Rating:

Mature

Category:

F/F

Fandom:

Jennifer’s Body

Relationship:

Jennifer/Needy

Tags:

cannibalism, canon divergent, demonic possession, gore, minor character death, yuletide, yuletide 2020

Stats:

Posted on:

2020-12-25

Words:

7,531

Smoke fills the air, fills Needy’s lungs. All she can feel right now is Jennifer’s hand in hers, small and dry, skin and bone. The only thing running through her head right now is getting out of Melody Lane, getting her and Jennifer out of Melody Lane—never mind the creepo band and the weird, self-satisfied way the lead singer had smiled when the fire started.

She brings Jennifer into the bathroom, crawls through the window, helps her out. Jennifer is—her face is blank, all her life-force focused on clutching Needy’s hand that the bones in Needy’s fingers might break.

“Jen?” Needy asks quietly.

Jennifer looks at her—and then:

“Thank god you guys are alright, I’ve been looking everywhere for you two.”

It’s the frontman of Low Shoulder. Drink in his hand, looking way too put together, like playing at a dive bar that catches on fire is something that happens to him every day.

There’s barely a scorch mark on the guy. “Listen, it’s dangerous out here, you wanna head some place safer like my van?”

“What?” Needy says, not really hearing herself. She can barely process what’s happening, the fire, Jennifer’s shocked silence.

Low Shoulder guy crouches down. “I’m in survival mode right now,” he says, “and I want us to get to a familiar place. And right now I feel like that’s my van.” His eyes are on Needy, but he’s definitely talking mostly to Jennifer.

“Okay,” Jennifer says quietly.

It’s the first word she’s said since—since the fire. Needy watches her worriedly as Low Shoulder guy says, “Oh great, are you in shock?” He puts his drink in her hand. “Have some of that.”

Jennifer responds automatically, putting the glass to her lips. “No,” Needy says, but Jennifer gulps it down, coughing a little when she pulls it away.

“Great.” The frontman of Low Shoulder pulls her up by the hand and starts guiding her away. “Let’s go to the van.”

“Okay,” Jennifer says, words slurring. “I wanna go to your really cool van. Needy, let’s go see his van.”

Needy feels like her control is slipping—that Jennifer’s slipping away. “But we have the Sebring,” she tries, even as her feet follow. “We don’t need to go to the van, Jen, can we just get out of here?”

“Needy, just—”

“Okay, okay, hold on.” Low Shoulder guy turns to where Needy has been following. “We don’t have a lot of space, Limited Too, so I’m not sure if you should even come with us. Why don’t you go back to your little Sebring while we take care of Jenny here?”

Something rises in Needy’s throat; whatever it is, she knows that leaving Jennifer alone with these guys is not the right thing to do. “I’m coming with,” she says, beginning to climb into the open van. “I’m not leaving her alone.”

Low Shoulder guy manages to tug her out. “She won’t be alone,” he says, releasing her as soon as she’s out. “What’s your name again—Nina? You can go home, Jenny’s gonna be just fine—”

“Needy,” Jennifer says suddenly.

They all turn to look at her.

“Needy can come,” Jennifer says, looking at Low Shoulder guy. “Right?” Then, back to her, “You should come.”

“I’m coming,” Needy affirms.

Low Shoulder guy looks between the both of them. The rest of the band is watching them as he flounders. “Alright,” he finally says, and Needy gets back in, helping Jennifer behind her.

---

Up front, Needy can hear the band talking in low voices to each other.

“What are we gonna do, we didn’t…”

“Do you think she’s… too?”

“Maybe that…”

“… double the… and fortune…”

She and Jennifer are shelved at the very back of the vehicle, shivering next to each other. Jennifer more than her, that blank shock still on her face. Needy wonders what’s running through her head, if it’s the crunching of bones under size six Skechers from Target, screaming through the uproar of the flames.

She puts her hand on Jennifer’s knee. “Hey,” she says. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Jennifer looks at her. Closes her hand around Needy’s again.

Needy clears her throat; the more the band talks in hushed voices to themselves, the more being here feels like a bad idea. “Hey,” she says loudly. “So like, where are we going?”

The frontman—Nicholas? John?—says from where he’s driving, “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” It sounds like a suggestion, but something in his tone makes a cold feeling creep under Needy’s skin.

“I’m just wondering,” she says, louder, trying to not let the fear come through in her voice. “Since we’re in here with you guys and all.”

“Are you guys rapists?” Jennifer asks suddenly.

The band glances between each other. “God, I hate girls,” the frontman complains, as Needy looks around the back of the van. The lights around the back are dim, but she can still read the books that have OCCULT emblazoned at the top, another with WITCHES, weird rituals and scribbles on pieces of paper marked by something that looks like charcoal. The low music gives Needy an eerie feeling.

Jennifer’s hand tightens in hers.

“You’re not virgins, are you?” asks one of the band guys in the back with them.

Needy is quick to answer. “Yes, yes we are,” she says, even though she and Chip have fucked, like, twice. “We don’t—I’m saving sex for marriage.”

