Slain (34 page)

“So you’re perfect then?” Mrs. Hemple asks.

“I didn’t say that.”

“‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ Miss Grant. I imagine you’re familiar with that one?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is it you’re seeking forgiveness for?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t need to be forgiven for anything.”

“What do you think, girls? Do you think Emma is as flawless as she says?”

“No, ma’am,” they all say in unison.

“Lie down on the ground Emma,” Mrs. Hemple says.

“What?”

“You heard me. Right in the center here.”

I roll my eyes, but follow her directions. If she wants to publicly humiliate me, I don’t care. But I will not lie.

“Stretch your arms out and close your eyes,” Mrs. Hemple says. I see her yank a dark cloth from her pocket. Whatever is coming, she planned it. She knew what I would say, and what she would do when I said it.

I let my arms extend along the cold linoleum, like a snow angel. I close my eyes, and as soon as I do I feel Mrs. Hemple’s sour breath over my face, feel her hands and the cloth around my eyes, feel her lift my head and tug the cloth into a tight knot, feel her drop my head back to the ground with no efforts to soften the landing.
 

“Open the chest, Chloe.”

I breathe deeply, shut it all out. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. I’m on top of the Empire State Building. The wind in my hair. The sun on my skin. And Jackson. Jackson.

“Girls,” Mrs. Hemple says.

I hear the shuffle of feet, then feel hands. Hands gripping my wrists, my ankles. Panic rises inside my belly, but I push it back down. What can she do to me? She can’t kill me. I can handle everything else.

Then there’s a heave and something heavy, really heavy, thuds onto my chest. It feels like a sack of dirt, the kind you buy from the hardware store to fill flowerbeds, but there’s no smell of earth. The weight of it presses on my belly, on my lungs. Then there’s another thud and the weight doubles.

I struggle against the grip of the other girls, but they’re holding on tight.

“Be still,” Mrs. Hemple says.

“Take it off. I can’t breathe,” I say.

“It hurts, doesn’t it, Miss Grant?” Mrs. Hemple asks.

“Yes.”

“Just like the weight of your sins. They hurt just as much, if not more. We are literally buried under the weight of all that pain. Only Jesus can take away our burdens.”

Then another thud and another and another. My feet. My hands. My arms. My toes are angled foreword, pressing my ankles and feet into a dancer’s pointe. My hands and arms are pinned to the ground.

“Please take it off,” I say. Every breath is an effort.

“Who are you asking?”

“You,” I say.

“Wrong,” she says. “Another.”

Another thud, and the weight on my lungs grows again.

“Please.”

“Please who?”

I know what she wants me to say, but I won’t do it. She wants me to break, to beg Jesus for help.

I stay silent.

“Very well, Miss Grant. Have it your way.”

I hear the footsteps of the girls, walking around my head. Then another bag lands on my face, smothering and heavy and hard. I feel my face purpling, feel the pressure build behind my eyes.

“Is this how you want to meet the Lord, Emma? Buried in your own sins? Pray over her, ladies. Pray that her pride doesn’t get in the way of her eternal salvation.”

I feel the tiny pressure of hands laid upon me, then voices raised in prayer, then the faintest whisper, “Just say it.” It’s Tessa. “It’s not worth it.”

My air is nearly gone. And she’s right. It’s not worth the fight. It’s not worth my life. I know what I believe. A few words can’t change that.

“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

Immediately, the bags are pulled off me and the other girls are hoisting me upright. Mrs. Hemple starts singing.

“Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me.”

The other girls join her.

“I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”

Mrs. Hemple pulls the blindfold off my eyes. There’s a pile of sacks, big rice sacks, stacked inside the circle.

“Isn’t that better, Emma? Isn’t that easier than fighting? All you have to do is accept Christ’s love, and He immediately takes away the burden of our sins.”

Her face is so earnest, so joyful that, for a second, I want to believe her. I want to think that all I have to do is ask Jesus for help and all of this, all my problems, will go away. But then I remember the last two years of struggle and prayer and asking. There was no help then, and there will be no help now. I glare at her with every dagger in my eyes.

