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Praise for FOR PRAISE

HELL FOLLOWED EDwith WITHUs US Hell Followed A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year A William C. Morris Award Finalist A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A YAVA Award Nominee A Booklist Editors’ Choice A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book Named to the ALA Rainbow Round Table Rainbow Book List “Hell Followed with Us bristles with energy and intensity, written with a kind of gleeful ferocity. . . . A long, sustained scream to the various strains of anti-transgender legislation multiplying around the world like, well, a virus.” —New York Times —N

' “This cinematically gory apocalyptic horror not only delivers high stakes, fast-paced action, and fraught romantic drama, it engages critically with the intertwining impacts of colonialism, capitalism, and White supremacy. . . . A gloriously ferocious and scorching blaze.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

' “Using evocative and visceral language, compact storytelling, and inventive worldbuilding, White delivers a transformative depiction of apocalypse through a queer lens. This debut is a moving and timely tale of queer perseverance, offering hope for those fighting for the right to exist without apology.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

' “[An] astounding and exhilarating debut. . . . This fast-paced adventure is chaotic in the best way, featuring diverse and relatable characters that readers will fall in love with, despite their flaws, and a heartrending love story that reminds us that humanity seeks comfort even in the most painful of times.” —Booklist, ist, Starred Review

“Rippling with righteous fury. . . . Hell Followed with Us is, truly, like nothing else you’ll read this year, and its deft balance of destruction and rebirth offers a satisfying, if far from saccharine, end.” —Paste Magazine

PRAISE FOR

THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH A Stonewall Honor Book A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year A Booklist Editors’ Choice A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book ' “Via precise, intentional prose, White crafts an unsettlingly horrific tale that boasts a rich and fully realized world, propelled by a champion of a protagonist whose determination to fight for his right to survive is both uplifting and empowering.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

' “White brings such raw agony, power, and desperation to his complex and layered characters that it is impossible to not feel immediately sympathetic and deeply invested in their survival.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Starred Review

' “Redefines the concept of a ‘visceral’ book. . . . Parallels to the dangerous pressure to conform (especially for trans or autistic teens) and the importance of being seen and understood are masterfully shown. . . . Readers, take care.” —Booklist, Starred Review

' “White wields prose like a scalpel, cutting deep and spilling guts with gruesome precision. . . . Visceral and vindicating.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Following on the heels of his game-changing debut, Andrew Joseph White returns with a biting and brilliant gothic horror that captivates from the first sentence. . . . Poised to become another classic of the genre.” —Kay Frost, Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA

“A tender, bleeding wound of a story. Andrew Joseph White has ruthlessly sliced through the facade of our society, and invites readers to plunge their bare hands into the grisly and alluring darkness within.” —Bri Evans, West Side Books, Denver, CO

PRAISE FOR

COMPOUND FRACTURE A Michael L. Printz Honor Book Instant New York Times bestseller Instant USA Today Bestseller Instant Indie Bestseller A Kids’ Indie Next Selection A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year A Bulletin Blue Ribbon Recipient A Paste Magazine Best YA Book A Children’s Book Council Young Adult Favorite & Teachers’ Favorite ' “Tremendously suspenseful . . . The hopeful, satisfying ending emerges from community collaboration. Unflinching and empowering.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

' “White’s latest is a stunning testament to the intertwining realities of politics and queerness, as well as community focused ideologies and the impact of those ideals in the face of oppression.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

' “This unapologetically gruesome story of a trans Appalachian teen channeling strength to preserve his family’s legacy amidst intergenerational trauma has the power to leave readers profoundly changed.” —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

“Brutal, battered, blood-soaked, and full of rage. Compound Fracture’s got one hell of a heart to it, buried under layers of scar tissue and chips of bone. It’s about family and love and the people you want to fight for.” —Alice Scott, Bards Alley Bookshop, Vienna, VA

Published by Peachtree Teen An imprint of PEACHTREE PUBLISHING COMPANY INC. 1700 Chattahoochee Avenue Atlanta, Georgia 30318-2112 PeachtreeBooks.com Text © 2026 by Andrew Joseph White Jacket illustration © 2026 by Evangeline Gallagher All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. Additionally, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems, nor for text and data mining. Printed and bound in June 2026 at RRD, Dongguan, China. Edited by Ashley Hearn Book design by Lily Steele PeachtreeBooks.com First Edition 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 ISBN: 978-1-68263-822-4 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: White, Andrew Joseph author Title: You’re no better / Andrew Joseph White. Other titles: You are no better Description: First edition. | Atlanta : Peachtree Publishing Company Inc, [2026] | Audience: Ages 14 and Up | Audience: Grades 10-12 | Summary: Morgan, a seventeen-year-old trans boy with autism, investigates his serial killer father’s fi nal unidentified victim in a desperate attempt to prove he is not like him, only to be forced to confront the dark truth about his own past when a classmate threatens to expose it. Identifiers: LCCN 2025052929 | ISBN 9781682638224 hardcover Subjects: LCSH: Serial murderers | CYAC: Self-actualization | Fathers and sons | Autism | LCGFT: Novels | Mystery and miracle plays Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W4418 Yo 2026 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025052929 EU Authorized Representative: HackettFlynn Ltd, 36 Cloch Choirneal, Balrothery, Co. Dublin, K32 C942, Ireland. EU@walkerpublishinggroup.com

ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE

LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR Before we begin, I have two quick questions. One: How many times have you heard the phrase What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? And two: When you hear it, do you agree? Or do you look away and grind your teeth? Take your time. There is no right answer. Sometimes, what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger. Sure. That can be true. But sometimes, what doesn’t kill you just hurts. Sometimes you’ll carry the hurt for years, and growing around it is exhausting and frustrating and makes you want to scream. And sometimes you can’t even start to heal because the world keeps opening the wound. That’s what this book is about. To that end, You’re No Better contains discussions and/ or depictions of the following: graphic violence and torture, child abuse, sexual harassment and assault, grooming, mental health struggles including intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation, alcohol abuse, transphobia, ableism, and physical and psychological self-harm. If you think this book will hurt more than it’ll help, and you need to put it down, that’s fine. I get it. This is a rough one. But I swear: This is a story where the messed-up, spiteful, jagged trans kids make it to the end, and have the rest of their lives to get better. Yours, Andrew

For the angry kids. —A. J. W.

Podcast

THE GORE GOONIES Oh Shit Media Corp.

About Welcome to the uncensored true crime podcast that asks tough questions, says the quiet parts out loud, and gets real. Hosts Chance, Chase, and Chris are here to give you every gory detail—if you can handle it. Visit our merch store for shirts, hats, and exclusive vitamin supplements.

Episodes > EPISODE 78: Graham Nathaniel Slaughter Explore the sadistic crimes of the most brutal (and ironically named) serial killer of 21st-century America, from his start as the Charlottesville Strangler to his later identity as the DC Ripper . . .

EPISODE 77: The Photo Gauntlet Part III We’ve saved the best (or worst) for last—can Chris keep his lunch down through some of the most gruesome crime scene photos we’ve ever . . .

EPISODE 76: 1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick Look, we may not like cats, but this is going a bit too far. Let’s get into the sordid homosexual affair between this disturbed killer and his victim . . .

See all >

Reviews > '&&&& Oh my god, is some decency too much to ask??

goregirl91

CHAPTER

1 A new podcast episode about my dad dropped this morning. A true crime group calling themselves the Gore Goonies— named for the segment where they show each other crime scene photos until one of them chickens out or vomits—posted their latest episode at dawn. By eleven o’clock, it’s cracked the top ten most popular episodes in the US, nestled between NPR and Alpha Male Bootcamp. When I press play, I’m one of thousands. Inside this penthouse condo, one of the Goonies is saying now, was a torture chamber. I’m looking at a picture now and it’s just— it’s sickening. Knives, chains, bins of medical equipment—there’s a bedpan and a dirty mattress in the corner, and—I can’t even describe what I’m looking at, man. Across the cinder block waiting room, Mom is arguing with a prison guard. She, or Dad, or someone, didn’t fill out the correct form to allow the documentary producer into the

Andrew Joseph White

visiting area. Or didn’t fill it out correctly enough, or whatever. “Ma’am,” the guard keeps saying in his exhausted West Virginia drawl, “ma’am, we got strict visitation procedures,” and Mom is talking over him: “I’ll fill it out now. Are you listening? We drove four hours. I have a pen. Give me the damn form.” The documentary producer shoots me an awkward half smile from the plastic chair beside me. I don’t smile back. Then he gestures for me to take out one of my wireless earbuds, as if we have something to discuss. We don’t. Mom points behind her, to him. “He’s with the news.” That’s a lie, unless we’re counting hack journalists as news anchors now. “I don’t see no cameras on him,” the guard sighs, clearly not paid enough for this shit. “Sir! Come up here, please.” He does, while the lengthy description of my father’s torture implements—I don’t even know what half the things in this photo are. Is that a cattle prod?—is interrupted by an ad for a dog-treat subscription box. I’ve heard it all before. After so many podcasts, YouTube video essays, and police procedurals that definitely weren’t stealing from the headlines, you realize there’s only so many ways to rephrase the facts of a case. But the facts of the case aren’t the point. The point is how these people talk about us: the opinions they project onto the victims, the cops, Mom, me. Me especially. When they talk about me, or turn the camera to an actor who’s supposed to be me, I get stuck on it. For days. Weeks, sometimes. I listen to it or watch it over and over, until I have it all but memorized. As if I’ll finally understand it better the next time around.

