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Like it was a joke, this thing inside me. A cute quirk for a girl to have, our dark leanings reduced to one word. So I said, “I’m fine.”

I’m not fine, and I doubt I ever will be.

The books didn’t help me find a word for myself; my father refused to accept the weight of it. And so I made my own.

I am vengeance.

25. PEEKAY

Hands on me. Hands touching. Hands twisting. Hands on all the places I warned our church campers about during the awkward hour of stranger danger, where I said the places your bathing suit covers instead of vagina or penis or butt. Trusting little faces turned up toward me in a semicircle as I stammer through the talk, tiny mouths trying not to twist into giggles because they’re good kids. Mom and Dad watching from the sidelines, ready to jump in if I flub too badly.

Mom and Dad.

Oh my God.

What will I tell them about the hands that were definitely in places they shouldn’t be? Places that even a damn thong would cover. I keep my eyes closed, refusing to acknowledge that the blackness has abated. I don’t want to know where I am, or what has happened. They say ignorance is bliss and it has never been truer than now, as I will myself back into unconsciousness. But the darkness that had me before was deep, and my eyelids are nothing in comparison. I grit my teeth and open my eyes.

To the brightness of a new morning.

I’m in a bed I don’t know, surrounded by blank walls that lack even the impersonal art of a hotel room. There’s a dresser and a desk, and in the corner of the mirror I see my own picture. It’s the pose of me leaning against the rock wall at the state park, the cockiest little twist of my head that was a result of the cameraman telling me one too many times to smile, and I kind of felt like twisting his head off like a chicken at that point. It’s the last one I held on to, the one I gave to Alex, and as the darkness in my head fades I see her on the floor, curled into a ball, her back to the bed.

She’s sleeping, the rise and fall of her breathing deep and rhythmic, her hair wrapped around her hands and tucked under her head as a pillow, because she left both of the real pillows in the bed for me. I lie back, feeling the bump of my phone in my pocket. I’ve got eight missed calls from my mom, five voice mails and three texts, the last one asking simply ARE YOU SAFE?

I look at Alex, the pattern of her breathing changing as she comes up out of sleep, hearing even the smallest movements I make. And I think, Yes, I am safe.

But I slip into Alex’s bathroom to be sure, trying to ignore the bump of fear that rises in my throat as my underwear slides down. I’m clean, the smell of man nowhere on me, the unmistakable whiff that varies from guy to guy but always seems to have an edge to it, like chlorine. A sob catches and I sink in relief onto the bathroom floor, propping myself against the toilet only to find the cool tiles against my bare self in stark contrast to a slight burn, a sliver where the fleshiest parts of me have been slightly scraped away.

I know what it is. A fingernail scratch from the guy who had his hand down my pants from behind, so anxious to know what I felt like he couldn’t wait for cover of darkness. My brain is like a slide show on fast forward, images flickering so quickly I can’t get a grasp on what his face looked like but I do remember in great detail that he had dirty hands and long fingernails, a cake of grime packed under each one.

I gag as I riffle through Alex’s cupboards, looking for anything to get me clean. Rubbing alcohol is the first thing my hands find and I dump it directly onto my crotch, the sting and the panic forcing the solids behind the gag up into my throat. I make it back to the toilet in time, the cool porcelain calming against my cheek as I vomit over and over, losing everything I drank and whatever the hell they gave me.

I’m empty, stinking of sterility and vomit at the same time when Alex opens the door, not bothering to knock. I don’t care that my panties are around my ankles and there are snot runners hanging out of my nose. I can’t feel embarrassment because my brain has room only for revulsion, my entire being shrunk to the tiny area of inflamed skin I can’t even see.

“I don’t know how anybody can stand it,” I say, shaking fingers reaching for the toilet paper roll.

Alex leans against the doorway in a tank top and pajama pants, her arms crossed in front of her, the space between us needing to be filled with words. I blow my nose, wiping the few stray tears.

“All I have is a scratch,” I explain. “One little, tiny . . .” I break down again. Because it’s not just a little tiny scratch, and I know that. The softest parts of my skin are under a stranger’s dirty fingernails, my DNA embedded there along with fast-food grease and his own dandruff. Some of my cells are with him right now and I don’t want them to be. I want them back. I want them all right where they belong and I can’t even imagine if it were the other way around, if I’d woken up with a miasma of them deep inside of me, and the thought sends me retching again, the sound almost drowning out the buzzing of my phone.

Alex nods toward it as I flush. “You okay to get that?”

“Yeah,” I say weakly. The word Mom splayed across the screen in stark black and white is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen, but not answering isn’t an option.

I pick up.

“I’m okay” is the first thing I say, the most important detail that needs to be made clear before all else.

She just starts sobbing, the sound drawing my own from deep inside of me, from somewhere even the jolt of vomiting hadn’t touched. We cry together as Alex leaves, shutting the door behind her.

“I’m okay,” I say again, once I can get words out. “I’m safe and I’m with a friend.”

“Who?” Mom demands, her relief spent, anger on the rise.

“Alex Craft.”

There’s a quiet moment of confusion. “The dead girl?”

“Mom—Alex Craft.”