“And I’ve never done sex,” Jennifer adds. “I don’t know how, so you guys should find somebody who does—”

Needy can hear the quivering in her voice, and her chest tightens. This was such a bad idea, but she can’t even find it in herself to be mad at Jennifer about it. Just this weird, freaky band, with their weird culty van decorations—

The van stops; Needy and Jennifer glance at each other, and Needy nods. As soon as one guy from the back begins to make his way out (the bassist, Needy thinks), Jennifer kicks him in the back with a heeled boot, and they both sprint out of the van, getting away as fast as they can.

But Jennifer shrieks, and then there’s another guy clutching Needy back. “Where are you guys going?” laughs the frontman; when Needy looks, he’s holding Jennifer tight in his grasp. “We’ve got a waxing moon tonight, you guys, just like the ritual said.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Needy screams, as she and Jennifer get pulled away.

The band doesn’t answer. Jennifer’s sobbing as they get pulled into a clearing—the falls, Needy realizes, with one band member carrying her by the torso and another by the legs. Jennifer gets bound and gagged by herself, but Needy—Needy gets tied to a tree.

After the band does some stupid talking among themselves—which Needy doesn’t pay attention to, trying to make eyes at Jennifer that it’ll be okay, even though she hardly believes it herself—the frontman, whose name seems to be Nikolai, puts his hand to his chin as he looks at her. “Now what’re we gonna do with you? We only needed one virgin.”

“You can—you can sacrifice me,” Needy pleads. “You can let Jennifer go, just don’t hurt her—”

Nikolai laughs. “Do we look like idiots? We’re not gonna let Miss 867-5309 go after all this.”

“Miss—what?”

“Oh my god, are you not cultured? Maybe we should sacrifice you instead,” Nikolai says. Then smirks. “No, we shouldn’t. You look like a nice girl, you probably have a boyfriend, right? And you thought you’d save sex for marriage, but then one day he was really horny and you guys were making out and then he said something seductive, like—” he drops his voice into a low whisper “—let me put it in you.”

“N-no,” Needy says, even though it’s a weirdly accurate account of what happened.

“No, I don’t buy that you’re a virgin,” Nikolai says. He seems like he’s mostly talking to himself now. “But we have to do something with you.”

He digs something out from his backpack—a couple of pieces of paper, with one of those tacky 90’s website headers that says SATANIC RITUALS 101 in unmoving glittery red at the top. “Hm,” Nikolai says. “Sacrifice the body… silver dagger… blah blah, could backfire on the caster of the ritual and bring deep misfortune instead.” He looks at Needy again. “Well it looks like we need to be the ones to do the actual sacrifice,” he says, mostly to his band. “But how about we let her say the words?”

“Won’t that mean she’ll get what she wants, instead?” asks one of the band members.

Nikolai smirks. “Not if we kill her afterwards,” he says. “Satan probably like, knows who actually wants to do the ritual, and we’ll still do it.” He takes out a gilded silver dagger from his pockets. “Like that property of communion or whatever it is.”

“Property of commutation,” another one says.

“Okay, nerd,” Nikolai snorts.

He hands the papers to Needy where she’s bound against the tree. Even through the firelight on her glasses, Needy’s eyes blur. She’s crying, she realizes.

“Read.” Nikolai’s suddenly in her face. “You do know how to read, don’t you? You’ve got these glasses for a reason.”

“I—” Needy tries to hold back a whimper in her throat.

“Or don’t, and then we can kill you first,” Nikolai says, and ignores the way Jennifer’s scream gets louder through the gag. “And then we can sacrifice Jenny all by ourselves.”

“No, no, I’ll—” Needy swallows. “I’ll read.”

She looks at Jennifer, and Jennifer looks at her, but there’s no way they can get out of this. Dread fills her stomach.

“‘We come here today,’” she says, voice shaking, “to sacrifice—”

“Louder!” says Nikolai.

“We come here today—” and Needy’s crying fully now, can’t stop, “—to sacrifice the body of Jennifer, from Devil’s Kettle. With the deepest malice—” Nikolai raises the dagger above Jennifer’s body, and Jennifer’s shrieks are getting louder and louder, “—we deliver this virgin unto thee.”

The moment the blade meets Jennifer’s body, Needy feels nothing else—nothing but the rage, the call to get Jennifer out of there. Nikolai is stabbing at Jennifer, but Needy twists against the cloth they have her tied up with. It feels like nothing now when she breaks free, grabs at Nikolai, the dagger, elbows him in the face.

“What the fuck!” Nikolai shouts, but Needy’s punching at him, pushing him and the rest of the band away from Jennifer, dragging the dagger out of her body and thrusting it blindly at him. Nikolai goes down with a yelp, and now it’s in Needy’s hands. She barely knows what she’s doing, fighting to break Jennifer free, thrusting at the band members who’re grabbing at her, punching and kicking whenever she feels hands at her wrists and ankles.

Her throat hurts, ears are ringing, someone’s screaming—it’s her, as she knocks each member of Low Shoulder unconscious, with her thrashing limbs and dagger slashing blindly at them. She might take an eye or an ear or that place on your elbow that you made people touch when you were seven and giggled, “Ha, you’re touching my weenis!” but it’s not long until she realizes it’s just her, hovering over Jennifer and panting, each member of Low Shoulder sprawled on the ground by the fire.

