Chapter 26. Reed
Reed
“Oh shit.” I buckle to the floor, head between my legs. “I just killed somebody.”
“It was an accident.” Tessa turns away, trying very hard not to stare at Carl’s mangled body. Or maybe she doesn’t want to face me and what I’ve done. Can I blame her?
I can hardly wrap my mind around it myself.
Another life snuffed out by Reed Walker.
Another death on my conscience. I press my forehead to the cold cement floor, unable to catch my breath.
“He fell because of me. If I hadn’t passed through him in that moment, if I hadn’t tried to get inside his head, then maybe … he would have …”
“He would have what? Run downstairs to grab some gasoline to raze our mansion to the ground, or come after Tilly and her family to burn them while they slept? We didn’t have a choice.
” Tessa reaches for me, but I pull out of her grip to stand.
I feel dirty, like a weed infestation, as if my crimes could bloom and contaminate her, too.
“I got inside his head and distracted him at that moment.” Carl’s lifeless body is bent at odd angles on the floor, but I force myself to look at him.
“It’s my fault that someone else is dead, even if that someone is a low-life creeper like Carl.
” I wipe my eyes. Look. Look at what you did.
This is who you are. You are a menace to society, even when you’re dead.
You cannot be trusted. You’re a horrible person.
“You better not be shedding a tear over that psycho,” Tessa says.
“Excuse me?” I whip around, piercing her gaze.
Does she not understand what happened? Can’t she tell I’m drowning?
“You really don’t get it, do you? His death is on me now.
Just like yours is. Just like—” My father’s.
I can’t even say it. I shake my head, all warmth gone.
“Do you have any idea how much this has been weighing on me? What I did to you. To us.” I’m incandescently pissed.
“It’s so easy for you to lecture me or shrug this off, because you don’t have to carry the weight of those deaths on your conscience forever. ”
She stares, stunned. “I’m not shrugging anything off. And if you’ve been consumed with guilt over my death, it’s the first I’m hearing about it.”
That stings. I’ve been suffocating inside, but she’s never asked or wondered. Never noticed. “Then you haven’t been looking very closely.”
“I get that my own death was an accident. I mean, yeah, am I ticked off you grabbed some random drink instead of making one yourself, and stole my whole future from me? Yeah. That does make me mad.”
“Ha. I knew it!” I point my finger at her angrily. “You’ve been holding—”
“But,” she cuts me off, her voice rising to overtake mine, “I’ve FOR-GIV-EN you.” She claps out each syllable.
“That’s sure what it sounds like,” I scoff.
“Aaagh,” she growls. “Taking Carl out, that was the right thing to do. I think that’s why we’ve remained here at all—to protect Tilly from him. Well, guess what? We did that. We stopped him.”
“We?” I spit out. “I’m the one who did it.” I thump my chest. If these deaths are my fault, I may as well get the credit. I’m the one who has to pay for them. “Tilly’s not even my friend.”
She jerks back. “And I’m supposed to be … what? Thankful? This was all some favor for me or something? Is that what you’re saying?”
And there she is. This is the Tessa I know. Rigid. Full of accusations. She stands in front of me, face livid, hands fisted at her sides.
“No. It’s not some favor I’m doing for you. Jesus fucking Christ. But you know what, now that you mention it, I wouldn’t mind some appreciation. Maybe a little sympathy. It’s only my goddamn soul I’m sacrificing here.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in all that.”
I bark out a sharp and condescending laugh, take two steps away, then swing around. “All I ask is for a thank-you, and you can’t even do that. You’re so stubborn sometimes, Tessa, it drives me crazy. If this is all so easy, then you do it. Let’s see how you feel taking someone else’s life.”
She blinks back tears. But in this moment, I’m glad to see it. I need her to understand.
“This was a mistake.”
“I thought you said killing him was a good thing.”
“No, not Carl. Us. You and me.” She waves her hand between us. “I don’t know what we were thinking. We were probably scared and needed company, but we should have known … it was always going to end like this.”
“End?” I stagger backward, seeing her as if for the first time. “That’s not what I’m saying.” We’re fighting, sure, but that doesn’t mean we end things because they get hard. Can she really discard us like that?
