The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,5

the day’s makeup, Ryan gives me a quick kiss. “Love you. I’m getting ready to head out.”

“Can I get a movie hint?” I say.

“Going up?” he says, and mimes pushing a button.

“That’s not much. That’s not even a real hint.”

“Oh, it definitely is, and it’s all you’re getting,” he tosses back.

I rub my lower lip while he walks away. Scorch. Plunge. Panic. Faulty wires. And an elevator? “Die Hard?” I call out.

His feet pause on the stairs. “Guess again,” he says. “And choose wisely. You only have two left.”

When the door to the garage closes, I rest my hands on the counter beside the sink and stare at the drain, a knot behind my rib cage.

I will not lose my husband over this. I will not lose anything at all.

* * *

“But Cinderella’s stepfather locked her in her room because he said she was bad and she couldn’t come out until she was a good girl,” Cassidy, my first patient of the day, says. “And Cinderella really wanted her mommy, but he said no.”

My office is the size of a spacious living room, its one window facing the parking lot, four stories below. In addition to the typical office furniture, I have beanbag chairs and a small armchair covered in cartoon cats and dogs. Framed posters for Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Star Wars line the walls.

Cassidy’s a bright eight-year-old who’s been coming to see me for three months. She’s perched on the cartoon chair, and I’m at my desk. I typically don’t sit here, preferring to be next to or across from my patients, but at our first session, Cassidy refused to speak. When I moved to the desk, she began responding, always with fairy tales. Her grandmother, currently waiting in the reception area, told me Cassidy watched the animated Disney movies with her mother.

Stories are powerful, and Cassidy’s contain a wealth of information, of truth. While she continues, I fetch the half heart from my bag and turn it over and over, as if I were a magician and it a coin, as if truth could be guided from finger to thumb and hidden up a sleeve.

Becca told stories, too, full of whimsy and imagination. Harmless. At least until the Red Lady. From the very beginning, her stories were different. I bite the side of my thumb hard enough to leave an imprint of my teeth.

“Dr. Cole?” Cassidy asks, staring down at her lap. “I don’t want to talk anymore today. Can I color instead?”

“Of course.”

She scampers over to a small table in the corner and its collection of coloring books, blank paper, crayons, and colored pencils. I should sit next to her, talk to her about what she’s drawing, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not today.

I drop the half-heart into my desk drawer, flipping it over so the letters aren’t visible, and swirl the chain into a loose spiral. No golden ratio here. The metal, cool and slippery, reminds me of blood on my hands, of Becca’s cold skin. I shut the drawer hard enough to make Cassidy jump. One apology later, she’s back to her drawing.

On the drive to work, I was thinking back to the house, wondering again if someone else was there that night, someone who saw but didn’t intervene. An adult would’ve stepped in as soon as it became clear where things were headed. The knife would’ve made it obvious it was no longer a game. But another child? Maybe not.

No one else knew about the empty house and how we sneaked inside. Not our parents. Not a neighbor. Only the members of the Dead Girls Club—me, Becca, Rachel, and Gia. And no one else knew about the Red Lady. I know Rachel and Gia weren’t talking to us at that point. Hell, I wasn’t talking to any of them, not even Becca. Not until she asked me to go. Asked me to help her. And of course I went. She was my best friend. Even then.

But what if they went back later? After? What if they saw her body? I press my lips together, shake my head slowly. Impossible. There was nothing to see. Her body was gone. Wasn’t it?

I cross and uncross my legs. Thump my foot on the floor.

Sometimes you cope with trauma by opening yourself up and pulling it out—my recommendation to every child passing through my office door. But sometimes you bury everything so deep you forget it’s there because it’s the only way you can