, I think I understand.

Jace and Valerie have been so consumed by Stella’s arrival that they aren’t interested in Casey’s absence. Tanner questioned where he was, and I said he was in the tent because he felt sick.

I’m hesitant to relay what really happened. Maybe I don’t want the camp more up in arms than they have to be.

For an hour I wait for Stella to eat. I ask her questions—why she’s so beaten up, where she’s been, what she’s seen. But it’s like she isn’t even comprehending what I say. After her dinner’s become cold, I reheat it in the skillet and bring it to Casey.

He lies on his side in the tent, his rib cage rising and falling. He glares at the nylon wall, even when I hold the stew out to him.

“We could die at any second, you know. Obviously you know. You can spend your last moments feeling sorry for yourself or you can enjoy the wonderful meal that Valerie cooked for all of us.”

“Right, Evalyn. I’m feeling sorry for myself. Fuck off.”

I can tell that kiss did a whole lot for our relationship. “So you’re going to try and convince me you’re not? Good luck with that.”

We’re locked in a staring contest for moments before he says, “I don’t think any of them are broken.”

“What?”

“My ribs. I don’t think any of them are broken.”

“Then quit brooding and eat the damn food I brought you.”

A challenge. He waits for a bit, until I roll my eyes, and then sits up with a wince. I hand him the dish and he eats all of the contents with his fingers, licking them clean.

“I knew you were hungry.”

“Did you tell them?”

“About your dad?”

He flinches.

“No. There’s no use scaring anyone when there isn’t a way to stop these things from happening.”

“Well, thanks for helping me keep my dignity intact.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Killing my dad is nothing to be ashamed of?” I sense his distrust.

“Casey.” I say each syllable of his name slowly, reaching toward the hem of his shirt. His breath hitches as I slide my hand beneath the fabric and rest my palm against his stomach and ridges of risen skin.

“A broken beer bottle,” he tells me. “I was out riding a bike with a friend. Didn’t tell him or my mom where I was going. She sat there and watched with a tissue pressed to her mouth. When he was done with me, she wrapped my stomach in gauze. Told me that I needed to be good, or these things would happen. But being good never stopped anything.”

I swallow nothing. My mouth is so dry. “He deserved worse than what you gave him.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that.” He’s urgent. Scared. “Not while they’re listening.”

“It won’t matter.” I drag my hands down his stomach, feeling his muscles tense at the touch of my fingers. “They know what’s going on in my head already.”

There’s a loud crash outside, metal clanking on metal, and Valerie yells,
“
The fuck is wrong with you?”

I scramble from Casey and he follows me out of the tent.

Valerie is restacking our pots and dishes. Stella paces back and forth, running her fingers through her tangled mane.

“She’s freaking out,” Jace says quietly from the log she’s seated on.

“We have to go!” Stella screams. “Get your heads out of your asses and pack up! Move! Move! They’re coming!”

She lunges for the stack of pots. Valerie shoves her to the ground.

“Hey!” I yell. “She’s damaged.”

“Obviously,” Valerie snaps, “but that doesn’t give her a right to give us any more grief.”

I glance back at Casey, who’s observing the exchange vacantly.

Jace reaches out in attempt to offer Stella some comfort, but Stella shies away from her hand.

“Then what do you expect us to do?” I ask.

“Send her on her merry way,” Valerie spits when she finishes stacking up the dishes.

“We can’t do that,” Casey says. “Not with what’s out there. Not with what she must have seen.”

Stella scurries over to the dirt patch and sits, picking away at her bleeding hangnails.

***

I know Casey doesn’t want me to tell anyone about our encounter, but it’s foolish to keep that information away from the brain of the group. So while Jace and Valerie are washing down by the creek, and Casey is asleep, I tell Tanner everything. He’s riveted by my explanation of our attack, fearlessly asking for the morbid details—the emotions I felt when I shoved the knife into Casey’s father’s back, whether or not his blood was warm, how many times Casey stabbed him.

“It doesn’t seem logical that the Compass Room would let you defeat a test through murder.”

“Exactly,” I say. “I was sure we were both dead.”

Tanner’s eyebrows furrow. “Unless there are multiple algorithms that the system is using. Maybe some executions have a very simple pan-out, like Erity’s and Salem’s. But maybe . . . maybe the Compass Room is slowly collecting data on inmates like you and Casey through your thoughts and actions. That would make sense, right? If it was one test, the Compass Room would only need to keep us for a handful of hours instead of an entire month.”

“What kind of data?” I ask.

“Maybe it’s attempting to determine justified violent thoughts verses unjustified violent thoughts. Casey’s father was attacking him, and all you were doing was defending him. Maybe, if the only violent thoughts that you express while you’re in here are those necessary for self-preservation, you’ll end up escaping.”

From across the fire, Stella chuckles, slow, rolling, hoarse. “Little boy. Little boy, you know nothing. All of you, safe in your fort in the woods, with one another.”

She’s lucid. I have an opportunity. “What happened to you, Stella?”

“It comes back. Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.”

“What does?” Tanner asks.

She clutches the knots in her hair, yanking at them. Fat, ugly tears roll down her cheeks, creating clean streaks through the filth. “He keeps finding me. Over and over and over. And I tell him that it wasn’t me.” Her voice cracks in a sob. “But he doesn’t believe me because he finds me later and blames me again.”

I want to ask her what the hell she’s talking about, but at that moment, Valerie and Jace return from the creek, and Stella ceases her cries, wiping her red, wet cheeks before picking her cuticles once again. Tanner and I exchange glances. We know that it will be futile trying to get anything else out of her.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces.

The words race through my mind as I try to sleep.

We’re all curled up in our usual spots, Casey more distant from me tonight. Stella refuses to enter the tent, even though Valerie and Tanner are on guard until midnight.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.

