Chapter 25 #2
This is the first time I’ve heard about it, because Brian Manders never had girlfriends.
He enjoyed having his freedom, fucking anyone who crossed his path, even the ones who didn’t consent to it.
He was like any other basic frat boy. Loved to drink and party, never caring about his future or career because his rich daddy would get him the perfect job after graduation.
If there was something Brian adored, it was his fuckboy life.
He was far from what Elodie seems to think he was.
“All of you took him from me,” she carries on, her voice cracking with emotion. “With your false accusations and lies, kicking him out of his frat home, slandering his name. You’re all guilty, especially you,” she determines, staring at Carmen. “You’ll pay for this.”
And my sister does the worst thing anyone can do when a killer is exposing their motive: she laughs. A full belly-laugh like someone is tickling her ribs.
“Carmen Lucía,” I grit out.
“I’m sorry, it’s just . . .” She snorts, laughing again. Carmen shoots me a look like she’s trying to get me to understand something.
“What are you laughing at?”
“At you.” Carmen’s gaze flickers to Elodie’s axe.
I frown.
What is she playing at?
“At me?” presses Elodie, her wide eyes twitching. Her jaw tightens, as she spews, “I’m going to have so much fun killing you, you little bitch. It’ll be a slow death, so you really suffer.”
“Do it,” Carmen taunts her. “I bet it’ll be longer than your fake relationship with Brian.”
“Shut the fuck up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Elodie’s grip on the axe loosens as her muscles shake with anger, and for a moment I’m afraid Elodie will whip out her gun and just shoot Carmen. She takes a small step forward and stops pressing the axe against Danny’s neck.
I finally understand what Carmen’s doing. She’s distracting Elodie.
“Did Brian even know you guys were dating?” Carmen taunts her with a mean smirk.
“Knowing Brian, I doubt he even knew her name,” I say, adding salt to the wound.
My eyes flicker to Danny and then to the pocket in Elodie’s robes where she hid the gun.
His brows twitch for a second, but as his eyes track mine, he gets the message, giving me the tiniest nod.
“She’s as delusional as Aidan. Actually, more than Aidan.
At least I remembered his existence. Can’t say the same for Brian remembering her. ”
Filled with rage, Elodie lets out a guttural scream, her hand flying to her robes. But Danny is faster than her. He elbows her in the gut and knocks the gun out of her pocket.
Elodie is caught off guard, but she’s too angry to focus on him. Unable to find the gun, she hoists the axe over her shoulder and swings.
“Watch out!” I yell at Carmen, dropping to the ground as Elodie tries to take my head off with the axe.
Thankfully for us, the fury in her makes her movements clumsy and unprecise.
“You’re all liars! He loved me. Brian was in a relationship with me, why would he want to go with someone else? You probably made up those lies because he rejected both of you. Since you couldn’t trap him, you chose to hurt him instead.”
“He probably used you because you were an easy fuck,” Carmen throws back at her.
“News flash for you—Brian didn’t like accessible girls,” I add.
“That’s not true. He was loyal to me.”
“Is that why his favorite hobby was to drug girls and rape them in his shitty twin-sized bed?” Carmen quips.
“He didn’t do that! Stop lying!” she shrieks with her eyes closed, throwing the axe in my sister’s direction in an attempt to get her to shut up.
The axe is too big for her to throw precisely, missing Carmen’s body by a mile.
She lets out a visceral scream and moves frantically in a circle, searching for something.
The gun.
I can’t let her grab it. Without giving it a second thought, I lunge at her. I dig my fingers into the place where I know I stabbed her. Elodie shrieks in agony when I push her and she loses her balance. Her arms fling around, trying to find something to grasp on to.
And that something is . . . me.
She grabs handfuls of my hair, tugging on my scalp as we both fall through the hatch.
I hit my hip hard on the ladder’s steps and let out a moan.
My body slams on the floor. Adrenaline pumps in my veins, allowing me to recover faster than I had anticipated.
The pain is barely a dull ache as I spot a knife lying a few meters away.
Por fin.
Crawling on the floor, I reach for the knife. Elodie bites the back of my arm before I can wrap my fingers around the hilt, and I scream. Elbowing her in the face to push her off me, I grab the knife and stagger to my feet.
Elodie stands too, her nose dripping blood over her mouth as she bares her teeth, looking almost animalistic. She slams her body against mine and tries to wrestle the knife out of my grasp.
While we have similar body types and strength, she’s fueled by raw and visceral madness. I know she needs to die.
