The Good Girls

Chapter 31

AURDEY WATCHED AS EVIE GRIMHILDE, a girl she thought she knew, crumpled against the wall. Her whole body was trembling. "No," she whispered. "That's not true. You're lying."

Jane was crying now. "Evie, Mal's dead. Her dad killed her. He . . . he beat her to death, that night she came home on Oxy."

Evie covered her mouth. "No, he didn't. She lived."

Audrey exchanged a devastated look with the others. "She didn't," she said softly, sadly. "We had all kinds of assemblies at school, way more stuff than we had for Ben and Jay combined. You don't remember?" Audrey could remember perfectly. Mal had been killed just weeks after Audrey's mother's death. Audrey had only known Mal peripherally, through Ben—they'd been such good friends, and Mal had been at Ben's house a few times when Audrey was there, too. After they broke up and Ben started all those rumors about her, Mal had actually approached Audrey, offering her support. He can be such a dick sometimes, Mal had told her. Want me to talk to him for you? But Audrey had said she'd be fine. Still, she'd been grateful for the offer of support.

She remembered the morning she found out Mal had been killed. At first, it was disguised as a suicide: Wild girl ODs after a night of partying. But soon enough, the truth came out because of all the wounds on Mal's face and body.

"You were the one who stepped forward about her dad," Audrey said in a cracked voice. "You were the one who got him arrested. Her mom didn't want to talk."

"And you went to her funeral," Jane said.

"You even spoke," Uma added.

But Evie just blinked. Audrey's heart broke over and over. She'd read about post-traumatic stress disorder in psychology class last year; and they'd talked about it in more than one school assembly. It made sense, she supposed: Evie had been Mal's best friend.

But could Evie have gone this long without anyone realizing that she was delusional? Could she have lived through the funeral and the loss . . . and then blacked it all out?

Uma reached out and tried to take Evie's hand, but Evie recoiled. "That's not true!" she screamed, so loudly the voices in Freddie's room were silent for a moment before bursting into hysterical, wasted laughter. "Mal's been with us the whole time. You're telling me she wasn't in our film studies class? She was the one who initiated that whole conversation!"

Audrey blinked. "No, Evie. You did. You were the first person to say who you'd want gone."

"In fact, you said two people," Uma added. "Mal's dad . . . and then Crystal."

Evie shook her head. "Mal said Crystal. Not me. She started the conversation. She was with us at Ben's party. And Jay's house!"

Everyone shook their heads, but she seemed not to notice. "She's here now, too! She's the killer!"

Her voice and face were practically unrecognizable. "She's the one doing all this, and I know it sounds crazy, but she wanted to help us. She was just trying to protect us. Of course it's wrong—I know that. But her heart was in the right place." She raised a trembling hand and pointed at Uma. "You finally have solace because Ben's gone." She gestured at Ava. "And admit it, you would be thrilled to be free of Leslie. You'd have your father back."

"Shhh!" Audrey hissed, her eyes widening. There were so many people around. So many people could hear.

"Mal meant well," Evie insisted, her voice strangely calm and cold. She fixed Jane with a pointed stare. "None of those people deserved to die—not even Ben. Which means I have to find Mal before she kills Lonnie. And you guys are going to let me do that."

Evie burst forward, knocking Jane roughly against the wall, and dashed down the hallway before any of them could react. They scrambled after her, but she was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.

Audrey paused at the edge of the amorphous mass of dancing kids. She looked at Jane. "Where did you last see Lonnie?"

Jane's face was pale. "In here, I think." She stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over people's heads.
Suddenly, a cry rose up in the crowd. "Cops!" a boy's voice bellowed.

Everyone screamed. Costumed kids scurried in every direction, bolting for the doors and windows, slamming into one another and pushing the crowd forward. Audrey struggled to move against the tide, trying as hard as she could to find where Evie had gone.

Before Evie killed again.