You're No Better

When I told my last therapist about this habit of Googling my family and painstakingly cataloging the results—I had to throw her a bone, keep her busy—she said it was a form of selfharm. I disagreed. If I wanted to hurt myself, I would. Whatever the producer says must be good enough, because the guard sulks into a back office to fetch his superior. “See,” Mom calls after him, “was that so hard?” And when the Gore Goonies finally get around to mentioning me, it’s not even to describe my bloody clothes in the evidence locker or the lifeless testimony I gave in that courtroom. It’s to ask if my father treated me like the girls he kept in that penthouse. If he ever forced me to do anything. If I wanted it. If I wanted to grow up to be like him. Shut up, we have sponsors! You can’t say that! But they’re laughing, and they didn’t edit it out, so they don’t mean it. She was ten! I don’t know how long it takes for Mom to snap her fingers at me. “Morgan,” she’s probably saying. I pop out an earbud to make sure. “Morgan, let’s go.” Finally. I turn off the podcast, hand my phone to another guard by the door, and step through the metal detector into the United States Penitentiary, East Early.

† Mom and the documentary producer talk as we’re herded through security. Filming schedules, interview procedures, a blur of last-minute contract negotiations. “I know it’s happening fast,” the producer is saying, “but if we move quick, we could wrap

Andrew Joseph White

postproduction before next year’s film festivals hit full swing.” I want to eavesdrop but I can’t focus. USP East Early is a stark-white cinder block cavern: The lights are too bright and the AC isn’t loud enough. One of the guards frowns at my skirt like I’m breaking the penitentiary’s dress code for visitors, again. I pick at the corner of my thumbnail until a little red strip reaches toward my knuckle. Then we’re taken past the visitation floor to the Box. The sign calls it “no-contact visiting,” but it’s the Box. A coffin-sized room cut in half by bulletproof glass, us on one side and the prisoner on the other, connected by a black corded phone. The first time Mom shut me in the Box with her, I had such a bad meltdown that I started hitting my head against the wall. The correctional officer on chaperone duty unlocks the door. “If you need water,” she says, “or the restroom, you’ll need to be escorted—” “We know how it works,” Mom huffs. We step inside, and the door closes. Dad smiles at me. My thumb is bleeding now. I tuck it carefully in my fist. I know the door didn’t lock and trap us in here, but my brain doesn’t believe it, not with Dad so close. He shows his perfect teeth and his eyes crinkle, and thank god I don’t look like him. I look like my mother. I have her dark red hair and upturned nose, and when we’re mad, our upper lip twitches the same way— twins separated by twenty years, she used to say. Dad cradles the phone to his ear. Hi, he mouths, even though nobody has picked up the receiver on our side to hear him. I don’t move. Neither does the producer.

You're No Better

Mom, though, arranges herself perfectly in one of the two stools in front of the glass, lifting the phone with a flourish. “Hello, dear. Good to see you again.” The producer offers me the second stool, but I don’t take it. Dad says something, his voice an almost-intelligible drone through the phone speakers. Mom narrows her eyes at him. “I told you,” she says, “it’s a documentary. A docuseries. Four parts. Or six, depending on who we can get for interviews.” The producer leans over to me. He’s in his late thirties, over twice my age. I don’t like how close he is. “You think he’ll work with us?” he asks me. I suck on my teeth. Mom told me to play nice. I say, “Yeah. He’s probably bored in here.” The producer nods like I’ve given him some great insight into the complex, twisted mind of a monster. He probably thinks there’s some genius machination in Dad’s head; that people like Dad are a species apart from us, a kind of devil brought from Hell to walk the earth. But there isn’t and they aren’t. Serial killers aren’t smart, or clever, or superhuman. They’re just evil, and cops are bad at their jobs. Mom turns in her seat and holds the phone out to me. Her lip twitches. “He wants to talk to you first,” she says.

† From the ages of nineteen to forty, my father, Graham Nathaniel Slaughter, kidnapped, tortured, and killed fifty-one women and

Andrew Joseph White

girls across Virginia and the greater Washington, DC, area. In the early days, it was nothing fancy. Run-of-the-mill brutalizations in his college apartment. But by the time I was born, he’d fashioned a prison out of a waterfront penthouse, where he would trap girls and keep them for weeks at a time. He’d take them apart, piece by piece, until they were rotting with sepsis and he put them out of their misery. When I was ten, I watched his fifty-first victim die, and I brought the police right to her body. Even with a still-warm corpse on the floor, the trial—Did he murder this woman or not?—was —was a nightmar nightmare. This is what happens when the accused is a well-respected Capitol Hill lawyer. Between filing errors, thrown-out evidence, and general bullshit delays, it stalled for months; three judges in a row backed out due to “previous professional involvements” with the accused. Dad’s defense litigator, a buddy of his from law school, claimed it was manslaughter, that Dad was simply a man with unusual tastes and it was all a consensual game that got out of hand. A mistake. And we don’t punish men like Dad for mistakes, do we? He would’ve gotten away with it, too. Because it’s true. We don’t punish men like Dad. For mistakes, or for anything at all. The only problem was me. The little girl on the witness stand saying, I don’t think she was the only one. I had no proof of this, of course. My childhood autism diagnosis, combined with the worrying results of my psychiatric evaluation, forced the jury to consider whether the only real witness was misinterpreting a string of sadomasochistic

You're No Better

extramarital affairs or making it up for attention. Besides, who would believe a cold, dead-eyed child over a handsome Capitol Hill attorney? And why did details change every time I told the story? Did I see other women or not? Were they hurt or not? Dad’s side of the courtroom pulled my psych eval and called me a manipulative liar. Mom joined in. I’d spent my whole life lying, so why would this be any different. Then they found the hard drive of photos and, well. I almost preferred it when people thought I was a liar. Being a victim is worse. On the other side of the Box, Dad gestures for me to sit and put the phone to my ear. My reflection in the glass vaguely overlaps his and, sure, I don’t look like him, but we have the same empty eyes. When we smile, neither of us does it correctly. Behind me, Mom is whispering to the producer again. I do as Dad asks. “I don’t know anything about the documentary,” I start. Dad wrinkles his nose playfully. “Isn’t a father allowed to say hello to his daughter?” I don’t reply to that. I made the mistake of coming out to Mom as trans last month—I thought she might support me for the Instagram clout, like she does with the whole “autism mom” thing—and got a screaming fit for my trouble. Figures she wouldn’t tell him, but it’s weird to have it confirmed. Faced with my silence, Dad changes course. “It’s been a while, Bug. Your mother told me you’d gotten yourself on the warden’s shit list. Got yourself banned for a few months. What’d you do?” I shrug. “Dress code.”

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“And?” I wore a too-short skirt and, when called out on it, took a page from Mom’s book. Threw a fit. Really caused a scene. “I told the CO to go fuck himself.” “That’s my girl,” he says, even though I got myself banned on purpose. I was doing better better, too. I think. Away from him. “What do you want?” I ask. He looks at me like I’m being incredibly rude, rushing through the conversation like this. “Are you on board with the documentary?” “If I want the money, I have to be.” “Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad.” Mom slips into my peripheral vision. She’s got her phone out, camera pointed at us, and when my eyes turn to her, she waves me away. Don’t look, she’s not saying, you’re ruining the shot. It’s supposed to be candid. I glare. Who gave her permission to bring a phone past security? Mom flicks my attention away again. My teeth grind, but I raise my chin, tilt my head, give my best angle on instinct. “I thought you’d be happier about it,” Dad admits. “You’re getting the cash a full seven years early. That’s a deal if I’ve ever heard one.” I guess. Mom made it clear: As long as I cooperate with the documentary, I get my trust at eighteen instead of twenty-five. Half a million dollars. Enough to get out of here. Start testosterone, buy a tiny condo in Chicago or Seattle, invest the rest.

You're No Better

But actually getting that money means pretending to be a girl for a year. And playing nice with the documentary crew. And not losing my shit in the process. I’m not sure I can do that. “Terms could be better,” I mutter as Mom adjusts the phone to get a better shot. Dad tsks at me. “You’ll be fine.” “Morgan,” Mom says, squinting at her screen. “You really should’ve run your makeup by me before we left the house. The camera makes you look like a whore.” I snatch the phone out of her hand and whip it at the wall. It misses her head by inches. Mom squeals. The producer recoils. The phone crashes against the cinder block and clatters across the tile floor, half the screen a wreck of dead pixels and shattered glass. The pretty rose-gold case sits around it like a broken eggshell. A moment of silence. My heart knocks against my ribs. We all stare at the mess. Except for the producer, who is looking at me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. Mom whirls to bare her teeth at me and says, “You bitch.” And Dad laughs. It’s not a manic laugh. Nothing stereotypically serial killer. Only a gentle chuckle. But I can hear it through the receiver anyway, even with the phone dangling from my fingers. “Get out,” Dad says. The grainy voice is difficult to understand—I have to stare hard at his mouth, pick apart the shape of his lips to confirm what consonants he’s using. Dad points

Andrew Joseph White

at Mom, then the producer. “Bellamy, take your little cameraman and get out.” “But—” Mom protests. “Give me a moment with my daughter.” Mom doesn’t move. The muscles in her neck stand out. A bitter taste rises in the back of my throat. But after a second, she stoops to pick up the pieces of her phone, and the producer knocks on the door to explain that they’ll both be stepping out for a moment, and suddenly they’re gone and I’m alone. I don’t want to be alone with Dad. When Dad mimes for me to put the phone back up to my ear, I do as I’m told. My fingernail tears at the wound on my thumb, turning it from a small red streak to a weeping mess. “You missed on purpose,” he says. A forgotten piece of glass glints in the unrelenting white light of the Box. The phone was a new model, one of those big solid ones, and it would’ve done real damage if it’d connected. I’m pretty sure the correctional officers can hear what we’re talking about. I’m pretty sure these phones are tapped. “Yeah,” I say. “I did.” Dad leans back to inspect me. “Why?” “I’m not stupid.” “Use a better word than stupid, upid, Bug. You’re not what?” Easy. Deep breaths. Watch the mouth, not the eyes. “I’m not shortsighted,” I say. “I know better than to injure somebody inside a federal prison, in front of witnesses, with my kind of record.”