Jennifer is still torn up. Needy sees her blood everywhere, on the down jacket. “Oh god,” Needy says. “Jennifer.” Her eyes are closed, unconscious.

Needy leans in, tries to hear her heartbeat.

There’s nothing—and then Jennifer suddenly inhales, eyes flashing open. Her pupils go thin and weird as she meets Needy’s gaze.

Then, they dilate back to normal.

“Needy?” Jennifer says in a small voice.

“I’m here.” Needy exhales with relief. “I’m alive. Safe. And you are, too.”

Jennifer doesn’t say anything as Needy cuts off her binds properly this time. It’s hard to see in the dark, but maybe the wounds aren’t as bad as she thought, even though she had seen Nikolai go all Benihana on her with the knife.

None of Low Shoulder stir, as Needy helps Jennifer up. “So,” she says, looking down at their twitching bodies, the blood under her fingernails. The night feels surreal; nothing has settled in yet. “What do we do now?”

Jennifer’s rubbing at the rope burns on her wrists. “I’m hungry,” she whines.

“That’s fine, that’s.” Needy’s mind is going a million miles per minute—do they just leave them here? Call the police? Dump their bodies in the bottomless whirlpool? “My mom has a chicken at home, she bought it from the Boston Market, I’m sure you could—”

“Not chicken,” Jennifer says, then inhales. Over the open wounds of the Low Shoulder members, saliva gathering on her tongue. “Hungry,” she whimpers again.

Needy exhales through her teeth.

“Well,” she says, looking down at the unconscious band. “Well. You don’t need my permission.”

And Jennifer changes—neck extending, eyes alien, barely human. Her mouth grows to the size of her head, massive fangs sharper than the dagger in Needy’s hands as she crouches over the band.

Needy can’t look away as they awaken again, as Jennifer tears at their insides before they can scream, as the light dies from their eyes, as the light returns to Jennifer’s.

---

The walk back to Needy’s place goes by in a silent daze. It’s quiet and dark when they get back, a comfort settling into her bones as she goes back through the night. Melody Lane. The fire. Low Shoulder. Satan.

When she looks at Jennifer in the dark hallway, she can’t help but say, “You know, it’s weird but I have a feeling things are gonna be alright.”

“You’re not the one who had to eat, like, five pounds of human flesh,” Jennifer grouses. “Now I’m gonna have to wash this shit off. And, like, how many carbs was that? I am going to be so mad if I gained like two pounds tonight. Low Shoulder was not worth it.”

“I can help you wash it off if you want,” Needy says helpfully.

They’ve reached her room; Jennifer’s already stripping out of her clothes. “It’s fine,” Jennifer says. “What’re you going to do, come into the shower with me?”

Needy starts, because she used to—they used to take showers together, up until they were ten and their mothers made them stop because they said it was too weird. Needy hadn’t understood at the time but now she does, but—the prospect of showering with Jennifer had been nice and secretive when they were young, and it hasn’t stopped.

“No,” she mumbles. She takes her pajama pants out of her dresser. “You can shower then, I’ll—I’ll just go to sleep. Shower in the morning.”

“Okay,” Jennifer sing songs as she leaves the room.

Alone in her bedroom, the dark feels like another world. Where none of the craziness of the night has happened. But Needy doesn’t quite like it, feet bare on her carpet, trying to remember what life was like before. She changes into her pajamas, crawls under her covers, tries to go back to sleep.

She hears it when Jennifer crawls into bed with her. Jennifer and her weird, human-eating, sacrificed-to-Satan body.

Needy’s heart eases, and she drifts into unconsciousness.

---

The next day at school, everyone’s talking about what happened at Melody Lane—and if Needy hadn’t followed Jennifer into Low Shoulder’s van, she’d be right with them.

“So tragic,” whisper their classmates.

“God, Senorita Erickson,” their teachers mourn.

“How did the fire even start?” someone asks Ahmet from India.

“Even the band died in the fire,” a kid says in the hallway, between class periods. Never mind that no one can find the band’s bodies.

In chemistry, their teacher gives a little speech in memoriam of everyone who died in the fire. Needy and Jennifer exchange glances; then Jennifer grabs Needy’s hand under the table, holds it.

“Lesnicki, this is nothing to smile about,” Mr. Wroblewski’s voice says suddenly.

Needy tries to tamp her smile down, but doesn’t succeed. “Sorry, Mr. W,” she says, and squeezes Jennifer’s hand back.

---

“So,” Needy says, watching Jennifer chew her lunch. “You can still eat regular food?”

Jennifer sighs. “What even is real food anyway, Needy? What the man tells us is food? We should be broadening our horizons, anyway.” She stabs at a piece of her meatloaf.

Needy eyes her own lunch. “I’m not eating boys with you.”

Jennifer rolls her eyes, then looks down at her lunch tray. “It’s fine, as long as you don’t narc on me,” she says. “Boys are stupid, it’ll be easy to—”

“Wait.” Needy holds her hands up. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I’ll need to eat people regularly now.” Jennifer looks around at the cafeteria, the brain dead teenagers eating their brain dead food. “But obviously you won’t want to be any part of it, because it’s ‘wrong,’ and ‘murder’ and ‘eating people.'” She uses her fingers to make the air quotes.

