Page 71 of Ward D
He doesn’t answer, and Jade kicks him in the shin with her Doc Marten. In response, he groans loudly.
“What did you do, Jade?” I manage.
She smiles pleasantly, like there isn’t a bloody man tied up two feet away from us. “I just told him if he didn’t do what I said, I was going to stab him in the eye. He wasreallycooperative after that.”
“You can’t possibly think this is going to solve anything,” I choke out. “I mean, as soon as you let him go, we’re going to be in so much more trouble.”
“Right.” She bobs her head. “Except we’re not going to let him go. We’re going to kill him.”
At Jade’s words, Mr. Riordan’s good eye flies wide open. He starts struggling against the duct tape, although it doesn’t do much good. The whole display just makes Jade laugh.
“We’ll make it look like a burglary.” She looks around the kitchen, her eyes scanning the surfaces. “Well, we won’t have to take much. Just mess things up a little bit. Be sure not to touch anything you don’t take with you, okay? We have to be careful about fingerprints.”
“Jade…”
“I mean, it’s not like anybody is going to even miss him. I don’t think he has any friends.Definitelyno girlfriends.”
Enough of this. I can’t let Jade think this is actually going to happen. We arenotgoing to kill anyone under any circumstances. I grab her by the arm and pull her aside. “This is really stupid, Jade. We are not going to do this.”
“Not withthatattitude.”
“Jade!” I sneak a look at Mr. Riordan, who is struggling harder now against the restraints. But Jade tied him up good and tight. Despite how awful he’s been to me, I want to cry at the sight of what she did to him. “Seriously, you parked right outside. We’re going to get caught. And even if we didn’t, I’m not going to kill anyone. No way.”
“Right.” She snorts. “Isn’t that what you said about cheating? But you looked at the test, didn’t you?”
She has a point. “That’s different. This is really bad, Jade. If you think I’m going to help you kill somebody, you have seriously lost your mind.”
Jade’s finely plucked eyebrows shoot up. “Well, I wouldn’t be the only one then, would I?”
For a moment, it’s like time is standing still. I stare at her, her words ringing in my ears. “What?”
“Don’t think I don’t know,” she hisses in my ear. “I know about that little girl you keep seeing everywhere. You’re always talking about it.Did you see her, Jade?Nobody sees her, Amy. Nobody sees her but you.”
I open my mouth but all that comes out is a squeak.
“There’s no little girl, Amy,” she says. “You think you’re so superior, but it turns out you’re even crazier than I am. And if you don’t help me, I’m going to tell everyone.”
No.No.
“What do you think will happen to you?” She smirks at me. “What do you think they’ll do to you when they find out you’re seeing things?”
That faint throbbing in my right temple has turned into a jackhammer. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, and when I open them, I realize we are no longer alone. We have a guest in the kitchen.
It’s the little girl in the pink dress.
“Amy…” The little girl is calling my name. I want to run over to her and wring her neck, except she’s not even real. “Amy…”
I turn my head in the direction of the little girl. “Shut up,” I tell her.
“Amy, she’s right,” the girl pipes up in her little girl’s voice. “You have to kill him. It’s the only way.”
“No…” I whisper.
She smiles at me, tilting her heart-shaped face up to look at me. “Kill him, Amy.”
“Shut up!” I scream.
Jade takes a step back, startled by my outburst. Even Mr. Riordan has quieted down and paused in his battle with the duct tape. I look in the corner of the room, and the little girl has vanished again.
