Chapter Twenty-Two Delaney

Chapter Twenty-Two

Delaney

Now: Saturday, 6:08 p.m.

My first thought is that Eden would be so pissed to know how the sauna viciously contorted her hard-won (and paid-for) features. The heat bloated her, made her soft like putty, burned her an off-putting shade of red.

"Be careful moving her. Her skin might, uh, slide off." Piper comes in clutch with her own brand of horrifying morbidity. It's good to know I'm not the only one. Liam and Willa position themselves at Eden's hands and feet. Liam already grabbed a sheet to use as a sling. We're getting good at this.

The plan is to move her in with Declan. Because we have a room for bodies now. I steel my nerves and accompany them with a flashlight guiding the way. They place Eden across from Declan by the cubbyholes, and we return to the group in morosesilence.

"I'm going to be sick," Camille chokes through a rising sob. Snot runs over her lips.

Ignoring her, Piper inspects the sauna door. "I don't understand how this happened. Saunas aren't supposed to lock, so how did Eden become trapped?"

"Maybe she passed out?" I suggest. "Or fell asleep?" I sweep the flashlight from Eden's phone across the wooden slats of the sauna bench.

"W-we found her slumped against the door," Camille stutters out from behind me. She's been cowering against the far wall this whole time, refusing to set a single foot inside the scene of the crime. I've never seen her this rattled.

"There's blood on the window," Willa says, shining her flashlight beam up so we can look. I direct my light from behind, creating a spotlight effect.

Piper hovers shaking fingers over the bloodstains on the inside of the glass panel. The smears trace downward. "I think she was clawing at the glass. Then she tried to break it with her fist here."

I lean in to inspect for myself, realizing that the little lines are from the imprint of Eden's palm.

"Someone locked or blocked the door, and she couldn't get out." Wyatt supplies the obvious.

"But we found it unlocked," Camille insists.

All this back and forth is tedious. I boil over. "Does it matter? Eden's dead. Declan's dead. We're stuck here in the middle of nowhere with no power, no chaperone, and our only hope for help is stuck at the bottom of this mountain until this effing storm lets up! Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to play detective. I want to get the hell away from this death trap."

Without waiting for anyone's approval, I head for the stairs. Sluggish footsteps follow behind me, and we reconvene in the living room.

Wyatt breaks our awkward silence first. "Please tell me one of you has some weed or something."

"You mean you don't have weed?" Piper says, and Wyatt throws up a middle finger at her. Her features flicker menacingly in the firelight.

"What if she didn't make it. Silva." Willa can barely speak the idea. Her stare is focused on the whirling snow outside the living room windows.

"Don't say that!" Camille snaps.

But the thought is out there now.

Willa continues. "And shouldn't we be more concerned that two of us are dead in freak accidents?"

"Freak accidents happen all the time," I volley back. "It's the storm of the century. The power went out, and something malfunctioned with the sauna. Declan accidentally drank amaretto. That's it." It's cold, hard logic, but it's the truth. It has to be.

"What if it wasn't an accident?" Piper says. All eyes are on her now. "Someone sabotaged the Wi-Fi. This morning I saw that the connector cables were missing. I—" She hesitates. Her gaze sweeps over the rest of us like an accusation.

"What?" Camille challenges, but it's not a real question.

"It's just weird," she says. "That someone disconnected the Wi-Fi entirely, and we didn't find the cables when we searched the house. I looked for them, and—"

Camille cuts her off. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

Then Wyatt jumps into the fray. "You should have told us. We could have found them before the power went out, used Wi-Fi to call for help."

"What were you thinking?" Willa sounds more dismayed than angry. Piper flinches at the censure.

"I didn't say anything because…" Again with the sweeping look, nibbling at her lip. Her hands fidget in her hoodie pocket.

"What is it?" Liam is gentle, beseeching.

"Maybe she did it." Camille crosses her arms over her chest, fixes her former teammate with a cold look.

"Me?" Piper turns incredulous. "That's ridiculous. I'm telling you now because things have changed. Two people are dead under suspicious circumstances. Silva isn't here. And the Wi-Fi router was in her room. If I hid the cables, why would I tell you about them at all?"

"To throw suspicion off you." Wyatt joins in the finger-pointing with untamed glee, like this is one of his video games that he can win.

"Why would any of us sabotage the Wi-Fi?" Liam drums his nails against the natural wood dining table, his deep-thinking tell. "Piper's right. If anything, it was probably Silva ensuring we stuck to the digital-detox weekend. She's always been a stickler for the rules. And we know Eden stole her phone back, so as an extra contingency, Silva unplugged the router."

Willa shakes her head. "If that was true, wouldn't she just plug it back in after Declan died, so she could call for help? But she didn't."