“Hey, wait,” Needy says. “I never said that I’d—”

Jennifer’s read on her isn’t wrong. But it’s just—they went through that together. Needy’s the one who said the words. Doesn’t that count for something?

“Besides,” Jennifer continues. “You have a boyfriend, anyway, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“What does Chip have to do with anything?”

“He doesn’t,” Jennifer says sharply. “I’m just saying, I know you don’t want a part of this anyway, so I’m giving you an out.”

Needy pokes at her food. She remembers the way blood had flown freely from the band’s bodies, guts and insides now buried under the dirt in the forest. Remembers the adrenaline in her veins as she bit and scratched, the hilt of Nikolai’s knife in her palm, the satisfaction of watching Jennifer tear them apart, piece by piece.

Jennifer may have changed last night, but Needy’s still human, still flesh and bone. She hasn’t changed at all.

“What if I don’t want an out?” she says. “What if I want to help?”

---

Their first victim is Jonas from the football team. Jennifer says she doesn’t need her help with him because he’s a boy, but it’s still Needy who goes up to him in the hallway and tells him, “Jennifer Check wants to meet you on the football field after school.”

“Jennifer Check?” he says, bewildered, but she walks off.

And it’s a little bit different this time, watching Jennifer say shit like how Craig would’ve wanted her and Jonas to be together, finger at Jonas’s letterman jacket, kiss him soundly. Something like jealousy burns in Needy’s gut as she watches from behind the trees; probably because talking to boys, seducing them, comes so naturally to Jennifer. When Needy and Chip had started dating, Needy hadn’t even thought of him that way—one day they were friends, the next day Chip was saying, “I, um, like you, you know. In that way,” and Needy had been so elated, because for once this was a boy that didn’t talk to her just so that he could get with Jennifer, that when he asked if she wanted to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with him that weekend that she said yes.

But Chip’s hardly on her mind now when Jennifer tears Jonas’s throat out, sensual hands turning predatory, on him like an animal and tearing through his flesh like it’s made of paper. He doesn’t scream because by the time he registers what happening, he’s dead already, his lump of a heart staining the insides of Jennifer’s mouth. Blood and guts are all over Jennifer’s body; in the sunlight, she’s never looked more alive.

When her eating slows, when the only sound in the forest is her slow chewing and the woodland creatures gnawing on the leftovers of Jonas’s bones, Needy steps out. Watching it happen again, almost feeling the warmth in her mouth herself, makes her—dazed.

Blood is smeared all around Jennifer’s mouth.

“We can’t just leave him here,” is what Needy finally manages.

Jennifer looks up at her.

“We have to, like.” There are a few shovels in the garage that her mother uses for the garden. “Get rid of the body, y’know. Evidence.”

“Oh, right, evidence,” Jennifer says, rolling her eyes. “Because I’m really worried about that when I’m fucking a cadet.”

“Well if we leave him here it’ll draw attention,” Needy points out. “And when’s the last time you fucked him, anyway?”

“Aww, little Lesnicki’s all grown up, dropping f-bombs,” Jennifer teases. “You don’t have to sound so jealous, you know, if you really wanted him you could break up with that cute boyfriend of yours.”

“I don’t want—” Exasperated, Needy grabs Jonas’s two dead arms and hoists his body up. “Can you help me get this out of here? I don’t think Mom’ll notice if we decide to do some gardening.”

Jennifer must get the hint, because she just rolls her eyes again. “Fine. But you are so doing my laundry after this.”

All things considered, Needy doesn’t think it’s much of a sacrifice.

---

Jonas Kozelle is declared missing two days later; the coneflowers flourish in her mother’s garden. The school mourns the loss of their quarterback, but when their chemistry teacher brings it up, Jennifer says, “Who knows, maybe he skipped out and got out of this shithole of a town.”

“Check,” their teacher scolds, and Needy tries not to giggle.

After school again, in Needy’s bedroom, Jennifer sits her down on her bed. “So like, yesterday when I was home, I felt like… weird. Like, you know, when you kiss a boy for the first time?” she says, and Needy nods. “My body was buzzing, like, everywhere. So I was like, what’s up with that?”

And it’s all fine until Jennifer takes out a lighter. Needy’s eyes widen.

“Jen—”

“No, it’s fine.” Jennifer grins. “I tried it out yesterday. Watch this.”

She flicks the lighter on, the little flame a small spot of heat in Needy’s bedroom. Sticking her tongue out, she brings the lighter close to her mouth—

Needy starts, but then Jennifer clicks off the lighter. Her tongue is burnt grey for a second—then fades, back to red, pink, like nothing had disturbed it at all.

“Isn’t that cool?” Jennifer says. “I’m like, a god.”

“Whoa,” Needy breathes.

She’s kept—Nikolai’s stupid dagger, the one that she held that night. It hadn’t felt right to try to get rid of it, so it’s been living in her bedside for the past couple of days.

Now, she takes it out. Jennifer’s eyes glitter with curiosity as she takes it out of its sheath.

