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We sneak back along the hall and pass through the ballroom again. Malloy Manor is silent – the kind of silence I always tried to fill with Gabriel’s music, with my dreams, with my pain. The kind of silence that’s been absent for so many months thanks to my family. It feels as though the house itself is trying to restore equilibrium.
Fuck you, house. You belong to me. It’s time to rid you of your ghosts, once and for all.
We step out of the French doors and move around the back of the house. Howard’s office also contains French doors that open out onto a smaller patio area. The blinds on them are drawn, but I usually keep one of the windows cracked open to let in fresh air. As we near the doors, I hear low voices inside.
Cali gives us a signal to spread out and hide. Gabriel bends down behind a planter, while Livvie takes cover behind a hideous Cupid statue. Cali drops down beside us. The sunlight glitters off her array of knives. I admire a beautiful curved blade as I strain my ears to listen to what’s going on inside.
I hear Noah’s voice, and then Mackenzie’s. She’s exactly where I thought she’d be, in Howard’s office. I can’t hear what they’re saying.
The door thumps open and my sister backs outside. A backpack slung over her shoulder clanks with cylinders. Noah and Eli crowd through the door after her, their weapons raised. For some reason, they don’t fire.
What are you waiting for? Kill her.
As one, we stand up and surround her, but she doesn’t seem to care. Mackenzie calmly swirls around to face me, holding out her fisted hand.
“I’m surprised by you, sister,” she says to me. It’s surreal watching her move and talk – my mirror image, and yet everything about her feels wrong. “You expended all your resources going after the men, and you let little old me sneak in here and collect my treasure. People are always underestimating us, aren’t they? I expected more from you.”
Cali flicks off her safety, but Noah makes a hissing noise and she holds fire.
“Good girl,” Mackenzie grins, nodding to the device in her fist. “This is a grenade. If I lift my finger off this switch, I go bye-bye, and take all of your boyfriends and the precious treasure with me.”
Shit. Shit.
Gabriel takes a step back, moving me behind Cali as if her body could somehow shield us from an explosion. Mackenzie hoists the bag higher on her shoulder and nods toward the garden wall. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll be climbing over that fence with my prize. Don’t try and stop me. Don’t send anyone after me. You have no idea what I’m capable of. You may still have your life and my house, Claudia, but I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you. Now, get out of my way.”
She steps toward the wall, her pert lips set in a determined line. As Cali steps back, she brushes against me. My fingers slide over the hilt of her curved knife. Cali starts to jerk away from me, but she sees something in my eyes and snaps her hand back. “Take it,” she mouths.
Close your fingers, I command my body. Slowly, achingly slowly, my fingers obey.
Mackenzie waves at us with her free hand as she takes another step toward the wall. The backpack is heavy and ungainly, and she wobbles on spiked pumps as she walks.
I drag the knife from Cali’s belt and press my feet into the ground, hoping I can hold myself upright. Every movement is heavy, weighed down by the drug clinging to my veins. I raise the blade and stagger forward just as Mackenzie swings around to face me.
“Oh, no you don’t…” With her free hand, Mackenzie reaches for her nearest weapon – the syringe of tranquilizer she shot me with. I know that another dose of that stuff will kill me. Mackenzie thrusts her other hand out, reminding me of the grenade she’s just crazy enough to detonate.
Only I’m too slow and too committed to stop. I summon every ounce of strength left inside me, every atom of love and trust for my family, and I wind the blade the way I’ve seen in Medieval-sword-geek YouTube videos as my body half-barrels, half-topples toward my sister.
The blade connects with Mackenzie’s arm just above the elbow. My weight sinks down on top of it, giving the weak swing the power it needs to slice through her flesh and find the bone, which splinters and shatters as my weight bears down on it.
Mackenzie reels in slow motion, her face collapsing in horror. Blood drenches her golden hair, the light catching on the shimmering strands as they’re splattered in crimson.
Her arm flies through the air, the finger still pressed firmly on the grenade.
Something else flies through the air and reaches it. George slides across the ground. Her elbows scrape raw as her hands fold around Mackenzie’s severed fist. She pushes her fingers down on the trigger.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” George screws her eyes shut. “Someone take this thing away from me.”
Mackenzie turns to stare down at me. Blood rains from the stump on her arm. She doesn’t even bother to touch it. She’s gone to another place. Her white teeth glitter from within her bloody mask. “Well done, sister. I’d salute you if I could.”
The backpack slides off her shoulders. Metal cylinders roll across the patio. Blood spurts from her severed arm, painting Eli as he rushes to George. Mackenzie turns her head to smile at him.
“Sweet little Eli. So earnest. So easily manipulated. Nero was wrong about you – you never had it in you to run his empire. And Gabriel Fallen,” she grins at my beautiful, broken angel as he tugs me under the shoulders, dragging me back from her. “I had such plans for you. I was going to enjoy breaking your mind.”
She drops to her knees. It’s a struggle to keep her head upright.
“And little Noah Marlowe who grew up so good,” she smiles. “You hated me so much. You were the only one who saw through the mask I wore. You always see the truth. I’ll leave you with this last truth, which I think you know in your heart even if you haven’t said it aloud. I knew exactly what they were going to do to your brother. I knew that drug wasn’t tested. I knew it was dangerous. I enjoyed roping Felix in, knowing I had the power to destroy your family.”
An inhuman roar tears from Noah’s throat. He lunges forward.
