Chapter 28 #2
“She did at first. But we told her it was some old Blackpine tradition. A good luck ritual.” Gen’s mouth trembled violently. “And then she got excited again. I think she thought…”
She broke off, tears spilling harder.
“She thought we were including her,” she finally went on. “Like she’d been invited into some special secret club.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rhys muttered.
Gen looked down at the ground again. “After that, Noura and Piper walked into the water and told Carly to follow them in for the swim. Then Jensen, Reid, Sloane, and Sutton went in too.” Her voice had flattened out now, hollow and distant, like she was forcing herself through each word.
“The rest of us stayed on the shore chanting the ritual words.”
The camera remained perfectly still.
“Jensen and Reid grabbed Carly’s arms first,” Gen continued. “Then Piper covered her mouth so she couldn’t scream while they forced her under the water. Sloane and Sutton held her legs down so she couldn’t kick free.”
A horrible silence followed.
“What happened after that?” Rhys finally asked in a low voice.
Gen swallowed hard. “As soon as it was over, it was like we all suddenly snapped back into reality. The adrenaline and excitement just disappeared like that.” She snapped her shaky fingers.
“So then we were just standing there staring at the lake, realizing that we’d actually done it. We’d killed a kid. For nothing.”
“And then?”
Gen’s gaze dropped to the ground again. “We knew we were completely fucked if anyone found out what really happened,” she said quietly. “Our lives would’ve been over. Every single one of us.”
Rhys let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “What about Carly’s life?”
Gen visibly flinched. “She… she was already dead,” she murmured.
“So at that point it felt too late to think about her anymore. All anyone could think about was protecting themselves.” She dragged the sleeve of her top across her wet cheeks.
“Sutton was the one who suggested the pact. She said we all needed to stick to the same story no matter what. That we’d say we were asleep all night and had no idea what happened to Carly.
And that nobody could ever tell the truth. Ever.”
“Because if one person talked, you all went down.”
Gen nodded wordlessly.
“And all sixteen of you actually managed to keep that secret all this time,” Rhys said, exhaling slowly. “Jesus Christ. If it wasn’t so unbelievably sick, it’d almost be impressive.”
“It wasn’t easy at first,” Gen said. “We were all terrified we’d slip up. Or maybe someone else in the group might feel guilty and confess.”
“Zach felt guilty, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “He talked about turning himself in a few times, even though he didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, he did,” Rhys snapped. “He stood there and watched a child get murdered, and he did nothing to stop it. That makes him complicit. Same as the rest of you.”
“I know,” Gen said shakily. “I just meant he wasn’t one of the people physically holding Carly under.” She swallowed hard. “But he took it badly. He kept saying he was having nightmares about her.”
“And the others talked him out of confessing?”
She nodded. “Some of the guys convinced him not to say anything because of what it would do to his family. You know how close they are. After that, he apologized for freaking us out, and he stopped bringing it up.” Her breathing wavered again.
“And then… over time, it got easier. Not normal, but easier. We stopped panicking every second of the day. Stopped worrying someone was about to figure it out. It even started to feel like it didn’t really happen. ”
“But it did.”
“I know. I just meant… it didn’t feel real anymore. It just felt like an old nightmare I used to have, or something like that.” She let out a tiny, broken laugh that sounded close to another sob. “I was literally just saying to Sutton yesterday that I thought we’d actually gotten away with it.”
“You almost did.”
Gen looked up at him through swollen, red-rimmed eyes. “How did you figure it out, anyway?”
Rhys adjusted the phone slightly. “Long story,” he said. “I’ll explain on the walk back down.”
She blinked at him. “So… you’re really taking me back to the city?”
“Yes.” His tone was calm again now. Controlled. “My dad’s friend is a defense attorney. I’ll call him on the drive and have him meet us somewhere. We’ll explain everything, and he’ll tell us what happens next. You’ll probably need to turn yourself in after that.”
“Okay.” Gen sniffled. “What about my car?”
“Your car?”
“I drove up here to meet you, and I figure you’ll want me riding back with you after… all this. So how will I get my car back to the city?”
For a second, Rhys didn’t respond.
“That’s really what you’re thinking about right now?” he finally said.
“I’m sorry,” Gen murmured quickly, casting her eyes downward. “My brain’s just all over the place. It’s… the stress, I guess.”
