CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
[32]

song: hungry like the wolf by duran duran

SOMEHOW, DAISY HAD GOTTEN JEN TO TALK TO HER. And somehow, Daisy found herself going to the senior girls lock in at the school. Jen drove out of Daisy's neighborhood, the car was painfully quiet, as expected.

"Thanks for driving." Daisy lets out, instinct to break the silence.

Jen glances at Daisy and back to the dark road. "No problem." She shrugs. "I honestly didn't think you would want to go to this."

Daisy held in a scoff, knowing Jen probably wasn't in the mood for her sarcasm. "I thought it would probably be the only time we would be able to talk things out." Daisy says.

"Ah." Jen nods a bit, she turns a corner towards the school. "I don't— hate you, Daisy." She says, awkwardly. "I miss you." She says. Daisy turns to Jen, and watched her with soft eyes as she continues to drive. "Ya know? I miss my best friend. I miss how fun you used to be. And energetic. And happy." She shrugs a bit.

Daisy swallows, turning back to face the road with a knot in her throat. "I am happy." She says.

"I know— it's just—" Jen stumbles for words. "You've changed."

Daisy bit her cheek, processing her friends words. "People change." She responds. Not wanting to admit that Jen was inevitably right, and that she hadn't changed for the better— for that matter.

"You're right." Jen says, inhaling sharply. "And I'm sorry I kind of bugged out on you yesterday. It was dramatic." She rolls her eyes and lets out a little scoff, as she pulls into the school parking lot, parking at her usual spot by the curb. Jen turns to Daisy, and takes a deep breath. "Just promise me, that tonight, it's just us hanging out. No Kai. No talking about Kai." She raises her eyebrows.

"Promise." Daisy smiles faintly. "So are we okay?" She asks cautiously.

Jen nods. "Yeah, we're okay." She smiles faintly. She takes a deep breath as she looks at the school, watching as the rest of the girls walk in through the front doors with pillows and sleeping bags. "No backing out now." Jen laughs a bit.

Daisy lets out a little laugh, too. "Let's go."

—

Daisy unrolled her sleeping bag next to Jen's, as far away from everyone else's on the cafeteria floor, trying her best not to think about how unsanitary it was. Giggles and screeches erupted from the girls as they danced around to the music playing off the boombox on one of the tables, already in their pajamas.

"I'm gonna go to the vending machine." Jen says, after she finishes laying out her palette to sleep on. She huffs as she examines her work, then turns to Daisy. "You want anything?"

"Red vines." Daisy says, happily.

"K, I'll be right back." Jen says, walking out of the cafeteria, as she walks out the hall, Daisy catches glance at other senior girls who ran around the halls playing some game.

Daisy sits down on her sleeping bag, letting out a yawn as she shoved her hands in her sweatshirt pocket tiredly. "Can I put my stuff here?" A voice says.

Daisy looks up, to see Josette holding a pillow and sleeping bag beside her, gesturing towards Daisy and Jen's corner. Daisy ran her tongue against her teeth, holding in her frustration as she thought about her next words. "Yeah, sure." She said quietly, avoiding eye contact with her as she began to hesitantly sit her stuff down.

Daisy looked around for anyone else she could talk to to save her from the painful awkwardness that had just erupted for the second time tonight, but soon remembered she really didn't talk to anyone else.

"How long have you guys been here?" Josette asks, as she neatly unfolds her pink sleeping bag.

Daisy shrugs, still avoiding eye contact. "Like ten minutes."

Josette nods, taking a deep breath as she tried to think of more things to ask to spark conversation. She watched as Daisy practically turned her body to completely face away from her. Josette shook her head quickly. "You know what?!" Josette says, Daisy turns back to look at her. "Are you gonna ever speak to me again or should I just give up?" She scoffs.

Daisy was shocked by Josette's sudden outburst, it was very unexpected coming from her and she wasn't used to seeing her like that. "What makes you think I would want to be your friend after what you said about me and your brother?" Daisy shakes her head, narrowing her eyebrows at Josette.

"I'm sorry." Josette pleaded. There were a lot of apologies coming from lots of different people this week. "I'm sorry I care about you enough to try and warn you about Kai. I'm sorry I care about my friend." Josette said, with desperation.

Jen walks back into the cafeteria, plopping down beside Daisy and Josette who appeared to be in the middle of an important conversation. She awkwardly looked between them, sliding the pack of red vines to Daisy.

"I don't need you to worry about me, Josette." Daisy responds.

Josette shakes her head. "I know, I know. I realize that now— I just— when you told me about you two I kind of freaked out." She rubs her eyes.

Jen watches confusedly, but intently, as she bit into an unnecessarily loud chip, which redirected Josette and Daisy's attention to her for a second, before they turned back to each other.

"I love Kai." Daisy says. "You can hate us or you can just accept us."

