She was so caught up in it, lost in her own head and lulled by the hot safety of the sun, not to mention people on the streets, that she forgot not all the dangers came at night in Morganville. The first warning she had, in fact, was the low rumble of an engine, and then she was being knocked off-balance and stumbling against the sun-heated finish of a van door, which slid aside.

She was being pushed from one side, pulled from the other, and before she could do more than yelp, she was in the van, bodies were piling on top of her, and the van door slammed shut on the sun. She slid on the carpeted floor as the van accelerated off, and heard whoops and laughter.

Girls’ laughter.

Somebody was kneeling on her chest, making it hard to breathe; she tried to twist and throw her off, but it didn’t work. When she blinked away stars she saw that the person on top of her was Gina, looking freshly made-up and fashion perfect, except for the sick gleam in her eyes. Monica was kneeling next to her, smiling a tight, cruel little smile. Jennifer was driving. There were a couple of other girls in the van, too, ones she remembered from the basement confrontation at the dorm. Apparently, Monica was still recruiting, and these two had made the cut to Advanced Psycho School.

“Get off me!” Claire yelled, and tried to bat at Gina; Monica grabbed her hands and yanked them over her head, painfully hard. “Bitch, get off!”

Monica punched her in the stomach, driving out what little air she had, and Claire whooped for breath. Gina’s weight made it incredibly hard to breathe. Could you kill somebody like this? Smother a person like this? Maybe if the victim was small…like her…

The van was still going, taking her farther and farther away from safety.

“You,” Monica said, leaning over her, “really pissed me off, fish. I don’t forget things like that. Neither does my boyfriend.”

“Brandon?” Claire wheezed. “Jeez, at least get one with a pulse!”

For that, she got punched again, and this time it hurt bad enough she started to cry, furious and helpless. Gina put a hand around her neck and began to squeeze. Not enough to kill her, just enough to hurt and make it even harder to gasp for precious little air.

They could keep this up for hours if they wanted. But Claire thought they probably had a lot more in store.

Sure enough, Monica reached in her pocket and brought out a lighter, one of those butane ones with a long, bright flame. She brought it close to Claire’s face. “We’re going to have a barbecue,” she said. “Roast freak. If you live, you’re going to be hideous. But you shouldn’t worry about that, because you probably won’t live, anyway.”