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“I don’t care! I can’t just let—” I pause before I say the name. “I can’t let him go to jail.”
“I don’t think you understand how bad this can get for you,” he says. “And just so we’re clear, what I’m saying is that I don’t think you understand how bad I can make this for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you behave and do as you’re told, I can help your mom like I told her I would,” he says. “But if you don’t…”
“Then…what?”
“People die in those prisons all the time,” he says. “There are a lot of violent, dangerous people in there who are never getting out. It’d be very easy for someone like me to make it so you never see your mom again.”
“What?” My god, is he really threatening to kill my mom? “You can’t…”
“No one cares about the people in there, Ally,” he says. “If you want to see your mom again—if you want to go back to school—then you’ll tell them you were asleep in Darci’s room. We’re a nice Christian family, Ally. I can’t have people thinking my niece is some murderer’s whore.”
“He didn’t kill her.”
He shrugs. “Then he has nothing to worry about. The police will do their job. This boy doesn’t care about you, Allyson. He hada relationship with his stepsister. Don’t ruin your life for someone who’s made a fool out of you. Go shower and get dressed, and then we’ll head down to the station.”
I push my chair back and leave the table, unsure of what the hell I’m going to do next.
“Ally?” Mark calls after me.
I freeze but don’t turn around.
“You do the right thing. Your mom’s life depends on it. And you know, if I can’t trust you, you might have to start sleeping in my room at night so I can keep a better eye on you.”
A chill rolls down my spine, and a sob catches in my throat. I grit my teeth and drag myself back up the staircase to my room.
It’s a risky move, but I crawl under my bed and remove my phone from its hiding place. I take it with me to the bathroom, power it on after I turn on the shower, and watch the text messages come in.
Devon:Ally, please call me when you can. I love you. I hope you’re okay.
Devon:I’m scared. Are you okay? Please say something.
Devon:Ally, that picture…I should have told you about it. Darci staged it. She said she needed it as collateral to make sure I did what she said.
Devon:I went to school today. I wanted to see you, but you weren’t there. I miss you so much.
Devon:I think I’m fucked. I think my dad knows it, too. Everyone on the news and online is just angry that they haven’t arrested me yet. I just wish I knew where your head was. I just want to talk to you. Please? I love you.
Me:They’re upset. I’m afraid they’re going to hurt my mom. I’m scared, too. I miss you, too, but I don’t know what to believe, and I don’t know what to do. The police will do their job, Devon. You’ll be okay.
I turn off the phone, shower, get dressed, and head downstairs. Then, I get in the car and prepare to tell a lie that will change everything.
It’s been three days since they found Darci. The news vans have been parked on the street ever since. I look out my bedroom window and see one of them filming in the backyard, trying to get the now-empty pool in the background of his video.
I throw open the window. “This is private property,” I tell him. “You can’t film here.”
He gestures to the cameraman to turn it on me, and I immediately regret it.
“Technically, I’m on your neighbor’s property. They’ve permitted us to film here. Devon, can you tell us why you killed your sister?”
I slam the window shut and lie back on the bed. It was only hours after Darci’s death before the videos my classmates took of me threatening her at the party went viral and made their way onto the news, making me suspect number one.
The next day, they found the picture Darci took of us together in my bed and pulled it from the cloud on her laptop.
And it looks bad—really bad. I know that. I also have an alibi—someone who was with me all night and knows that I couldn’t have killed Darci, someone who knows I’d never hurt anyone.
