36. April

36

APRIL

JANUARY 3, 12:00 A.M.

When we get to the Den, we go straight for the gate. It feels like ages since I last punched in the code, even though it's been less than a week. I don't know what makes me say it, but I suddenly feel like I have to.

"I lied before," I tell Piper as the keypad gives a reassuring click, flashing green. "It wasn't my dad who gave me the code. It was Margot. When we…"

"Oh," Piper says, eyebrows raising. "Right."

We haven't talked about our respective sins, revealed by whichever Pierrot member sent that email, but it doesn't feel like we need to. If Piper sabotaged Lily's essay, something that could so clearly ruin her own chances at Vanderbilt, then she probably had a good reason to—or at least to believe Lily deserved it. I think Piper knows that Margot and I had a good reason to do what we did, too. And Vivian… I don't know, exactly, but things are always more complicated than they seem. And right now, we have much bigger priorities than the ways we've misbehaved.

I open the gate, leading us up to the warehouse door.

"Anything from Vivian yet?" I ask.

Piper shakes her head. "It's weird."

"We should wait, right?"

I scan our surroundings. It's empty out here, dark. The moon casts an inky glow over the street, the overgrown neutral ground behind us littered with abandoned tires and other debris, and I think again how strange it is for a group like Deus to make their home base in the middle of a place like this. A "bad neighborhood," some people would probably call it. But maybe they did that on purpose. Maybe they like to be kings ruling over a kingdom of subjects they believe will never have the power to fight back.

"I have a bad feeling," Piper says.

It validates the queasiness I've felt since all of our calls went straight to Vivian's voicemail on the way here, but it doesn't make me feel any better.

"Maybe we should look around first," I say. "See if her car's here."

Piper nods, and we creep around the side of the warehouse to the parking lot. Worry spreads from the hard ball in my stomach all the way to the tips of my fingers as we approach, and even before I see it, I know.

Two cars are here, but neither of them is Vivian's. And all at once, I understand.

"I don't think she sent that text," I whisper.

But Piper's already bounding back to the warehouse door, and I shuffle to keep up with her, holding my camera strap tight. As she opens the door, carefully and quietly, it hits me with sudden clarity that we don't know what's going to be on the other side. Who might be there.

A year ago, fear like this might have sent me running. Last time, all it took was one dig— Lily was right about you —and I left Margot behind. I proved her right.

I wonder what would have happened if I'd turned around and run back inside, if I'd held her close and let her cry, or scream, or just tell me what was really going on. I wonder, if I'd stayed, if we would have burned it all down.

But it's too late to change that now. All we have is the present: our friend inside, in danger.

This time, we're not letting another girl go missing.

We step inside, and the Den yawns before us. The floats are as tall and imposing as ever, giant creatures standing sentinel in rows all the way down the long room. We slip behind the nearest one for cover. It's shaped like some kind of pirate ship, a playhouse for overgrown boys who dream of pillaging on the sea. I breathe in paint and sawdust, the smell so thick and heavy I can feel it on my tongue.

And then, voices.

"This is bad. This is really, really bad."

I bite my tongue to keep from reacting. Coach Davis. I'm certain it's him—as certain as I was when Renee described him to me.

"Calm down." The second voice is familiar, too. Marty, completely devoid of his usual Southern charm.

Piper sneaks past me, moving deeper into the warehouse. I follow as she leads us toward their voices, keeping tight between the floats and the warehouse wall. Every time we step into the open space between floats, I'm seized by a horror-movie kind of fear that Coach and Marty will be there in the gap, waiting. But all we get is open empty space.

"We went too far this time," Coach says.

"Calm down. "

Piper stops us behind another float. It's classic purple, green, and gold, glittering with shiny paper confetti. At the front of the float, a papier-maché jester juts out like a figurehead, his lips drawn back in laughter, tongue lolling. The Fool's Float, I realize—one of the legacy floats Deus reuses every year. It's the float Dad always rides on. Piper's dad, too.

Stomach twisting, I put a hand on the side of it to steady myself as we creep toward the open runway at the center of the warehouse, where the voices are coming from.

Slowly, carefully, I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, opening the camera and switching it to video. They're maybe ten feet away from us, but if they walk into the space between this float and the next one, we'll catch them.

If they don't catch us first.

"I just need to think," Marty says. "I've gotten you out of your messes before. I'll do it again."

Coach sounds desperate. "It can't be like last time, Dad."

We both freeze. Dad? But before I've had time to fully process that, Coach says something else that makes my heart nearly stop.

"We can't do to them what we did to her."

What we did to her. Those five words are like the sinking arc of a missile just before it crashes against the earth, shaking the ground in its wake.

Margot. They killed her. I knew it already—maybe should have known from the moment I met these two obvious suspects, both of them wearing their good-Southern-boy acts like cheap masks—but hearing Coach say it, I could almost forget my fear, run straight for them with nothing but a phone, a camera, and my fists. And maybe I would, too, if Piper didn't reach for my hand, giving it a quick warning pulse.

"Tell me, then," Marty says, words laced with condescension. "What would you like to do with the debutantes in the storage room?"

Piper's eyes bug out next to me. She dips her head toward the back end of the warehouse, where the storage room is.

And then I realize. Debutantes, plural.

With Piper leading, we creep toward the storage room. My heart is pounding so loud in my ears that I don't notice the discarded papier-maché flower in my path until it's too late.

It crunches under my foot, and I feel it like my own bones snapping.

For a moment, we're suspended, frozen, but it's too late.

We run at full speed toward the storage room, their footsteps pounding behind us on the concrete, and we're almost there, so close I can practically feel the door handle in my palm, when a hand reaches out and closes around my wrist.

"Well, well, well." Marty grins wide, his accent dripping like molasses as his fingers dig into my skin. "Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's impolite to eavesdrop?"