The Wicked We Have Done

12

I don’t believe it at first. The remaining Compass Room inmates have run into each other again, even in the vastness of our prison.

Jace squeals and sprints to us.

It’s fate.

She throws herself around me. Valerie laughs. My body floods with warmth, and I realize now how much I care about both of them.

How much I missed them.

It’s only been two weeks since I woke up in the lodge, but the Compass Room disobeys laws of time. I feel like I’ve known these girls my whole life. Seeing them now, I can’t contain the relief, the flares of hope bursting inside me.

Jace steps back. “Are you crying?”

I shake my head, even though I am crying. When I have contained myself enough to speak, I say, “It’s been a long day.”

I hug Valerie too when she approaches. To my surprise, Casey lifts Jace off her feet and swings her through the air. Jace even places a kiss on Tanner’s head. It wasn’t like this before. Other than occasional flirting, we didn’t touch each other. We worked together, but we didn’t acknowledge the fact that friendships were being created.

That’s all behind us now.

“Well, dammit, let’s find somewhere to situate ourselves,” says Valerie. “We have food. And booze.”

It’s Casey’s turn to squeal, and I laugh harder than I think I’ve ever laughed. The feeling is so foreign. So cleansing.

We walk east a bit because Valerie swears there’s a stream that way, and Jace catches us up on what has happened to them since we’ve separated. They were lucky, to say the least. They backtracked to the lodge and found undamaged food and alcohol in the wreckage. They traveled north, where Jace was tested.

“What was it like?” Tanner asks.

Jace shrugs.

“Oh, don’t even.” Valerie kicks a tangle of brush from her boot. “She was terrified. Sobbing.”

“Thank you for painting the picture so vividly,” Jace says dryly, and Tanner chuckles.

“Not saying I wasn’t scared, because I was,” Valerie said. “If she was a goner, I’d be stuck in the middle of the woods alone.”

“Oh, is that the only reason?” Jace elbows Valerie in the ribs, and Valerie grins.

I think of Stella and Gordon. “Nothing good comes from being stuck in these woods alone.”

“Exactly,” Valerie says.

“Anyway,” Jace continues. “It was the same as everyone else’s. Some twisted version of my crime scene. We were walking in the dark, Valerie and I, and we came across a pair of keys lying on the ground. Right when I noticed they were my keys, an engine flared up. I knew it was the engine to my car, because there’s this little hitch in the sound, right before it fully gets going—old piece of shit. The headlights came on. The car was right in front of us.”

“I got out of the way when the engine was revving,” Valerie cuts in, “because I knew what was happening. I knew it was going to run us over. But Jace wouldn’t budge.”

They share a look. There’s a bit of contempt that Valerie holds for Jace, but it’s almost playful. Loving.

Thankful.

“I remembered what you all were saying about your own tests,” Jace says. “And I knew that whatever was about to happen, I could run, but I wouldn’t be able to escape it.”

She pauses as we reach a log. Casey scrambles over it first, helping me. Jace and Valerie toss their packs to us as they shimmy under, followed by Tanner. As soon as we’re hiking again, Tanner says, “And?”

“And I saw them, the family I killed. Their body parts were everywhere—all around me. The car kept revving. And, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry about what happened.” Her voice gets quiet. “It’s like it knew. I mean, the car sped forward and everything. The headlights grew and so did the sound. And then I shut my eyes and all of it stopped.”

“It passed right through her,” Valerie says. “Thought she was dead. Thought the car was going to flatten her.”

“But that didn’t happen,” I say. “Obviously.”

Jace smiles. “It’s stupid of me to say this, I know. But I feel safe now. Like I can beat this thing.”

I nod. “I think that’s an accurate assumption.”

Valerie grins at Jace. She takes her hand, and their fingers lace.

Jace isn’t evil—I’ve known this since my first few minutes in the Compass Room. Jace thinks she’s worthless, and she’s ridden with guilt.

She made a terrible mistake. But she’s not evil.

The sky flashes green.

At first, I think that it’s my imagination, until I notice that Casey has stopped.

The sky flashes again. Jace gasps. This time the flash lingers, staining the sky so what’s left is a strange, vibrant turquoise.