You're No Better

“Would’ve taught her a lesson, though.” I don’t respond to that. “I saw the way you looked at her,” he says. “You wanted to hurt her.” “No.” “Don’t lie to me.” The problem is, he’s right. Mom has been afraid of me for as long as I can remember. When we argue, my father’s words come out of my mouth. When she’s drunk, she says she’s going to lock me up for good. She says she’s going to sign me over to the state so she never has to look at me again. And yes, sometimes I want to hurt her. Sometimes I feel like a cornered animal and the only way to escape is to maul whatever has me backed against the wall. A lot of the time, most of the time, that thing is her. Dad says, “For what it’s worth, you were so good at hurting people.” I close my eyes. I can’t look at him. I can’t do this. “You were a natural. God, if you’d just kept our little secret, I could have taught you everything. I could have helped you get away with anything.” He speaks slow and exaggerated, so I catch every word. “But you stuck me in here,” he says. “So when you finally make a mistake, I won’t be there to save you.” I hang up the phone.

CHAPTER

2 According to the autopsy report, the ofûcial cause of death of Dad’s final victim was strangulation. It was an easy call. Her throat was crushed in on itself, scraped raw where the rope took off the top layers of skin. She’d fought so hard she’d shattered her fingers, clawed until her nails splintered and came off in pieces. The night it happened, I was ten years old and there was blood all over my hands and the cops wouldn’t let me wash them. A mistake, Dad’s defense called it. Even with the back of her leg cut to the bone. After investigators found the hard drive, the entire East Coast breathed a sigh of relief. The DC Ripper had been found—Dad’s reign of terror was over. They matched cold cases to photographs by the pattern of injuries. Severed tendons, pulled-out teeth, empty eye sockets. A jury member would eventually say it reminded her of The Human Centipede; you know, what the mad doctor did to those people before sewing them together.

You're No Better

Anyway. A day and a half after our trip to USP East Early, it’s Saturday night, and I’m almost drunk at a house party. I nagged Alyssa until she brought me. She didn’t want to, but she gave in eventually. She said she burned up a lot of goodwill to get me through the door. “This might be good for you, though,” she admitted while she fixed her makeup on the Metro ride over. “Like, talking to people?” But now everyone else is in the living room, laughing and slamming mixed drinks made out of whatever Jenna St. Clair found in her parents’ stash, and I’m in the bathroom tearing up my hands again. My elbows are braced on the marble sink. I’ve got a toothpick jammed under my thumbnail and I’m digging at a speck lodged out of reach. I usually paint my nails—one of the only good suggestions I’ve ever gotten from a therapist, if I can’t see the dirt it can’t bother me—but the polish chipped and I didn’t fix it. I’m going to think this is blood every time I look at my hands and I can’t do that right now. Alyssa says from her spot perched on the edge of the clawed bathtub, “You’re going to have a meltdown.” I push the toothpick deeper. Pretty sure this is a torture technique. Bamboo shoots under the fingernails or something. “I’m not,” I say, as if that will make it true. Alyssa makes an unconvinced sound and pointedly looks away. I hate when she’s right. I thought this would be a good distraction. Wrecking myself with secondhand smoke and too much social interaction—anything to stop thinking about the broken phone, the producer’s eyes boring into the side of my head, Dad leaning in close to the bulletproof glass.

Andrew Joseph White

You were so good at hurting people. I was. I am. But there’s a speck under my fingernail, and it’s too warm in here, and Jenna St. Clair’s boyfriend said that if I make one wrong move he’ll call the cops, and I keep smelling the inside of the dead girl’s mouth under the weed stink. Finally, the toothpick catches the speck and wedges it unceremoniously free. A brownie crumb from the Trader Joe’s snack platter. Seriously? I drop the toothpick in the trash and turn on the water, scalding, to wash my hands. Outside the bathroom, the music slides from whiny straight-girl pop to lesbian eighties throwback, and Alyssa looks longingly at the door. She’s got her hair fluffed up and her best butch-bait outfit on, a pictureperfect femme-in-waiting with her crop top and pink corduroy overalls. “Jason won’t, like, actually call the police,” Alyssa says distantly. “You’re not doing anything wrong.” “I wasn’t thinking about that,” I lie. “I mean—if he calls, he’ll be the one who gets in trouble, he brought the weed—” “You don’t have to be in here with me,” I say, sharp enough that I almost sound like my mother. Alyssa takes a moment to let my comment roll off her, like she always does, and slides down from the tub to test the water temperature in the sink. “Jesus,” she says, and turns it down. “You’re going to burn yourself.” The way she’s looking at me makes my skin crawl. It’s the borderline pity she reserves for her sister’s own meltdowns, and

You're No Better

also her dad when he’s being particularly pathetic. Whatever. I turn off the water and flick my hands dry. “What happened during the visit?” she asks. She doesn’t have to do this. “Nothing.” “Morgan.” “It was fine.” Except it’s never fine. Visits to USP East Early make me crack. They put Alyssa and my school and my therapist—back when I had one—on high alert, waiting for the inevitable show of whatever mental illness they think I have at any given time. Something impulsive. Something violent. Like Dad. “Here,” Alyssa says, pulling a paper cup from the fancy dispenser by the sink and filling it with lukewarm water. “Drink this.” I do as I’m told and crumple the cup into a little ball. I’m timing my breathing and I can’t focus my vision and I think I’m rocking back and forth on my feet, trying to calm down. It’s not working. Look. Of the fifty-one victims, Dad’s last was the only body the investigators couldn’t identify. No DNA match, no identifying evidence, no missing persons report with her face. Her name in every document is Jane Doe, which is fitting—I don’t remember much about that day, but I do remember that she had big, beautiful doe eyes. Dad hadn’t gotten the chance to take them out yet. I breathe out, hard. It’s not usually like this. It’s not usually this bad. Usually I can manage, I was managing, I thought for a second that maybe I’d actually be able to keep it together and get my trust in a year and get out for good. But Mom had to drag me back to East Early and mess me up all over again. Like she always does. God, if Mom isn’t basking in the attention she

Andrew Joseph White

gets from trauma dumping about Dad’s crimes and my issues, she shrivels up into nothing. “Okay,” Alyssa says, “we should head out.” She grabs her phone to check the time. “It’s not too late; we can do the Metro if you want. I know you like the Metro.” I snap on instinct. “I’m fine.” “Oh, bullshit—” The bathroom door slams open. It’s Jenna St. Clair and her future-Republican-senator boyfriend, Jason. Her hands are up his shirt and they’ve both got that glazed-over crossfaded look. The boyfriend stumbles halfway through the door and then sees us. “Oh,” he says, suddenly far more sober than he was two seconds ago. “Shit.” But Jenna’s eyes get all wide with a mix of fear and excitement. “Oh my god, Alyssa, again?” Alyssa and I only hooked up once, but it’s all people think about when we’re in the same room. I might be locked in the closet, but Alyssa has been an out and proud trans girl for years now, and everybody acts like they’ve never heard of a trans lesbian before. Wait, they’ll say, does that make it gay or straight, like it’s any of their business. The music roars in. I can smell the hard liquor and chemical perfume and hair gel. I was panicking and now there’s other people in here and they’re looking at me and they’re too close and— I’m screaming before I even know what I’m doing. “Get the fuck out!” My voice shatters. Jenna flinches and her boyfriend steps in front of her and Alyssa grabs me by the

You're No Better

shoulders, pushes me back against the sink. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Learn to fucking knock!” “Okay,” Alyssa says, “okay, we’re leaving.” Jenna St. Clair whimpers. “I thought—” I don’t give a shit what she thought. They have to get out, get away from me NOW. I try to say that but the words don’t come out. It’s a guttural, sick-sounding wheeze. “We’re leaving,” Alyssa says again. “I’m so sorry.” Jenna’s boyfriend takes out his phone. “You have thirty seconds.” Severed tendons. Broken fingers. The rope around her throat and all the blood staining the penthouse carpet.

† Outside the condo building, in the crisp night air, Alyssa says, “You know, that’s her place. I don’t get why she and Jason couldn’t go to her own room instead of the literal bathroom?” Then: “What would he have even called the police for! It doesn’t even work like that. Not that he would know—” I don’t respond. Talking is difficult. Washington, DC, never shuts up, no matter how late it is. It’s almost midnight, and a big red bus hisses as it pulls to a stop; cars groan their way through the tangled Dupont Circle roundabout; someone honks and someone laughs loudly on their way home from a club. Two men in Commanders jerseys lean against the railing overlooking the Connecticut Ave NW tunnel, talking about their ailing mother next to a row of tents.

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The Capital City. Miles of gray concrete, flocks of annoying tourists, and every single person somehow works for either a defense contractor or a politician you personally hate. Alyssa walks me down the streetlamp-gold avenue toward the roundabout park, holding my hand like I’m a toddler at the intersection. I’m chewing on the scab of the hangnail I ripped up at USP East Early and staring blankly at her wrist. She’s wearing a pretty bracelet with a single pink bead. When we met during the trial—her dad is the former chief of police, Mom spent a lot of time at his house, etc.—I made her a friendship bracelet. She’d claimed she threw it away because boys don’t wear pink, but really she’d saved it, and years later the final surviving bead is threaded between designer charms. Friendship is a weird way to phrase this; whatever this is these days. Yeah, we hooked up junior year, but sometimes I look at her and wonder if we were supposed to be siblings. It would make more sense if we were brother and sister. We almost were. We should’ve been. Blood on the carpet, rope around the throat, if you’d just kept our little secret— Alyssa pulls me across the intersection before the light changes and sits me down on one of the benches encircling the park’s central fountain. “Here,” she murmurs. I don’t fight her on it. “I’m gonna get you home. Take a second, and then we can get you on the train. Sound good?” I manage five words: “Can I stay with you?” I don’t want to go home. Mom’s still pissed about the phone, even though she bought a new one this morning, and I’m trying to avoid her as much as I can.

