Chapter 49
KOENIG RANCH
“My … what?”
I can’t move. My knees feel like liquid, like a single movement would bring me to the floor.
Carter slides my phone back out of his pocket. “What’s your password? No, never mind.” He turns the screen toward me; the lock screen vanishes as it recognizes my face. Then he types something in.
“Twenty minutes ago, on Sekrit. ‘Hey everybody. I can’t do this anymore. The last few weeks have been too much. I will never be able to escape what Rocky did. I am going to put an end to it. Please forgive me.’” He looks up from the phone.
“You should feel flattered, there’s already twenty-seven replies telling you not to do anything stupid. ”
I shake my head. For a second, it’s all I can do. My tongue won’t move.
“Yeah, so, tormented with grief, pushed over the edge by a cyberbully.” He puts the phone back into his pocket. “Another in a rash of small-town suicides. Tragic.”
“But…” I stammer. “You really think you can get away with it again? Fake another suicide in the exact same place? You really think that’s not gonna look suspicious?”
He shrugs. “It happens. Remember health class last year? Mr. Enfield said there are suicide clusters that break out, especially among teenagers, yeah?”
I want to scream. Carter’s the biggest slacker I know—the one fact he’s ever retained is this? But he’s right. After Rocky and Lynette’s deaths, we had a bunch of assemblies about it, statistics and hotlines and guest speakers. They were all so worried that it was catching.
I look at Hayden, pale and shuddering behind him. There’s a trickle of blood just under her nose.
I meet her eyes, and she looks quickly away.
I’m suddenly furious. She was supposed to be one of my best friends.
She was supposed to have my back. Instead she lied to me.
She fucked my boyfriend. She knew how he died and kept it from me.
She knew it wasn’t Rocky’s fault that Lynette died, and she let me believe it was.
She was Not-Jonah all along, manipulating me, playing with my feelings.
She’s also my last hope of getting out of here alive.
“You really think you won’t be next?” I say softly. “You think he’s going to stop with me? Come on, Hayden, he’s not going to rest until all of the witnesses are out of the way.”
“She’s not a witness,” he says with a grin. “She’s an accomplice. Right, babe? You’re not telling anyone anything about this. Because if I go down, you go down with me. Come on, Hayden, get the ropes, we have to get her close up so the powder burns look like she did it herself.”
Hayden doesn’t move. She just stands there, face hidden behind the curtain of her hair, fists clenched and white at her side. Carter risks a glance to the side, still aiming the gun at me. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “Okay.”
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, then bends down to open her bag. She pulls out a length of rough-looking rope.
I hold my arms up and stagger backward. I’m not about to let her near me. If Carter’s going to kill me anyway, he’s going to have to do it without tying me up. My calf bumps against the bedframe, and I stumble but manage to keep my feet.
“Come on,” growls Carter. “Move.”
Hayden holds the rope in both hands. Her breath is coming fast and short, little wheezy gasps.
Finally, she moves. Not forward into me, but sideways, and with all her might, into Carter. A full-body tackle.
He’s not braced for it. He’s thrown off his feet, Hayden flying with him. Somehow I manage to move, without a plan, without a thought in my head. I know I can’t outrun him. I know I can’t get away.
Instead, I stride across the room and grab the heavy, heart-shaped rock off the shelf.
Hayden and Carter are writhing around on the ground, a tangle of limbs.
She’s got his wrist with both hands, trying to make him drop the gun.
His feet scrabble against the floor, and he screams in frustration.
One of his legs swings out wild, catches the leg of the table, and pulls it over.
The shadows swell and subside as a few candles go flying.
I clench the rock in both hands. It’s heavy, about the size of a football. But I can’t get a good angle on Carter. Not with Hayden still grappling him. I watch as the gun’s nozzle swings around, pointing every which way.
Hayden screams—not a scream of fear or pain but of rage. She bites down on his hand and refuses to let go. A moment later his voice answers hers, a wordless howl, blood dribbling down his arm. The gun clatters to the floor.
I dart forward and kick it as hard as I can, sending it skidding into the shadows.
Then I take my chance. I hold the rock over my head. I’m long since done with half measures. When I bring it down on his head, I use all my strength.