Chapter 25
SILENCE REIGNS. MY SISTER’S EXPRESSION REMAINS impassive after her confession. When her gaze meets mine, I search for a hint that she’s fabricated the perfect lie to throw them off course, but I find nothing. Her face shows no artifice or remorse for what she has done.
For a moment, the glint in her eyes dims.
“I heard you talking to Cerys the night after she filed her complaint,” she says to me, keeping her words vague like she’s trying to give me a shred of privacy in this vulnerable moment.
She doesn’t have to say any more, I know exactly what she’s referring to.
That night has haunted me this past year because it was the moment that changed everything for my best friend.
Cerys had hopes that things would go in her favor, especially since Westbrook had been promoting safer and more proactive policies regarding assault and harassment on campus.
But no one in the administration wanted to take any action against Brian and his father, considering Senator Manders was a benefactor of the university.
Cerys’ spirit broke that night because not only did things not go how she expected, but I had reduced the weight of her statement by not joining her.
If we had gone together, maybe things would’ve been different for her.
They would’ve chosen me as an easier target.
Being a minority and from a lower-class family, I wouldn’t have her privilege or the resources to be able to put up a fight against the Manders’ power and influence. They would’ve crushed me like a bug.
I felt horrible for letting her down, I still do, but I was too scared to come forward.
Look at what happened to her, even with her privilege and money. So for the sake of my parents and to protect Carmen’s future career, I chose silence against my abuser.
And as selfish as it may sound, I believed that if I never spoke about what happened, then I could still play pretend. I could act like I had the opportunity to redo all the first times he took away from me without my permission.
I just . . . I wanted it to go away. I desperately wanted the ghost of his touch to vanish from my memory.
Somewhere along the line, when I was trying my hardest to forget, my baby sister chose to act with violence to defend me.
“Carmen,” I whisper her name, my voice betraying me when it breaks.
A part of me still expects her to sneakily hint that she’s lying. But she doesn’t. Her expression remains without an ounce of regret, like she would do it all over again if she had to.
“When I heard what he did to you, how scared and helpless it made you, I knew I had to do something about it,” she reveals, anger filling her words.
“I’ve always had a darkness in me, and I felt it when I found out what happened to you.
And I let it win. I planned my revenge. It was unfair that he got to live a normal life, while you were being eaten away by what he put you through.
I made sure he never got to live again.”
“Carmen,” I repeat, without knowing what to say.
How does anyone react when you find out your little sister, the most precious person in your life, has decided to get her hands bloody on your behalf?
“I made my choice, Mabby. I decided to kill Brian, and I don’t regret it one bit.” She turns to look at Cerys with a hint of apology in her curved brows. “I’m sorry you never got a chance to clear your name, Cerys, but the motherfucker needed to die.”
The confession lingers in the air, shock plastering every inch and surface of the attic, thickening the tension around us.
My mind reels with a plague of thoughts. The memory of Brian’s butchered body returns to the front of my brain. The way he was killed sent a clear message to everyone about who he was.
And it was Carmen who did it.
“Is this why you distanced yourself from me?” I ask. “So I wouldn’t find out about it?”
Her curls shake.
“No, it wasn’t about you finding out. I wanted to tell you the truth.
Keeping it from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but if anything came out, I never wanted you to suffer the consequences.
What I did to him should never have affected you.
The less you knew, the better. Especially if the cops ever caught on with evidence.
I didn’t want you to be a suspect.” She glances at Cerys. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“When you left this place, I was so relieved because it meant you would be far away from all the hellfire if anyone discovered something about the case.”
“Wait, so you were really the one who killed Brian?” Aidan interrupts, standing between us.
“Don’t you feel stupid now? Murdering a bunch of people because you believed Mabel was capable of killing someone?” Carmen taunts him.
He shakes his head, but it’s not a response to her jibe. He’s having second thoughts about what he has done. This entire scenario was based on his interpretation of something that never even happened.