A booming voice breaks through the empty air.

Warning. System error. Candidates, please stay where you are.

Female 48089.

Female 98771.

“What the hell?” says Casey.

Male 92354.

Female 39286.

Male 62201.

Male 04571.

Stay where you are. Repeat, candidates, stay where you are.

Tanner and I exchange glances. A burst of hope fills me. I find Casey’s hand. “It’s malfunctioning.”

“You’re shitting me,” Valerie cries. “You know what that means, right? They have to let us out of here!”

Tanner holds his hands out, motioning for us to be quiet. We obey and listen to the turquoise sky.

But it says nothing.

We wait.

Valerie huffs impatiently, and I sit on the ground. Tanner starts to pace. Soon, everyone gets bored with craning their necks. Jace and Valerie sit on a near log, and Jace rests her head on Valerie’s shoulder. Casey plops down next to me on the dirt.

I rest my head against my knees and listen. If we’re being extracted, then how will it happen? Will engineers hike in and lead us away from this hell? Will we be asked to find our own way out?

When an hour or so passes, I say, “I’m hungry.”

Right when the words leave my mouth, it’s like the Compass Room responds.

Candidates, please proceed to the nearest campsite and stay where you are. Full functionality will return in approximately fourteen hours.

“Functionality?” Jace questions.

Tanner gapes at the sky. “That wasn’t in the contract.”

“We’re supposed to be extracted, right?”

Tanner nods slowly. “Maybe that’s what they mean. Maybe the CR has to be functional in order for us to be extracted.”

Something about this doesn’t sit right with me.

“Welp.” Casey stands and claps off his hands. “Who’s up for making camp?”

There’s a flat spot by the creek that’s perfect for setting up camp. As we work to pitch the tent, the sky remains an eerie, vibrant turquoise. A part of me is comforted by the reminder that the Compass Room is malfunctioning, while the other part is anxious. What is going on?

And, more important, when did the Room start to malfunction?

My thoughts soon evaporate when Valerie and Jace lay out their spoils in front of us. Three blankets, some silverware, and enough food to last us another few days. The last thing Valerie lifts from her bag is an unopened bottle of brandy.

She holds the bottle up for everyone to see. “You think we can all manage to get a little drunk without turning completely evil?”

Everyone yells some form of hallelujah, followed by an obscenity.

“Hold it, hold it!” Valerie raises the bottle above her head. “There is one thing. This is my bottle. Jace, back me up here.”

Jace sighs. “Yeah, yeah. She found it.”

“And I don’t care if the sky turns fucking orange, there are rules concerning my bottle. First rule, or more of a consideration to make, is that I can only guess that there is one reason they gave us booze in the first place. They want to try and loosen us up so we unleash our inner demons. So know that when drinking from this bottle, you are subjecting yourself to Compass Room shenanigans and there’s a nine-point-eight-seven-percent chance that you will die.”

Tanner blows a raspberry and makes a thumbs-down.

Valerie points the end of the bottle toward him. “My thoughts exactly. Second, this is my bottle—”

“You already said that,” Jace says.

“And I am not cracking open this bottle until one of you seriously, seriously entertains me. I have a bit of power now, and it’s my turn to start playing the cards.”

Tanner says, “I’m not screwing you.”

We lose it. Casey falls off his log and into the dirt, clutching his stomach.

“Dammit,” Valerie says. “I mean real entertainment. No offense, kid.”

“Asshole.”

“We’ve been stuck here for two weeks and now I found booze and that’s my price.” She lowers the bottle and smirks. “So entertain me. Whoever does so with my stamp of approval gets the first pull.”

Casey sits up. “Wait. WAIT. Are you ready for this?” He extends his arms out on either side of himself, eyes filled with intensity. Slowly, remaining transfixed on Valerie, he lowers his left arm to the dirt and when he snaps it back up, he holds a spoon. Bending his elbow, he brings the spoon in toward his face, placing it on his nose.

It sticks.

“How the fuck did you get laid?” Valerie says.

Casey juts his chin, spoon swinging across his mouth. “Mad skills.”

He winks at me and I roll my eyes.

