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“Iknowyou do. The way you’ve been acting? The shit you say, and how you haven’t come to any of their funerals? Tell them to stop, Bailey. Tell them it’senough.”
I don’t reply. I don’t know how to, without screaming at her or, worse, hitting her. But I don’t look away from her frantic, wide eyes, as I wonder how in the world she’s come to the conclusion I know who the killer is.
I do, obviously, but still.Sheshouldn’t know that.
“Why do you think I know who the killer is?” I ask patiently, reaching up to shove her hand off of my shoulder. “And don’t touch me. If we werefriends, you’d know how much I dislike being touched by someone I don’t like.”
Instead, she steps as close as she can, her eyes only inches from mine. “Because look who’s died,” she whispers, still not breaking eye contact with me. “And look at how you’re acting. I know you didn’t do it. You couldn’t. But youknow, don’t you?”
My heart thumps in my chest, and time seems to slow for a moment as I take in every bit of her expression.
She’s afraid. That much is clear. But she’s also impatient and irritated. And not one bit of her looks like she’s happy to be in my space, or believes any of what she’s said about being my friend.
“Would we be having this conversation if you didn’t think that?” I whisper finally, keeping my words calm and neutral. “Or would you still be at the hospital, instead of tracking me down on a long shot?”
“I’m not the only one who thinks you know,” she replies. “And it’s not like you’re doing a very good job of denying it.”
“Yeah?” I tilt my head to the side. “Why? Because you weren’t dead first?”
She takes a step back, momentarily stunned, but I see her resolve come back to play, and in seconds she’s back in my space, breathing my air, and looking a lot less friendly than she had a few minutes ago. “Whatever you think I did—”
“We both know that without you, Daisy would still be alive,” I counter. “We both know you could’ve stopped her from going out on that ice.”
“You could have, too.” The words are out of her mouth seemingly before she can stop them, and her eyes widen. “Wait. That’s not what I—” I step back from her and she reaches out to grab my wrist in her fingers, her grip like a vice that grinds my bones together painfully. “Bailey,wait. That’s not what I meant.”
But it is. Itiswhat she meant, and it makes it worse because I’ve had that same thought over and over again. I wrestle my arm free from her, not saying a thing, and this time I make it to the door and slip past a group of college students with no idea where I’m going.
My phone buzzing fuels me on, though, and somehow my platforms aren’t painful in the least as I walk down the street, strides eating up the distance between me and wherever the hell I’m going.
It isn’t until the first drop of rain, however, that I realize where I’ve ended up. My steps slow, and I gaze upward at Agnes’s tree in surprise, my brows furrowed.
Had I really walked this far in the cold without realizing it? Had my brain really been so out of it that I hadn’t known at all? I shiver, my arms lifting so I can hug myself while I look up through the limbs at the dark sky beyond them.
I need to go home, or I’m going to get caught out in this storm.
Before I can turn, however, there’s the sound of rustling leaves behind me, along with the snap of a branch. I whirl, fully expecting Nic or Ava there, but instead, my eyes fall on two familiar, masked figures that stand a few feet away from me, further down the hill in front of Agnes’s tree.
It’s easy now to tell them apart, since I know what and who I’m looking at. Phoenix stands on my left, his stance tense, his hair not quite hidden by the hood pulled up over it. To my right, Rory’s stance is more relaxed, and his hand rests easily on the hilt of the knife on his belt. Both of their masks are clean this time, and they look like monsters my brain has conjured out of all that hurt inside of me.
“She thinks I know.” I have to talk loudly over the wind that whips my hair around my face. “Ava thinks I know who you both are. And that I can talk you out of what you’re doing.”
Phoenix’s head tilts to the side, and for a few moments, both of them are deadly silent. He breaks the quiet, however, by taking the three steps up the hill that close all the distance between us, and leans in until his mask is barely inches from mine. Even though I can’t see his eyes, I canfeelhis gaze, and tip my head up as if I can meet it.
“She thinks I could’ve stopped Daisy from going out on the ice,” I tell him without meaning to admit it. “She said—”
“Who do you want me to kill next, Bailey?” Phoenix’s voice is soft. A whisper on the wind that somehow makes it to my ears just as his hand comes up to hover centimeters from my cheek. The question makes something in me relax, and I tilt my head to let him cradle my face sweetly. “Who do you want us to go find tonight?”
“Ava,” I whisper, the hesitation and mental resistance leaving me as the word exits my mouth. I don’t owe them, or her, anything. They’d kill her with or without me, right?
Butwithmy encouragement suddenly feels a lot better than the alternative.
“I want you to kill Ava.”
Chapter24
For a few long, precious seconds, I don’t know why I’ve woken up.
Thunder cracks outside of my window, and I feel my muscles tense ever-so-slightly in response. But it isn’t that. Storms rarely wake me up, and this one has been raging all night. Turning my head, I see that it’s only three thirty in the morning, and the realization makes me groan.