“It doesn’t matter,” Aidan grits out. “It’ll be you and me at the end, sweetie. I will get the girl, and this inconvenient asshole will die.” He points at Danny with his knife.
Elodie groans out loud, charged with annoyance.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Aidan!” she shouts, stopping him in his tracks. “You won’t get a chance to ride off into the sunset with Mabel like homicidal losers.”
“What are you—”
The gunshot blasts in my ears, and I scream as I lower to the ground, watching as Aidan’s corpse falls in the middle of the room, spreading a crimson pool around his head. Or what’s left of it. The bullet burst through his eye socket, leaving clumps of flesh around his face.
The instinct to run pulses in me, but I glance at my loved ones instead to make sure they’re free of harm. Or free of any bullet holes, since they’re all injured and losing blood already.
Danny’s gash is still ebbing blood with every minute that passes by since he’s unable to stop the bleeding with just his palms pressing against the wound.
His chest heaves with shallow breaths, and when our gazes meet, I notice the shock and sorrow swirling in his eyes.
I force myself to look away. Still sitting on a box, Cerys is pale and shivering, her lips cracked as she struggles to remain perched there.
Across from me, maroon streams flow from Carmen’s shoulder wound, soaking her dress.
Elodie is the only one standing.
“Great, now we have another homicidal loser,” Carmen mutters under her breath, but it comes out louder than she had intended.
“Shut up!” Elodie screams, pointing the gun at her. My breath hitches, fearing the worst, but she doesn’t fire. Her finger abandons the trigger, and she leans her head to the side, observing us. “I should kill you right now for what you did, but I think I’ll leave you for the end.”
Elodie shoves the gun in her clothes and tightens her hold on the axe’s handle, pulling Danny’s body to the side as the sharp edge presses against the side of his neck.
“Why are you even doing this?” Cerys interrogates in a frail voice. “We never did anything to you.”
Although Cerys voices what we’re all thinking here, they’re the wrong words to say because madness flares in Elodie’s eyes. Pure rage in the form of a flush spreads over her skin, coating her face in a shade of deep red.
“Nothing? You did everything,” she growls.
“What are you even talking about?” I press, almost begging for some clarity.
Her head turns to me, a wicked smile carved in her face.
“Aidan was in love with you,” she says, completely ignoring my question.
“The stupid fool really thought he’d be able to get away with this and gain your love,” she tells me, twisting the axe handle.
Danny lets out a choked whimper. “What a fucking creep, if you ask me. He clearly couldn’t see he had bigger competition. ”
The more she talks, the more confusion grows in my system.
If she didn’t join Aidan’s plot to create an elaborate slasher film, what’s her reason?
People don’t just randomly wake up one day and choose to collaborate in a carefully curated massacre.
Especially when she planned to eliminate her partner all along.
I’m missing the last part of the puzzle.
Elodie is a piece that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the characters in the picture.
“Yeah, he was a delusional idiot,” I agree, following her train of thought. If she’s talking, she can reveal her intentions. After all, there’s nothing a killer enjoys more in a film than explaining why they’re murdering people. “Why did you help him?”
She wrinkles her nose.
“Help him? You’ve got this all wrong. He was helping me.”
“Why?”
“Because you took everything from me with your lies.”
Revenge? She’s doing this because she wants revenge?
I frown and look in Carmen’s direction. She shrugs in confusion.
“Lies?” I cock my head. “What lies?”
“About Brian, you slut!” she shouts. Losing her control of the axe for a second, she knicks Danny’s neck and my heart summersaults. “You’re all responsible for his death.”
Somehow, it all leads back to him.
Aidan used Brian’s actions to create this night of horror as a fucked-up grand gesture of love for me. And Elodie is seeking revenge in his name.
Two twisted sides of the same coin.
“Brian brought it on himself. We never lied about anything,” I spit out, the flush of anger heating my skin. “And why do you care so much about his rapist ass?”
Elodie’s nostrils flare as she glares at me.
“He was the love of my life,” she reveals. “Brian was my boyfriend. I loved him. He loved me.”
I crane my neck in her direction.