So we attempt to entertain Valerie. Or at least remember that we’re supposed to be trying to entertain Valerie at random intervals during the afternoon and then quickly conjuring up something. Jace is by far the most impressive, and the most eager.

First she juggles pinecones. She starts out with three, finding a rhythm. Then she asks Casey to throw in another, snatching it out of the air, changing the rhythm, and asking for more. When five of them are rotating, I jump and holler like I’m already drunk.

When Jace misses a cone and they fall to the ground, Valerie crosses her arms and says, “Cool. I’ve been to the circus before.”

All of us groan.

Jace attempts again before any of us can think something up, this time using her old gymnastics skills to her advantage.

“Someone wants to get waaaasstted.” Valerie smirks.

Jace performs a series of back walkovers right on the steep bank of the creek, so that any crooked step could send her tumbling into the water. On her last one, she rotates herself all of the way around, and lands in the splits. Casey, Tanner, and I give a standing ovation, waiting for Valerie’s response.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or creeped out,” she says bluntly.

Jace jumps up. “Oh, come on! Do you know how hard it is to do that?” She stomps her foot. “I’d like to see you try!”

Valerie seems pretty entertained by Jace’s temper tantrum. But I don’t point that out.

We all follow Jace’s lead and then, for the most part, give up. Tanner tries to impress Valerie with logarithms drawn in the dirt. She threatens to throw him in the water.

I try thinking of something, but camp is limited and the only talent I have that’s slightly entertaining is my painting. Even if I did have acrylics and a canvas, or even my natural paint, I’d probably bore Valerie to tears.

Dinner comes and we still haven’t cracked open the bottle. Casey takes to begging.

“I’ll make you dinner for the next week.”

“From the canned food that’s mine.”

“I’ll rub your feet?”

“I don’t want a boy rubbing any part of me, but thanks.”

I try to think of the most entertaining party I’ve ever been to. What happened. It was the summer after high school, right after I lost my virginity to Liam, and he was getting all overprotective because of the eight-person strip poker game that I was losing.

I stand.

Valerie grins. “Evalyn has something.”

I nod seriously, pivot, and march toward the creek, right to the closest swimming hole.

Jace squeals in anticipation.

“Take it off!” Casey hollers.

I swivel back around to the group. “Don’t ruin it.”

Grabbing the hem of my T-shirt, I tug it off. The sound of shock is instant because I’m not wearing a bra. I can’t tell who is screaming and cheering; it’s all melding into one sound. I unbutton my pants and push down all of my bottoms, trying to gracefully kick my jeans and underwear off without falling over. I fling my garments away, run, and jump.

The first thing I see when I emerge from the icy water is Valerie scrambling from the bank with my clothes in hand.

“Bitch!”

“Sorry, Ev!” she calls when she sits back down by the fire. “But you made it too easy.”

“I’m getting that drink,” I yell.

“You weren’t that entertaining!”

I swim to the bank. The waterline recedes, uncovering my chest, my waist, my hips, and then everything else.

Jace shrieks and laughs hysterically behind her hand. Tanner’s peeking through his fingers. Casey’s jaw’s to the ground.

I stand at the edge of the fire, one hand on my hip, the other extended toward Valerie, palm up. “Give it up.”

She hands me the bottle. “Solid play, my friend. Solid play.”

The seal cracks when I twist the cap off. It’s a delicious noise. I bring the mouth to my own and tip it back, holding my naked Superman pose, and take a long pull. It tastes like hairspray, piss, and floor cleaner.

When I’m finished, I screw the cap back on. “Now give me back my fucking clothes.”

The bottle split five ways is enough to get all of us decently tipsy. Casey’s hand traces little patterns along my back as I sit next to him, taking my last swig of the night. I pass the bottle to him.

“You look pretty amazing naked,” he says when he swallows.

“Is that so?”

His only response is a lazy smile. I’m positive he’s done for the night; the booze seems to have relaxed him to the point of no return. Tanner passed out a while ago. It’s kind of pathetic when alcohol acting as a sedative is reward enough.

It isn’t even dark yet. I remember the exact moment it became acceptable to drink before it got dark—my twenty-first birthday, when suddenly drinking wasn’t a secret, delicious sin, and there were such things as happy hour and being able to buy beer for the beach and drinking on trains.

