The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(3)

“Cool,” I say. Riley steers us over to where only two other girls are sitting.

“Girls, this is Sofia. Sofia, this is Alexis.” Riley points to a girl wearing all white—white skirt, white tank top, white sweater. Her pale blond hair is long enough for her to sit on, and she has a full, round face and wide eyes.

“Hey there,” Alexis says, her voice carrying the hint of a Southern accent.

“And this is Grace.” Riley motions to a girl with velvety chocolate skin and braided hair that she’s twisted into a complicated-looking bun at the nape of her neck.

“Nice tie,” I say, pointing to the polka-dot bow tie Grace is wearing as a necklace. Grace’s lips part in a smile that’s all teeth.

“Thanks! They’re all the rage in Chicago.”

“Grace is bringing culture to Mississippi,” Alexis adds.

“Are you from Chicago?” I ask, sitting down on the bleachers next to them.

“My dad was transferred here two years ago,” Grace says. “You ever been?”

I shake my head as Riley sits next to me and places her hands on her knees. Even her nails are perfect—trimmed and clean. I curl my hands into fists so she won’t see my ragged cuticles.

“You’ll never guess what Sof and I found under the bleachers.”

Sof. The way Riley says my name is so personal and friendly that I have to bite back a smile. Alexis and Grace lean forward, and Riley grins, a conspiratorial look on her face. She speaks in a whisper.

“A skinned dead cat.”

“That’s a joke, right?” Alexis asks, fumbling with the lace at the edge of her skirt. With her long hair and wide eyes, she looks like a Disney princess come to life.

Riley makes a cross over her heart. “Honest. I bet this is grounds for expulsion.”

Grace shudders, nervously tapping a red Converse sneaker against the back of the bleacher in front of her. “They’ve got to at least suspend her. That’s disgusting.”

“Wait.” I frown. “You know who killed that cat?”

Grace, Alexis, and Riley share a look I can’t interpret. It’s like they’re trying to figure out if I can be trusted.

“You know that girl you were talking to in the cafeteria?” Riley asks, smoothing a curl behind one ear.

“Brooklyn?” I ask, surprised. I didn’t realize Riley saw me talking to Brooklyn.

“Right. Brooklyn. She can be a little strange.”

“Strange how?” I ask when Riley doesn’t specify. Skinning a cat isn’t strange. It’s criminal.

Alexis scoots forward, and one of her knees bumps against mine. “There are rumors about Brooklyn,” she says. “And since you’re going to this school, you should probably know about them. They’re intense.”

“Rumors?”

“Last year she did a séance in the girls’ locker room,” Alexis continues. Her Southern accent gets heavier as she tells the story, and I get the feeling she’s playing it up for effect. “I was in there the next day. The floor was all black—like it’d been burned—and the entire place smelled like sage.”

“Or something,” Grace adds, and Riley giggles.

“And earlier this year, a bunch of girls heard her chanting in the back of algebra class,” Alexis finishes. “It’s weird.”

“Weird,” I repeat. But that doesn’t seem to cover it. Maybe the stories Alexis is telling are just rumors—but that cat was very real. And very dead. I shiver. In slightly different circumstances, I could be eating with Brooklyn right now, probably listening to terrible stories about Riley and her friends. I don’t believe the same girl who offered me a Band-Aid would also kill a cat.

“And there’s what happened last year,” Riley adds, “with Mr. Willis . . .”

Before she can finish, a scream rolls off the football field. I jump up, jerking my head around to search for the screamer, but then the sound dissolves into laughter and fades away.

Just someone messing around. I sit back down, feeling stupid.

Grace leans forward and puts a hand on my knee. Her bow-tie necklace swings forward like a pendulum. “Guys, stop. We’re scaring her.”

“Sorry,” Alexis says, wrinkling her nose. I look down at my hand. I’ve never liked scary stories. Even my grandmother’s stories about Quetzalcoatl gave me nightmares. Absently, I rub the sketch of Quetzalcoatl, leaving behind a smudge of red. Blood from my thumb.

I look up and catch Riley watching me. Her eyes follow my finger as I run it over the lines of the serpent sketch on my hand. There’s an odd look on her face, the same cold expression she wore when she first saw the dead cat behind the bleachers.

“It’s just a stupid sketch.” I lick one finger and try to rub it away, but I just smear the ink and blood into my skin. Riley shifts her eyes back to my face, her lips lifting at the corners. The effect isn’t the same as it was behind the bleachers, when her smile made her face warmer. This smile doesn’t reach Riley’s eyes at all. They stay empty.

“Of course,” she says.





CHAPTER TWO


My classmates linger by the school doors after the last bell, waiting for rides from parents. You could walk down every street in Friend in an hour flat, but everyone still drives shiny black SUVs that leak air-conditioning and pop music from their open windows.