Trust No Bitch: Part 2

Alice Jenkins

You don't have time for a breakdown, Alice had to keep reminding herself as she used her credit card to push the cocaine she had poured onto the bathroom countertop into 3 thin lines. She ignored the tear that splattered onto the marble beside it and instead rubbed furiously at her eyes to stop another one falling. Luca had rushed over after she'd feinted in the corridor and once she came around and asked for the drugs, had told her he was all out of speed. It was coke or nothing, so she'd chosen the latter; she had to be at the law office in the afternoon and had a shit tonne of work to go through that day, on top of wanting to comb the internet for any recent news reports on Cleo to see if the police had made any advancements. Once she arrived at work, she'd thought she might have been able to hold off on the coke and make some clandestine phone calls to her doctor or Rudy Williams to find out the quickest way of getting her hands on speed but that idea had quickly gone down the drain. After being reminded of the interview for her permanent position at the firm she had in a couple of weeks on her way in, she realised that spending her time there that evening outside on her phone may not be the best indication of her appetency to work for them full time once she left uni. Coke it was.

And it felt wrong.

As she sat there working on one of the cases she'd been given, almost overflowing with the energy she'd craved ever since she woke up that morning, she knew what she'd done was dangerous. Of course, amphetamines and benzodiazepines and everything else she took, they were dangerous too, but she couldn't shake off the feeling that she'd just willingly hit the big, red self-destruct button. People can take cocaine casually and be fine, she kept trying to reassure herself. Cleo, who took it mostly just for parties and all nighters at the club, had called it "funner and cleaner than alcohol". Clara takes it and you don't see her trembling in a cold sweat, parents carting her off to rehab twice in the space of 3 months. But she knew, as she finished up on her case for the day, that she wasn't like that. She never did things by halves. Always all or nothing. She couldn't help but acquiesce that part of her personality. Couldn't help but sit there and throw otherwise inestimable time to the fire, sifting through the news stories about Cleo, each web page as equivocal as the other. Police are looking for someone strong, probably male, perhaps a friend, perhaps a family member, attack could've been sexually provoked, corpse showed absolutely no signs of sexual attack, it was all futile. It wasn't until she reached the 3rd page on google that she saw a link distinctly different from the others; it was a Tumblr account. The page itself was simply titled Cleo King but the URL, www.tumblr.wickedbitchofthewest.co.uk, made Alice splutter aloud as she clicked on it. The first thing that caught her eye once the page had loaded was the photo on the left hand side: it was the one from Mrs.King's wedding to Austin, in which Cleo was a bridesmaid, only her eyes had been blacked out, making the once ingenuous smile from the photo look almost satanic. Then, underneath it along with the archive link and the ask button, allowing people to submit anonymous statements, a small paragraph: "20 yr old sarcastic, no-bullshit bitch who sees Cleo King exactly as she is, the devil in woman form. Hit the follow button, leave a question and join me, my loves, as I serve up the truth about this evil whore." Alice read aloud, her tone wavering between one of amused disbelief and unease. "What the hell?" She murmured, scrolling further down the page, more and more posts coming into view.

Missing her at all?;)

The latest question said, not without a winking emoji at the end to which the blogger replied:

Like a fucking hole in the head:)

Complete with a derisory smily face. The next post, less snide and more resentful.

To think,

It said,

They're still reporting on this shit when Syria is being bombed to the ground and thousands upon thousands of innocent people are dying. First it was Mia Jackson, then it was Dec Johnson and now it's her. Why are we supposed to care about them? They were all awful people. Personally, I don't feel a shred of sympathy. Who's with me?

It was peculiar; as Alice read it, without even meaning to, the words in her head had taken on a voice she knew very well, a voice to which she could even put a face to.

"Why are they still reporting on this shit? Mia Jackson died months ago now. France has just launched its first air strikes against Syria, meaning hundreds if not thousands of innocent people are going to be slaughtered without a single acknowledgement and yet nobody can let go of the fact that this one girl is gone." She could also picture the voice in her head sneering as she'd read that last comment, as if it had somewhere already sneered those words before, as if it were raw footage she was hearing not a mental construction.

She shook it off, however, and scrolled further down the page, not allowing her thoughts to linger on it. There was too much to see on this blog and as always, delimited time.

For all of you that didn't know, they've sent divers down into the river early this morning. We may be about to make a discovery. As for me, I hope they find something, as in that bitch's dead body. Fingers crossed, my loves.

One post said, the entry dated from the morning of the police's grisly discovery, 31st October.

"Besides, I hope they found something. As in that bitch's dead body." The voice snarled as Alice's eyes skimmed over it.

If Cleo was alive after all this time, my dreams would be crushed.

The blog said.

I really haven't missed seeing that snotty bitch parade about the hallways, at all. In fact, I'm feeling so blessed that I, an indefatigable atheist, am actually considering converting to Christianity. I mean, for real. It has to be divine intervention.

"Don't talk about Cleo King as if she could still be alive. I mean really Alice, please don't crush my dreams like that again." The voice hissed. "There hasn't been a single day that's gone by that I haven't thanked God that I didn't have to see her stupid face. Jesus, she pissed me off. And if she is gone, for good, then I'll never have to see it again."

And then, after a period of time a little too long for Alice's liking, it all clicked. There was a reason that the words she read on that blog had spontaneously taken on the tone that they did. There was a reason why the inflections of the voice had come so naturally, every crescendo and the diminuendos that followed. It was because, although there might be slight differences in the way the sentiment was phrased, the sentiment had been expressed in conversations she had already had.

Conversations she'd had with Sasha Evans.

It was Sasha Evan's blog.

Well, shit.

The realisation hit her in the chest like a high speed train. What was she going to do? How would she tell the others? First her little brother and now Sasha, her friend. Who would be next?  Her sister, Vanessa? Tim? When was it going to stop? Every potential murderer linked back to her, every one she knew beginning to resemble the tangled chain of paper clips that lie wedged, forgotten, at the bottom of the office's stationery drawer inside her head. Her thoughts were only disrupted by the ringing of her phone, causing her to start so severely that had she been 60 years older, the surprise may have triggered some kind of a heart attack.

"Lilly?" She said, reading the caller ID before she swiped to answer.

"Alice!" Lilly replied, the panic in her voice audible despite the lamentable reception.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Gemma."

"What about her? Is she okay?" Lilly's consternation had somehow travelled out of the phone and into Alice's own body. She was predicting every horrific thing that could've possibly happened before Lilly even said it.

"She's been taken to hospital. There was an acid attack...and..." She began to snivel. "I can't...you just need to get here, okay? Just get here as soon as you can."