The Wicked We Have Done (18 page)

13

By the end of it, I’m not thinking about my crime. I’m thinking about her. How I only care that her life was taken. Not the others who died. Not the one I killed.

Just her. Proof that I will always be a selfish, wicked person.

“I hated you so much when I first learned about you,” Casey said. “When I learned I’d be in here with you, I couldn’t wait to watch you die first. I felt like when people thought of us they thought of you, that we were all as chaotic and destructive as you.” He shakes his head, tearing up. “I wasn’t sure whether I was evil, but I knew I was a saint compared to you.”

“I swear, Casey.” My voice shakes with every word. “I’m telling you everything. I’m telling you the truth.”

“I know. And you shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t say that.” He doesn’t get it. “I killed someone. I gave in to exactly what they wanted. I’m as guilty as Nick.”

“You’ve held us together in here. You’ve taken the lead in everything we’ve done as a group.” His voice rises. “And for you to tell me that you think you’re as
guilty
as Nick . . .”

“It was my . . .”

“No!” He scoots closer, looming over me. “Everything you did was because you loved her, and
nothing
will change that. Not Nick, not a court ruling, not the Compass Room. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re better than that.”

“I’m nothing,” I say. His lips find mine.

He is rough without hurting me, demanding without being forceful. He breathes my name with every kiss, fingers in my hair. His mouth is wild and greedy, like he will never get enough of me before we run out of time. I dig my nails into his back.

His lips trail to my ear. “Don’t you dare, for one second, think you deserve this place.”

His cheeks are wet—I don’t know whether from me or from him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I kind of lost it.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

And he does. He kisses me until my face is dry and he’s worn himself out. “And now I have to reflect on that?” he says. “It’s like reliving my own nightmare again.”

I know how he feels.

***

We walk back to camp hand in hand. Some deep part of me feels empowered, although I’m not really sure why. I should be miserable, having to reveal my doubts about myself to the one person I’ve grown to care about most. The one person who seems to respect the darker parts of me. Meghan would have, I know that.

Casey, I feel, is all I have left.

“I have to pee.” He releases my hand. “Meet you back at camp.”

I nod and continue along the creek after he leaves. The sun is a few hours from setting, and the light sits slanted in the sky, shadows stretching out for a night of play. It’s why I don’t see Gordon at first, because the entire opposite bank is shrouded in darkness.

When I notice him, I halt and don’t make a sound, forcing myself to rapidly come to terms with what I’m seeing.

One of Gordon’s arms pins Tanner to him.

I scream Casey’s name.

I’m not as frightened as I should be. Anger has made a hostage of me—he thinks he still has power to wield.

Tanner’s eyes are entirely vacant.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” I yell. “Wasting your time with your fucked-up fantasies. You know you can’t hurt him.”

Gordon’s face casts a demonic expression. I can’t watch him and stay sane all at once, so I focus my attention on Tanner. What is he doing? He can’t be paralyzed by fear—not with the way he attacked Gordon in the cave.

But his eyes tell me nothing, other than the fact that perhaps he’s given up.

Where’s Casey? Valerie, Jace—they had to have heard me scream. But no one’s coming.

“Fight him!” I shriek at Tanner.

I’m about to throw myself into the water to fight Gordon myself when Tanner opens his mouth. But instead of words, blood froths from his lips.

Gordon releases him. Tanner drops to his knees and flops forward, the hilt of a knife jutting from his back.

No.

Gordon twirls his hand in front of him and bows. “I hope my appearance has been entertaining.”

And then he runs.

I throw myself into the creek, thrusting my legs against the current. I fall forward on the bank, clawing at grass, crawling to reach him.

Blades disintegrate in the Compass Room. This is nothing but an elaborate illusion.

I grab on to the hilt and yank. From Tanner’s back I rip away a full, blood-slick blade.

I can’t stop. Can’t think about this boy, about the liquid heat trickling from him.

There’s no time. I jump to my feet and run. My body is a furnace. The flames have all but eaten my shell. There’s nothing left of me to feel. I’ve only been like this once before, the need to kill hollowing me out.

Gordon is slow. He is prey. I am on to him before he even knows he’s being hunted. I hurtle over a log and in midjump, grasp on to his hair.

I yank.

He falls to his back. For a brief moment before I plunge the knife into him I see the first flicker of terror in his eyes.

And then it’s done.

He ceases. Everything is artery red. His chest, my hands. I smell it everywhere, leaching onto the grass and into the earth.