"I don't hate you. Either of you." Josette shook her head. "But if you're—" She takes a deep breath. "If you're happy, than I'll support you." She says, it looked like it pained her to say it, but she did.

Daisy watched Josette's sorry expression for a second before smiling faintly at her, which she returned. "Okay." Daisy nodded, a first step to feeling comfortable around Josette again.

"Okay." Josette said back.

"I think there's booze in the gym." Jen says, after a quick pause.

"How the hell did they sneak that past Mrs. Lopez?" Daisy scoffs.

"Well it can't be hard." Jen says, gesturing past Daisy to Mrs. Lopez, who was fast asleep already in a sleeping bag, with a night mask and ear plugs in.

Daisy tilts her head to the side as she examines the old lady, a disgusted look on her face. "Hm." She says.

"Come on." Jen says, gesturing for the two to get up.

Daisy followed Jen and Josette out the cafeteria, and towards the gym, where more music played from boomboxes. There were only about ten girls in there, sat on the floor on their sleeping bag playing drinking games, and when the three walked in.

"Jen!" A girl yelled. "Come play!" Daisy realized it was Christine Sanchez, the girl Jen had been talking to since Halloween. She had been so caught up with Kai that she hadn't even asked about Jen's new relationship, or how it was going.

Daisy sat down in between Josette and Jen, looking around at the empty cups, vodka and beer bottles that lay scattered around the assortment of sleeping bags. Christine passed down the cups to each of them, and Daisy could already smell the cheap beer.

"What are we playing?" Jen asks.

"Truth or drink." Carol says sloppily. Daisy looks up, just now realizing she was here. She sat half laid down, across the circle, with droopy eyes, looking like she was already completely gone.

"Mary you go." Someone suggests. Mary looks around the circle, eyeing Josette who awkwardly sniffed the cup of beer in her hand and gagged.

"Josette." Mary says. "Where's the weirdest place you've had sex?"

Daisy turns to Josette, who looked around the circle with wide eyes as everyone watched her. "Um." Josette said, thinking quickly.

"You can drink if you don't want to answer." Daisy spoke quietly.

Josette glanced down at her drink, then back to Mary. "I'm a virgin." She said, with a random spark of confidence.

The circle erupted in little gasps, then giggles, but not out of spite, at Josette's sudden confidence. Josette's shoulders seemed to drop with relaxation as she awkwardly laughed along with them.

Mary glanced down at Carol, who sat next to her and was next up. "Your turn." Mary says.

Carol tried to sit up, dizzy from the alcohol. She scanned the circle, looking for her victim. "Daisy." Carol says.

Daisy felt that coming. She clenched her jaw.

The girl thought for a while, almost too long, and Daisy knew she was thinking of something good. "When did you and Kai start dating?" Carol asks, tilting her head to the side a little bit.

Daisy felt her heart skip a beat, and she swallowed hard. If she drank, Carol would know she was hiding something, but at this point she'd been thinking of the answer for too long, so she just spoke. "Like— late December? I don't know I don't really remember." Daisy shrugs it off.

"Kai told me you'd been dating since early November." Josette says, looking at Daisy with narrowed eyebrows, completely oblivious.

Shit. Daisy felt her heart begin to pound. "Yeah, like I said I don't really remember." She spoke quickly as she avoided Carol's stare.

"Early November?" Carol said, thinking to herself. "Hm."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Daisy took a swig from her beer, occupying her hands from the nerves. As the game continued on, Carol got up and left, saying she felt like she was gonna get sick from the amount of beer she had downed in the past hour. The tension in the air immediately lifted when Carol left, but Daisy couldn't stop thinking about her question.

Carol had to have been catching on by now. It was inevitable. She had been suspicious from the start.

But maybe Daisy was just being unbelievably paranoid like Kai said. Daisy fumbled with the drink in her hands tapping her food as she tried to focus on something else.

"Are you okay?" Christine says, looking past Jen towards Daisy who looked like she was about to curl into the fetal position.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." She nodded.

Maybe Christine knows too. I mean she's pretty good friends with Carol, I wouldn't be surprised if Carol had been scheming with Christine to find out what happened to Jenna and Tommy this whole time.

"Yo, chill." Jen says, putting her hand on Daisy's leg, which was shaking uncontrollably. Jen leaned towards Daisy and whispered. "When was the last time you took your medication?" She asked concernedly.

"Freshman year." Daisy scoffs a bit, then swallows harshly. "I don't take Zoloft anymore. It gives me night terrors."

"Maybe you should step outside for a minute," Jen suggests. "You look really pale..." She examines her friend. "And you're shaking really bad."

Daisy inhales deeply. "Yeah, yeah I'll be right back." Daisy puts her drink down, before standing up and walking out of the gym. Her legs felt like jello, and her chest felt like there were arms wrapped around it squeezing her tight.

She glances around, her heart pounding as she could barely focus enough to find a bathroom or a classroom to calm down in. She soon found a hand wrap around her wrist and pull her out of the hall, and into the girls locker room.