“What’re you thinking?” Jennifer asks.

Needy swallows. “Could you—I dunno, if. You could like, cut, to see—”

“Oh my god,” Jennifer laughs. “Do you have, like, an emo fetish? You wanna watch me cut myself?”

“No!” Needy says hurriedly, even though it feels like a lie on her tongue, not far from the truth. “It’s just, like. You can’t get hurt, right? Or you just can’t burn? We should know what the limits of your body are.”

Jennifer rolls her eyes. “Alright,” she says, then eyes the dagger in Needy’s hands. Then back to Needy’s face. “You do it.”

Needy’s throat feels dry. “What?”

“You wanna see what happens when I get stabbed? You stab me.”

Okay. “Okay,” Needy says, pretending she isn’t getting lightheaded at the idea. “I—okay. Where do you want me to stab you?”

“What, are we playing doctor now?” Jennifer reclines on Needy’s queen-sized quilt. “You can pick.”

“What if I pick your heart?”

“Then we’ll see what happens when you stab my heart.” Jennifer rests her hands on her stomach like a real corpse, a real undead thing.

Needy kneels next to her. With the dagger in her hand, Jennifer at her mercy, she feels—

Blood rushes up and down her veins, her very own, very beating heart.

She gives no warning, thrusts the dagger into Jennifer’s exposed thigh. She sees it when Jennifer winces in surprise—but that’s all it is, a line of red that heals, disappears when Needy pulls the blade out.

“Wow,” Needy whispers.

Jennifer is smug as she sits back up. “Awesome, right? I’m like, unkillable.”

“That is,” Needy swallows, “so cool.”

Jennifer’s smile is her Needy smile, nothing like the ones she uses to seduce boys. It’s the one that makes Needy’s chest flutter, and Jennifer says, “Who should I eat next?” and that makes Needy’s chest flutter too.

---

There are signs to Jennifer’s new body. After Jonas, they agree to leave it for a few weeks to not rouse suspicion; but Jennifer’s hair grows limp, heavy bags under her eyes, skin turning sallow and pale. Needy watches as each day passes and the life disappears from her eyes until she’s a shell of a person—she wonders, if she presses an ear to Jennifer’s heart, if she’d hear anything.

Colin Gray from English is the next boy. When Needy tells Jennifer this, Jennifer laughs—”You do have an emo fetish! What, like, do you think it’d turn you on if I ate him?”

“Nothing about this turns me on,” Needy snaps, though something in her mind is calling her a liar. Not about Colin, though, who’s just an afterthought who she talks to sometimes.

And it’s easy to get his attention, too. They’re walking back from class when Needy casually says, “So, what do you think of Jennifer Check?”

“Jennifer Check?” Colin’s eyelinered eyes go wide. “Uh, I dunno. She’s hot, I guess? Blew everyone on the football team according to the rumors.”

“I don’t care about the rumors,” says Needy. “I want to know what you think of her.”

“Honestly? I don’t think about her that much,” Colin confesses. And at Needy’s face falling, he goes, “What? Was this like, some sort of girl test or something? Was I supposed to say that I think she’s like, the gnarliest person ever?”

“No, I just.” Needy sighs, reaches to the corners of her mind. “She keeps talking about you, you know, about how she thinks you’re interesting—”

“Are you kidding?” Colin stops in the hallway. “That’s gotta be bullshit.”

“No, it’s true,” Needy insists.

Colin blinks at her. “I don’t believe that,” he says, and this time real disappointment settles in Needy’s heart. “Lesnicki, are you for real? Because like, I know you have a boyfriend, and if Jennifer Check asked me out I wouldn’t say no, but you’re the one who—”

The pieces are starting to fall into place in Needy’s head. “Wait,” she says. “You’re interested in me?”

A small blush creeps over Colin’s face. He nods.

Needy can work with that. “Okay,” she says, and smiles.

---

She texts Jennifer the change of plans: anxiety @ the circus wants 2 come home w/ me. will bring u dinner l8r. Jennifer doesn’t reply, but Needy doesn’t worry. Jennifer’s right; boys are easy.

She brings him up to her room, under the guise of doing homework together, even though he looks excited for more than just homework. Her mom’s out; Needy thinks of her garden, the begonias beginning to sprout.

As they settle on her bed, Colin asks, “So what’s up with you and your boyfriend then? Chip, right?”

“Oh, we’re taking a break,” Needy says, casually. The lies come easy to her, flows off her tongue. “We were having problems because he’s just so… vanilla in bed, you know? And I want something more interesting, more,” she looks Colin up and down, “freaky.”

Colin swallows. “Yeah, I-I can do that. I can do freaky.”

Needy smiles. “Good,” she says, then turns back to her English homework. “Hey, can you switch on the lamp? I can’t see that well.”

“Sure.” Colin turns around, to her nightstand. “Wait, where’s your—”

He falls with a blow to Needy’s stitched quilt, a gift from her grandmother when she turned thirteen. The back end of the dagger is warm in her palms as she gets up off the bed to get the rope stashed under her bed.

---

When Colin wakes up, Needy and Jennifer are hovering above his face. “What—” he tries to say, but there’s something rough and bruising in his mouth.