There is no last sputtering breath. He is gone.

“Evalyn!” Casey screams.

“Take me,” I say to no one. “Take me. I’m ready to die.”

“Ev!” It’s Valerie. She’s closer.

The three of them crowd around me at once, garbled, blurry monsters. They touch me, but I’m far away.

Someone’s crying. It might be me. No, it’s Jace.

All of my nerves shatter at once. I ball my hand into a fist and raise it, but before I can slam it into Gordon’s dead chest, Casey’s fingers clamp around my wrist.

“
You motherfucker
!” I scream. “
You fucking piece of shit!”

I fight against Casey until my energy is spent, until I’m soaked with the reality of what I’ve done. Whom I’ve killed, and whom
he’s
killed.

Casey presses his forehead to the back of my neck and cries.

I wait until he’s quieted before I say through a throat of cotton, “The Compass Room is going to kill me now.”

14

Tanner is dead. Gordon is dead.

The Compass Room is pregnant with sin. Not the ghost of our crimes, but real, pungent sin.

Beneath the green of the sky, the blood coating my hands is black.

“Gordon deserved to die,” Casey says.

We’ve regrouped around Tanner. Valerie turned him faceup so we can say good-bye. I brush the bangs from his forehead. Nothing outside my skin feels real.

“You know the Compass Room doesn’t see it that way,” Valerie says.

Actually, I don’t know what the Compass Room sees. Weapons were supposed to disintegrate when the owner had the intent to kill. I thought Tanner was going to make it out.

Or, at the very least, not die by the hands of our resident psychopath.

But he didn’t. But he was only a boy, a boy apologetic for what he’d done. He didn’t deserve the death given to him.

Two of my tears fall onto Tanner’s lifeless body. He doesn’t look at peace, more like a baby. A frightened baby.

“Jesus.” I cover my mouth.

Why is this justified?

The Compass Room should have killed Gordon after he proved his intent to kill Tanner the second day we were here.

The Compass Room should have killed me.

I crane my neck up to the dusky turquoise sky. “HEY! ARE YOU EVEN
FUCKING SEEING THIS?”
I scream at the top of my lungs.
“GET US OUT OF HERE!”

My voice echoes endlessly through the air, but there is no response. Rage builds inside of me, my blood boiling.

At the very front of my mind, a memory emerges of Tanner asking me how emotionally connected I was to Casey’s crime. It was only then that he mentioned the clause in our contract about the Compass Room malfunctioning. Casey’s dad beat Meghan with the shovel, but Meghan emerged without the help of my desk.

I conjured Meghan from seeing Casey’s shovel, and by doing so, I made a part of the Compass Room shut down.

“What do we do? Do we wait? Do we sit back and do nothing?” Jace cries. “Why aren’t they listening to us? Why can’t they see what’s happening?”

I attempt to calm myself. “I don’t know, but we can’t be here anymore. We need to make them listen.”

I tell Casey, Valerie, and Jace my plan.

“The green lighting means the Room is malfunctioning, I’m sure of it,” I argue when I see the skepticism from all three of them. “We need to get out of here before anyone else dies.”

“But how do you know that forcing the machine to malfunction will get their attention?” Valerie asks. “How do you know they’re even watching?”

“I don’t.” I glance down at Tanner. We should have done something like this hours ago, when the sky hadn’t changed back. I should have acted on my instinct that something was wrong.

Every time I wait, people die. No more waiting.

“There is nothing else we can do,” I continue. “I’m not going to sit around and wait to die.”

Valerie nods in response. I think the truth has sunk in that none of us are safe anymore. It’d be one thing if every man was for himself, but that’s not the case. We were all stupid enough to start caring about one another. “Let’s do this.” Valerie plants a kiss on Jace’s lips.

“I c-can’t,” Jace says.

“You have to.”

“I’m scared.”

“For Tanner,” says Valerie. “For Evalyn. For all of us.”

Casey nods and takes my hand. “For Tanner.”

***

This might not work. I have to keep reminding myself that this might not work.

But that thought doesn’t stop my fire. We make brief plans, plans that don’t give too much away to anyone listening. We each take off toward the direction of our partner’s object. We find it.

And then we see what happens.