The memory is raw and hits me like a punch to the stomach. One of Meghan’s photos, vivid in black and white. Bird’s-eye of a diner booth, ugly coffee ring dried on the table, a cup of tea and half-eaten bagel and the top of a woman’s head. She was scrawling a note on a paper napkin, pencil between her fingers.

I was day drinking

When you called me to say

You were sorry.

Meghan loved that photo. She had it set as her tablet background for months.

Months.

“You okay?” Casey asks. When I nod, he says, “I’m tired.”

The eerie green still coats the sky like a filter, and suddenly I want to sleep for the sake of not having to see it. “Me too. Booze does that.”

I follow Casey to the blankets. Before I can find my toothbrush, he’s already asleep on his back with his mouth open. Tanner’s pretty motionless as well, so I brush my teeth by myself at the creek. I’m passing the fire pit when I hear a small gasp.

I stop walking, my attention caught on the smoldering ring. It casts enough light that I can easily see the two girls on a blanket between the pit and the logs.

Valerie lies on top, her fingers twisted in Jace’s dark curls, mouth on her throat. I’m too afraid to move and have them see me, watching something I shouldn’t be watching.

But I can’t tear myself from Jace.

She isn’t in the Compass Room anymore. She’s with Valerie, invested in everything Valerie’s doing to her. Her mouth parts as Valerie’s lips alone dominate her. Valerie trails to her ear and Jace’s back arches off the blanket.

When Valerie fumbles with the buttons on Jace’s pants I know I have to get out of here. I risk moving my feet, slipping back to the boys.

I slide beneath the blanket next to Casey. Fear rolls over me. It isn’t just me and Casey.

Valerie and Jace have found each other too.

I don’t know if it’s a fling, if they’re using each other to pass our horrible time here. But I know that if either of them die, it will be devastating for the survivor.

I can’t think this way. The Compass Room malfunctioned and we’ll all be extracted tomorrow. Because if I can’t bring myself to think about either Valerie or Jace dying, I can’t imagine what it would feel like for one of them.

Casey rolls over, his arm falling across my stomach. I lace my fingers through his and fall asleep.

I wake up with a parched mouth. Dawn is only flirting with the sky, the space around me cast in shadow. The green light melds with tranquil blue, creating a strange teal forest.

I roll from beneath Casey’s hand and crawl to my feet. As I’m walking toward the creek, I discover I’m not the only one awake.

Valerie sits on a log near the water. She isn’t alone. A girl with long, ash-blonde hair sits next to her, her arm around Valerie’s shoulder.

I pause in my tracks, holding my breath. She isn’t an inmate. Which leaves only one other option—she’s an illusion. Whether or not the Compass Room has lost functionality, it is still operating.

Valerie hangs her head and the girl leans in and kisses her on the cheek. She gets up and turns toward me. Her belly is round and swollen beneath her sundress, and her face—her face is almost identical to Valerie’s.

She smiles at me and disappears between the trees.

When the shock leaves me, I walk toward Valerie and rest a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t even flinch, only lifts her head enough to recognize it’s me.

I sit with her as the sky brightens—more turquoise—until she says, “I told her to get rid of it. With a glass window between us when I was in prison, I told her to get rid of her rapist’s baby.” Her whole body shudders with a breath. “The next time I saw her she was still pregnant—four months along. I told her—I told her that she didn’t love me, and I didn’t want her to come visit me anymore. She listened. Still haven’t seen the baby. He’s two now.”

“What did she say to you?” I ask. “Just now.”

“She forgives me.” Valerie shakes her head. “I don’t believe her, though.”

I’d tell her to not be so hard on herself, but I know it would be meaningless. Instead, I say, “You should get to sleep.” I’m surprised when she listens without hesitation.

I wait alone by the campfire as the sun rises, wondering if Valerie will ever be able to tell her sister that she’s sorry.

Tanner’s the first to wake when morning rolls around. I start a fire and we sit next to each other. It’s still early—the others won’t be up for a while.

This isn’t the first morning I’ve craved something hot to drink, but today, the need is so much worse. Green tea or scalding black coffee. Maybe it has something to do with drinking last night.

“And the sky is still green,” he says groggily.

