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Jesus Christ somebody call the cops

There’s concern but it’s all the same. Somebody—somebody else—should do something. Comments are coming fast and hard. I can’t keep up, and Brynn’s phone shakes in my hand when a screenshot pops up, the upper-right-hand corner circled in red with an arrow pointing to four dark paws, leaving the shot.

What the fuck is THAT? Did anybody else see that????

Yawn . . . Staged

I hand Brynn her phone back. “I’ve got to go.”

“Go where?” she snaps. “No, you’ve got to help me.”

“Help you?” I ask, truly flummoxed. She’s currently double-fisting watered-down beers to take to Ribbit. I don’t see how I’m needed. But Brynn’s back in control of herself and giving me orders like I’m a freshman on the volleyball team.

“Everybody’s puking their guts out,” she says. “We need to get water into them, keep them hydrated. If you see anybody lying down, turn them onto their side so they don’t asphyxiate on their own puke. I’ll be back,” she says, pointing one red cup at me, her eyes narrowed, “and if I find out you went downstairs to sell drugs instead of helping me, I swear to God, I’ll call the cops myself and we’ll all be fucked.”

I’ll be way more fucked than anybody else, but Brynn doesn’t need to know that. “Okay,” I tell her, hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, I’ll start . . . watering people.”

I wait for her to disappear into the front hall, the kitchen door swinging into place behind her, then take the servants’ stairs up the back—the same path the cat must have taken to avoid being seen. I stop, unzip my backpack, and pull out a flashlight. Ribbit didn’t run bulbs up the back staircase, and I can’t see anything once I’m more than a few steps high. The walls are close and tight here; the servants not rating the open, expansive staircase from the front room.

Sure enough, muddy prints precede me. I wave my light, following as they lead me to a kid wearing a ragged Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt. He’s on his back, one shoe loose and dangling. I prop him up, feeling the heat of his skin, and lean him against the wall.

“Mom?” he asks.

I flash my light upward, following the prints, then back at him. There are bright spots on his cheeks, and his eyes are glittery, unfocused. I debate for a second, then remembering Brynn’s threat, hoist him over one shoulder. I’m almost to the bottom when he loses his beers. Warm now, his vomit splatters over the back of my legs and into my shoes.

So much for karma.

I prop him in a chair at the table and put a bottle of water in front him, uncapping another one to rinse myself. My shoes and socks are a lost cause, so I take them off and roll up the ends of my jeans before I go after the cat again, now barefoot, like him. I reclaim my bag and flashlight on the stairs, stalling when I reach the top.

Once I walk out there, I’m on camera for the whole world. So far, I’ve avoided being on-screen and can plausibly deny it if anyone says they saw me at the Allan house tonight. But there are enough phones out there with enough angles that as soon as I walk out into the light, my presence can be confirmed.

I slide down, back against the wall as I crouch, and check my phone. The livestream is still going, and I can hear Ribbit’s voice from my hiding spot, seconds before what I see on-screen as the delay catches up.

“Six inches, I mean that’s pretty average, right?”

There’s some nervous male laughter, but it’s suddenly interrupted by the double front doors swinging open. I hear the bang of one connecting with the wall, followed by the light trickle of plaster falling to the ground from the impact. The person livestreaming swivels to the disturbance and there’s Gretchen Astor, her Cleopatra costume torn and wet, her face a dark smear of ruined mascara.

“Guys.” She hiccups and holds up a dismembered tail. “Something ate my dog.”

Chapter 42

Felicity

Something runs across my foot, and I jump, the involuntary movement sending a spike of pain up my leg. Tress gave my ankle a decent tap right around the twenty-fifth time I said fuck you, and I’m paying for it now. Pain is a constant in this new version of my life, one that, technically speaking, only just began but has superseded everything that came before it.

I feel like I’ve always been here, aching arms overhead, burning circles around my wrists, a starburst of pain in my ankle, a dull thudding in the back of my head, and a constant churn in my stomach. There are other concerns, too, more mundane but no less critical.

I have to pee. Like, bad.

The pressure started building right around the time Tress was laying the second row of bricks, a small tickle, the first indication that yes, I had to pee. Now, my bladder is a bomb and my feet are going to be the target if I don’t get out of here. My feet, and whatever just ran across them. I shudder, but the movement doesn’t stop when I tell it to, and pretty soon I’m shaking all over.

“Not now,” I say, like if I give my body verbal commands rather than just think them, it might actually listen. But this isn’t a seizure; I realize that after the initial spasm passes and a new sensation starts . . . a hot jet deep inside my belly, working its way upward.

“Oh, wait . . . no.”

I’m saying things to nothing and no one, alone in a dark corner, trapped and desperate as I vomit all over myself. Once I start it’s hard to stop, and the tight clench of my stomach muscles is too much for my bladder. It lets go, and in a very short time, I am completely empty.

I hang, useless, a stinking sack of skin. I can feel my heart beating, small, tired, scared, moving timidly, as if asking the question Should I keep doing this?