“Before you ask,” Needy says, “this isn’t a sex thing.”

He tries to move his limbs, but can’t from where they’re tied to Needy’s bed.

Jennifer sighs. “You’re gonna make me do your laundry after this and get me back for Jonas, aren’t you.”

“I’m not,” Needy says. Then: “But it would be appreciated.”

“Maybe just for you,” Jennifer says, and her skin changes, face changes—eyes all golden, white, mouth stretching as she bares her mouth of all fangs.

The last thing Colin Gray sees is Needy watching from the corner, playing with the dagger in her hands as Jennifer tears his ribs out.

---

And again the girls come back from Mrs. Lesnicki’s garden, dirt covering the blood on their palms. Even though Mrs. Lesnicki’s smiling at them out in the garden, she tuts at the soil on their hands and knees.

“Showers, both of you,” she says.

“Yes, Ms. L,” Jennifer says innocently, as Needy mumbles, “Yes, Mom.”

And again, separate showers, even though Needy thinks of bringing the dagger in with her. She doesn’t, just touches herself under the hot steam; the thought of Jennifer outside, now full of Colin’s organs and guts and heart, is even hotter than the shower water. She comes to the image of Jennifer’s mouth dripping with blood, burned into her brain.

After they’re both done, after Jennifer persuades both Needy’s mom and her own to let them have a sleepover even though it’s a school night, they’re back in Needy’s bedroom, clean sheets and all, rope stuffed back under Needy’s bed. Needy’s braiding Jennifer’s now-glowing hair like they used to do when they were nine, the radio on low in the background.

Then Jennifer starts, turns to Needy, eyes lighting up. “Hey,” she says.

Needy smile at her. “Hey.”

Jennifer makes grabby hands. “Gimme my phone,” she says.

It’s late, in that hour where the local radio is doing song requests but still plays a bunch of songs until someone actually calls in. As the radio host begs people to call the number again, Jennifer dials in her phone; and then Needy actually hears Jennifer’s voice on her radio when she speaks.

“Hi, um, I was in Melody Lane when it burned down,” Jennifer says in a high-pitched innocent voice.

Needy watches with her eyes wide. “Jen—”

Jennifer shushes her and giggles.

“Oh no, that must’ve been so traumatic,” says the radio host.

“Yes, it was profoundly traumatizing,” Jennifer says solemnly. “But the, um, the band who played there. Low Shoulder? They played this song called ‘Through The Trees,’ and I was wondering if you could play it and dedicate it to them. Since, y’know, they died in the Melody Lane fire too.”

“Of course,” says the radio host. “Anything for Memory Lane and for you—what was your name again?”

“Anita Lesnicki,” Jennifer says.

Needy reaches for her and fights for the phone. Jennifer pulls away and grins.

“But my friends call me Needy,” she says.

“Alright, Needy, this one’s for you,” says the radio host. “And for Melody Lane, and Low Shoulder, I guess—here’s Low Shoulder’s ‘Through The Trees.'”

“What was that for?” Needy asks, as Jennifer closes her phone with a smug grin. As soon as the opening notes of the song plays, she turns off her radio. “Those guys almost sacrificed you to Satan!”

“Yeah, but you sacrificed me to Satan instead,” Jennifer replies.

“And why were you—you aren’t me—”

“Take a chill pill, Lesnicki,” Jennifer says. “C’mon, you know how everyone loves a good tragedy boner. And this’ll make you more interesting for all the boys. For Chip.” She smirks.

Right. Chip, her boyfriend. “I’m perfectly interesting,” Needy says.

Jennifer rolls her eyes. “Well I know that. But now the world will, too,” she says, and pets Needy’s cheek. “Now take my hair out and show me how to French braid.”

---

The next day at school, Chastity comes up to her in home room. “I think what you did for Low Shoulder was really cool,” Chastity says as Needy tries to remember what exactly she did for that stupid band. “I heard on the radio last night, when you requested for that song to be played—”

“Oh,” Needy laughs half-heartedly. “That song’s so annoying, right?”

“No!” Chastity shakes her head indignantly. “It’s like, the best song ever. You’re kind of a hero, you know, thinking about them and what they could’ve been if Melody Lane hadn’t burned down.”

Needy blinks at her. “Right.”

“You’re not bad, Lesnicki.” Chastity bumps their shoulders together. Needy feels more and more confused. “I thought you were kind of a weird lesbo, but you’re like, a chill lesbo.”

“Right,” Needy says again, and Chastity walks away.

And it doesn’t stop there—throughout the day, people keep coming up to her in the hallway, telling her about how thoughtful it was that “she” requested Low Shoulder’s song last night. “How many people were listening to the radio?” she wonders, when she sits with Jennifer at lunch.

Jennifer grins. “A lot,” she says.

She looks much better now that she’s eaten Colin, whose absence hasn’t been noted yet—his car is abandoned on some side street, and when his mother called the Lesnicki household last night, Needy had told her that she watched him drive off into the night.

“What did I tell you?” Jennifer continues, and Needy can’t stop the smile spreading across her own face. “More interesting. Right, Chip?”

