Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

their midst. Really, it was just an ego boost for her, since she
hadn’t performed on a grand scale since she was fifteen. My
father married her, brought her to America, and that was that.
I knew this place like the back of my hand, even though I
hadn’t been here in years. Luckily, the basement window still
didn’t lock.
“You’ve done this before?” Winter asked me.
I held the door open, pulling her into the ladies’ bathroom
and turning on the lights and my flashlight off.
“My sister and I did it at our house and once again at the
pizza parlor,” I told her.
We were like fourteen, but I remember it being pretty
funny.
Oh, how times had changed and what made me smile.
“Here, hop up on the counter,” I told her.
She did, and I dumped my duffel bag in the sink, digging
out some air horns, wooden sticks, and duct tape.
Diving into one of the stalls, I measured the stick’s length
from underneath the toilet seat to the button on the horn,
seeing how it fit.
Perfect.
Good.
I came back to her at the sinks and put the bottle in her
hand, fitting her fist around the can and the stick, to hold it in
place.
“Hold that right there,” I instructed. “Hold it tight.”
She nodded, and I got busy making the can, wrapping tape
to keep the stick in place on the button, so when someone put
weight on it, like sitting on the toilet seat, for example, it
would sound off, creating an ear-splitting cry loud enough to
shake the foundations of this whole fucking place.
And make every single person inside choke on their
coffee.