“These last few weeks feel like a fever dream that we’re only now waking up from. We’ve argued and sniped at each other for years, Reed. This is what we know. It’s the habit we’ll always fall into.”
I cross the room so I’m inches from her face.
“Is that right?” We glare at each other.
“This is what you want, then? To end things?” My mouth pulls tight in a thin line.
My body vibrates with frustration. But there’s something else behind it I can’t place.
A confusing array of feelings somersault through me.
Anger.
Desire.
Remorse.
Everything has gone sideways so fast. I don’t know what to think anymore. So I do something I never thought I would: I breathe my worst secret into the world.
“When I was nine years old, I called my dad to pick me up from a sleepover. I told him I couldn’t sleep, but really, I was scared, and I think he knew it.
” Tessa looks taken aback, unsure where I’m going with this.
But she holds her ground, breathing hard, waiting to see what I’ll say.
“It was stormy out and he was worried about the roads. But I begged him. I didn’t even say goodbye when we hung up, only Hurry.
” Tessa eyes me warily as my voice drops to a whisper.
“But he never came. He spun out on black ice. I was so focused on wanting to be home, so focused on myself, that I forced him to drive through the storm. I killed him.”
“Reed—”
“I did that. I took his life from him, like I took yours. And Carl’s. That’s what I do. I steal people’s chances. I annihilate their dreams.”
“That’s not on you.”
“But it is. I have no idea what’s waiting for me over there.” I nod at the door. “But I doubt it’s anything good.”
“I understand why you’re freaking out. I’m freaked out, too.” She steps closer, resting a hand on my arm. Her head tilts up until our eyes connect—hers hazel, flecked with gold.
I want nothing more than to get lost in those eyes, but she crossed a line before and I’m not sure I can find my way back. I’m not sure I’d deserve it even if I could.
“What happened to you is heartbreaking. But you were a kid, Reed, and your father loved you. That was an accident. All these deaths were accidents. And with Carl, we’re not talking about Mother Theresa here. He was going to kill Tilly.”
I sigh and step out of her grasp. Has she not been listening?
Tessa pursues me. “You’re not thinking straight, but if you take a second to breathe, you’ll see this for the win it is.
Carl can’t pick things up now. He can’t burn anyone alive.
We saved Tilly. You saved her.” A tide of relief falls over Tessa, her shoulders slumping as the air gusts out of her.
“I’ve been so distracted by all this.” She gestures, indicating the room. “But you saved her, Reed. It’s over.”
My jaw twitches. Has it only ever been about Tilly? Am I a means to an end? But before I can ask more, the flickering of Carl’s door catches my eye. For the first time I really look at his golden countdown timer, and the numbers are so much higher than ours. “Is it really … a win?”
Tessa follows my gaze, and her mouth drops.
“He has 13,304,562 seconds.” I press my temples, running the calculation in my head. “That’s just over five months.”
She staggers back. “Why does he get so long?”
“Maybe for a redemption arc.” I huff out a breath.
“I highly doubt that.” The clock ticks back another slot. “So, he gets five more months than us. We’ll be long gone, but he’ll be here getting into who knows what kind of trouble. She’s not safe. All our efforts … all this fighting, and Tilly’s still not safe.”
Whatever Tessa and I had feels so tenuous, like it could crumble in front of our eyes. And now Tilly’s in danger again. Has this all been for nothing? But there’s no time to wail at the universe about how life and death aren’t fair, because Carl’s still out there, and he needs to be stopped.
That thought sparks something in me, a memory of that first misty morning waking up in the ballroom, police scattered around the grounds. “Where’s Carl?”
Tessa turns behind her, where he lies dead on the floor.
“No, not his actual body. His ghost. He’s got to be somewhere in this house.”
“Oh crap.” Tessa starts for the stairs and I follow.
But before we get too far, there’s a shuffling noise behind us from the back corner of the basement. I turn as a shadowy figure rises beside a rack of fraying towels next to an old washer and dryer.
My heart thunders in a panic. Tessa freezes beside me.
He’s here.