Two Can Play At That Game

19.

"Oh, my god."

Brooklyn stared at Diana's body with a horrible fascination. Her body wasn't totally rotting, like she had thought it would be, but it wasn't necessarily in good condition, either.

Serena was currently in the corner, throwing up her dinner from earlier, while Brooklyn was just staring. She had done this. Facts about everything involving Diana whirled in her head, like a tornado of revelations. The only thing adding up was why Chris had this address.

Well, Brooklyn knew why he had the address. It was so that he knew where the body was. But how did Chris know where Diana's body was? Why was he keeping it a secret? She felt as if she knew the answer, but she just didn't want to admit it to herself. 

Tears pressed her eyes as Brooklyn realized that her whole relationship with Chris was a lie. He had played her. The worst part was, she knew that she deserved it. Hell, she thought she deserved much worse. But that didn't mean that it hurt any less.

"What now?" Serena choked out from her corner. Brooklyn glanced behind her shoulder and saw that Serena was facing the wall, leaning against another hanging carcass.

"I don't know," Brooklyn replied, surprised at how steady her voice sounded. She saw Serena tense. "I'm going to call Lacie and Elena and tell them what we saw."

As Brooklyn pulled her phone out--still staring at Diana's body--she slowly slid her hand across the screen and slowly tapped her fingers, entering in her password. All her moves felt robotic and stiff, even to herself.

She clicked on Lacie's name and brought the phone up to her ear, wincing at how loud the automated rings were.

"Hey, where are you?" Lacie asked, her voice filling the room.

"Is Elena with you?" Brooklyn said, ignoring Lacie's question. She couldn't focus with Diana's body angled towards her, so she turned towards Serena instead, trying not to look down at the vomit on the floor that was stinking up the whole room. As if it didn't smell awful before.

Lacie yelled something that Brooklyn couldn't comprehend, but a few seconds later Lacie spoke again. "Okay, she's with me now. You're on speaker."

Brooklyn cleared her throat, preparing to rattle off her discovery. But in the few moments she took for herself, she realized she was paralyzed. She wasn't able to move. She heard Lacie and Elena's voices chorusing words together, but she couldn't understand what they meant. Her hand was in the air, holding her phone up, but the only thing she could really focus on was the fact that Diana's body--which Brooklyn had not seen for over a month--was sitting right behind her.

Serena ambled over and gently pried the cell phone out of Brooklyn's hand and held it up to her own ear. "Hey, it's me. So, uh, we found something..." She spoke about how Brooklyn found the address in Chris's room and how they had gone to investigate. Her voice went up an octave when she got to the part about the body.

"What now?" Elena asked. Serena put the phone on speaker, when she finished explaining what had happened.

"I think it's time we go to the cops," Serena slowly replied, risking a glance at Brooklyn who had just shaken herself out of the shock.

Taking a deep breath, Brooklyn looked back at Serena. "First, I need to know why Chris did all this," she said. By 'all this' she meant Chris being X. Sure, nothing specifically linked him to being X, but it was clear to Brooklyn that he was. Why else would he have Diana's body? In her heart, Brooklyn knew that Chris never cared about her. It physically hurt her--a deep aching pain in her chest--realizing that the whole past month was all a lie. Every kiss, word, touch. A lie.