Chapter 28 #4
I frowned, mind suddenly whirling again. “Well, speaking of that… I’m assuming your plan was to leave all the Dirtbags alone, right?”
“Of course. They had nothing to do with what happened to Carly.”
“But they still could’ve gotten hurt,” I pointed out. “Like, what about the harpoon trap? How could you possibly know Delia would be the one to walk into it?”
“I didn’t. But whenever someone at Blackpine talked about making a late-night run to the Snack Shed, nine times out of ten, it was Delia.” A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “She had a serious sweet tooth. So statistically speaking, she was the safest bet.”
“Right,” I muttered.
“But I still accounted for the possibility that one of the Dirtbags might go instead,” he continued. “I paid attention to everyone around the fire that night. If one of the Dirtbags had gotten up and said they were heading to the Snack Shed, I would’ve jumped up and gone with them.”
“And then what?”
“I would’ve walked slightly ahead and triggered the trap myself,” he said. “I knew exactly where it was and when it would fire, so I could’ve ducked out of the way and dragged the other person down with me. Then I would’ve looked like the quick-thinking hero who saved their life. Right?”
I stared at him for a second before rolling my eyes in disgust. “And the river thing? How could you possibly know Logan would be the one to get blown up?”
“That one was easy.” Rhys rubbed at his jaw. “Logan and Chris are the camp’s resident boat guys. Or were, I should say. If anyone was going to try escaping by water, it was always going to be one of them.”
“Right,” I muttered.
“I’ve been planning this for a long time, Alissa. I always had fail-safes in place, just in case, so no innocent people ever had to die.”
“Had to die?” I said, eyes narrowing. “As if anyone had to die.”
He sighed. “My point is, you and the Dirtbags were always going to be safe. None of you were ever my targets.”
“But… that’s not true, is it?” I said, slowly shaking my head. “Last night, you said you'd kill all my friends here if I made any sound on the way back from the woods.”
“No.” Rhys lifted a brow. “You said that.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You said it, Alissa. Not me,” he said, smirking again. “It was an assumption you made, and I let you believe it, because it made things a hell of a lot easier for me, didn’t it?”
I abruptly pushed to my feet. “In that case, what’s stopping me from screaming my head off right now?”
Rhys laughed softly, dark amusement curling through the sound. “You won’t scream, baby. Because as much as you’re sitting there on your high horse pretending otherwise, you know there are still three Legacies left, and part of you wants them punished just as badly as I do.”
A cold knot twisted deep in my stomach.
Part of me wanted to reject everything coming out of his mouth outright. Wanted to call him insane and leave it there. Because he was insane. No normal person spent months engineering elaborate murders and talking about them this calmly.
But another part of me couldn’t stop replaying what he’d said about the justice system either. And now, as I stared at him sitting there so calmly in that chair, I hated the fact that a tiny, ugly part of me understood exactly why he’d convinced himself this was justice instead of revenge.
I could never say that out loud, though. Could scarcely even admit it to myself.
“You have no idea what I want,” I muttered, sinking back onto the edge of the bed. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because you won’t be able to kill anyone else.”
Rhys cocked a brow. “Oh?”
“You told Jasmine to stay inside permanently. The others will all do the same,” I said. “So unless you walk into the hall and expose yourself to everyone, you’re done. No more murders.”
He laughed again, louder this time. “I can get people outside if I need to.”
“How?”
“You’ll see.”
I let out a tired breath and rubbed at my forehead. “If you actually kill the last three… what happens afterward? To everyone else, I mean.”
“Then it’s over,” he said. “The Dirtbags go home. Your friends go home. Life moves on.”
“And me?” I opened my eyes again, searching his face. “I know you’re the killer. So what happens to me?”
Rhys leaned back in the chair, studying me carefully.
“That,” he said slowly, “is the complicated part.”
“What if I promise not to tell anyone?”
He huffed out a soft laugh. “You really expect me to believe that?”
“No.” My shoulders sagged. “Even if I genuinely meant it, you’d assume I was only saying it until I could safely go to the police.”
“Exactly.”
Silence settled between us for a moment. Then Rhys leaned forward slightly. “On the other hand, I can’t keep you as my prisoner forever, can I?”
The glint in his eyes told me he’d already imagined it. And as much as it pained me to admit it, some treacherous corner of my mind had imagined it too.
That was the bit that truly frightened me. Not the blood on his hands or the bodies he’d piled up around Camp Blackpine… but the fact that some broken part of me still wanted him anyway.