A gasp came from inside, but she was on the fourth floor, and the chances of Candy bolting out the window were not good. And, if that’s the route she chose, then a hell of a lot more was going on here than anybody suspected. When the door opened ever-so-slightly, with a chain still across it, Candy looked out through the crack, saw Kate, and immediately started to cry.
“Yeah,” Kate said, “time to talk to me.”
The woman opened up the door and let her in. With tears running down her face, Candy slammed it shut behind her and immediately put the chain back again.
“So, you want to tell me what’s going on?” Kate gave the small dorm room a quick look around. It was barely big enough for one person let alone a live-in student, but it was pretty normal college quarters—a bed, a desk, what looked like a bathroom attached, which meant Candy had a private room. Kate turned and looked at the young woman, and Candy collapsed on the bed, bawling. “Come on. Talk to me.” Kate pulled out the chair from the desk and sat down.
“I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
Kate heard that phrase, and yet, knowing who she was talking to, she said, “I presume you’re not being literal with that phrase.”
The young woman looked at her, as if her world had collapsed. “I really love him,” she said.
Kate’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted was to have a heart-to-heart discussion over a schoolgirl crush. “I can see that. I get it.” When Candy didn’t show any signs of calming down, Kate sighed, got up, and grabbed a box of Kleenex off the desk, then sat down beside her. “Here. Start with this.”
Candy snatched several out of the box, shoved them against her face, and proceeded to bawl into them.
“If you’re not talking to me here,” Kate said, “I’ll have to take you down to the station.”
At that, the woman bolted to her feet, and, the tears still streaming down her face, she stared at Kate, as if her world had completely cracked apart.
“So, sit yourself back down, get a grip, and talk to me.”
With that, she sagged into the bed and sobbed a few more times, but it was obvious the onslaught was slowing down. “They wanted me to do it. I didn’t want to.”
“They wanted you to do what?”
“Push her over.”
At that, Kate stopped and stared at the young woman. “Push who over?”
“A woman on a bike,” she said. At that point, she bawled again.
Kate reached over, grabbed her hands, and pulled them away, along with the balls of Kleenex, all pressed against her eyeballs. “Before you do damage to your eyes, talk to me,” she said, her voice sharp.
Candy took several long deep breaths. “I’m not like them,” she cried out. “They do things, and they don’t care. They don’t seem to feel any guilt. They don’t care about anybody else. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Did you push somebody over?”
She nodded. “Yes. But not the one they wanted me to.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Kate said, “but you pushed somebody over?”
At that, she started to cry. “And I feel terrible about it.”
“So, why did you do it?”
“They wanted me to.”
“Why did they want you to?” she asked.
“Just a lark. They like picking on people. Particularly on those not perfect, like them.”
“So, why are you even with them?” Kate asked, looking at her. “That’s hardly your style.”
“No, it really isn’t. But, when you get into a group like that, it just seems like there’s no other choice. They get you all twisted up, so, if you want to be with them—be one of them—you have to do what they say. And he was my boyfriend. They were all doing it, so it seemed like you have to do it too.”
“So, what are they all doing then?”