Page 31 of The Favorite Girl

And I can do it again.

I started to dust the strange wall and all the ridges of it. Growing closer to it, I froze as I notice small grooves and creases. Running my finger against it, I stopped breathing.

Was it wood? Was it…

“It’s human bones, Miss Rao. Yours will be up there if you don’t stop playing Nancy Drew,” Bradley said quietly.

Exhaling, I cringed as tears rolled down my face. My fingers trembled against the plastic handle of the duster and I could feel the acid rise in my throat. Puffing my cheeks, I turned and ran to the cart, grabbing the small garbage bag and dry heaved until vomit spewed from my mouth.

“No,” I cried through my gagging. Sinking to the cold floor, I began to cry harder.

“You’re dismissed, Bradley.” A familiar voice that didn’t make my skin crawl caused me to lift my head.

Oh, great. Conrad Ivory was standing there in a light cream suit, like he walked out of a damn modeling campaign, while I sat crumpled on his dad’s office floor, reeking of vomit with the backdrop of a bone wall and a woman held hostage.

The worst part of all, this handsome man in front of me had to be just as psychotic as them. I didn’t want Bradley to leave; I didn’t want him to leave me alone with anyone from this family. He glanced over his shoulder at me with his hands tucked behind his back.

Pinching his lips to the side, he shook his head slightly before the glass door slid open and he left.

Scooting, I pushed away as much as I could while wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Don’t get near me. You are all deranged. You’re all going to get caught. How can you be a part of this…? What is this?” I trembled as Conrad squatted down and looked at me intently.

“Demi, you are so lucky it was me watching the cameras and not them. You need to get off this floor, grab a damn mop, and do what the job entails. Clean and live. Simple. I need you to trust me.” Conrad’s voice was smooth and soft, not aggressive or rushed like Bradley’s.

My heart rate began to slow as I tilted my head with realization. “Your eyes aren’t green.” I squinted at him in disbelief.

His hand shot up to his face as he looked away. “Shit,” he mumbled.

“You have light brown eyes. Why do you wear green-colored contacts?” My breathing kept hitching. I felt like I was having an allergic reaction and began clawing at my skin. Tears blurred my vision as I receded up to the glass window and pressed my hands against the floor. My back constrained against the glass as I stared at Conrad in bewilderment.

Conrad’s eyes widened as he looked through the glass window behind me. “Demi… whatever you do, don’t turn around.”

There’s this theory that if someone tells you to not eat an apple, you’ll want to eat an apple, even if you wouldn’t have wanted it until they mentioned it.

And like the apple, as soon as he said don’t turn around, my body flinched and I did.

The screams that left my mouth echoed so loudly, my own ears were ringing.

The woman who was laying on the bed wasn’t laying anymore. No, she was standing there, with both palms pressed against the thin glass separating us, and she was smiling at me.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

I kept shrieking until my voice grew hoarse. I couldn’t stop staring at her while tripping over my legs and stumbling into Conrad, who immediately slapped his clammy hand over my mouth to muffle my cries.

I started to bite at his palm, but that made him slap the other hand over my mouth, too.

“Listen to me, you have exactly five minutes before my mother or father checks the cameras, and when they see this shitshow, they will, without a doubt, put you in a cage and you’ll be one of those girls. So, Demi, I’m begging you to stop. Stop screaming. Pull yourself together. Now!” he whispered loudly into my ear with his hot breath blowing against my skin.

“Now, are you going to calm down?”

“Mm-hmm…” I nodded aggressively.

“Okay.” He released his hands from my mouth, and I looked at the woman in front of me. She was wearing a short white dress; her hair was shaved off, and light stubble was growing in patches. Her eyes were bloodshot and the bags deepened around her eyes.

“Hello,” she mouthed with her cracked lips and bemused eyes. The curve of her lips tipped upward in a demented smile. She began tracing the glass around my face without letting her grin drop.

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