"Maybe that's the point," Piper says ominously.

It's as if a puppet master simultaneously pulls all our strings, jerking us taut. Everyone sits up straight, tense with worry and a touch of paranoia.

"You mean Silva?" I fill in the blank. I'm not stupid. My stomach turns over. Why didn't I think of that?

"She's conveniently absent. There's something else, though," Piper continues. "Eden said something that's been botheringme."

"What?" I ask, and everyone leans forward.

Piper swallows hard, looks down at the table. "That she didn't trust Silva with her phone. And then she went out of her way to steal it back. Why? What was on Eden's phone that she didn't want our guidance counselor to see?"

"Who has Eden's phone? We should check it," I pipe up, but Camille is instantly scandalized.

"We can't go through her phone! That's, like, an invasion of privacy."

There's a pregnant silence into which no one is willing to inject the horrific truth: the dead don't have privacy. And Piper isn't wrong. Eden's phone might hold a vital clue.

"So you think"—Willa begins piecing the theory together—"Silva's coming after us one by one? First Declan, now Eden…" She tugs hard on the stone around her neck.

"Why would Silva want to kill us?" Liam asks.

"Declan did tell her to fuck off yesterday," Wyatt supplies. "And she was the one to make a big deal out of the house being allergen-free."

Camille builds on his argument. "Eden gave her that Ambien at dinner. Maybe it wasn't enough? Silva wakes up in the middle of the night, realizes what happened, and comes upstairs out for blood. She finds Declan on the couch, sees the Al'more, and forces it down his throat. Then pretends to leave, and lies in wait for Eden."

"She's going after rule breakers." Willa's voice is hushed, haunted. "I snuck the liquor into the house, in my bag. Lied to her face. She must have known. Oh god."

Wyatt raps knuckles against the tabletop, a physical manifestation of nervous energy. "When I didn't get into Princeton early decision, my dad called the admissions office, pulled some strings to review my application package. Silva totally screwed me in her recommendation letter. She said the list of students she'd recommend for the Ivy League was decidedly short, and someone as entitled, irresponsible, and lacking in character as me would never make the cut."

It's a miracle none of us mention that what Silva wrote was technically true.

"Dad called Warner's board of directors and threatened to sue because of Silva," Wyatt finishes, then adds under his breath, "Fuck, I am gonna get axe-murdered by our chaperone."

Camille presses on, putting it together. "This was after early decision, so like…the past few weeks? Right around the time all of us were mysteriously reassigned to this trip?"

"And you guys made me sneak in that liquor! Oh my god. I don't want to die!" Willa's voice is at a fever pitch now.

I should take notes from her performance. The hyperventilating, the tears streaming down her cheeks. She gets exactly what she wants, which is my boyfriend's reassurance.

"It's okay. I'm sure that's not what's happening." Liam grabs her hands in his and steadies her with his gaze.

I roll my eyes to no one but myself. This is what Willa does. She passes the buck and never takes responsibility for her own actions. I agree it's silly to think our chaperone would murder Willa for sneaking in some booze. If that were a sound motive, every Warner Prep teacher would have a killing spree on our Senior Excursions.

But Camille is right about the suspicious timing. Early decision, our guidance counselor, this trip. This specific roster of students.

"Did Declan or Eden have any beef with Silva?" Piper questions reasonably. "Do any of you?"

"Do you ?" Liam counters.

No one answers. You never really know anyone's deepest, darkest secrets, do you? Even your friends'.

"We should search Silva's room for the Wi-Fi cables," Liam says finally.

"Why?" I gesture around us. "The power's out. It's too late."

"We need to know if Silva did sabotage the internet," he continues. "If it's really her out there doing this."

He leaves unspoken the alternative: that if it's not Silva, it might be one of us.

I shake my head. "Or it really was just two very unfortunate accidents. Sometimes really bad things just…happen. Right,Willa?"

She startles. Her mouth falls open. "What?"

"Aren't you into ghost stories and curses and stuff? Unexplained, unlucky deaths?"

"Oh," she says, squirming a bit. "Yeah, it happens."

I'm sick of her. Sick of sitting at this table, stewing in what-ifs. "Liam's right. We should search for the cables and find out what Eden was trying to hide. If she was hiding anything from Silva, it'll be on here." I hold up her phone.

"We should look together," Piper insists. "No more dividing and conquering from here on." Piper leaves unsaid that if we're together, there's safety in numbers. If Silva is lying in wait, we have a better chance to fend her off if we have the upper hand.

There's another reason as well. If the killer is one of us, Piper wants to watch us like a hawk.

But here's the thing: Piper's awfully savvy at this death-and-murder thing.

And I'm going to be watching her, too.