“It’s been more than fourteen hours, and they haven’t issued another warning. What do you think?”

He ponders for a long time and huffs. “I think they’re just screwing with our minds now.”

“If that’s the case, they’ve been screwing with our minds all along.”

“Especially if Gordon’s still alive,” Tanner adds.

I frown. “How do you know that?”

“Yesterday, when that voice listed us, there were three males.”

I shake my head. How is someone like Stella dead when someone like Gordon isn’t? If the CR really is malfunctioning to the point where deaths and survivals are being affected, wouldn’t the test be stopped, like the contract said?

Yet there’s nothing we can do about it.

“I wanted to kill him,” Tanner says, his voice hushed.

“Of course you wanted to kill him. We all did.”

Tanner solemnly stares at the creek. “I tried to kill him because I wanted to watch him die. To suffer like all the people he hurt.”

I place my hand on his knee. “Tanner . . .”

“I went to so many psychologists after I killed that kid. All I needed was to be diagnosed bipolar and my lawyers could point my madness to a fit of rage.”

“Tanner, stop.”

“I wasn’t bipolar. Some people need to die, Ev. Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry that I think it. But I can’t help thinking it.”

My limbs turn ice-cold. “Stop talking.”

“Doesn’t matter if I say it out loud. We can’t hide how we feel from them.”

I hold my breath, as if that will somehow build a bubble around us that the Compass Room can’t penetrate.

“Statistics say we’re all doomed.”

I exhale. “Fuck statistics.”

When the rest wake up, we decide to make this spot our permanent camp until the sky turns back to its normal color, or we run out of food. Whichever comes first.

Casey and I volunteer to get firewood. As we’re gathering, I realize that, with the rest of the group, our moments alone are going to be seldom from now on. And there is something that I need to get off my chest.

Maybe it’s because of the strange sense of hope that the vibrant turquoise sky gives me. We could both get out of here. If that’s the case, then he needs to know the truth.

I drop the wood in my hands. “I need to tell you what happened that day.”

He deadpans, his bundle of sticks falling out of his arms.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “I know you’re not a bad person.”

He trusted me too quickly, because of my actions in here. But the truly sick at heart are the chameleons.

I shake my head. “I’m not.”

September 3, Last Year

Our Apartment

The morning was cold. Meghan always set the AC back to seventy-five when she woke up, as our thermostat liked to reset itself at night down to sixty. Liam was gone—he had to leave for work an hour ago.

I threw a blanket around my shoulders and trudged out of the bedroom, turning the AC off as my phone started to ring. Hurrying back to the room, I picked it up off the nightstand.

Mom.

I ignored the call. Maybe, if I had been on the phone with her when I saw what Nick had left for me on the dining table, I would have told her. She would have given me the sense to call 911.

She would have given me the courage not to do what the note said.

The slip of paper was written in my handwriting and held down by our spare apartment key.

Be at the east gym in thirty minutes or Meghan’s dead. No cops.

Next to the note was a crumpled-up grocery list, the one he had used to learn the way I form my letters.

The east gym wasn’t used anymore, save for some nightly yoga and swim classes. But it was unlocked that morning. A boy in black that I recognized from my philosophy class last semester waited for me outside, and without a word, grabbed me by the arm and led me into the building, to the basketball court.

When the door closed behind us, we were swallowed in darkness.

I heard a click, and the room began to glow green.

Seven dark silhouettes. The light grew and grew, and I saw Nick in front of me, in black cargo pants and a military jacket. Before him, Meghan sat at that battered old desk. Chunk taken out of the red seat, plywood peeling. Blindfolded.

He held a gun to her head.

“Just in time.” He smiled darkly. “A couple more minutes and her brains would have been all over the floor.”

I can’t say that I was scared in that moment. I wasn’t emotional at all, because this situation didn’t feel real.

“What do you want?”

“Easy. I’m not going to waste any more of your time than I have to, so here’s the deal.” He yanked on Meghan’s hair and she whimpered. Tears streamed past her blindfold, streaking her cheeks. “There’s a faculty brunch happening right now in the hall next door. You know, the kind where they give out awards and talk about everyone’s fucking achievements.”

