Chapter 33
“Sage is dead,” Viv stammers. “You told us so. Didn’t you say her phone was lost in the lake?”
“I did say that,” I admit through numb lips.
My rictus grin has fallen away now that I’m about to tell the truth.
All I feel is nothingness. “I knew you’d probably take my phone, so I sent the video to Sage’s phone instead.
I have her number memorized. That was Sage’s idea, actually.
She insisted we know each other’s numbers by heart because no one does that anymore. She thought it bonded us closer.”
Confusion flickers over Viv’s face. “But…what…”
A wave slams into the boat, which is freely floating on the water now, and we both yelp and grab the sides of the seats so we don’t go flying. Viv glances at the control panel, knowing she needs to take the helm again, but she can’t, she’s too curious.
My stomach is lurching and roiling, and it’s not from the waves.
“When I don’t come back from Florida, when you tell them I’ve drowned or whatever, my sister Emily is going to have to pack up my apartment,” I announce.
“And when she does, she’s going to find a phone in a small wooden box in my closet.
She’s going to be curious, because she’ll know I had my phone with me and couldn’t afford a second one.
Emily will turn the phone on, and recognize the person in the lock screen photo, smiling and holding up a copy of A Song of Scales and Salt.
Sage had an ego, you see. Her lock screen image was always of herself.
” My voice wobbles, but I heave out an exhale and continue through the clapping of my heartbeat.
“Emily’s going to realize she’s holding Sage Tartnet’s phone, which is going to freak her out, because she knows that Sage’s phone was never recovered.
Everyone assumes it’s at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
And because I knew and disabled Sage’s passcode, Emily is going to unlock the phone and see that snuff film Piper made.
And she will take it right to the cops.”
The memory that has been crawling out from the back of my brain on bloodied claws and rotting scales rears its head, hearing its name. The truth is finally here.
An expression of shock flattens Viv’s face. She whispers, “You had Sage’s phone this whole time? Why? What…did you do?”
I open my mouth, but bile comes out instead of words. I turn to the side, falling to my knees, expelling what little contents were inside my stomach. When I finish heaving, tears stinging the corners of my eyes, I turn back to Viv’s disgusted face.
I’m glad for the chill now because my skin is burning hot and my whole body is sweating.
“I took the phone,” I choke out. “It was a…reaction. I didn’t mean to do it.
I didn’t mean to do any of it.” I haven’t let myself think about it.
I worked so hard to bury it, pretend it never happened.
I erased it. Or so I thought. It turns out it was living in the back of my skull, waiting to burst forth from its cave this entire time.
Haunting me.
Viv implicitly understands. But she demands it anyway: “Tell me.”
And so, finally, I do.