Free The Evil Within by Nancy Holder Page B

there were spatters of blood on Pearl’s pinafore. Belle darted forward and grabbed Celia’s hair in her fist, pushing on the back of her neck with her other hand and forcing Celia’s face under the water.
    Bubbles escaped her mouth; her lungs began to ache. She wasn’t afraid, not yet. Belle was mean and vindictive, but she wasn’t insane. She wouldn’t murder a fellow student; if she did, she would suffer for it, as surely as Edwin Marlwood held all their lives in his hands. For others had paid horribly, and for lesser crimes. . . .
    . . . The ice pick . . . the ice pick . . .
    Celia was out of air. She’ll let me back up now, Celia thought.
    But Belle didn’t.
    Celia’s strained body was beginning to convulse. She pushed against the hand that restrained her head, and moaned; and bucked. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
    She panicked. She had to inhale, had to—
    —And just as she was about to draw in a fatal breath of ice water—
    —Belle yanked up her head. Celia drew in air, her aching lungs searing, her back arching. Pearl had backed away, sobbing, while Martha was hitting Belle’s shoulders, shouting, “Let her go, Belle! You’re killing her!”
    “She will not love him!” Belle screamed, her voice echoing on the tile walls of the hydrotherapy room. “She will not!”
    “Let her go,” Pearl shouted.
    “She will not!” Belle shrieked.
    “Belle, I’m here,” Celia said, dazed. Why was Belle speaking of her as if she were not there? “Belle, please, listen, I—”
    Belle’s face went white. Her dark eyes burned in her face, like bottomless pits. For the first time, Celia saw the pure hatred there. The madness. “Back down, back under,” she decreed.
    “No, Belle, no, please,” Celia cried. “Someone, help me!”
    Down she went, into the ice water . . .
    . . . Longer this time—

    “GOD,” I gasped. As I panted, Celia’s face, barely visible, stared up at me from the shiny white floor of the shower stall.
    “ So you see. It’s happened before. Two girls, in love with the same young man. Belle, and me. You, and Amanda Winters. And she’ll kill you for him. Like she killed me. ”
    The words were in my head, in my own mouth, but it was Celia talking.
    “No,” I whispered, but Celia was right: Mandy Winters was every bit as vindictive as Belle. She would kill me rather than give up Troy. She’d already tried to kill me.
    “ You have to fight fire . . . with fire ,” Celia said. “ You have to strike first. Or it will be too late. ”
    I covered my mouth. I didn’t know if I was going to be sick, or to scream. I was losing it. Panic attack. I could feel my mind shutting down.
    “ Kill or be killed. ”
    I started to hyperventilate.
    “Lindsay? Are you still in there?” It was Elvis, pounding on the stall door. “I forgot my conditioner. Can I borrow yours?”
    Oh my God. Heaving, I fell onto my side; I gathered up my thick dark hair and wiped my face with my hands several times before I connected that it was still wet because the shower was on. Disoriented, I swallowed hard and awkwardly crawled up the wall with my fingertips until I was upright. Then I leaned against the wall, numb.
    “Lindsay?” Elvis called. “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah,” I said quickly. “Conditioner. Hold on.”
    Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

    I MOVED as if I were underwater, floating as I got dressed and brushed my teeth—without looking in the mirror. I swam upstream to our room, to find Julie showered and dressed in fashionable new clothes, even less tweeny and more grown-up. She’d unpacked a few things from her suitcases, and she was holding a scarf in both hands. I had the sudden uncontrollable terror that she was going to strangle me with it. I knew that was crazy . . . unless she was possessed. But her eyes were their usual hazel. Her smile, pleasant and sweet.
    “So,” she said, as we left our dorm and joined the dozens of other girls heading for the commons, “how did you