Daisy gasped at the sudden motion, but relaxed when she realized it was just Kai. "What the hell are you doing here?" Daisy asks confusedly.

"What's wrong?" Kai asked concernedly. "Why are you freaking out?"

Daisy didn't even question how he knew she was freaking out, she assumed it was witches intuition, and she didn't feel like asking. Daisy walked further into the girls locker room, Kai following, as she sat down on a bench. She ran her hands through her hair and tried to take a deep breath.

"Did something happen?" Kai asked, sitting on the bench beside her and grabbing her hands, trying to get her to stop shaking.

"Carol's gonna figure it out." Daisy says frantically, shaking her head. "She's smart. And she knows me. She knows my past. And she—"

"You're being paranoid." Kai says.

Daisy tore her hands away from him and stood up quickly. "I'm not being paranoid!" She says, raising her voice a bit. "Stop saying that!" She rubbed her eyes. Kai watched her cautiously as she spoke. "I can't do this." She shook her head quickly.

"What do you mean can't do this?" Kai asks, standing up from the bench and looking at her confusedly.

"This isn't me. I'm not—" Daisy shook her head again and scoffed. "I'm not a killer I- I'm not cut out for this."

Kai didn't know how to respond. "It's fine—"

"Shut up, Kai!" Daisy yelled, stopping him before he could even finish the word. "It's not fine! We killed Tommy. He had a future, a-and a family, and for what?!" She scoffed, her eyes watering as hysteria filled her brain. "Because he pissed me off a little?! What about that seems fine?!"

A toilet flushed within the locker room.

Daisy's heart fell. In that instant her skin became greyed, his mouth hung with lips slightly parted and his eyes were as wide as they could stretch. Daisy felt the panic begin like a cluster of spark plugs in her abdomen. Tension grew in her face and limbs, her mind trying to register if that sound had come from somewhere else, when she knew it hadn't.

Kai was frozen in place, matching Daisy's expression to a T. "Fuck." He said, in the quietist whisper. They couldn't see the bathrooms, there were lockers in the way but they heard the stall slowly swing open. Daisy was holding her breath, feeling like if she stayed frozen it she wouldn't be found out. But it was too late.

Carol came out from behind the lockers, a look of disbelief on her face as she looked at Daisy and Kai. Her chest visibly inhaled and exhaled with panic as she tried to register what'd she'd heard. "I knew it." She breathed out, her eyes darting between Daisy and Kai quickly.

"It's not what you think—" Daisy stepped towards her quickly, and Carol stumbled back in fear. Daisy swallowed. "I didn't— we didn't—" Daisy could be speaking gibberish and she probably wouldn't even know, her words were not matching up with the fear the rang through her brain.

"And you killed Jenna, too." Carol says, her lips trembling.

Daisy shook her head quickly. "No, no— listen to me— we didn't—" She reached out towards Carol cautiously and hesitantly, but her panicked eyes just made Carol more terrified.

Carol spun around quickly, leaping out of Daisy's reach and charging towards the door. Daisy quickly chased after her, lunging towards her and latching onto her arm, yanking Carol back before she could reach the door.

Carol opened her mouth to scream for help, but before sound could come out, Kai had slammed her head down onto the sink beside her, and she was on the floor.

Daisy latched her hands over her mouth to stop a scream, as blood flooded the locker room floor from Carol's head.

There is a distance in Daisy's eyes as she takes a few steps backwards, so the blood doesn't hit her shoes, bumping into a row of lockers like she wasn't expecting it. Her head rolls with the impact, eyes glazed. Her voice comes out thin and distant, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." She shakes her head quickly, hoping to wake herself up from this reoccurring nightmare. She's breathing all wrong, beginning to gasp like there's not enough oxygen in the air.

Daisy looks up at Kai, who simply just examined Carol's lifeless body as it lay below his feet. He then looks up at the mirror, staring at himself, his blank, emotionless expression, then to Daisy, who looked one touch away from shattering completely.

"Here's what we're gonna do." Kai spoke to her in the mirror, but then turned around to face her. "We're gonna go to the library, we're gonna make out, have sex, whatever, I don't care. We're gonna get caught, and when the police ask where we were when Carol was killed, we'll have someone who'll know we were in the library. Got it?" He spoke with ease.

Daisy's heart hammered inside her chest like it belonged to a rabbit running for its skin. The room spins and she gulped for breath, trying to make everything slow to something my brain and body can cope with.

Daisy's eyes horrifiedly trailed down to Carol, desperately hoping she had hallucinated the whole thing. But there she laid, her eyes still open, seeing nothing, as blood spewed from her head, covering the tile floor as it inched closer to Daisy's feet.

Daisy slowly looked up at Kai, "What have you done?"

a/n
hope u enjoyed this chapter:-) remember to leave comments bc theyre kinda my only motivation to update fhfhfh
- jane