Valerie tries to reason with her, but she isn’t very good at it.

“If you could tell us what’s wrong with you, we’d help,” she says. “But instead you’re going all crazy bitch on us and I really don’t have the energy to decipher you.”

“You don’t need to decipher me,” Stella says, her voice an eerie singsong that’s all the wrong notes strung together. “You and your camp and your nonchalance. Sitting here, eating your food.”

“Yeah? And what do you suggest I do differently, huh?”

“Nothing.” Stella’s voice drops to a dark monotone. “It’s so pathetic how oblivious you are.”

“Oblivious to what?” Tanner asks.

“That this place is patiently waiting to peel back the layers of your skin and claw out your insides.”

“Shut up and go to bed,” Valerie says. “Before I make you.”

Casey breathes in and out, slow and deep, his face scrunched up like he’s dreaming something dreadful.

***

The day is safe.

Casey teaches Tanner how to cook breakfast over an open fire. The boy can wow us all with the smart words continuously flowing from his mouth, but he can’t perform any practical task to save his life.

“The potatoes are burning!” Tanner howls. The tragedy of the morning. “I ruin everything.”

When Casey laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkle. A sharp, warm burst races to my heart and rattles it around.

In this moment, he’s not thinking about his dad. Progress.

***

I spend the afternoon with my painting. I’ve been able to work on it every day, but on this occasion, it receives hours of my attention.

I’m shirtless, not wanting to stain my last clean white tee, even though here, fashion really doesn’t matter. But it’s liberating. I wipe my stained fingers on my stomach, red trails lacing with blue and coal.

“I thought this might have been yours,” says a deep voice. I stiffen, looking down at my bra smeared with black and yellow fingerprints, and then back at my tree. It’s almost finished. Almond-shaped leaves decorate the branches in reds and pinks and blues. Their edges glow with the yellow of the clay.

I turn to see Casey with his shirt off.

“Why are you naked?”

“Why are
you
naked?”

“Touché.” I dip my finger in the blue and swipe it on the rock, creating another leave on the coal branch.

“I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What?” I wipe my hand on my stomach.

“To paint like this.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I thought you were an expert on my trial.”

“I never said that.”

“One of my paintings was psychological evidence. The prosecuting lawyers were using it to pin me as bat-shit crazy. ‘Fulfilling my own prophecy.’ It was all over the news.”

He shakes his head, crossing his arms over his bare, bruised chest. “I don’t remember. What was it?”

“What was what?”

“The painting? What was so fucked up about it?”

I think for a moment, biting my lip, and then dip my finger in the blue paint. “I will show you.”

“
Now
?”

“Come here.”

“How are you going to show me
now
?”

“Just come here and sit down.”

He hesitates, but complies.

“In front of me. Scoot in front of me.” I study his chest when he does so, deciding where I want to start. I’m biased with the scars and bruises that twist his skin. A pang of guilt slices my stomach as I find myself stuck with the fleeting thought that there’s something beautiful about his marred flesh.

I reach out, grazing him right below his left nipple with my paint-covered finger.

He releases a sharp gasp, and then laughs. “Seriously?”

I say with the straightest face, “You mind? I’m working.”

The light in his irises shifts, his expression giving into mischief. “Fine. The lady wants to work, so I’ll let her work.”

“Thank you,” I say flatly, trying to ignore the thrill racing from my gut to my thighs. Something seems wrong with being turned on in the Compass Room. My next move doesn’t really help the matter either. I ask him to lie down.

This time, his complies without even stalling.

I drag across his skin three claws of blue sky. Reaching his scars, I’m desperate to read him like braille.

I don’t know for how long I have him beneath me, but he remains motionless other than the rise and fall of his chest. Only when I drift to the area below his navel does he inhale rapidly.

“You ticklish?”

“No,” he says.

When I trace the skin again, the small of his back arches off the ground.

I don’t want to tell him I’m finished. I want to keep touching his hot, paint-slick skin. Our kiss was a way for me to take his pain away—I’d been convinced of that. We haven’t even spoken of it. I thought it would stay buried until we died, but now he’s before me, covered in my sky and my clouds—a vessel from my past to here, from Meghan to the Compass Room.

She’d want me to have him.

“I’m done.” I wipe my hands across my collarbone.

Slowly he sits up. “It’s a . . . a sky.”

“Yup.” I stand, needing a break from this suffocation. The creek’s only a few yards downhill. Without thinking twice I unbutton my cargo pants and slide out of them.

“What’s so psychologically disturbing about a sky?”

I don’t know what to say. I could explain that Meghan had been painted into the picture too, but I’m not ready to return to her. Not right now.

So instead of speaking, I take off my bra.

My back is to him, but even so, I feel the shift of tension in the air. I step out onto the rocks, careful not to slip until I’ve made it to the pool in the middle of the creek.

He hasn’t said anything. His thoughts must be misplaced for the time being.

I cup my hands beneath the water and lift them, tilting my palms until the icy trickle washes away most of the paint on my chest and stomach, leaving nothing but ghosts of color across my skin. “You better come wash yourself off,” I yell. “If that shit dries, you’ll be multicolored for days.”

As I leave the creek, he enters. I hug my chest, but that doesn’t stop him from staring at me as we pass each other in the water. My heart thumps wildly against my clenched palms.

On the shore, I kneel, facing away from the water and drying myself off with my shirt. I feel his presence when he sits behind me, like the heat of his body is radiating a million times more than it should be.

“You don’t have to be a neck breather to glance at my tits, Casey. All you have to do is ask.”

He scoffs. “Sometimes it’s like you don’t have a filter for your mouth.”

“Fuck you.” I glance at him and smile. He smiles back. It’s bright, until his expression shifts and I know he’s thinking of something darker than my running mouth.