Chip’s sat down with them at lunch. He eyes Jennifer skeptically. “She’s always been interesting,” he says, pecking Needy on the mouth.

It tastes like nothing, feels like nothing compared to the rush of everything she gets with Jennifer now. “See?” she says to Jennifer.

Jennifer sneers. “Couples,” she says, and picks up her tray. “Excuse me while I go barf.”

Needy knows she doesn’t need to eat real food anymore, but it still stings. “Hey—” she starts.

But in a flash, Jennifer’s gone.

“Don’t worry, she’ll probably find someone on the football team to make out with,” Chip says, shoveling mashed potatoes in his mouth. “Anyway, I’m glad you called in that song last night. You’ve barely talked to me since the Melody Lane fire, I was beginning to worry about you.”

“I’m fine.” Needy watches as Jennifer tosses the remains of her lunch in the trash can, leaves the cafeteria. She eats on autopilot, hopes Jennifer really isn’t looking for a football team member to make out with. Or eat without her help. “It was just profoundly traumatizing.”

“I’d imagine,” Chip agrees. “So, did you meet Low Shoulder before the fire? Were they cool?”

---

Since “Needy’s”—but really Jennifer’s—radio song request, “Through The Trees” begins to play everywhere. The town’s already held a candlelight vigil for everyone who died in the fire but now they hold a separate one for Low Shoulder, the high school choir singing an a cappella arrangement in their memory. It kind of becomes a hit, actually, to Needy’s annoyance and Jennifer’s amusement.

“Not again!” she says, when she’s driving them back from a trek in the woods; her mother’s garden is beginning to run out of discreet space for boys’ bodies. “I’m so sick of this song—”

“Yeah, the production’s real bad, the bass is way too low in the mix,” Jennifer says without inflection. “Hey, are you going to the Spring Fling?”

“Of course,” Needy answers, without thinking. “Why?”

Jennifer’s filing her nails from the passenger seat. “Chip already asked you?” she asks, not meeting her eyes.

“Well, no, but we’re probably going. You know, boy-girl things.” It sounds stupid leaving Needy’s mouth. She laughs awkwardly.

“Boy-girl things,” Jennifer repeats, then pouts. “Remember when we used to play boyfriend-girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Needy says, and rolls her eyes. “You always made me be the boyfriend.”

“Well, I can’t be the boyfriend! Do I look like I’d be the boyfriend?”

“Do I look like I’d be the boyfriend?” Needy says pointedly.

Jennifer eyes her up and down. Needy tries not to shiver. “More than me,” she says, then grins. “Do you and Chip ever roleplay in bed? Y’know, swap roles? Where he asks you to pin him down and pretends to be an innocent virgin boy that you seduced? ‘Oh Needy, I’ve never done this before, please go easy on me.'” She says it in a high, breathless voice.

Needy laughs, despite herself. “My boyfriend does not sound like that,” she says. “And we don’t roleplay, we’re very—”

“Boy-girl, Spring Fling, I know.” Jennifer goes back to filing her nails.

---

But back in Needy’s room, she’s turning the dagger over in her hands, feeing the gilded patterns on the hilt. Jennifer’s in her shower again, and she’s—feeling empty, like Jennifer always says. But not because she needs to eat, to kill.

There’s no prettier sight than Jennifer smiling at her with blood in her teeth.

When Jennifer comes back from her shower, warm and clean, she says, “Needy, I’m borrowing your shirt, okay?” in an old summer camp t-shirt of Needy’s and low underwear—

And Needy feels it, knows it, can’t help it when she’s off her bed and has her mouth on Jennifer’s, fingers tangled in her own shirt. Jennifer gasps—but then she’s kissing back, warm and wet and good. Needy thinks if she concentrates hard enough she can taste the blood still in her mouth.

She pushes Jennifer down onto the bed, keeps kissing her, hands roaming her breasts and hips and thighs. “Jen,” she whispers, and Jennifer gasps as Needy touches the edge of her underwear, lust coiling through her veins, meeting at their mouths, overtaking both of them more than anyone’s blood ever has. Jennifer twists and makes low sounds beneath her as Needy kisses her neck, bites at her jaw—

“Needy, Needy,” Jennifer says, but doesn’t push her off, pulls her in like the moon with the tide. Needy sucks bruises and Jennifer moans; Needy’s fingers slip beneath her panties and Jennifer arches her back.

Needy wants to feel where she’s hot, her slick core, so she does—her fingers feel long inside Jennifer, never-ending. “Oh god,” Jennifer whimpers, and Needy kisses her throat. Needy’s thumb strokes faster, trying to reach her inside, like Jennifer eats the guts of all those boys. “Fuck, Needy—”

She comes, tight around Needy’s fingers. Needy kisses her through it, her orgasm hitting along with Jennifer’s without a stroke or a touch. She’s no longer craving the taste of blood—nothing but Jennifer.

It takes a moment for Jennifer to come back to herself; but when she does, she looks better than anything Needy’s ever seen before. “Oh my god,” Jennifer says finally, as they lie side by side in Needy’s bed. “See, this is why you were always the boyfriend.”

Needy laughs.

