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“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 Pain is a constant in this new version of my life, one that, technically speaking, only just began but has superseded everything that came before it.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?

At my feet, my companion stirs, running back and forth in the small space, frightened. It leaves tiny pinpoints of wet spots on my skin as it goes, which cool in seconds. A tail whips across my shins, and I know it’s a rat, one that’s covered in my own mess and tracking it back and forth across my feet. But I can’t feel disgust.

All I feel is complete and utter solidarity.

“You better get out of here,” I tell it. “She’s not going to back down.”

There’s a moment, like it’s considering my words, and then the rat is gone, shuffling over the knee-high wall Tress has built and disappearing with the flick of a tail.

I thought I was empty; I thought I had nothing left inside me.

But I do. More tears.

Chapter 43

Tress

Gretchen’s announcement that something ate her dog is followed by a panic.

Everyone reacts differently, some with screams, a few mutters of disbelief, and more than a little nervous laughter, gasping noises meant to convey hilarity, but really they’re saying, I don’t know what to do.

It’s been that way for a while now, the truly amused laughter at Ribbit’s admission of wanting to screw the principal devolving into something more primitive, a confused sound that admits the person making it thinks they are supposed to be laughing but doesn’t know if something funny is happening or not. Like maybe what used to be funny is now something else. Something darker.