Marcy cupped the boy’s chin in her hand and leaned close. “We’re gonna do this. Nobody does what this bitch did and gets away with it, not when it comes to my family, motherfucker.” The boy was shaking more than ever and Dream despaired, sensing the fight was already lost. “And about your question, Michael? Let’s just say you don’t want me thinking for even one second that you might narc.” She released his chin and stepped back. “Can I trust you? And please tell the truth, because I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Michael sighed and nodded. “Yes.”
“And it’s not like she’ll be the first person we’ve killed.” This was Michael’s brother or cousin finally speaking up. “Nobody talks about it, but we all know that bum we jumped in Overton Park last summer didn’t survive.”
Dream’s heart lurched at the revelation. Again, no one said anything for a time. The general anxiety level skyrocketed. There was a lot more nervous shuffling of feet. A lot of fidgeting. Marcy’s sister looked very pale, as if she might throw up at any moment.
A ghost of a smile brushed the edges of Marcy’s mouth before vanishing. “That’s very true,” she said, breaking the silence. “Thank you for reminding us, Kevin. Now back to business.”
She returned to the bed and appraised Dream candidly, her gaze moving slowly over the length of her splayed, nude body. Then she looked Dream in the eye and said, “You really are gorgeous, you know that?”
Dream didn’t bother responding.
But Alicia moved to the other side of the bed and appraised her in much the same way. “Girl’s a gothed-out skank, but she speaks the fucking truth.” She smiled broadly and blood leaked from cracks at the corners of her mouth. “Hey, maybe if they really kill you, you can come back like me. Wouldn’t that be a kick? Little Miss Hot Stuff all rotting and stinky?” She cackled. “Well, I’d get some satisfaction out of it anyway.”
Again, Dream ignored the dead woman’s commentary.
“Somebody bring me a belt.”
Michael’s cousin reacted instantly to Marcy’s command, crossing the room within the space of a heartbeat and yanking open a closet door. He rummaged around in the closet’s dark interior for a moment, then emerged with the requested item.
Marcy accepted the belt from him, winding one end twice around her right hand while letting the end with the brass buckle dangle. “Seriously, you really are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in person. You could be a model or a movie star.” There was plain, honest admiration in her voice as she said these things, but then her tone darkened. “But beautiful people like you always look down on people like us. That’s if you think of us at all. Or if forced to think of us, you see us as, like, insects, or r odents, something less than human.”
Dream struggled to keep a quaver out of her voice as she said, “Th-that’s not true. I never-”
“SHUT UP!”
Marcy’s arm snapped out like a striking cobra and the belt whipped across Dream’s belly, the buckle gouging her flesh. Dream cried out and the belt snapped across her body again. Then again. A thin trickle of blood ran down her side from where the buckle had nicked her.
Dream’s chest heaved and tears rolled down her face. “Please…please…”
“I told you to shut up.” Marcy’s voice was surprisingly calm again, belying the act of violence. “You should do as I say.”
Dream stifled the whimper that wanted to come, reminding herself that her pleas were less than useless, serving only to further stir the ire of her tormentor.
Marcy resumed her speech as if nothing had happened:“ Beautiful, privileged people think nothing of bullying people like Ellen, my sweet little sister. Poor Ellen’s been pushed around by people like you all her life.” She paused and sat down again at the edge of the bed. “One time a couple of cheerleaders followed her into a bathroom. This was sophomore year of high school, I believe.” She glanced at her sister for confirmation. Ellen wouldn’t meet her gaze, but she nodded. “Do you know what those fucking nose-in-the-air bitches did to her?”
Dream shook her head. “No.”
“I’ll tell you.” Marcy leaned over Dream so that their faces were separated by mere inches. The hate pulsing out of the girl’s hard, dark eyes made Dream shiver. “They pulled her into a stall and pushed her face down into a shit-clogged toilet. They held her there while she struggled and shit and toilet water filled her mouth.”
Dream sniffed. “I’m sorry.”
Marcy grunted. “Yeah, you should be, because it might as well have been you who did that. I hold all your kind responsible. You wonder why I’m so angry? Maybe now you’re beginning to have a clue. When you attacked Ellen tonight, you were making her relive that all over again.”
Dream’s breath hitched in her throat and tears rolled in a steady stream from her eyes. “I’m…so sorry…I wish-”
“Shut up.”
Dream again fell silent.
Marcy unwound the belt from her hand and slipped the thin length of black leather behind Dream’s neck. Dream tensed, her heart pounding as Marcy fed the end of the belt through the brass buckle and pulled it taut around her throat. She wound the end around her hand again and stared into Dream’s suddenly bulging eyes. “I wanted to go after those fucking cheerleaders so bad when I heard what they’d done, but I didn’t have the nerve back then. But not this time. This time someone’s going to pay.”
She stood up and pulled on the end of the belt. Dream sputtered, her face turning a bright shade of red as the loop tightened around her neck. She was dimly aware of someone else in the room saying “Oh God” over and over.
Then Marcy relaxed her grip on the belt and Dream was abruptly able to breathe again. She drew in huge gulps of air and listened to her heart slam against her chest wall.
Marcy was smiling now. “You didn’t think I’d kill you so quickly, did you? That would’ve been almost like mercy. This is just the beginning, cunt. A warm-up. You’ve got a long night of pain ahead of you and I’m going to enjoy every sweet fucking second of it.”
A black rage stole into Dream’s heart then, obliterating the terror completely, sweeping away any lingering trace of guilt she felt over what she’d done to Marcy’s sister. Her mouth curled in a sneer of disgust and fury. Dark, malicious energy swirled inside of her, dormant power awakened and focused by the overwhelming strength of her anger. There was no room in her heart now for anything other than hate and a blind need to inflict pain on everyone around her.
Everyone else felt the change, too.
The other girl in the room, a somewhat plump thing with hair dyed a bright shade of auburn, shivered and said, “Did it just get really fucking cold in here?”
Someone else said, “Yeah. Jesus, what’s going on?”
Marcy looked into Dream’s eyes and flinched. She let go of the belt and began to rise from the bed. Then she froze, suddenly unable to retreat any further.
Dream snarled, hissed like a snake. She flailed at her bindings, rocking the bed violently and causing a lamp to topple off the nightstand. The auburn-haired girl screamed and ran for the closed door. Dream loosed a tremendous cry that filled the room like the concussion from a bomb blast. The auburn-haired girl’s body slammed against the door, then spun around and fell to the floor. When she tried to stand, blood was leaking from every orifice, spilling in trickles from her ears, mouth and nostrils. A bright redness stained the whites of her eyes and she wobbled as she tried to take a blind step toward the bed. Then she collapsed, hitting the floor with a resounding thump that elicited more screams and cries of shock from her friends.
The screaming went on for a while.
The girl on the floor was absolutely still. Dead. Dream knew she’d somehow killed her. She hadn’t done it intentionally, but she’d done it nonetheless, some instinct causing her to strike at the girl with the power she’d tapped.