“Does this mean you’ll let me eat you?” Jennifer says.

Needy nudges her. “You don’t mean that.”

“Call me out for it, why don’t you?”

Needy breathes in through her nose. Next year is senior year; in the beginning of this school year, the world had felt so big, and Devil’s Kettle had felt so small. Now, it doesn’t matter how big or small any city is, as long as she has Jennifer beside her.

“So,” she says. “Spring Fling.”

Jennifer’s eyes darken. She begins to get out of bed. “You just had to ruin the mood—”

“No, wait, wait, Jennifer, come back.” Needy grabs her hand, pulls her back down. Tangles their fingers together, even as Jennifer pouts. “It’s not what you think, I just had an idea. And I think you’re gonna like it…”

---

“Smile!” says Mrs. Dove.

Across from her, Needy, Chip, and Chip’s little sister smile at the camera. Then they pose like Charlie’s Angels, with Needy and Camille back to back; then the three of them with their arms around each other, Needy in the middle.

“Well, aren’t you so cute,” says Chip’s mother when they’re done. “And I love your dress.”

Needy looks down at the big pink horrible thing her mother made her wear. “Thanks, Mrs. Dove,” she says.

“I can’t wait until I can go to school dances!” says Camille.

“Yeah, it’s a blast.” Chip shares a smile with Needy over his sister’s head. “Especially the punch.”

Needy snickers and Mrs. Dove scolds her son, but lightly. “Make smart decisions, young man,” she says.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be driving,” Needy assures her, and dangles her car keys.

As they make their way out of Chip’s house, Mrs. Dove calls, “Have fun!” as his sister shouts, “Bye-bye!”

“This is gonna be so lame,” Chip says when they’re on the highway. “But at least it’s you and me, huh?”

“Yeah, Jennifer can’t come,” Needy says with a sigh.

Chip raises an eyebrow. “Nobody asked her out?”

“No. She’s pretty bummed about it, actually.” Needy glances at the clock on the dashboard. “Actually, do you mind if we stopped by her place so I can check on her really quick?”

Chip looks hesitant, but he still says, “Sure.”

They make their way down the quiet road—but then Needy veers left, off to the side. “Needy?” Chip asks, but Needy says, “It’s fine, it’s just a shortcut.”

She and Jennifer hadn’t decided where beforehand, just somewhere indiscreet; the bond in her mind is telling her it’s a building, not just some random place in the woods. She drives and drives until they come to an abandoned pool house.

“Jennifer lives around here?” Chip asks nervously.

“Yeah,” Needy says, and parks the car. Jennifer’s inside, she can feel it. “C’mon, let’s go in.”

“Needy, wait—”

Chip grabs her by the hand. Needy turns around to him, under the moonlight.

“What?” she asks.

Chip’s eyes dart around. “What’s going on?” he says. “What happened with Jennifer? Why are we here?”

Needy smiles at him. “Don’t you trust me?”

Slowly, Chip nods.

Needy rearranges their hands so that she’s the one holding him instead. “Then don’t worry about it,” she says. “Come on.”

The door to the pool house is already unlocked. Needy guides them through the hallway, bright pink dress catching on the dead leaves on the ground. They make their way to the main room, with its dirty linoleum flooring and bright, luminescent white lights.

Jennifer’s sitting at the edge of the pool, in a swanlike white dress. “Jen,” Needy says, unable to keep the affection out of her voice.

Jennifer turns, smiles. “Needy,” she says, and then her grin turns sharp. “Chip.”

“What—” Chip tries to let go of Needy’s hand, but Needy clings tight. “What’s going on?”

“Just a bit of Spring Fling pregaming,” Jennifer says; she can take the reins now. The dagger is in Needy’s purse, but she doesn’t think they’ll need it—boys are easy, and Chip is easy.

“You brought alcohol?” he asks nervously.

Jennifer laughs. “Oh, we’ll be having better,” she says, and Needy drops Chip’s hand. He’s frozen under Jennifer’s gaze as she stands up, steps towards him. “I’ll be having better.”

---

“Through The Trees” is playing over the speakers, an international hit. People visit Devil’s Kettle, the remains of Melody Lane all the time, to remember what Low Shoulder could’ve been.

But Needy’s never wanted fame or fortune, never wanted what Chip could’ve given her; he’s buried now, along with tattered pink lace and white cloth, as insignificant as Low Shoulder’s bodies next to him. And all she wants is what’s with her now under the shitty school dance lights, the former Snow Queen and her best friend, in their sweaters and jeans, dancing to this stupid awful song.

One day, the search parties will find the band’s bodies, Chip’s body, long after Jennifer and Needy have moved out of this godforsaken town, finding boys, eating them, with a fresh bite on Needy’s shoulder. One day, Colin and Jonas will be declared legally dead, and the flowers in Mrs. Lesnicki’s gardens will grow over and over again until the flesh and bone becomes one with the dirt.

But right now, after their shower back home together, after they scrubbed all the blood and dirt and guilt off until it was just them under the warm water, Needy laughs. “I hate this song so much!”

And all she’s ever wanted is right here when Jennifer kisses her and says, “Me too.” Her grin is brighter than the silver of a BFF necklace.