“He tried to kill me.” Rose’s voice is hoarse. Bruises are already forming stripes on her neck. “Iris did it to save me.” And then, almost as if she can hardly believe it herself, she repeats, “He was going tokillme.”
If Lily hears her, she doesn’t show it. She runs to join Violet, kneeling beside Sol and frantically examining the wound. Poppy and Zinnia, though, remain frozen at the foot of the stairs, two sets of big brown eyes darting back and forth between us all.
“Killyou?” Poppy asks. “What do you mean? Why?”
“Because we were going to leave.”
“We’ve gotta get him to the hospital,” Lily says, completely ignoring the rest of us. “Violet, get the keys, we—”
“No!” Sol snaps. “No hospital.”
Lily pulls off the sweatshirt she was sleeping in and presses it to Sol’s stomach, trying to stanch the flow of blood. There are tears streaming down her round cheeks now. “But you’re gonna bleed out if—”
“No!” Sol yells.
“Why not?”
But I know why not.
Because if Sol goes to the hospital, there’s a chance they’ll ask who he is. He can lie, of course, but if he’s not careful, not clever, they might still find a way to track him down. Particularly since the cops know about this house and have seen his face. They’ll want to know who stabbed him. It’ll bring attention he’s long tried to avoid. And if Rose is right, there are warrants out for his arrest. He could go to prison.
A fact that, based on Violet’s silence, I suspect she is aware of.
I look away from the scene and meet Zinnia’s gaze. I know she must be confused and scared. Even more so than I am, sinceshe’s just woken up to violence in this peaceful garden.
Peaceful as far as we knew, at least. But we came here after Marigold. This safe place we found was tainted before we’d even arrived. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even with as much as I’ve seen, and she and Poppy aren’t aware of any of it.
“He asked me to kill Rose,” I whisper to my sisters. “I’ve been having to do these trials to prove my loyalty, and that was one of them.” I can’t look at Rose when I say it. I know she’s probably already put the pieces together based on Sol’s words before. But I’m not ready to see the terror or pain this might cause her. There will be time to face it later. “I couldn’t do it, so we were going to leave.”
Zinnia is shaking her head before I’ve even finished speaking. “That don’t make any sense. Why would he want you to kill Rose?”
“Because she’s a weed.” Violet turns to glare over her shoulder at us. “And weeds need to be plucked. This is proof of that. Look what the two of you have done!”
“He wouldn’t let us leave,” I plead, desperately wanting her—all of them—to understand. “We were just going to go, to sneak out. But he wouldn’t let us.”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Violet says. “If he had, y’all would’ve gone off and told someone about this place. And then it’d be over for all of us. None of us get to justleave.”
Poppygapes at her. “No one told me we weretrappedhere.”
“I mean,” Zinnia says, her voice low and shaky, “we ain’t been allowed to go into town …”
“Yeah, but that was for our own safety,” Poppy says.
“No, it wasn’t.” Rose’s arms are wrapped around herself. She’s still pressed against the wall, keeping as much space and as many people between her and Sol as possible. “That’s what he said, but it was really about him. He’s a criminal who’s living with a bunch of underage girls in the mountains. He didn’t want anyone he wasn’t completely sure was loyal to him going into town because they might lead the cops back here. It’s why he won’t let them take him to the hospital right now.”
“Stop it!” Lily cries out. “That ain’t true.”
The way Lily protests breaks my heart. I can hear the desperation there. The need to believe that Sol is a good man. Because if he’s not, then she’s dedicated years and done terrible things in the name of a monster.
We all have.
“Then why wouldn’t he let Marigold go, Lily?” I ask, trying to keep any accusation from my tone. “Why lock her up in the shed? Why send you and Violet after her, unless he was hiding something?”
Lilydoesn’t say anything to that. She turns her face away from me, putting her full attention back on Sol as the sweatshirt becomes soaked through with his blood. But I hear the little sob she lets out.
Poppy and Zinnia are both silent, though I can see the question in their eyes when I mention Marigold. But now isn’t the time. Sol is still conscious. Still glaring at me even as he weakly tries to give Lily instructions on where to find a first aid kit to stitch up the wound.
I don’t want to be here if he gets back on his feet.