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There’s a long silence before Alyssa responds, so I know what the answer’s going to be before she even speaks. “Leah’s had a bad day, too,” Alyssa says. That’s her sister. “I don’t think she’ll take it well if there’s someone else in the house.” If Leah was just a typical bratty preteen, I’d say she needs to suck it up, but unfortunately I understand the deep autistic distaste for people showing up at your house without at least forty-eight hours’ notice. “Okay,” I say. Alyssa stands in front of me in the dark, half illuminated by the streetlight, and I take one more deep breath. Everyone thinks I’m going to hurt them, and sometimes they’re right. Jane Doe’s blood drying on my hands—splattered across my shoes—heavy, reeking splotches soaked into my middle school uniform. The boy I put in the hospital freshman year. The therapist whose reputation I ruined. My hand around Alyssa’s throat. Mom’s shattered phone and splintered mirrors and broken plates. And now there’s going to be a documentary crew watching my every move. I saw the way the producer looked at me when the phone hit the wall, when Mom turned to scream at me. He was hungry. They’re all just waiting for me to lose it. Wouldn’t that be such a satisfying conclusion? I can see it now: the slaughter dynasty continues blazoned across the news tab of every social media site under the sun. I could have taught you everything. He needs to get out of my head. I can’t do this anymore. “Alyssa,” I say.

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She turns to me with an earnest blink. “Do you remember—” A stupid opener. Of course she remembers. “The last girl. With the . . .” I gesture across my throat. “You know. Jane Doe.” “Yeah?” She pops her hands on her hips. “Is this about the visit? I knew it.” I tighten my sweater around myself. “No. I told you, it wasn’t— it was fine. I was thinking, though. They never identified her.” Alyssa doesn’t react, visibly unsure of where I’m headed with this. On the other side of the roundabout park, a woman jogs on a late-night outing with her pit bull terrier. If she was in the city when the DC Ripper was active, the world must seem so much safer with him behind bars. When you finally make a mistake, I won’t be there to save you. Tendons, fingers, throat. If I can’t get out of the documentary, then I won’t give it what it wants. I am not Graham Nathaniel Slaughter. Yes, according to my psychiatric and criminal record, I am a dangerous child with a proven history of impulsive violence. Yes, that girl died, mutilated and afraid, while I watched. But I am not my father. I say, “I’m going to figure out who she is.” Alyssa says, shocked, “What?” But it’s too late. I’ve said it. I’ve made the promise, and it’s stuck in my teeth, and when I want something, Jesus Christ, I will burn through everything I touch if it means I’ll get it in the end.

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Graham Nathaniel Slaughter, Family Documentary in Works via Hexagon Productions By Rachel Simpson September XX, 20XX

EXCLUSIVE: Hexagon Productions, the team behind controversial documentaries such as Mother of a Monster: A True Story and Bloodsport 71, is teaming with wife of serial killer Graham Nathaniel Slaughter on a multipart docuseries about the family before, during, and after Slaughter’s monthslong trial. Production is currently underway on the series, which is described as a raw, real look into the family, “including exclusive interviews with Slaughter’s wife and daughter, among others, and information about the killer’s life that have never before been released to the public.”

Read more . . .

CHAPTER

3 It9s a bad sign when even the Washington Metrorail doesn9t calm me down. Red Line to Metro Center station, then Orange to Eastern Market—it could’ve been Blue or Silver, but Alyssa knows it needs to be my line tonight. Our Orange Line train is a 7000-series, the kind made by Kawasaki, and I ignore every available seat to stand by the electronic board wired into the wall, watching the station names blink past. I’m so overstimulated that my clothes hurt, but I don’t tell Alyssa because it’s always worse when people know. Federal Triangle. Smithsonian. Alyssa gets off at L’Enfant Plaza, which we call Le Infant as a joke on good days, to catch the Green Line to Navy Yard and her dad’s town house by the Anacostia River. She smiles when she says goodbye; I’m not sure I do. Federal Center SW. Capitol South. Home.

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† When I wake up Sunday afternoon, I know the crash is coming—tacky-mouthed, dehydrated, too warm—but that doesn’t mean I can stop it. I manage to avoid a meltdown, which I’m proud of. For safety’s sake, I stay firmly out of my mother’s orbit. It’s difficult, considering the narrow layout of our two-million-dollar town house, but manageable with practice. Through the walls, I can hear Mom in Dad’s office, which she’s taken over as a social media room. “Get ready with me for a weekend in DC!” I sneak food from the kitchen while she’s distracted; scrub my nails with acetone to repaint them maroon; lie in bed with the lights off; document the Gore Goonies episode in my catalog with the labels “nonfiction,” “podcast/audio,” “comedy,” and “assholes.” Still, I listen to it three more times that day. Do you think this shit is genetic? Should we be keeping an eye on this girl? Actually, she almost killed a kid a few years ago. There’s video of it somewhere. I’ll see if I can find it. And on Monday morning, Mom is angry before I’m even ready for school. While I brush my teeth, she’s stomping around downstairs, talking loudly on the phone, probably with a glass of wine. “Don’t you think you could’ve given me a little more notice?” I throw my makeup in my bag and slip outside while her back is turned. Winthrop Academy is a short Metro ride from the house— today the Green Line has a Breda 3000-series that’ll be retiring

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soon—and the packed rush hour car shudders as a Gore Goonie guffaws in my earbuds. She was ten! en! Then I’m slipping through the crowd and jaywalking across a busy street and school is right there: a glass-and-limestone monstrosity plunked on a busy street, wedged between a law office and a restaurant. I never use the front entrance, though. This early, you can’t. Everything’s locked up tight. Instead, I duck down an alley to the employee entrance, flash my school badge for the security camera that nobody ever checks, and jam in the door code. Winthrop is the kind of small private school that doesn’t believe in Individualized Education Plans or 504s for disabled kids. They think it ties them down or gets in the way of their potential or whatever. So I don’t have either. What I do have is free rein of the building. “This means you have a place to go when you don’t feel safe at home, instead of getting in trouble somewhere else,” the principal said to me as he scrawled the entrance code and alarm shutoff PIN on a scrap of paper. “But this comes with responsibility, Morgan. I’m putting a lot of faith in you.” So I don’t know why Principal Vincent Morris jumps and curses when he sees me in his office. Technically, he’s the one who let me in. “I need to put a bell on you,” he groans, dumping his fancy leather bag on his desk. “Or make a system for you to warn me.” I snort to signal my understanding that this is a joke. My last therapist—Dr. Terry Lý, her name was—said that I overcompensate for the deficits endemic to both autism and extensive childhood trauma by becoming socially and emotionally

You're No Better

hypervigilant, at the expense of making every social interaction overly draining and potentially retraumatizing. Whatever. “Anything to say in your defense?” Vincent continues. I shrug, plucking at one of his desk toys. “I left the door unlocked for you.” Not a real defense, but a continuation of the joke. Vincent finally cracks a half smile. Signal: Bit’s over, kiddo. Good job on the human interaction. “Did you eat breakfast?” he says instead. “I brought muffins. Chocolate chip.” So I get a muffin while he preps for the day. It takes guts for a grown man to be alone with me, but he’s chill, and there’s a camera in the room to make sure his ass is covered. He answers emails as I walk around his office: setting off the clacker-ball toy, watering the plant on top of his file cabinet, inspecting his halo of diplomas. Bachelor’s in secondary education. Master’s in education leadership. Certificates in special education and positive behavior supports. Plus a Black Excellence Award from when he was a teacher. Eventually, the front doors unlock and other students start trickling in; we can hear them in the hall, shouting and mumbling and shuffling to class. “Your mom giving you trouble?” Vincent asks. “I’m here, aren’t I?” His stapler is empty. I grab it from his desk and pop open the supply drawer to refill it. “Well, I’m glad you came in.” I roll my eyes. “Here. Fixed your stapler for you.” “Your attentiveness to my supplies is appreciated,” Vincent says. “First bell’s in ten.”

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“I know.” When the bell rings, though, I’m still in his office. He gives me a look over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses. “Class.” “I know,” I say again. But then the tardy bell sounds, and the receptionist comes in to ask a question, only to flinch when she sees me. Vincent pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ms. Penny,” he says to the receptionist, “can you escort Ms. Slaughter to class?” I knew this was coming—it always does, inevitably—but I still look away with a sneer. He knows what I mean. Traitor.

† Jenna St. Clair, or her boyfriend, has apparently decided to punish my outburst at the party, because I get a text from Alyssa while Ms. Penny walks me to homeroom. Alyssa

The video’s going around again :(

“Phone off, please,” Ms. Penny chides. Great. The video makes the rounds every few months. Every time I lose my cool, someone digs up the grainy clip from my old school, of my scissors hitting William Campbell’s radial artery in freshmanyear history class. It oozes from group chat to group chat, five

You're No Better

seconds of screaming fourteen-year-olds and scraping chairs and blood vomiting onto the tile. I make it to homeroom and sink into my desk at the back of the class while the teacher takes attendance. She pauses and marks me present, begrudgingly. “She was at Jenna’s party?” someone in a gaggle of popular girls whispers to my left. She looks green, like she’s watched the video for the first time and it’s the only real gore she’s ever seen. “Oh my god.” For what it’s worth, I didn’t aim for the radial artery. I wanted him to stop touching me, and I had scissors, and I didn’t know what I’d hit until it was too late. Daddys girl.MOV. Tagged “nonfiction,” “video,” and “evidence.” A few minutes after the final bell, though, after a day of keeping my head down and my mouth shut, Alyssa leans into the mirror to touch up her lipstick and says, “Have you . . . considered saying something about the video?” I dump out my makeup bag across the counter. This bathroom at the end of the science hall is always dead after school, so I avoid the rush and hang out here while everybody else does whatever normal people do when class is over: attend extracurricular clubs or go home to their loving family, I guess. I wouldn’t know. “Like what?” I reply. “That you didn’t mean to.” “Uh-huh. Let’s see how that goes.” Alyssa sighs. As we stand next to each other in the mirror, our black skirt–red sweater uniforms match perfectly. It reminds