“What do you have to say for yourself? Are you ready to accept Christ’s love?”

“Oh please,” I say. “This is all bullshit.”

Everyone gasps, but out of the corner of my eye, I think I see Tessa smile.

“It sounds like Emma needs some time to pray.”

Mrs. Hemple grabs my arm and drags me out of the room, down the hallway, and into a room that must be her office.

She swings open a closet door and shoves me inside. Everything is black. I hear the door lock and feel around in the dark.
 

“Ow!”

My finger comes back with a splinter. Plywood, on all sides. The floor so small there’s not enough room to stretch my legs out all the way.

Then there’s a crackle from above. Speakers. Music. “Amazing Grace.”

It’s a chorus of girls, probably ones stuck here at some point, because it sounds folks-y, not professional. The volume spikes, so high I have to shove my fingers in my ears to avoid the sting. This must be the Grace Tank.

I spend the entire song hoping for just an inch of silence, but when it ends, it plays again. And again. And again. By the tenth repetition, I know I’ll be in here for a while.

T
IME
MOVES
SLOWLY
. A
FTER
a while I lose track of how many times the song plays. Eventually, my ears grow numb to the sound, and I risk pulling my fingers out of my ears. But it’s still so loud it’s uncomfortable.
 

I take off my T-shirt and rip out the neckline, then stuff the fabric in my ears. The sound dulls to a manageable level. My head clears, and I decide to find a way out of this place. I don’t know how yet. But I will find a way.

I wad up the T-shirt and stuff it behind my neck, leaning against the wall. I try to sleep, but my head is churning with so many thoughts it makes it impossible. I think about Jackson, about what to say to him the next time I see him, about what I’ve decided about us after being here.

Most of my thoughts are about June, though. And about me too. Theories dance around, twisting and untwisting until everything is tangled together in an unmanageable heap. I decide to think through things from the beginning again. I sort people by motives. I sort people by opportunity. I sort people by whether or not they had something against June. I sort them by whether or not they had something against me. I lay out the timelines of that night, of my past, of June’s.

That’s when something, a little tiny something that might be nothing at all, clicks. Two thousand and five. Jay Peterson died in 2005. What if Lee was right? What if…?

It’s a long shot, really long. But it’s not impossible, is it? No. It’s not.
 

There’s no way to know without proof, and I’m stuck here. Which makes it even more important that I find a way to escape.

Eventually, my mind running itself into the ground with the idea, I fall asleep.

I don’t know how long I’m sleeping, but my dreams are dark twisted things. Guns and blood and chests torn apart by bullets. And June, her face twisting away from me on a wisp of smoke.

I’m awoken by light. Streaming through the doorway, cutting my pupils into painful slivers.

“Have you had the time you need to pray?”

I have. There’s been no praying, but I’ve thought a lot. I put on my best Christian-zombie face: eyes blank, mouth slack, and say, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And what have you learned?”

“To ask Jesus for forgiveness for my sins.”

“Which sins?”

“Lying and doubt and fornication.” I say it like a mantra, without feeling, without meaning. Even though I know it’s a lie, even though I know it’s just a means to an end, saying it out loud hurts.

“Good. Put your shirt on and have a seat.”

She motions toward the chair across from her desk, and I climb out of my hole and into bright daylight that beams through the slats in her window blinds. I look around the room. Sparse, mission-style furniture, simple but expensive. She’s probably making a load off this little brat camp of hers. A bookshelf with Christian-themed books about raising youth to follow God. Pictures of her family—a husband and three toddlers. The clock on the wall reads 7:40 a.m. I’ve been in there for over fifteen hours.

I sit in the chair, stretching my neck and my legs. Everything is cramped and tight. I daydream about a massage, a pedicure, and especially Jackson’s touch—anything to make my body stop hurting. Mrs. Hemple’s voice breaks into my mind.

“I know the punishments here seem harsh, but I truly believe they are effective. By the end of your time here, I hope you’ll be able to call me a friend.”

She believes this shit. She really does.

Mrs. Hemple gets out her scissors and walks toward me. I try not to flinch as she cuts the other side of my hair.

