Ava: After killing Justice

If memory serves, killing Justice wasn’t part of our plan, well mine actually since I contrived everything up. It was supposed to be simple, deceptively so.

An effervescent charge darts through me as I recall how I manically orchestrated it. It was my job to get her to Fox Park, to a place secluded by witch-looking trees that dip low to kiss the ground as if a giant appeared from the clouds and stomped on them. A place our gated community called the junk room but Justice dubbed it The Crimson Hideaway.

It was easy to get her there because I’d used celebrating as an excuse. Justice got the Head Girl position I had been longing for, but I wasn’t angry. How could I when I was going to get even?

“It’s been a long time since we came down this dump, huh?” she said when I guided her to the broken and battered building we’d turned into a chill zone when we were twelve.

“It’s kind of creepy don’t you think?” she whispered in my ear when we got to the clearing as I maneuvered my way through the clustering branches.

“I know,” I replied, avoiding her eyes. Maybe it was my conscience banging at the door in my mind. “I never took you to be such a baby, plus what could go wrong?”

What could go wrong indeed beside towering over your best friend’s corpse looking at her glassy eyes that once held a sliver of life in them, trying to remember if her body could ever bend in such a peculiar way and thinking that maybe I should’ve let bygones be bygones? Her leg is pinned uncomfortably to my left, forming a sharp V arc just at the tip of my converse. Her mouth is doused in blood and her hair forms a black halo against the white tiles. The floor is a mosaic of stains from so many different sources, I can’t even pinpoint if the one at my feet is from vanilla ice cream or just milk, which has gone bad. I find it awful that her blood adds to the collection of unknown stains. This place used to be our solace, but now it’s just a room of shadows and secrets.

Our secret is Justice Ortega’s dead body.

“What the fuck?” Skylar says, her voice coming out light like the small gust of wind pounding on the remnants of the walls.

She’s in the doorway, latching her fingers onto the wooden door like it will do good in supporting her. Her straggly wild hair whips in the breeze blinding Thana who is two feet behind getting swallowed by darkness. Skylar just stares and stares at my feet. At Justice. I can’t say I blame her. Besides the blood, even in death, Justice is still the prettiest one in the room.

“What the hell happened?” Skylar asks, because, in this enclosed space, she’s the only one who can find her voice deep inside her throat.

A gasp follows. Soft and innocent. My eyes pivot to Thana. She has her gloved hand plastered to her gaping mouth and I feel the need to do something. I’ve not known them for long; Thana and Skylar, but it’s Thana I see myself running to, to shield her eyes from Justice, wanting to not sully her anymore than I already have. But I do neither of these things because my body is mush with shock and my brain is muddled with fatigue.

I clear my throat, making the only sound in the room.

“I have no clue,” I say, still startled by the truth.

“We weren’t here, remember? She was tied up and gagged right over there.” I point to the greying tub as if they weren’t here with me just moments ago. “A-and we left because-.”

“We thought she was dead.” Skylar finishes for me. She’s not wrong. We thought Justice was dead before we left The Crimson Hideaway to look for help because Skylar got carried away. We thought Justice was dead. We all thought Skylar killed her when she dropped the abandoned hairdryer in the bathwater. Death by electrocution.

All hell broke loose afterwards. We planned to get her to the hospital in my sister, Asia’s car—I borrowed it without permission—and we’d say it was an accident. Yes, I’m saying it was an accident. I don’t think Skylar meant for it to happen, it just did. Now it turns out Justice wasn’t dead, that I’m shit at checking people’s pulses and this is just one horrible dream. My eyes wander over her body. She’s been knifed twice in the throat, five times in the chest, and probably had her hair yanked a few times. There are long strands of her curly hair at her temples, some on the floor.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I admit. It’s like staring down a rabbit-hole, and maybe just maybe I’m still in the girl’s washroom talking to Skylar and Thana as I hover over the dirty slick floor supporting my upper body by my heels. Me telling them to hit her over with a rock, drag her body to the wobbly chair and tie her up, plaster duct tape over her mouth never happened.

I brace myself, half expecting Justice to pop one eye open and taunt me. You thought I was dead. Always the dramatic one, Ava. But none of that happens. Her eyes, though still open and never closed, will never do so of their own accord and her mouth will never move the way it used to nor will any words come out of it.

Tell me what happened while we were gone, I silently said to her. What the hell happened to you?

It’s too hot here. I inch toward the edge of the mouldy table—where Justice packed half a dozen scented candles when we were secretly renovating the junk room—and when my hand touches the surface, instinct takes over. My hand jerks away with a mind of its own. I’m getting my fingerprints everywhere is what I come up with. This is first-degree murder, throwing in aiding and abetting as well as kidnapping, that’s how everyone will see it because we planned to keep Justice here for the night.

“What are we going to do?” Thana moans as if she’s a wounded animal. Her Bambi eyes flit to mine, holding me there, asking, begging, pleading with me to come up with a solution like I did at school.

Suddenly, I don’t think I watched too many crime shows like How To Get Away With Murder or Collateral, I just think I haven’t watched enough to know what to do now. I don’t have all the answers. I’m not God, I want so badly to snap those words at her, but I can’t do that to sweet Thana who never talks, still doesn’t save for when Justice played a mean trick on her. I have to focus because nothing comes out of a guilt-ridden person except apologies, and that’s not what we need right now.