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me of the semester I transferred to Winthrop—sneaking her into the girls’ room and teaching her makeup, then wiping it all off before the ride home. It was a good distraction from the expulsion, court dates, and threats of institutionalization that come along with putting a boy in the hospital. That said, I’m not sure if I actually like makeup. Gender gets weird when you’re a closeted trans boy, but also feminine, but also coerced into girlhood by a bitch of a mother. Am I actually feminine? Or is the mask I put on to hide my autism just in the shape of a girl? It might be easier to prefer something I don’t have a choice to be. After all, if I come home barefaced, Mom might accuse me of trying to transition behind her back. And there’d go the trust—the only shot of getting away from her before I inevitably rip out her throat. Am I jealous that Alyssa was actually allowed to transition? Every day. “It might help,” Alyssa says, and I roll my eyes. “I didn’t mean to,” I mock my alternate-universe self in a whiny voice as I dab on my foundation, “it was an accident. Come on.” I scoff. “Whatever. I’m going to the library, figure out where to start with the whole Jane Doe thing. Missing persons database or something. You should come with me.” Alyssa frowns. “You’re really going through with this?” I glare into the mirror as I work. “Of course I’m going through with it. I’m sick of this, I swear to god, every day it’s something else, you’re all watching me and waiting. The documentary producer, Jenna, Mom—”

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“Oh,” Alyssa says. “Oh.” Like it’s finally clicked for her why I’m doing this. “Morgan. You answered so many prayers when you got him arrested. You don’t owe anyone more than that.” I snap, “Then maybe people could act like it.” The last words come out loud. They crack. Hands shaking, I smear on my concealer. “And what prayers, anyway” is all I can say. “They’re all still dead.” Alyssa looks at the sink in silence. She knows how bad it was. The DC Ripper forced her dad into early retirement. According to her parents’ divorce proceedings, the police department practically strong-armed him into resigning—his obsession with my dad destroyed his marriage, messed up his kids, nearly killed him. It hangs over her head almost as much as it hangs over mine. She should want this, too. “So.” Concealer done. “Library. It’s a block or two away, we can walk. Sound good?” Alyssa’s mouth opens, shuts. Not good. “My friends and I are going to the Portrait Gallery,” she says quietly. My stomach drops. “The photography conservator is doing a demonstration. We got tickets and everything. I really don’t want to miss it.” I didn’t know she had friends. She’s certainly never told me about them. “The Portrait Gallery.” “We’ve been planning this for weeks.” She gathers up her bag, eyes flitting nervously to the door like she can hear my teeth grinding together. “And. I don’t know. This doesn’t feel, like, good? Thinking too much about your dad, I mean. Getting

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involved in that again. I think you should give yourself a little bit, wait until you’re not so . . . freaked out.” “I am not—” Oh my god, she is not doing this to me. “Is some stupid museum more important than this? Do you want to help your dad get his shit together or not?” That was too far. Alyssa takes a step back. “I’m not saying I won’t help,” she says. “I’m just worried about you.” Whatever. “It’s fine. I didn’t know you gave a fuck about the Portrait Gallery, but it’s fine. Have fun.” “Right,” Alyssa says. Her throat bobs as she reaches for the door. “We will. Bye.” And then I’m alone, makeup scattered across the sink— blush, eyeliner, palettes, lip gloss—and nails digging so hard into my palms that I’m about to draw blood. The Portrait Gallery? Friends? I mean, I know she’s better with people than I am. Or, at least, she doesn’t hate herself or want to scream after almost every conversation, not like I do. But friends? In the corner of my eye, something moves. My heart kicks up into my throat. Alyssa and I were the only people in the bathroom. Or we were supposed to be. Was there someone else in here the whole time? Was someone listening? In the last bathroom stall in the row, a shadow. The toe of a black uniform shoe. And the unlocked door shifts ever so slightly, like they know they’ve been caught.

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Shit. They heard everything: My voice cracking. The pity in Alyssa’s voice that creeps in every time she tries to talk me down. Nausea hits my stomach like a brick. None of that can leave this room. I grab the stall door—“Wait,” a girl’s voice says inside, “wait”—and wait”—and smash it into whoe whoever the fuck is hiding back there.

CHAPTER

4 I think violence comes easily to you, DDr. Lý said during one of our first sessions together—after I put William Campbell in the hospital, after I pointed the finger and wrecked Dr. Reich’s practice—because you’ve found it’s often the only form of communication people respond honestly to. The bathroom stall door connects. A dull meaty sound cuts off whatever word was going to come out of the girl’s mouth and replaces it with a grunt. The door rebounds and I catch it to shove myself inside. The girl’s hair is in her face as she reels, nearly tripping over the toilet, trying to protect the delicate cartilage of her nose. “Wait,” she slurs, voice muffled by her hands, “wait wait wait—” How much of that did she hear? Has she been following me? Adrenaline narrows everything to a single blurry point, and I snatch the first part of her I can find: a fistful of that frizzy platinum-bleached hair.

You're No Better

And she bashes me into the cinder block wall. My temple takes the brunt of the hit and my sight explodes into white, gasping pain. My lungs lock. I can’t focus. Just flounder in a desperate attempt to keep myself upright. The stall latch screeches shut. No. No, no, she can’t do that, I don’t like locked doors. I try to grab for it—wherever it is, behind me, reeling for it as my vision clears—but she slams all her body weight against mine. Traps me cheek-first against the wall. She’s whispering. Begging. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—” I grab for her face, desperately groping behind me, and my finger hooks through a hoop earring. I pull. She screams. Drops me. I lurch away, bang against the stall divider, stumble against the toilet and hit the floor. The earring, still fastened, falls off my finger like a too-loose wedding band and clatters against the fancy tile. The girl keens wildly. I didn’t only take out the earring. I gouged the shit out of her jaw. And her neck. Long wounds slice open the skin in straight lines. “ You motherfucker—” I lunge for the stall door, but she catches me. Throws herself in front of the lock. Her knee barely misses my face. Snkt. There’s a switchblade in her hand, and the sharp, shiny point hovers inches from my face. We both freeze. Breathing hard. She whimpers, “Wait, just, I just want to talk—fuck talk—fuck, my ear.” Felicity Keating—the new kid in my first-block biology class, the midsemester transfer, a girl I haven’t paid an ounce of

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attention to—stands above me. Red streaming down her face and neck, seeping between her fingers. I take her in as she touches the wounds, winces, tries uselessly to staunch the flow of blood. She’s wearing the boys’ version of the Winthrop Academy uniform with tailored slacks, and a gold cross necklace dangles from her throat. She doesn’t talk much in class, not that I remember, and people don’t usually transfer midsemester unless they’re like me: unless they’ve run out of options elsewhere and their parents have enough money to convince Winthrop to let them in right now, pretty please, just enough to finish out the school year. She’d seemed—normal. Nothing that would be a precursor to this. “That hurt?” I ask, without an ounce of concern. She says, “Don’t move.” I don’t move. She creeps toward the toilet paper dispenser, refusing to take her eyes off me, and snatches handfuls of paper to jam against her jaw. She hisses and her eyes water, smearing the messy raccoon eyeliner she’s got going on. The toilet paper is too little, too late, though. It’s sticking to her hair and obliterating the collar of her button-down. She shivers, clicking her teeth, moving like an animal. Through frustrated tears of pain, she says, “I just want to talk.” Hell of a way to start talking. “Put the knife away.” “No. You’ll—you’ll hurt me again.” She’s not wrong. I was eyeing the lock, or trying to figure out if I could squirm under the stall door, but she’s already proven

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she’s got some strength to her. I don’t have a shot at escape that doesn’t involve another fight. “That’s not going to heal well,” I say. “You might need stitches. It’ll suck.” The paper’s soaked through already. She dumps it in the toilet and grabs more, the roll rattling as it turns. The water in the bowl goes pink. Felicity says, “Morgan Slaughter.” “That’s my name.” “Your father was the DC Ripper.” I can’t summon the energy to be surprised—not with that sinking, sick feeling in my stomach. Of course that’s what this is about. “And the Beast of 495, and the Charlottesville Strangler.” That’s why everyone calls him Graham Nathaniel Slaughter er these days, easier to consolidate the nicknames into the same three words. “Yes, congratulations, you and the rest of the world know who my dad is. What do you want?” “You were talking to your friend.” Felicity’s eyes dart to the stall door. “About the last girl. Right? The girl that got him caught. You’re trying to figure out who she is.” I don’t like the way she says it. Jane Doe didn’t get Dad caught or put him in prison; she was dead. I did. I talked to the cops. I stood in front of the courtroom. Dad is trapped on the other side of the Box because I put him there. Felicity says, “I want to help.” That . . . is not the motive I was expecting. Especially not when I’m on the business end of a blade. I spit, “Help?” lp?”

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“Yeah.” Her voice gets quick and frantic. “I’ve been working on a true crime podcast—not one of those hack ones, not like the Gore Goonies or anything, a real one. And I was ggoing to launch it with a big episode on Graham Nathaniel Slaughter, but I read about the documentary, that article on Deadline, and I was like, oh shit. They’re going to overshadow me for sure. What do I have to do to set mine apart?” I resist the urge to press my hands into my eyes. I thought she was going to—I don’t know—exact some kind of cosmic revenge, a whole sins-of-the-father thing. Not this. “But I realized,” she babbles, “you’re in my school. And here you are, talking about how you’re actually trying to find the last piece of the puzzle.” She pulls the wad of paper from her face for a second to survey the damage. Now that I’m paying attention, I can see the dangling pieces of the earlobe where the ring ripped free. She says, “So if you’re going to figure out who she is, find her name, make it right? Since your friend won’t help, I’ll do it with you. For my show.” What? No. She doesn’t get to sneak around, put a knife in my face, and say this. “Okay,” I say slowly, because the blade is still only a few inches from my cheek. “You want me to help you.” Above me, Felicity sniffs. Her mascara is running. She must be reaching the end of her adrenaline. The pain of what I did must really, really be hitting now. “And what if I say no?” Felicity steels herself. Straightens up. Tries to look taller than she really is.

