I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. My tongue was limp in my mouth and my limbs felt boneless. My mind spiraled into darkness, twisting faster and faster with each second that passed.
The last thing I saw was Cerina’s panicked face looking down at me. Then the frigid darkness took over. I was too weak to fight it. I let it wash me away, and then I let it pull me under.
21
Kinsey
“Open your eyes, Kinsey.”A voice whispered in my ear, making me shiver. “Yes, that’s it. Come on.”
My eyelids fluttered as strong arms pulled me upward. I groaned and struggled to find my footing. “Where am I?” I muttered.
“Never mind. You’re safe.” The voice whispering to me was familiar. I was too groggy to register why, though. Was it simply my own voice? Was I talking to myself?
“What’s going on?” I slurred, rubbing my eyes with my left hand. My right hand was still gripping the cake knife from the dance hall.
“I think you had too much to drink,” the voice said. “But that’s okay. You can hear me now, right?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
The fog was clearing now. I was in a gazebo somewhere. In the school quad, perhaps. Cerina was lying at my feet, whimpering and trembling. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead.
“Kinsey!” she cried out. “Help!”
I blinked slowly, wondering if I was hallucinating. Why would I hang out in the quad with Cerina? And why would she beg for my help? We weren’t friends. We despised each other.
“What happened?” I rubbed my eyes again. “Did someone hit you?”
“Youhit her, Kinsey,” the sinister voice muttered in my ear. “Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t hit her.”
“Yes, you did. You hate her. You want her gone. Don’t you?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Kinsey,” Cerina said, voice cracking with terror. “Please snap out of it. Run! Get help!”
My head lolled as I stared down at her. This was a dream. It had to be. If it wasn’t, why didn’t Cerina simply get up and run away herself? Why was she asking me to do it for her?
“That’s a cute little knife you have there, Kinsey,” the voice said to me. “But why don’t you takethisone instead? It’s much sharper.”
I slowly shook my head. Everything was spinning again, and I couldn’t see properly. “What’s happening?”
“You’re giving Cerina what she deserves, sweetie. Remember?” the voice went on. “She’s been so horrible to you. Such a nasty creature, isn’t she?”
I nodded mechanically. “Yes.”
“So take the knife. Show her how angry you are for everything she’s done to you.”
I closed my eyes and scratched my forehead as my mind embarked on a rollercoaster ride, plunging and winding through all my memories of Cerina Vincent.
She was awful. The worst person I’d ever met. She made me eat my father’s ashes and tried to impale me in a ravine on the senior trip. She tormented everyone else around her, too.
Maybe she deserved to die. In fact, I’d probably wished her dead a thousand times. That didn’t mean I could take a knife and kill her, though. There was a certain line I couldn’t cross, and murder was definitely on the other side of that.
“If she didn’t want this to happen, she shouldn’t have messed with you,” the voice went on. “Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said, not really understanding what I was agreeing with. My thoughts and memories seemed to be slipping into a whirlpool of nothingness, so I’d already forgotten what we were talking about.