All of Us Are Going to Hell

EIGHT

9:16p.m.
 
Oscuridad (Spanish) noun: darkness
 
From her look of pardon? that I know so well, Hadassah doesn't know where anyone else is, either.

    “Where were you, exactly?” I ask her immediately, trying to revive old anger I
know won't last long.

    She blinks. “Does that really matter now? Everyone at this party,” she says, moving her hand in a circle to gesture a multitude, “has suddenly disappeared.”

    I don't care about them, I almost snap, but I bite my tongue and clench my jaw. I've been searching for her everywhere—she's the reason I met up with Bobby-Ray in the first place. Bobby-Ray. Did he disappear, too?

    Disappear? What are you talking about?

    “Did everyone…leave or something?” Hadassah asks me, tugging at her sleeves. She doesn't know when she does that. One of her idiosyncrasies or something she called it.

    In the same moment, we hear the door open and glance at each other. Hadassah scoots closer to me. I stifle a small smile. When the door closes and the footsteps end, a head of curls appear into the living room.

    This bitch.

    Iris has a look of askance on her face again, probably glad she's caught us together again, glad she has leverage. I won't let her hurt Hadassah on her stupid channel because of me.

    “Um...hi?” she starts with. “Why'd the music stop? Where is everyone?”

    “I was about to ask you the same thing,” answers Hadassah, her brows furrowed. She's nervous. She does that when she's nervous. “Did they all leave or something? Maybe the party got moved.”

    And then Iris freezes. “They didn't leave. I was outside the whole time. Plus, there are still cars in the driveway.”

    Three of us look at each other, like we can identify with the same thought. I'm the only one who voices it: “So, they all vanished or what?”

    “Well, I didn't see them leave. Did you?” spits Iris, hands in her jacket pockets.

    “Maybe you were too busy on Instagram destroying people's lives,” I hiss at her, my voice dripping with ice.

    “Elijah,” Hadassah calls, stopping Iris from speaking. “Iris would've seen them if they went through the front. Maybe the house has a back door or something and they used it. They could be in the woods, for all we know,” and to Iris, “Let's call Lilith and ask her. Could I use your phone?”

    “No, you can't,” says Iris, slipping it out of her pocket. “Something's happened to it. I was Live and all of a sudden, it just went dark. It won't cone on.”

    Hadassah's eyes widen. “The same thing's happened with mine. I was playing Scrabble and it just...went off.”

    “You were playing Scrabble on your—?” I start but a glare from her silences me.

    “What about yours?” Iris asks me. “Does it still work?”

    I narrow my eyes at her before fishing my phone out of my jeans. I push the on button. It doesn't come on. I push again. It had a full battery. I didn't even touch it since I got here.

    What the fuck?

    “Welcome to the club, I guess,” mutters Iris with a lackadaisical look that I want to punch off her face.

    Hadassah's panting. I can feel her panic somehow. “You okay?” I ask.

    “Yeah,” she breathes. “Yeah, I'm okay.”