Chapter 20 Ledger #2
I cling to every flicker of doubt, tiny signs that prove it’s real, like the way he reacted when Frankie told him we’re his family.
He freaked out on her. Anger filled his outburst in a way I couldn’t understand.
It stunned me. All I could think of in that moment was how unrecognizable he was to me.
That the Tanner I knew would’ve never turned his back on us. Except he did.
My lungs burn like they’ve been set on fire.
Why wouldn’t he have said anything?
Would it have even mattered to me if he did? He knew I made up my mind on Aria, that I’d still go after her. It would’ve changed nothing. We both subconsciously knew it.
“Why would I believe anything coming out of your mouth?” I snap, jamming the barrel into the back of his head again, despising his very presence. “You think I care about what you have to say? That it’ll save you?”
He shrugs, arms going limp as blood drains from his legs, the knife I’d given her still stuck to his flesh.
“No. I know there’s nothing saving me now.
” His speech is slurred, the words mumbled and quiet.
“I knew that from the moment you two were caught that The Ringer would shortly unravel. That I’d go down right along with Tanner. ”
My fingers grow taut along the trigger, anxious to empty a bullet through his head before my resolve crumbles in front of him. I won’t give Antonio the satisfaction of knowing anything that’s churning in my mind. I’ll keep him oblivious, in the dark, just as he’s done to me.
He won’t get to speak for Tanner. Won’t get to bare his soul. I’ll rob him of that opportunity, scrape away whatever chance he has left at absolution.
“I wanted…” He starts, his voice cracking on the edge of something I’ll never know. Don’t want to know.
I don’t wait.
My finger tightens on the trigger, and the bullet tears through his skull, slicing upward at an angle.
Aria cries out, tensing underneath Antonio’s lifeless weight as he slumps onto her. I haul him off, dumping his body to the side.
Tears, some dry, some still falling, streak her pink-tinged cheeks. My eyes follow them to the bruise at her neck. My jaw flexes. “It’s okay. You’re okay now.”
I swoop an arm beneath her trembling body and scoop her up into my arms as I turn around, heading for the stolen Mazda.
Frankie’s already huddled inside, her eyes dull, staring at us through the window in the backseat.
Beside her, I settle Aria inside, carefully as if she’s made of glass.
Her trembling fingers are stained with thick, red blood, but besides that and the bluish-purple spotting on her slender neck, she’s unharmed.
She’s okay.
Roughened up, but okay.
I gently close the door after buckling her in and slip behind the wheel, starting the car after tossing the gun into the glove box. Relief comes in fragments, dulling the ache Tanner left behind.
Both girls are okay.
That’s enough for me.
My chest clenches as I fist the steering wheel, backing out. We need to leave before anyone comes to investigate the noise. Cops don’t pass by often, but I’m not interested in any nosy onlookers.
“I checked the desk,” Frankie says quietly. She doesn’t meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. Instead, she stares out her window. “There was nothing. I couldn’t find any IDs or anything. Not that it really matters now, right?”
A suffocating sensation tightens my throat. My inner torment claws back to the surface, gnawing at me. I can’t help but feel like this is all my fault. Everyone’s suffering traces back to the moment where I first fucked up.
There’s a reason Tanner didn’t mention Antonio to me back inside. It makes sense now. His threats, coming here without backup, coming to terms with his own death.
He’d changed. Or maybe he was right, and I’m the one who’s really changed.
The signs were all there. I was just too busy to stop and face them.
Despite our differences, and despite him going against me, he couldn’t go through with hurting either me or Frankie. He chose to sacrifice himself when he couldn’t persuade the outcome. Something about that realization sits heavy in my gut.
He knew nothing would stop me from going after Antonio.
That I would’ve done anything to protect Aria.
He couldn’t choose between Frankie, me, and Antonio. So he left the choice in my hands.
But is that what I did? Did I choose Aria over him?
I guess in a way, I’d always choose her, back to the very moment I decided to take her from that house. I’ve chosen her above everyone else’s safety. My own included.
Maybe Tanner’s death is my fault. But dwelling won’t do me any good.
What’s done is done. What’s lost is lost.
I didn’t pull the trigger on him. But somehow, it still feels like I did.
I bury the thought deep, snuffing out the feeling until I’m nothing but a numb wall. My only remaining thought is how to move us forward.
With Antonio gone, it feels like the chains have finally slipped off. Aria’s fate rests solely in my hands now. I choose how we all move forward. And I know what she’d want if given the choice.
Aria’s small voice breaks through the bleak fog stretched between the three of us. “W-Will they find us?”
Us.
I’m not sure which she means—the police or The Ringer—my mind narrowing in on the specific way she chose to phrase her question, linking herself with me.
I make a conscious decision to unfurl my fingers from where they dig into the wheel, contemplating.
Members of The Ringer will scatter without Antonio’s lead or mutate into something else entirely, likely away from here. The threat over her life disappeared the moment I blew a hole into Antonio’s head.
“The cops won’t be able to link this to any of us, unless we come forward ourselves. They have no suspicious activity record for—”
My words clip off, unable to say his name.
“Any of them,” I finish. “It’ll just look like a random act of gang violence gone wrong. Chances are some criminal will catch the scene during a drug deal or something long before any cop comes around that place. They’ll want to protect their meeting spot and burn the bodies off.”
The image of Tanner’s partially decayed body set aflame turns my stomach, but I box the emotion out until I’m numb again. He’s already dead.
It’s best to never look back. Move forward. Think later.
Or perhaps it’s best to never think of it at all.
“Oh,” she says in a threadbare whisper. “What about me?”
I catch her wince through the mirror as I turn out of the narrow alley.
“What’ll happen to me now?”
My gaze snaps back to the road ahead, the car jostling over cracked pavement, the vibrations jerking all of us in our seats. “Will you tell the cops what happened?” I ask. The question sits heavy between us for a brief moment.
“No,” she quickly assures once she’s able to form the words again. “I-I told you I wouldn’t. Everything I told you before was true.”
Her words should evoke a visceral reaction in me, but everything inside of me is hollow. Past promises feel empty.
I know her words hold inklings of fear, of uncertainty. Who’d blame her? I’ve always been someone to be feared. Not to come close to.
She just wants to go home. I could take here there now. I should.
Frankie stays quiet, stiff as a mannequin, her head resting against the window, her body shaking from the car’s vibrations.
Guilt racks through me. My little sister needs me right now.
I can’t help her with Aria tethered to us. Besides, it wouldn’t be what Frankie would want. What either of them would want.
My mind’s made up.
“Repeat after me,” I tell her. She snaps her eyes to the front, resting on the back of my headrest. “You didn’t see anything. You left the Shaws’ early.”
“I-I left early,” she stumbles. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Where did you go?” I quiz.
“Out of town?” she echoes, slow and uncertain. Then, more panicked, “My mom picked me up. It was an emergency. My…My grandma died. She picked me up from the sleepover early and we left town. I didn’t see anything.”
“What time?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Eleven thirty,” I clip. “Now again. More confidently this time.”
She doesn’t skip a beat, stringing the constructed story together again and again until the lines roll off her tongue with practiced ease.
The warehouse fades to a speck as we disappear into the distance, leaving everything I once knew behind.