If I want to protect the ones I love, I have to kill Elodie.
I slam my face against hers, hitting her nose and it cracks. More blood gushes out of her, but she’s unstoppable, kicking her legs, trying to get me down. We hit the banister at the top of the stairs and I push her against it, hearing it crack.
Her eyes widen in fear.
Taking a step back, I slam my body against hers as hard as I possibly can. The banister breaks under the force and we fall.
There’s a bigger distance between the first and second floor, almost a story and a half.
Probably close to fifteen feet. The air is knocked out of my lungs, the fall harder than the one from the attic.
My fall is broken by Elodie’s body. I almost feel my ribs crack as I lie parallel on top of her.
My abdomen radiates overwhelming flames of pain through my system.
I place my hands by the sides of Elodie’s head and push to sit up, moving to a straddling position. Looking down to the spot where our bodies are still linked, I see that Elodie’s hand is wrapped around the hilt of a knife that is buried in my stomach.
She stabbed me.
I gasp for air, shock permeating my skin as I clasp my thighs at the sides of her body, keeping her locked in place.
La cabrona stabbed me.
My sight gets blurry at the edges, and I don’t know if it’s thanks to the pain and the blood flowing out of me, or the adrenaline vibrating under my skin. I shake my head, hoping to clear it as I grab the hilt of the knife.
Elodie’s eyes grow in shock, her jaw slackening as I slap her hands away from it.
With my chest heaving, I do something I probably shouldn’t.
I’m not a doctor. The very sparse medical experience I have is limited to watching hospital dramas on TV and creating horror wounds on film, but I do know you should never remove any type of weapons or foreign objects embedded in your body.
Yet it’s what I do.
I pull the knife out of my gut. Warm blood gushes out of me, coating both of our bodies, and I smile at Elodie’s horrified expression. The animalistic glow in her eyes is long gone, turning her from a predator into meek prey.
Like she always was.
“Now it’s your turn to die, you fucking bitch,” I grit out.
Before she can respond, I bury the knife in her chest, using every bit of strength I have. The blade pierces through layers of clothing, skin and muscle, hitting bone as I cut through her. I retrieve the blade and plunge it in her again, her flesh making a gooey thwack noise.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Blood sprays over me as Elodie’s screams blast in my ears.
Or am I the one screaming as I stab her?
I feel my vocal cords vibrating, but I can’t hear my voice.
I don’t know anymore. My body is in overdrive.
Depositing all the adrenaline, trauma and pain into killing the person who has caused us so much torment tonight.
Especially because I know that, beyond everything Aidan did, Elodie was the one who hurt Carmen and Cerys.
She hurt the people I love the most.
She almost killed Danny.
She deserves a horrific death too.
So I stab her over and over again until she stops screaming.
I don’t stop piercing her body with the knife until she stops thrashing and the only movement that comes from her is caused by me stabbing her.
I plunge the knife in her chest one last time and leave it buried there where it belongs as I admire the gruesome image of the violence I created.
Her robes are torn and shredded from the wounds, flesh split open in so many places that there are holes in spots where I stabbed her twice. Empty eyes stare at the ceiling, lips bloody, as she lies lifeless on the floor.
Rattled breathing comes out of me in puffs as I roll off her, resting my back on the floor.
Adrenaline ebbs from my wound, disappearing from my body.
I’ve grown numb. A tingling sensation radiates from me as I lie there.
Shivering pain comes in waves from my abdomen, and it’s then I notice the movie projecting on the wall across from me.
The romantic comedy that was barely starting when Danny and I left the closet.
As people count down to midnight, Harry runs to meet Sally to confess his harbored feelings.
I’ve seen it enough times to know the lines, even though I can’t hear the dialogue.
I’m unsure if it’s because I’m losing my ability to hear as consciousness slips out of my grasp or if the audio never played.
Has it only been an hour and a half since then?
Time moves in weird waves.
I shift my head, staring at the ceiling.
“Mabel!” Carmen’s voice sounds miles away, but she’s nearer than I can process as I catch the faint movement as she kneels next to me. “Danny, do something!”
“You don’t get to do this, Mabel.” Danny holds my face, turning it to the side so I can see him, but he’s a blur. “You don’t get to be the sacrificial lamb.”
The sacrificial lamb.
Aidan thought he was turning me into the perfect final girl, but all along I was just the sacrificial lamb. The character who dies for the sake of others. At least my death will mean something.
At least I got to keep them safe.
Dark spots dance at the edge of my vision.
And, like any film script reaching its end, I fade out.