He nodded to a masked boy standing near the bleachers. The boy walked to me, and from behind his back pulled out a handgun.

“Take it,” Nick ordered.

The metal was cold and heavy in my hands.

“Take the first shot. I don’t care who you kill, just kill one of them, and I won’t put a bullet in her head, or in yours.”

A cold, hard weight nudged the base of my skull as another boy held a gun to my head.

I processed for a long while what Nick was asking me to do.

I was right. All this time I had been right and I hadn’t done a single thing about it. I’d let her convince me that my instincts were wrong, that I’d been delusional in my impulse to hate him.

How foolish I’d been.

“Why?” was all I could manage. I didn’t try holding back the tears. There wasn’t reason to. But I wouldn’t whimper for him. I wouldn’t give him too much of what he wanted. “Why me? Why us?”

He gave this over dramatic sigh and began to pace back and forth behind Meghan. “Well, it was going to be her. That’s why I started dating her in the first place, if it isn’t obvious now.”

He’d come on so strong. So quickly. That was the one thing I did know about him.

“I needed someone like her—someone who had friends, someone who saw so much beauty and love in the world. The only thing that scares people more than a terrorist is one with absolutely no motive.”

He’d been planning this for a while.

“But when you gave me the cold shoulder, I decided to make you pay. Also, I don’t think she could have gone through with it. I think she would have let you die.”

Tears dripped from my chin. I couldn’t wipe them away. I couldn’t budge with that gun in my hands.

“No,” Meghan whispered.

Nick threw her out of the chair, and she skidded across the floor. He kicked her hard in the stomach. I screamed. I don’t remember what. I just remember thinking that my life was over.

Because I knew I had to go through with it. I couldn’t live without her.

“Go. My men will follow you out. If you run, they’ll kill you and I’ll kill her.”

I was brave enough to ask, “Is this about chaos theory?”

He cocked his head. “You remembered. And I thought that you weren’t paying attention at dinner.”

That dinner happened months ago, but I knew exactly which one he was talking about.

He stepped on Meghan’s rib cage, and she whimpered. “I thought you were too preoccupied with what I was doing with my hand beneath the table.”

The boy behind me removed the tip of his gun from my head and grabbed my hair, whipping me around.

The day was stifling, even for Phoenix in September. Dry grass crunched beneath my feet as I was guided right up to that banquet hall, hearing nothing but the booted footsteps of the boys behind me, the army I was leading. There was no one outside to see us, to stir a warning.

Two boys each grabbed one of the door handles. The one to my left held up three fingers, and then two, and one.

I’d been so passive about Nick. I’d given him a second chance—the benefit of the doubt. I’d never think twice again—especially now. I had to save her.

The draft of the AC harbored the stench of cheap breakfast food. A hush fell over the dull roar of faculty deep in conversation. I lifted the gun, aimed for the head of the nearest man, and shot. Brain matter and blood sprayed over the other occupants of the table, and he slumped over his plate.

My army swarmed around me, shots ringing over screams of terror. I ducked out and ran, only learning much later that the man I shot was named Jason Earhart, dean of the math department. But then, he was only a body—the way I would save my Meghan.

People saw me as a member of the murderous cult that Nick created. That’s why the world sees me as guilty. But this isn’t why I belong in the Compass Room. I am wicked because the moment Jason died, the only thing I felt was relief.

I murdered an innocent man in cold blood. Several people were slaughtered right before my eyes, but Meghan was going to live.

What made my sin even bitterer was my naïveté. I’d been blinded by fear.

She was dead before I stepped foot into the gymnasium, lying on her back on the cold linoleum—right where I’d left her. Her eyes were open, hair drowning in a puddle of her own blood. Another shot rang through the air. Later, I found out that it was Nick, shooting himself through the mouth in the bathroom. Not the bathroom he forged my suicide note in—no. That bathroom was upstairs.

Of course he wouldn’t let Meghan live. She was the sole witness who would prove that this wasn’t an act of chaos orchestrated by me.

This is all I can remember. I don’t remember screaming, or crying, or cradling her. My memory did a terrific job of blocking out the moments I had with her. I was told later, when the police found me, she was still on the floor. I sat at the desk near her corpse, her blood all over me.

I was waiting to die.