I think that Tanner believed Casey’s trigger object malfunctioned because somehow, we confused it. Maybe the trigger read my guilt as being similar to his. Maybe it’s that, over time, I grew to care about him and became as emotionally affected by his crime as he was, causing both of our chips to activate. Whatever the case, I believe that finding Casey’s trigger object and sending him to mine, Valerie to Jace’s, and Jace to Valerie’s may cause a mass malfunction. If we can create enough fireworks, they’ll have to pay attention and get us out of here.

They’ll have to.

My desk appeared in two places. Not knowing how to reach the one in the cave, Casey’ll run toward the second one we found, west of the lake.

He grabs my face and kisses me, and I grip the fabric of his shirt, trying my hardest not to hyperventilate. “Run as fast as you can. See what happens and meet back here.” He says it loud enough for Jace and Valerie to overhear. “And while you run, pray with everything you have in you that this works. I need you to make it out.”

“You don’t. You don’t need me, Casey. You’ll live through this and whether I survive or not, you will have an incredible life.”

“I need you because I love you.”

He breaks away from me and I stand there, stunned. He doesn’t let me respond. He gives Valerie and Jace a parting glance and grabs my hand. “Let’s go.”

Within a handful of feet, I second-guess myself. Casey loves me.

I can’t think about that now. I can’t be distracted.

Just keep telling yourself that there’s nothing to be afraid of, Ev.

If we can time it right, we’ll break it in all the right places. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll survive this.

I run. I run so fast that I can’t feel my legs. I try to keep up with Casey, who sprints, dragging me to my feet when I trip, clawing at the branches in our path with his free hand.

We stumble through the foliage for a mile, at least. When we reach the part of the creek where we’re to separate, we release each other.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says.

He turns and takes a few steps before I say his name. He stops.

“I love you too.”

With his back to me, he says, “Don’t you fucking die on me, Evalyn.”

I say nothing, because I can’t. I keep walking down the hill and toward the shovel. The shovel that might be my only hope. What I saw last time didn’t hurt me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be torn up inside.

Don’t think about her. Don’t even imagine her name
.

Steam from the hot spring twists and curls in the air. The last bits of sunlight fall onto the shovel.

I know it takes a few moments for anything to show up. A whimper escapes my throat.

This isn’t anything you can’t handle
.

I count the passing seconds.

You’ve been to hell and back.

Nothing happens. I stare at the shovel and nothing happens.

The itch of silence burns in my ears.

It didn’t work.

I don’t know what to feel. Part of me was so desperate to avenge Tanner and get the rest of us out of here in one piece, to save Casey—to save myself. So why am I relieved?

I sit cross-legged on the ground. Such a simple object. Such a symbol in Casey’s life. The shovel, the desk, the baby doll, the keys. These objects will always bring back the grief, the reminder of what we’ve done. Every time we see one. Even if we do escape this place, we’ll never be completely free. Not any of us.

I know we won’t be.

The ground in front of me breaks, dirt spewing everywhere. On first instinct I think it’s an animal.

I creep forward on my hands and knees, closing in on the flesh-colored object that continues to jerk and seize. The sprawled digits, the fleshy palm.

A hand. A hand stretching toward the sky. The skin melts away, exposing rotting muscle and yellow bone.

I scurry backward and jump to my feet. But I don’t run. I’m too entranced by what’s happening, the ground decomposing right before me. Dirt crumbles away, a gaping black hole emerging around whatever reaches out and grasps at the ground, rotting elbow jutting into the air.

They sprout like flowers, the earth disintegrating around them. Fingers, hands, green flesh crawling toward me, until their mangled, balding heads appear from down below.

I’m within the graveyard I created.

A moan escapes my lips as I stumble backwards. Jason Earhart emerges, the wound from his eye socket leaking pus and blood. The others surface, half-eaten faces of my victims gnashing their teeth in rage.

“Zombies.” My victims have turned into zombies. They’ve come back to eat me.

“No,” someone says from the darkness. I know who she is before she steps forward.

I’ve memorized that voice.

She swaggers toward me, so very unlike Meghan. And she isn’t wounded either. She looks as alive as the day before her death. She walks past the shovel, snatching the handle. A glint rests in her eye, and along with her smile, familiarity creeps through my mind.

What am I still doing here?

The field of hands and wrists bend toward me.

“Zombies crawl.” She has the exact same drawl to her voice as Casey’s father. A drawl that shouldn’t be there. “Zombies hobble.”

The world around fast-forwards. Bursts of dirt fly through the air, and bodies rip away from the ground and hunch on all fours, like spiders. Bent elbows, curved spines, standing on their crooked fingers and toes. All fifty-six of them.