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She says, “You lied during the trial.” She says, “You helped kill Jane Doe, right? And how many of the others? Five? Ten?” The world stops. I’m going to throw up. “You did,” she says. I fight for control of my expression, of my heart rate, but it’s not enough. “Oh my god, you did! I knew it, I—I knew it.” Felicity giggles. Breathless. Wide-eyed. “If you don’t let me help, I’ll release that episode instead.”

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How The fuck Does Felicity Keating know that.

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I mean. Yeah, of course I lied during the trial. The wave of doubters who turned up their nose at my testimony, the pissed-off lawyer frustratedly cross-examining a child, How did you know about the others? How did you KNOW? W? They were onto something. They knew I’d never told the truth in my life. They knew I’d never tell the cops anything beyond what they needed to lock Dad away for good. Sure, I was a kid, and not the best est liar at that ag age—I messed up a few times—but it worked out in the end. I put Dad in prison and only gave myself a few years of therapy. Why would I tell anyone what really happened? Why would I ever put myself through that again? But to answer Felicity’s question: Yes, I helped kill Jane Doe. And seven more before her. My next words come out weak. “You bitch.” “I’ve already recorded the episode,” Felicity says. “It’s ready to go, right on my computer, and there’s a lot of people I could send it to. A lot of news stations. Those guys making the documentary. Your mom. Wait, does she know? I don’t think she knows. She’d never shut up about it if she knew.” If the producer finds out, there’s no way it won’t end up in the documentary. If the world finds out, I’ll never get out from under the weight of it. I’ll never be able to touch a pen or railing or doorknob without everyone seeing the red handprints I leave behind. And if Mom finds out? I won’t only lose the trust fund; she’ll rip out all the stops. She’ll dig up photos of bruises and cuts on her arms from my elementary school tantrums. Call the family

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lawyer to figure out how to get rid of me for good, and do as much damage to me as she can before she gives up custody. Then she’ll publish a bestselling book if she can find a decent ghostwriter and live large off the speech circuit for the rest of her life, the way she’s always wanted: My husband and my child were monsters, here’s how I survived. If Mom and the producer and the world find out what really happened— I’ll never escape. Ever. Even with my vision tunneled, the start of a panic attack or meltdown bearing down on my skull, I’m smart enough to recognize when I’m backed into a corner. At the very least, if I go along with this for now, it’ll buy me time to dig my way out. “Fine,” I say. Felicity’s bloody face cracks into a weird not-smile. It’s all teeth. I say, “Meet me at the natural history museum. Wednesday at four. We can talk about this when your face isn’t”—I swallow hard—“pissing blood everywhere.” Felicity takes the switchblade away from my face. Finally. She visibly slumps, looking a bit woozy. “Deal.” After she leaves, after she steps over me with her stained hands and ruined sweater, after she bows over the makeupscattered sink to wrap her open wound and cover the stains with her jacket, I clamp my hands over my mouth and scream.

You're No Better

[Video description: A beautiful woman in her forties, with long dark red hair and a comfortable jeans-sweater combo, gazes pensively out a bright, sunny window in her living room and sips a glass of wine. Text reads, “Tragedy teaches so much. Be open to learning from it every day.”]

ý/ Liked by katielove732 and 12.3K others bellamy.slaughter Seven years ago, my husband was accused of some of the most heinous crimes humanity is capable of. I was forced to confront not only that the man I loved had been a monster all along, but also the idea of surviving as a mom without him. Now he is in prison where he can never hurt another soul again, and each day shows me how to make it as a single mother in our world. If you feel the same pain that I do, just know: You can do it, momma! You are so much stronger than you know! XOXO, Bellamy #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #traumahealing #momblog #momlife #parenthood #selfgrowth #selfcare #relationships #healing #grahamnathanielslaughter #GNS #thedcripper #thebeastof495 #thecharlottesvillestrangler #truecrime #horror

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katielove732 thank you so much for the alt text!!! I use a screen reader sometimes and it means so much when my favorite people take the time to make the internet more accessible <3 bellamy.slaughter @katielove732 Of course! As the mother to a disabled child, I am ALL about inclusion and kindness for everyone!

October XX

CHAPTER

5 How does Felici ty Keating know. I can’t spend one more second in that school, so I put the finishing touches on my makeup while waiting for the Green Line toward home, breathing carefully through my nose and focusing on the minute details of my mother-mandated eyeliner in an attempt to get my nervous system under control. Heart pounding. Shaky hands. Tapping foot. She can’t know. There’s no possible way she could know. My childhood memories are all shot—recollections of anything before the end of the trial are watery at best, missing for months-long stretches at worst—but even I know with one hundred percent certainty that it’s impossible. There’s nowhere for her to fit. No gap in the story that makes sense. Even the three people in the penthouse building lobby who saw me stumble out of the elevator were identified for the trial.

You're No Better

And I forgot to demand Felicity’s phone number, so I can’t even ask. As soon as I’ve ensured that the eyeliner wings are even, the train pulls up with a squeal. I grimace. This is the 7000-series with screaming brakes that the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority hasn’t fixed yet. It makes my skin crawl. Still, when the doors hiss open, I squeeze on anyway, because right now I’ll take even the worst train to calm down. I’m fully aware of how stereotypical it is to have a special interest in trains. Mine is the Washington Metrorail specifically. During bad days in the summer, without school to escape to, I’ll pick a line and ride it to the farthest end, stepping out of the final station to greet the blazing sun in another state entirely. I consider doing that now. I have to transfer to the Orange to get home anyway, and I could keep going. All the way out of the city, into Virginia or Maryland. Not that there’s anything for me out there in either direction. But so I can wait for the pounding in my head to die down, staring out the window as the station lights flicker past. But I get off the Orange Line at Eastern Market anyway. This, too, I think Dr. Lý would call self-harm.

† When I get home, Mom is in the living room. That would be bad enough on its own, but there are also strangers in the house—and between having a knife held to my face half an hour ago and this, I can’t tell which is worse.

Andrew Joseph White

I stop in the doorway, backpack dangling from my elbow where I aborted the usual move to fling it onto the floor. Mom sits primly on the white couch with a bespectacled writer, no doubt telling her canned woe is me story. The producer points out a light fixture to an assistant and suggests a different wattage. A cameraman frowns at his expensive machine, adjusting whatever it is cameramen adjust, and one of Mom’s lawyers perches at the kitchen table to review a document to the tune of $350 an hour. Absolutely not. I ease the door closed and take a silent step toward the stairs, but it’s too late. “Morgan,” Mom coos, reaching a slender hand toward me. Every eye follows her, ravenous for whatever’s caught her precious attention. And—fuck, she’s dressed like me. A black skirt and red sweater, a vague approximation of my school uniform, is she serious? “Welcome home. I forgot to mention, we’re doing some prep work today.” Sure. It slipped her mind. As if she ever tells me anything. “Right,” I say. “I’ll get out of your way.” “Oh, none of that. You need to meet everyone.” Mom excuses herself from the writer’s corner and narrows her eyes in warning: Don’t embarrass me. Like she can read the impending breakdown in the tension between my eyes. “Though, how about an afterschool snack first.” We don’t have snacks in this house. We have a bulk bag of unsalted almonds and way too much celery juice. If I want something with even a whisper of the sugar a human brain requires to function, I’ll have to dig out the box of stale snack cakes from under my bed, and that is clearly not where I’m being led.

You're No Better

Instead, Mom ushers me to the kitchen and uses her body as a barrier between me and the film crew, or a roadblock to keep me from bolting. Shit. I lean against the counter and jam my hands into my eyes. If she knew what Dad and I had done? Together? She’d rip me limb from limb. Mom immediately yanks my hands down. “Don’t do this.” I start, “I’m not—” “Whatever you’re about to say,” Mom says airily, “I don’t care.” She nudges me away from the counter so she can get to the first-floor liquor cabinet (one of three in the house) and pops it open to secure two shot glasses, plus a bottle of the cheapest vodka she can stomach buying. She pours both glasses tall enough they splash. She places them in front of me and says, “You’re a cunt when you’re sober.” I know the drill. A request to temporarily lobotomize myself for her benefit, because I’m only tolerable with a certain blood alcohol content. But, as I unfortunately discovered freshman year, alcohol can nip a meltdown in the bud. And this is an afternoon I have to get through without biting through my tongue, or panicking over the podcast, or remembering the blood smearing Felicity’s neck like some dead girl on the floor of Dad’s penthouse condo. I eye the shot glasses. “Promise they won’t put me on camera with Dad.” “I don’t think you’re in any position to negotiate,” Mom says.

Andrew Joseph White

The only problem is, at this moment, I am. What’s more important to her—a particularly juicy scene in the documentary, or a first impression on the crew that doesn’t involve a tantrum? The best negotiation tactic is silence. I say nothing. Mom squirms, her lip curling. A good first impression must win out, because Mom sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.” Acceptable. I take the shots back-to-back. The sensory equivalent of downing a pair of Sharpies. Introductions go fine once the vodka takes the tension out of my shoulders. I resent the possibility of becoming reliant— the idea of needing anything besides my own willpower to get through a situation is repulsive—but life is a lot less tiring when I’m not doing constant socioemotional calculus for every person that looks my way. The writer chatters about proposed framing devices: chronological order, or flashbacks, or whatever. I didn’t think documentaries needed writers, I say, and that gets a laugh even though I wasn’t aware I was making a joke. The assistant directs me to stand under the living room lamp, then the kitchen chandelier. She wants to get the grading of my hair just right, it’s such a unique color, is it dyed? The producer beams when Mom finally brings me around to him. I still have no idea what his name is. “Good to see you again,” he hums. Distantly, I wish he were ogling my chest instead of eagerly waiting to pick my brain for every horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. “I’m glad you’re here, actually—have I introduced you to my nephew-slashprotégé, Daniel? Hey, Daniel, come say hello to Morgan.”