“There. A reward for your attitude. See? I can be fair, can’t I? My daddy named me Mercy for a reason.”

“Your name is Mercy?”

“That’s right. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Well, at least I know whose idea it was to send me here now.

“So your sister is Miss Hope?” I ask, though I’m fairly certain of the answer. She and my parents must have been whispering it outside the door after we talked, which means this little plan has been in the works for at least a week, before they even saw the video. If only I had seen it coming. I would have run away.

“Yes. I thought you knew. She was very concerned about you. Called me personally to discuss your case and convinced me to take you on. I’m very selective about the girls I accept here, Emma. I only choose the ones I know I can help. And I believe that about you. I truly do.”

I bet she does.

I reach up to touch the short spot on my scalp and feel only uneven chunks. I can’t imagine what I must look like now.

“Hair can grow back, Emma, but we only have one chance to lead a life worthy of God’s grace. I know it seems hard right now, but God puts obstacles in our path to make us stronger. That’s what my daddy always said. And he was right. You will come through to the other side of all of this.”

Mrs. Hemple lets me join the rest of the girls in the bunks as they prepare for the day. I wash my face and hands, trying to avoid the mirror so I don’t have to look at what Mrs. Hemple has done to me, to my hair. But it’s inevitable. It looks like I’ve been attacked by a weed whacker. I brush it and put on one of the elastic hair bands the girls with short hair are allowed to use.

When I’m done, I line up at the door, ready to go to breakfast, but Chloe yanks me out of line.

“Change your shirt, Emma, or you’re going to get me in trouble,” she says.

I look down and realize that I’m still wearing the shirt I tore up in the Grace Tank. Apparently, deconstructed fashion hasn’t hit the halls of New Mercy Ranch quite yet.

I go back to my bunk and climb up on the side rails to change. I unzip my suitcase. Then I stop.

I hear something strange, see a movement beneath my clothes. Is it a trick of the light?
 

Gently, I pull back my nightgown.

The tail of the rattler stands straight up.
 

It bears its jaws and hisses as angry venom drips from its fangs.

I
SCREAM
,
REAR
BACK
, and tumble off the bed frame onto the floor.

The other girls run over to see what happened, and soon I’m not the only one screaming. The sound is like a fire alarm.

I get up and race toward the door, but it’s still locked for the morning. Some girls climb on top of the bunks across the room and huddle together. A brave soul named Stephanie whips the blanket off her own bed and throws it over the snake.

The rattler snaps at the blanket, twisting out of its cover and falling hard to the floor, where it slithers under Chloe’s bottom bunk. It moves so quickly and smoothly into the darkness that it’s hard to tell what direction it was headed. Will it stay under there or come out somewhere else? I was scared when I saw the snake. I’m even more terrified not seeing it.

I bang on the door, “Help! Help! Let us out!”
 

Baldy opens the door, and we rush to get out, but his broad body blocks us from leaving.

“Hey! Back inside!”

“Please, there’s a—“

“What’s going on in here?” Mrs. Hemple asks, appearing behind him. “What is all this ruckus about?”

“Snake!” Me and several other girls shout. “Rattlesnake!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,”

“That’s odd. Long way from their nest. Where’d you see it?” she asks.

“Under Chloe’s bed,” I say, pointing to the last place I saw it.

“Just the one?” she asks.

“Yes.”

Mrs. Hemple charges forward. She grabs a broom from where it’s resting against the wall and hands it to Chloe.

“You. Go to the other side and poke the broom under. I’ll be waiting at the other end.”
 

“But Mrs. Hemple—,“ Chloe says.

“Do as I say. Right now.”

We all hold our breath as Chloe creeps toward the bed, the broom held in front of her like a weapon. She stands a few feet away, too scared to move.

“For goodness sake, girl, do it now,” Mrs. Hemple says.
 

Chloe timidly stretches the broom out in front of her. Then, in a rush of fear, she thrusts the brush end under the bed. There’s a hiss, but sure enough, the snake races out the other end toward Mrs. Hemple.