Another long silence stretched between them. When Rhys finally spoke again, something in his voice had flattened out completely.
“You’re right,” he said. “We can’t just leave your car sitting in the trail lot overnight. Someone could break into it. Or steal it.”
Gen wiped at her face again. “So what do we do?”
“Give me your phone.” Rhys snapped his fingers. “Now.”
She hesitated before shakily handing it over. “Why?”
“We’ll drive separately,” he said. “I’ll follow behind you, and I’ll hold on to your phone to make sure you don’t get any ideas about calling the others to warn them.”
“I… I wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe not. But if you try anything else, like speeding off or trying to lose me on the highway, I’ll catch you. You know I will.”
Gen nodded quickly. “I won’t try anything. I promise.”
“Good.” The camera swung toward the narrow trail again. “Let’s move. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”
Gen was still wiping tears from her face as she stepped carefully toward the trail entrance. The camera followed behind her as she disappeared into the trees, late afternoon light flickering through the branches overhead.
For several seconds, the only sounds were footsteps crunching against loose gravel and the distant whistle of wind moving through the mountains. Then the video abruptly ended.
I sat there staring at the blank screen, my mind spinning so violently it felt impossible to hold onto a single coherent thought.
Carly.
The lake.
Sixteen drunk, privileged idiots standing on the shoreline while a terrified little girl was held underwater like a sacrificial offering.
My stomach lurched hard enough to hurt.
I’d spent days trying to piece together what happened to Carly, imagining negligence or maybe even a panicked accident gone horribly wrong. But this was something else entirely. Something so much uglier. Sicker. So monstrous that my brain almost rejected it outright.
“I kept my promise to Gen,” Rhys said quietly. “I made sure none of the others ever touched a single hair on her head.”
My brows furrowed. “What do you mea—” The words died in my throat, and I looked at the timestamp on the screen again. “Wait. This was the day she died, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“It wasn’t an accident.” I slowly shook my head. “She was your first victim.”
Rhys nodded. “There’s a cliffside stretch of road on the way back down the mountain. When we reached it, I ran her off it,” he said matter-of-factly. “It wasn’t difficult. She was always a terrible driver. Reckless. Easily distracted.”
A chill crawled down my spine.
“After she went over the edge, I pulled over long enough to toss her phone into the ravine too,” he continued. “That way nobody would ever know I had it, and everyone would assume it was a terrible accident.”
“No one suspected anything? Even though you were right there?”
“No.” Rhys shrugged lightly. “Like I said, everyone already knew she was a reckless driver. So it fit.”
I couldn’t speak anymore. Could only shake my head with disbelief.
“Her parents knew I was the last person to see her alive, and they talked to me about it, but there wasn’t any actual suspicion attached to it,” he added. A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “And why would there be? We were friends.”
I held the phone out toward him, suddenly unable to keep it in my hand. It felt wrong now, like it was contaminated due to the mere presence of the confession video on it. Like if I stopped touching it, the awful mental images would suddenly vanish from my head.
But they didn’t. They were already there, lodged sickeningly deep. A terrified twelve-year-old girl floundering in a lake in the dark while a group of drunk adults treated some twisted old book like a game, right up until it crossed a line none of them could ever uncross again.
My stomach rolled violently, and I dragged a hand over my face, breathing unevenly.
“I can’t believe they killed a little girl over some stupid fictional ritual,” I said in a broken whisper. “Not that there’s ever a good reason to murder someone. Especially a child. But that? It’s just… it’s so…”
“Evil,” Rhys said. “It’s fucking evil.”
Silence flooded the cabin again. Then another thought hit me so hard my head jerked up. “Why didn’t you just go to the police? Like you told Gen you would?” I asked. “She was willing to confess.”
“To save her own ass, yeah. But she didn’t actually feel remorseful. You saw that, right?”
“It looked like she felt awful about it,” I said in a hollow voice.
“Only because she knew how it would make her look to the rest of the world,” he replied. “But you heard what she said about herself and the other Legacies. All that really mattered to them was protecting their own lives and reputations.”
I swallowed thickly. That was true. But still…
“Turning them in was the right thing to do,” I said. “Not… not killing them.”
Rhys scoffed. “They would’ve denied or minimized everything the second the cops got involved, and they all had rich families and expensive lawyers.” He cocked his head. “How many of them do you think would’ve actually ended up getting punished in the end?”