I’ll admit, I’m no saint, neither is Thana. We wouldn’t be here if we were. I’ve got a certain darkness inside me and so do the others, however, mine goes deeper than any organ in my body. It’s something I’ve come to grasp with, which is why I couldn’t be a normal teenage girl and forgive Justice for backstabbing me. Instead, I made Justice our glue to make us stick together for a common goal and my plan became a beacon to fuel our anger.

Watching as Thana steps through the door and slides effortlessly against the flaking painted wall, I bristle. Everything she does is with grace and finesse. She doesn’t flop, slouch or stagger. I don’t think she even snores. She glances furtively to my right, her eyes taking in the congealed blood marrying Justice’s once glossy hair and winces.

An idea springs into my mind. “Who’s had the experience of burying something remotely like a dead body?”

The question takes me by surprise more than it does her. I can’t believe those words just tumbled out of my mouth without care or recourse. From the corner of my eye, I see Skylar’s shoulder blades lift underneath her hoodie and notice how her body has tensed up and recoiled. Justice’s words from years back slither their way into my ear: “Don’t ever say kill or murder to Skylar. You don’t want to trigger her into a killing spree now do you?”

I grimace, waiting for a slew of insults to be hurtled my way because of my poor choice of words but they don’t come.

“Count me out,” she says instead and pushes off the doorframe. She doesn’t deny it just like the rumours bouncing off the walls of Arden Academy. If there’s any indication that I’ve pissed her off it’ll be her tightly squared fits hanging at her side. She can leave a quarter-sized bruise on my cheek and won’t even bat an eye.

“What about you?” I jerk my head to Thana. A small dip of her head tells me no. I don’t even know why I bothered asking.

“I have a few ideas. I’m no expert, but I can think of something.” I prance toward the accumulated pile of junk letting my fingers wade through jarred broken furniture, wisps of cotton spilling out of a slashed pillow and finally when I think I won’t find any, I pull out a lengthy used towel. It’s rough all over, like the surface of a terrazzo wall. Unceremoniously, I dump it on Justice’s body just in time to see the look of scepticism on Thana’s face.

Skylar gives a derisive snort. “Really?” When I don’t say anything, she laughs raucously. “You aren’t so perfect after all.”

I’m steely and composed. I won’t let what she says get to me. I’ve been best friends with Justice since I moved to The Circle five years ago, and if her words never bruised me deeply, Skylar’s won’t even make a dent.

“It wasn’t a human being, you idiot,” I say. I can’t resist insulting her. This is the only chance I’ll get Skylar Mijares in the same room with me after all. “It was my sister’s dog. Her name was Lulu.”

“Which sister?” Thana wants to know. I’m still surprised she’s got more than one syllable out all in one night. In the girl’s washroom, she hadn’t uttered a word except to tell us what Justice did to make her cry.

“Astrid,” I inform her tersely. Astrid is the youngest, I’m the middle kid and Asia is the eldest.

“My mom got her a puppy when we first moved here ‘cause she wouldn’t stop moping around in the house. One day, Asia and I went shopping for school stuff and when we came home in her car Lulu wouldn’t stop barking till we pulled into the garage and the barking stopped.”

Thana pales. Skylar laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. She even slaps at her thigh, holds the door closer to her body. “I buried her in the backyard while Asia distracted Astrid upstairs.”

I didn’t tell them I was the one driving, that Asia allowed me just for a minute, but once I was behind the wheel and the barking hadn’t ceased yet, I took the opportunity to silence Lulu once and for all. The dog kept me up all night since its arrival, and I guess I was a bit jealous that mother got Astrid a pet when she said I couldn’t at her age. It’s one of the few secrets I hadn’t told Justice.

“So we get some shovels, dig a hole, dump her body and cover it up. We’re home free,” Skylar says so gleefully my skin goes cold. In contrast to her tone, her dark eyes are unbelievably closed off and something else lingering on the surface.

There’s a fire in them. It takes me a moment to realise she’s upset that it wasn’t her that killed Justice, that someone else beat her to it. Those eyes confess to me. I stumble back and so does Thana too as if she’s seen it as well. The venom in Skylar’s eyes.

“What?” she asks calmly, a small thin-lipped smile plays on her lips. “It’s not like Justice was going to make it out of here alive, anyway.”

A barb of fear wraps itself around my midsection. How hadn’t I seen the madness in her eyes sooner? Why had I let her go too far? Thana makes a sound at the back of her throat as if she’s clawing for words like she always does, but we all stop abruptly when diagonal beams of light slice through The Crimson Hideaway. They bounce off the walls, one lands at my feet and I’m rooted to my spot. Shock paralyses me, but not Skylar. She scurries quickly out of view, closes the door with a soft thump and peers at the window.

There’s a long whine of the floorboards underneath her feet. The sound of toads croaking in the night fills my ears.

My breathing is still rapid when she turns to me, and I find that her eyes for the very first time since we came here hold true terror in them. There’s a slight bend at the back of her knees when she craned her neck above the window sill. Her words are drowned out by the furious thumping of my heart in my chest, but I hear them. “Someone is coming,” she says.