Ecstasy

Alex’s mouth falls open, but I know he isn’t getting air. He isn’t getting air.

“Eli, no.” My voice is little more than a whisper and I don’t even know if he’s heard me. He doesn’t look up, he just keeps talking, making my heart cave in on itself with his every word.

“You fucking idiot, you slept against her door, keeping me out. But jokes on you because then you both woke up from your fucking drunk coma and she thought it was you all along.”

No. No. No.

Eli seems to remember I’m here, listening. He glances up at me. “Don’t worry, baby girl,” he says softly, his voice strained with the effort of choking Alex. “That was before I met you.”

He must misread the look on my face because he frowns and says, “Trust me. She wanted it. She was just too fucking drunk to remember it in the morning.”

“Eli, you’re going to kill him.” The words come out in a rush and Alex is staring at me, his hand limp on Eli’s forearm, barely hanging on at all.

His face is turning purple.

His beautiful, beautiful face.

“I know,” Eli says with a smile. “And you’re going to help me bury his body.”

“Eli, no. No. No!” The last word comes out as a scream.

Eli looks furious. “This is our way out, Zara. This is it.”

I glance around the backyard for something to use as a weapon because he’s going to kill him.

He’s going to kill him.

I see the net to clean the pool, hanging off the little shed where they keep their lawnmower. As fast as I can—which isn’t fast at all, considering I’m still in the midst of the comedown from what Eli did to me—I run to it. My sore feet skim over the bare grass and I grab the net, ru

Eli is laughing.

Alex is trying to shake his head.

I dart around the stairs for the pool.

“Don’t do something stupid, baby girl, or I’ll kill you too.”

And then I jump, aiming the metal pole, horizontal, onto Eli’s head.

The water is fucking freezing. It’s all I can do to hold my breath as I sink under, but I feel it. I feel the pole co

Let go.

I let go and then I push on the balls of my aching feet, stinging now with the water, to the surface.

But someone stops me.

Someone holds me down.

And I don’t need to look up to know who it is.