Page 33 of Toy

“I know. She started freaking out about it. I could hear her. So when she stuck her head out to see, I acted like I was just walking past. Like I didn’t hear anything.”

“But you did. You heard everything.”

“Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

Until today, it never even occurred to me to think of Lauren. I knew she’d gone past the Penance Rooms that day, because I remembered Jolie sticking her head out and spotting her, but it never registered with me as relevant before now. I honestly didn’t think she could ever do such a thing. Didn’t think she could commit such an act of treachery against her so-called friend. Not dumb, sweet, innocent little Lauren, the girl who always followed Jolie around like a lost lamb.

After my conversation with Beck, I realized it had to be her. As Arthur Conan Doyle once said: once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

I had no idea why Lauren would do such a thing to me or Jolie, but I knew she was definitely the rat. She was the only remaining option.

“How did you even know what we were talking about?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “If you truly believed all the cult doctrines, it wouldn’t have made sense to you.”

She nodded. “You’re right. It didn’t. You kept using terms like ‘internet’, ‘viral video, ‘FBI’ and ‘real world’. I had no idea what any of that meant back then, but still, I listened for long enough to get the gist of what you were saying. You and Jolie were planning to destroy New Eden and run away together. So I went and told the men what I overheard.”

“Of course you did.”

“Just so you know… I honestly didn’t think anything would happen to you,” she went on, shoulders quaking with repressed terror. “Whenever they wanted to punish a man at New Eden, they never hurt him. They just sent him out to the Wastelands, as they called it. I figured that you’d already been living out there for years before joining us, and you managed to survive just fine, so you’d be okay if they sent you away again.”

“Right.” I nodded slowly. “You know what I’m struggling to understand? After seeing what happened to all the other girls you turned in, you still had no problem turning in Jolie. Your best friend. What kind of fucking cognitive dissonance shit did you have going on in your brain for you to think they wouldn’t hurt her?”

“That was different,” she muttered. “I knew they would.”

My eyes narrowed. “You fucking knew they’d hurt her and you did it anyway?”

Lauren nodded tearfully. “Please let me explain,” she said, her chest wracked with violent, fearful shudders as she saw the furious look on my face. “Please…”

I took a deep breath, resisting the urge to throttle her. “You have five minutes.”

She nodded again and sniffed, averting her eyes. “She was my friend, and I loved her, but at the same time, I was envious of her. So envious. Things were so much easier for her, because she was the Prophet’s daughter.”

“Easier?” My face turned hot with rage. “Jolie’s life there was anything but fucking easy.”

“I just mean… people listened to her, even though she was a girl. The men were cruel to her, but nowhere near as cruel as they were to the rest of us. It was so unfair. During the Joining rituals, the rest of us had to do anything the men wanted. I had to take it in the ass until I bled, while Jolie only had to give blowjobs. And then…”

She trailed off, shaking her head slightly.

I ran the edge of the knife along the top of her shoulder, making her scream as I removed a small chunk of skin. “And then what?” I hissed.

“You,” she said in a ragged whisper. “You showed up.”

“So?”

“When you arrived, I thought…” She paused and slowly shook her head. “I thought I finally had a chance at having something good for myself. You see, my husband was dead, and the Elders wanted to marry me off to someone else.” She chewed her lip and looked down at her lap. “After forcing me to stay married to that old bastard for so long, I thought they might decide to put me with someone younger and nicer for a change. Someone like you. I wanted that so much. I wanted you. Compared to the other men, you were like heaven.” She sighed. “I was sure they wouldn’t put you with Jolie, because everyone knew she was going to marry Danny Miller. Her father always wanted them together.”

“Then that changed.”

Her eyes snapped up. “Yes. Jolie always fawned all over you. She used to go on and on about how she knew you from when you were kids, and she acted like you were destined to be together because of that. I didn’t think anything of it at first, because I was so sure they were going to put you with me. But then she got what she wanted, as usual. Suddenly she was betrothed to you, and I was told I would have to marry Danny in the spring instead. I couldn’t stand it. I snapped.”

“So you jumped at the first chance you got to turn her in for something serious, just so you could get her out of the way once and for all.”

“Yes.” A solitary tear slipped down her face. “I swear, I’ve regretted it ever since.”

I frowned. “You said earlier that you thought I’d get sent away to the Wastelands as my punishment. By that logic you wouldn’t have had me anyway, even if Jolie was gone.”

“I know. I guess I felt like if I couldn’t have you, no one could. I… I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.” She bit her lip. “Anyway, afterwards, when the FBI raided the place and showed us the real world, I realized what I’d done. I realized how close I’d come to getting an innocent girl killed.”

“You mean another innocent girl.”

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