You're No Better

He gestures to the cameraman, who saunters over with a cocky grin. I am summarily unimpressed. I could find a dozen of him at any beer garden or art gallery in the city: some generic white guy with a buzz cut, stubble, and rolled-up sleeves. Definitely renting a studio in the city on family money. The moment he looks at me, he locks on like a carnivore. “Morgan,” Daniel repeats, reaching out to shake my hand. I give it to him. “Hi. Great to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot.” The producer claps Daniel’s shoulder and gives him a shake that I presume is meant to be friendly. “Daniel here is currently a film student, but I promise, he’s one of the best up-and-comers on the East Coast. We cajoled his academic team into letting this count as his capstone . . .” I’m not listening. Mom can’t find her new phone and is opening her tablet to ping it, a horn is honking outside, and Daniel is staring at me. If he’s doing his capstone, that means he’s a senior in college. Four years older than me, at minimum. A legal adult and then some, with a diamond stud earring in what I presume is meant to be the “straight” ear, whichever that is; an expensive watch with a frayed leather strap; a ring of keys on the belt loop, meaning that he’s the one doing the hard work. He’s been looking for too long. I find a demure smile and tilt my head. “Well,” I murmur as soon as the producer is done with his stupid spiel, “it sounds like we’re in great hands. Daniel, have you seen our private theater?” Mom plucks her phone from the couch cushions as the lawyer flags her down to discuss a clause.

Andrew Joseph White

“I haven’t,” Daniel says. I say, “Come on. I think you’d like it.” In the span of five minutes in a school bathroom, Felicity Keating managed to obliterate any sense of safety I’d managed to build for myself since the trial, and this documentary is the mental equivalent of having my hand forcibly placed on a hot stove. If a single hint of the truth makes it into the final cut, I’m fucked. I need someone in my corner now. And Daniel seems like a great candidate.

† The basement is a shrine to Dad, if you know where to look. His suits hang in neat bags in the back closet and his shiny shoes are tucked in a plastic organizer under the couch. The wicker baskets—the ones flanking the good liquor cabinet—are expertly piled with wool blankets covering his laptop and boxes of cuff links, watches, hair gel, cologne, chargers, whatever else. Like he’ll ever need them again. The sprawling wall of DVDs and VHS tapes is also his. Daniel whistles as he takes the last step onto the plush basement carpet. He inspects the entertainment setup, the projector and 120-inch screen and battalion of speakers, before wandering over to the shelves. “I take it you don’t believe in streaming,” he muses, squinting a bit to make out the titles on the bottom row. I have no feelings about movies or whatever format they’re in, but I’ve already decided on the persona that Daniel is getting:

You're No Better

the deadpan cool girl. Having a serial killer for a father did not fuck her up in any way beyond the ways that make her interesting, and the autism and penchant for violence are only minor character flaws. She’s cool enough that she’ll go for a drink, and while she has opinions about a boy’s topic of choice, she’ll always agree with him and doesn’t know too much. Knowing too much is off-putting. “Streaming is bullshit,” I say. “You never even own a digital copy, just the license to use it—” “And that can be revoked at any time,” Daniel finishes. “It’s those greedy media companies. People aren’t allowed to have anything anymore.” I smile even though he interrupted me. “Exactly.” He’s already taken a movie off the shelf, turned over the plastic case to inspect it, and put it back. Dad had a fondness for dramas and thrillers. Fight Club and The Godfather, er, that sort of thing. “Take it you’re a movie buff, too, then,” he says. “If you grew up like this.” “I like to pretend I am,” I lie. “But honestly, it’s overwhelming. Can’t decide where to start.” I stand beside him, gazing up at the giant wall of plastic cases and cardboard VHS sleeves. Daniel studies me from the corner of his eye; he’s a full head taller than me and smells like too much expensive cologne. “You know what, you tell me. Where should I start?” He asks, “You got a copy of A Serbian Film in here?” My nose wrinkles. Dad thought those kinds of horror films were distasteful. I do, too. “No,” I say. “Stick to the wall.”

Andrew Joseph White

He laughs. “Messing with you.” He skims the selection—organized alphabetically this month; I have a tendency to rip it all down and redo it a different way if a weekend is particularly bad—and plucks out a copy of Dog Day Afternoon. This one I know. Some guy robs a bank to pay for his wife’s gender-affirming surgery. Based on a true story, too. Alyssa would never admit this, but this used to be her favorite movie. We watched it every time she stayed over sophomore year. It made her cry. She wanted someone to love her so much they’d rob a bank for her, she said. (I wanted her to stop crying, so I told her the main character was a terrible person in real life. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but it did the trick, so it didn’t need to be.) “This is one of the best heist films of all time,” Daniel says. “Natural light, straightforward angles, swear to god it’s live footage of a robbery.” He grins, waggling the case at me. “Wrote a whole essay on its use of color last year. Let me know when you watch it and I’ll send it to you.” I will not be doing that. “Only if you got a decent grade on it.” That gets him to laugh. “Anyway, I’m already buzzed. You want a drink, too?” “You’re already—” Daniel starts, but I’m headed for the good liquor cabinet under the massive TV, plucking a set of linked paper clips from the side table as I pass. I put one in my mouth as I set about unbending the other. I keep paper clips scattered around the house, easily bent into a lockpick and torsion wrench, in case of emergencies. Like I said: I don’t like locked doors.

You're No Better

“The mechanism is shit,” I offer as the cabinet gives in to my prodding almost immediately. Daniel hums in genuine approval. “What do you drink?” “Bourbon,” Daniel says. Should’ve guessed. I grab the bottle and a glass. “Aren’t you a little young for this?” I pour his drink and place it in his hand. “If you had my parents, you’d drink, too.” “Fair.” I can imagine Dr. Lý narrowing her eyes at me. She’d have a lot to say about this situation. Something like, Aren’t you doing to him what your mother did to you? Or, You’re fully aware this isn’t healthy. I know it, and so do you. And I’d tell her that, actually, I’m not nearly as bad as my mother about it, so it’s fine. “You’re getting your degree in cinematography?” I ask while he takes a sip, as if I actually care. “I wish,” he snorts. “Nothing that fancy. Just film and media arts, basic stuff—beginner shit.” There’s a tic of frustration in his jaw. “You know, I took a semester off to work on Mother of a Monster last year, and my advisor had the gall to be pissed about it. Said I wasn’t taking my education seriously enough.” Probably because Mother of a Monster, ter, from what I’ve heard, sucks. “Fuck that,” I say. “Right? I figure I’ll get the degree to get my dad off my back, and then go back to work my way. Don’t need a fancy piece of paper if you’re good at what you do.” Resentment poisons his point. He looks at his glass, swirls the remaining bourbon around, sucks on his teeth. I wait for him to fill the silence.

Andrew Joseph White

“I was supposed to be coproducer for this,” he finally mutters. I pretend to be intrigued. “Really.” “It’s no big deal.” He looks away, as if realizing how he’s made himself sound. “I’m still learning a lot. Negotiations, funding. The nitty-gritty.” And there’s my in. “So you’re familiar with the contract you’ve got worked up with my mom?” “Of course I am.” “How much say does she have over the final cut?” Daniel says, “Why would she have a say in it?” Like it’s the simplest thing in the world. I have to admit, I didn’t think he’d say it. Considering Hexagon Production’s history, I could guess that subjects don’t exactly have the best terms, but having it confirmed like that makes me blink anyway. And this also confirms my other theory: If I get Daniel in my pocket, I’ll have more control over the production than Mom ever will—and, maybe, a chance to influence what gets released about me. It isn’t complete protection from Felicity’s threat or Mom’s bullshit, but it’s a good start. Daniel finishes his drink, then pours a splash more and holds it out to me in a question, eyebrow raised. When I take it, our fingers brush. I wish I knew what people see when they look at me. Dr. Reich pulled Mom aside one day and said I had what he called shark eyes: Dark, dull, borderline vacant. Any emotion on the face never reaching them, not really, no matter how angry I was

You're No Better

or how content I pretended to be. In this room, right now, am I capable of faking a light in my eyes? Or is my hollow emptiness part of my draw as a documentary subject? “You don’t want to do this, do you,” Daniel says. “Is it that obvious?” “A little.” His gaze fixes on me as I take a sip of the bourbon and try not to wince. I hate brown liquor. “Tell you what. We should stick together. You help me out, make me look good during the production, and I’ll take care of you. Keep an eye on you. That sort of thing.” This is the kind of deal I can handle. A petulant man with something to prove is the definition of an easy target. I say, “Promise?” He says, “Everyone needs someone on their side.” When I put my number in his phone, I type my name with a little heart at the end, and he watches me closely enough that the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

† When everyone finally leaves, I go upstairs to my room, scrub off my makeup until my skin goes red, find a ten-hour ASMR loop of Metro sounds, and lie in bed with the clunk-clunk sound of the wheels on the tracks on repeat until I stop wanting to trepan a hole in my skull.

CHAPTER

6 During lunch on Tuesday, Alyssa si ts wi th me in the rooftop courtyard, telling me about her trip to the Portrait Gallery while the gardening club fusses over their raised soil beds and attempts at pumpkins. I’m not listening. Alyssa is slowly catching on. I’ve never told her the truth about what Dad and I did. Sometimes, though, I wonder if she could guess. If she’s spent enough time around me that she would be able to see the bloodstains under ultraviolet light years later. Apparently not. She’d abandon me in a heartbeat if she knew. “It was fun,” Alyssa tries again. “You should come with us next time.” “I’m fine,” I say. My phone buzzes. Daniel

It was nice talking to you yesterday

You're No Better

I put my phone face down. “Hey, do you know anything about Felicity Keating? She wasn’t in class today.” Alyssa sighs. It takes me a moment to realize I interrupted her. “Who?”