“Put me in the ground,” she drawls, “but I can still fuck with your head. I can still break you.”

Casey’s dad bursts through her. And this illusion isn’t passive.

The module isn’t shutting down.

We were so wrong to attempt this. I’ve created a monster.

I dart to the right and jump over one of the ghosts, a woman with eyes dangling from their sockets. Her hand latches on to my leg and I tumble backward. I scramble back, but it’s too late. They swarm around me, limbs skittering on the ground. One pins my arms down with cold, bony hands. Another claws at my hair, dragging me to the earth.

I scream.

“Stop,” Meghan says, bored. And they do. Except for the one holding my hair. A man with no jaw.

They cower backward, clearing a path for her. Her dead eyes lock on mine, and she raises the shovel. “I’m the one that’s supposed to drag her to hell.”

Meghan heaves the shovel over her head.

When it strikes me, my muscles give out. Oxygen won’t enter me. I curl into a ball, coaxing it into my lungs.

The shovel slams into my arm. I feel nothing this time, only the tingling that shoots though my entire left side.

Metal collides with my ribs.

I wait until she attempts again. Reaching up, I catch the shovel’s handle. We struggle, but not for long. I can’t be overtaken—can’t let terror cripple me. Infused by adrenaline, I rip the shovel from her and bounce to my feet. My body screams with the ache of freshly cracked ribs.

“You’re not Meg.” I swing with all of my might. The pressure of her head against my shovel is my entire world imploding all over, but I have no time to mourn.

When she hits the ground, I swing and swing, bashing in the already-loose brains of my attackers. Chunks of tissue and jets of blood fly through the air. My victims who shouldn’t be suffering anymore yelp and howl.

Not my victims.

Nick’s victims.

One final swing clears a path, and I run through the bodies and toward the direction of the closest inmate. Valerie’s test happened near our old camp. Jace should be close by. I need to warn her.

Every one of my wounds make themselves known. My legs have gone numb, and I have no idea how I keep myself upright.

Growls of the dead sound behind me. Meghan—the vision of Meghan—was right. These dead aren’t some contrived cartoon monster. They are a creation of a high-tech prison.

They have no boundaries.

Between every one of my gasps I hear them ripping up the ground. Voiceless animals. What part of my subconscious were these creatures created from?

I have no time to reflect on my own question, because I’m running the wrong way.

I’m trying to find Jace, but I’m running the wrong fucking way.

Valerie’s crime happened on the other side of camp. I had the entire map turned on its head. I’m running in the direction I just came from, toward Jace’s own trigger object. Better than nothing.

I’m losing steam, my lungs unable to keep up with my pace. But I can still hear those monsters right on my tail, ready to take revenge, to feast on my soul.

Jace’s crime happened at the base of the burned lodge. After endless minutes of fighting my way through forest, I cross the path.

I take the risk of turning my head. Their shadows bounce around the woods.

I find Valerie.

I forget that I’m running from something when I see what the Compass Room has created for her. Around the stump she sits on, a baby crawls. It shrieks—the cry of an infant being tormented.

And it bleeds from its eyes.

She hugs her knees. She doesn’t even react when she sees me. The sound of the tortured child fills the air around us.

I can’t hear myself think.

Her pants are torn, legs bleeding. “I can’t move! It’ll gnaw my legs clean off!” Her eyes widen, and she screams, “
Behind you!
”

For a split second I think that my rotting victims have caught up with me until the beams of headlights brighten up the woods, catching on the red tears of the infant. A car revs. I turn slowly, the headlights blinding me enough so I see only a face behind the wheel.

A melding of mine and Jace’s crime. Nick, ready to run me down.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I’m creating illusions here too.

I didn’t need to know every physical detail of Casey’s crime. I just needed to care about him, and the guilt of his crime grew within me. I care about Jace enough to be skewing illusions here too.

“Move, Ev!” Valerie screams.

Nick’s going to run me over. He said he’d be back for me. I guess he’s trying to keep his promise.

I won’t let him.

I extend my hand, and Valerie sprints forward. Nick floors it.

“The trees!” I scream. He can’t reach us.

On the incline, Valerie trips and takes me down with her. We roll together, shovel head banging me in the nose so hard that blood gushes from my nostrils. When we stop, I drag Valerie into the brush, elbows and knees digging into the dirt, twigs scraping my face. We duck behind a trunk, hopefully wide enough to—