Project Paper Doll: The Trials Read Free Page B

funeral home and cremated “by mistake,” a discovery that would be made months or years from now. Or never.
    Or maybe Laughlin or Jacobs’s lackeys, whomever they’d charged with cover-up duties, had gone old school and simply buried him in a grave that some early-morning hunter or jogger
would stumble over one day.
    My stomach lurched, and I rocked forward to my hands and knees, the imagined scene pictured too clearly in my head, the white of his shirt, now dull and dirtied, wrapped in tatters around
bones.
    Bile rose up my throat. I coughed and choked it out, bright yellow on the pristine white floor.
    “So, see?” Rachel asked, watching me, satisfaction heavy in her expression. “I’m not the only one who’s selfish. You got Zane killed, and you won’t even help
his family and those of us who really cared about him say good-bye.”
    Her words struck deeply, where I was most vulnerable. Because she was, after all, absolutely correct. I might not know where Zane’s body was, but I was definitely the reason he was
dead.
    “Screw you, Rachel,” I said, wiping my chin and glaring at her through my tears. “I hope you get everything a real person like you deserves.”
    “Girls, girls,” Dr. Jacobs said in a scolding tone, catching both of us by surprise.
    He stood at the top of the steps behind Rachel, having emerged from the private elevator or perhaps even the observation room behind my cell. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care.
    Rachel stood up immediately, scooping her bag up from the floor and slinging it over her shoulder. Then her hand shot out toward him, palm up. “Cash,” she said flatly.
    His smile was tight with irritation. “Good afternoon to you, my dear,” he said. “Manners do still count for something, you know.” But he reached into the pocket of his
white lab coat to remove a silver, or more likely platinum, money clip.
    “Yeah? How about you save your lectures for the grandchild you didn’t try to have murdered?” She paused for a moment, pretending to think, tapping her finger against her mouth.
“Oh, wait…there’s just me.”
    Rachel was holding tight to her grudge. Not surprising. Dr. Jacobs had once thrown her into my cell, hoping she’d annoy me enough that I’d kill her and therefore meet the entrance
requirement for the trials. When a family member, the only one who seems to really care about you, is willing to have you killed to prove the worthiness and ability of his science
experiment—namely, me—that’s probably not something you get over quickly or easily. Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that he was still pretty much all she had.
    Dr. Jacobs paused counting out hundred dollar bills to give Rachel a sharp look.
    “You know, if you’d just give me access to my trust fund, we wouldn’t have to go through this,” she said. “You bribing me to talk to your toy, me pretending not to
hate you.” She waved her hand in an airy gesture.
    “Not until you’re eighteen,” he said with a weary air that suggested this was a conversation that had taken place multiple times in various iterations.
    I pushed myself to my feet to snag the roll of toilet paper from my bathroom—a toilet, sink, and shower set up in the corner of the room behind a privacy curtain that was more of a
suggestion of such than the real thing.
    I wanted, if at all possible, to get the floor cleaned up before Jacobs noticed. But I forced myself not to rush; that would surely draw his attention faster than anything.
    “I could hire a lawyer,” Rachel continued, snatching up the money he held out and shoving it into her bag.
    “Not one that’s better than all of mine,” he shot back. “It’s untouchable for the next fourteen months, Rachel. Get used to it, please.”
    “Whatever. I’m late to meet Cami,” she said, spinning off in a huff.
    I mopped up the floor as Rachel stomped up the stairs, her heels cracking loudly on the tile.
    “I’ve already made your excuses for