† The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Wednesday afternoon. The after-school crowd is in full force, kids tromping up the stairs and tourists huddling by the information desk. It’s packed, and loud, and every too-high squeal or squeak makes me suppress a wince: the perfect choice for this meetup. It’s impossible to end up alone and cornered in one of the busiest museums in the country. And mandatory metal detectors at every entrance means I won’t have to worry about that switchblade today. I stand beside the taxidermy elephant at the center of the rotunda as Felicity grimaces her way through security. She’s traded her academy uniform for some oversized all-black getup, and she sways uncomfortably on her feet while a lady searches her bag. “How’s your face?” I ask as she approaches. She tentatively prods at the stitched-up mess of her earlobe, the gauze taped to her jaw, the bandage plastered to her neck. Her intact ear now sports a stud instead of a hoop. I wonder if the injury was actually enough to keep her home two days in a row or if she skipped on a whim.

Andrew Joseph White

“It hurts,” Felicity says shortly. Apparently her voice isn’t only like that when she’s doped up on adrenaline; she speaks with a permanent anxious edge. “We’re not having this conversation under Twinkles, are we?” “What?” “The elephant.” I’d put money on the elephant’s name being literally anything else. “No, we’re not talking here. Come on.” My favorite exhibit is the Ocean Hall. I have a distinct fondness for aquariums, and harbor a deep bitterness for the fact that my parents never bothered to take me to one. Dad never had time, and Mom says humidity ruins her hair. So this is the closest I’ve ever been able to get, barring the fish section of a pet store. I lead Felicity into the neoclassical hall of deep-sea organisms suspended in formaldehyde and life-sized re-creations of oceanic leviathans hoisted over the display floor. A group of preteens have decided to hog the fish tank. Unfortunate. Felicity gawks at the gangly spider crab statue presiding over the first booth. “Haven’t you been here before?” I ask. “I like the rock exhibit,” Felicity says. Her attention is immediately snagged by a wrinkled little creature in a tube, and she bends at the waist to inspect it. “And the bugs. And my sister told me I have a deeply unstable and unreliable attention span for anything I’m not immediately obsessed with, to the detriment of myself and everyone around me, so no, I probably haven’t.” How did someone like her manage to get the better of me? Out of uniform, she’s nothing more than some messy rich girl:

You're No Better

combat boots, zip-up hoodie, black tee reading we’ll make it look like an accident, ent, indulging an oral fixation with the corner of her manicure or the cross necklace trapped between her canines. There’s no thought given to how she moves, and even less to what she says. She reminds me of someone attempting to exist entirely raw, as if the top layer of skin has been removed: Every single thing is an impulse. I hate not having the upper hand. I hate it even more when someone like Felicity manages to get it from me. I say, “How did you know.” Felicity straightens up. The chain falls out of her mouth to dangle against her chest. “Does it matter?” On the train here (four stops to the Smithsonian station, the Blue Line today), I considered trying to bluff my way out of this. Tell Felicity Keating that she’s come to a bullshit conclusion and I have no idea what she’s talking about. But the way she laughed in the bathroom stall when she accused me—I must have crumbled immediately. I tipped my hand as soon as the words were out of her mouth. My brain helpfully supplies the memory of Dad’s lawyer pointing a finger in my face: How did you KNOW. “It matters a lot, actually,” I say. She smiles. I realize it’s her equivalent of a nervous dog showing its teeth when backed into a corner. “It doesn’t. It shouldn’t. You have bigger things to worry about.” “Oh, fuck off.” A young mother next to us frowns at my impolite language, steering her child away. “As far as I know, you’re guessing. You don’t have any evidence. If you did, you’d show me.”

Andrew Joseph White

Felicity says, “But it’s obvious.” The constant hum of so many people wandering the museum turns into a high-pitched ring. Obvious. “Everyone knows he used you as bait,” she says, fiddling with the red, swollen skin around her injured ear. “Claimed he needed a babysitter for you, right? Started advertising for tutors by the end there.” Not tutors, exactly. Dad used the fact that I was autistic to pad out the ruse. He was looking for someone to interact with me, help with my social skills; paying good money for a few hours of easy work. “So obviously you were involved,” she continues. “But I always thought it was fishy. I didn’t believe your story. Or lack of one. You just knew about the other murders? It would’ve made things a lot easier if you told some sob story about how your dad made you watch. Forced you. Right? Case closed. But you didn’t.” I’m only half in control of my body as I turn from her and start walking away. I bite my tongue until pain shoots down the soft middle of my mouth. When I was little, I had distinct problems with elopement and self-injurious behaviors. Years of childhood therapy were dedicated to rewriting these things out of me, or at least redirecting them. That’s fair. It would be bad for me to run out into traffic or give myself an infection via compulsive skin-picking. But the problem is, leaving bad situations and using pain as a coping mechanism can be incredibly helpful sometimes.

You're No Better

Because I want to hurt Felicity Keating to make her stop talking. Felicity follows me underneath the whale replica hanging from the ceiling, past the preserved giant squid, to the empty back display about climate change. She says, “Then I realized you were avoiding it for a reason. But why? You weren’t trying to protect your father; you’re the one who turned him in. And you definitely wouldn’t get in trouble as an accessory, since you were, like, ten. So the only reason that makes sense—is if you knew, and lied, because you hurt them, too.” In a corner of the climate change display, within spitting distance of the human evolution exhibit, I stop. There’s nowhere for me to go. She says, “You want to figure out who Jane Doe is because you feel guilty.” There’s too many people. I jam one fingernail under the other to dig out the sticky, hot feeling of blood on my hands. The Ocean Hall is too warm and too loud. She’s right. I would never tell a judge what actually happened. Why would I get up on the stand and tell the truth when that would only make it worse? I can still recite Dad’s welcome speech from memory: Hi, bitch. You’re probably confused right now. It was easier to face down a grown man screaming in a courtroom than it was to explain that Dad put the pliers in my hand and the terrified, chained-up girl was right there.

Andrew Joseph White

Did I like it? I must have. Why else would I have done it so many times? “None of that is proof,” I snarl. “You can’t prove anything.” Felicity winces and pulls her phone half an inch from her hoodie’s pocket. The default voice-memo app chugs along, illustrating every sound wave with a sharp red line. “Maybe not. But between this and our last chat? You don’t sound great.”

† Felicity, now that she’s made her point, wanders through the Hall of Human Origins, even putting her hand against the mock cave paintings as if we’re friends on an after-school outing. Model Neanderthals peer at us from their displays. A flock of elementary schoolers bolts past with a chorus of delighted screeching. I’m trapped—the kind of trapped that makes me want to crawl out of my skin or bite right through my tongue. And we both know it. But. No matter how much power Felicity has over me right now, she’s impulsive. She’s nervous, and way too out of her depth to use that power properly. Maybe I can even this out. I break the silence with “If we’re going to do this, you can’t have all the cards. I need something on you.” “So you’ll help with the podcast?” Felicity says, completely missing the point. As if I have a choice. “I’ll be more open to cooperating if I know we can work together.” She squinches up her face, as

You're No Better

if unsure of what I’m getting at. “If I feel a little safer in this relationship.” “Oh.” We’ve found ourselves in a semicircular display of skulls, each one from a different Homo sapiens ancestor. I’m not entirely comfortable around bones. Dad never asked for my help disposing of bodies, and I was never around to see them rot; he handled that himself. Said he’d teach me the dirty work when I was older, after I’d already found an appreciation for the rest of it. So, out of everything I’ve been desensitized to, bones still have a taboo allure. “I mean,” Felicity says, “I don’t have anything that’s, like, on the same level as you.” She pulls the tiny chain through her teeth while she thinks. “But. Okay. Yeah.” She sways on her feet, fixating nervously on an orbital socket on the other side of the glass, as I pull out my own phone and hit record. An eye for an eye. “If you tell my parents this,” she says, “I’m fucked.” “Good.” “But you’re agreeing to help, so neither of us will need to do anything with any of this information, which means that it’s totally fine and nobody needs to worry.” There’s that smile again. “I’m bisexual. And nonbinary. She/they. I’m a demigirl, I think, I don’t know. And if my parents find out, they’re going to send me right back to that wilderness therapy camp I almost died at last year, and I’d really rather not—you know—actually die this time.” Wilderness therapy? Where they throw a bunch of mentally ill kids in the woods with “counselors” who learned their rehabilitation tactics from Guantánamo Bay?

Andrew Joseph White

“How’d you almost die?” I ask. “Um. Heatstroke.” I nod. This will work fine. “Do you have any preferences for when to use one pronoun over the other?” I check my nails for chipped paint so I don’t seem too invested in the answer, because I’m not. “Is it a safety thing, random, what.” “I mean, she/her only around my parents. And teachers. And grown-ups that might know them at all. But otherwise—I don’t get to hear they/them all that often. So if you want to use that one a little more. Unless that’s weird.” It hits me that they think I’m a girl. “That’s fine,” I say, stopping the recording and shoving my phone back in my pocket. “It’s he/him for me, by the way.” Their head whips around to face me. Right at the edge of the skull case, there’s a part of the display where there’s not enough backlighting, and I can make out the outline of our reflections looking back at us: Felicity in their hoodie and jewelry and French tips; me with my uniform skirt and red nails and hair tied back with a ribbon. I’ve gotten really, really good at being a girl. When I finally get to throw it all away, it probably won’t feel as good as putting Dad behind bars, but it’ll be pretty damn close. “What’s your name?” Felicity asks. “Still Morgan. For all it matters.” And with that, Felicity holds out their hand, pinkie outstretched. I wrinkle my nose. “A pinkie promise,” they prompt.

BY ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE

★ “Raw and unflinching.” —Publishers Weekly

★ “Impossible to put down.” —School Library Journal

★ “Precise and gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews

★ “Morgan is incredibly

interesting and more than deserving of the reader’s investment.”—Booklist

★ “Harrowing but ultimately hopeful.”—The Horn Book

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YOU'RE NO BETTER Excerpt