Chapter 37
Kat
Idrifted in and out of a nightmare-studded haze of exhaustion that couldn’t really be called sleep.
Not when every time I dozed off, I was jerked awake by the image of my sisters.
Gabri, curled up on the floor in the fetal position, a pool of blood spreading fast. Raffi, with the bullet wound in her chest. Blood sprayed all over the kitchen tiles.
Holly was sitting in my lap, also fitfully asleep. We couldn’t use the bed, since it was in a grisly state, so we had opted for the cold concrete floor in the corner. Holly’s weight had put my ass to sleep, but that was a small price to pay. I wasn’t shifting her limp, warm weight for anything.
Holly had come to represent everything that was good in the world. Everything worth fighting for…or even dying for. I would have made that sacrifice for Gabri, or Raffi if l had been given the chance. Who knew, maybe I’d get another shot. Real soon.
So, yeah. These were the things I aspired to. A glorious death, traded for the life of someone I loved. What a weirdo I was. Almost funny, if you thought about it.
Well, on second thought, not really.
Holly stirred, and looked up at me. I smiled at her, and she tried to smile back.
“Hey,” I said, “You were too stressed out before to tell me what happened when Nicole took you away. Did you send that message, like we talked about?”
“I tried, for sure. Hope I got it right.” Holly sighed, snuggling closer. “But everything she did was super creepy and gross.”
“That doesn’t surprise me one bit,” I said.
“She put on a pig mask for the video,” Holly said. “Which is super insulting to pigs. Pigs are nice. She’s horrible.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “And? What did she tell them?”
“She said you were the one who drugged the guys. That you worked for her, and that you’d tricked Uncle Ethan. She said a whole lot of mean things. Like, that you were a terrorist, and stuff.”
“Well, I’m not,” I said. “She’s a big liar.”
“I know that,” Holly said. She gazed over in the direction of the blood-spattered cot. “I was thinking about Mick.”
Hah. She wasn’t the only one. “What about him?” I asked.
“I think I understand why he did it,” Holly said softly. “If they were hurting his poor uncle. That old guy we saw. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if someone was hurting Uncle Ethan or Auntie Frey. Or you. So, like…I get it.”
I harrumphed. “Thanks, honey. That’s very charitable of you, but you’ll have to excuse me for still being mad as hell at him. Especially since they’re pinning it on me right now. Everyone back at the Mountain House thinks I’m the villain. Not fun.”
“Well, I don’t think you are,” Holly assured me. “I know you’re good. And when they save us, I’ll tell them the truth, so it’ll all be okay in the end.”
I gave her a tight hug, wishing I could share her innocent faith.
I was under no illusion that I’d be able to protect her from anything here, and she was used to her uncle’s strength and agency.
God knows, the kid could be forgiven for thinking Ethan was superhuman.
He seemed like one to me, too. Disillusioned, prickly, cynical scold that I was, he still seemed like a goddamn superhero.
At that moment, the lock rattled. We jerked upright, cringing back to the wall.
Nicole walked in, followed by a huge, shaven-bald guy with a thick, heavy face and vacant eyes. He held a gun on us, his expression utterly blank.
Nicole sat on the edge of the bloodstained mattress, heedless of the gore, and crossed her legs.
“We have things to discuss,” she said.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said.
“That’s convenient, since I’m the one talking, and you’re the one listening,” Nicole said. “All you need to do is say, ‘yes, I understand.’”
“I won’t do anything for you,” I announced.
Her lips curved in a pitying smile at the false bravado in my tone.
“Of course you will, Kat. You can forget about your reputation. It’s gone.
Permanently trashed. It’s been documented now, on many forums, that you are a bloodthirsty psychopath, steeped in hatred.
You want nothing for the world but pain and destruction and fiery death. ”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “So, essentially, I’m you?”
Nicole tittered. “Oh, no. I want much more than that. I also want power, money, and absolute control. But Kat Banner, aka the Payback Bitch 898, doesn’t have that kind of vision.
She just wants to burn and kill. And tomorrow, she finally gets her wish.
She gets to end her miserable life, in a blaze of self-immolating glory. Ka-boom!”
My jaw ached from clenching my teeth so hard, and my lungs just wouldn’t expand. I wished Holly was not hearing this. Her body was rigid in my arms.
“No one who knows me would believe that,” I said.
“Well, not all that many people really know you at all, do they, Francesca? Ever since that awful thing that happened in Jersey City all those years ago, you’ve kept yourself so aloof from the world.
Except online, of course. That was your only emotional outlet, and you have been so prolific!
You’ve been posting in hate groups daily for years now, spewing toxic rage like a fire hose.
It’s all there, ready and waiting for the forensic psychologists to pore over and write bestselling books about afterward.
There will be a miniseries for sure. Multiple documentaries. The whole enchilada.”
“I don’t have an online presence at all,” I said stiffly. “On purpose.”
“Well, great!” she said brightly. “That plays right into my hands. Because Payback Bitch 898 sure does. I’m very good at setting a scene.”
“How could you set this scene up so fast? You only just found out I exist!”
“I’ve been cultivating Payback Bitch for years,” Nicole said.
“Keeping her in my back pocket, just waiting for you to turn up and embody her. She was a real person once. I took notice of her, and thought all that psychotic rage would have to prove useful somehow. But the real woman was a big letdown, when I tracked her down. Dull, boring, tediously self-absorbed, with bad hair and an overbite and some sort of bacterial overgrowth that gave her terrible body odor. Her online persona was the valuable asset, far more interesting than her physical self. So, I took the asset, and scrapped the rest.”
I blew out a sharp breath. “You…you killed her? For her online handle?”
“Oh, stop. I did the poor woman a favor,” Nicole said lightly.
“God knows she wasn’t enjoying her wretched little life.
I took over Payback Bitch myself. I’ve been cultivating her ever since.
I pruned her, expanded her, cleaned her up, and now, she can become you, seamlessly, like slipping on a coat.
It’s worked out so perfectly. The original Payback Bitch’s grammar was a bit iffy, but not many people have heard you speak, so I’m not worried.
And I’ve been improving her grammar slowly, over time. ”
I stared at her. Wow. And I had thought the Petruzzis were evil. They were small potatoes compared to this terrifying, inhuman thing, smiling at me.
“You are vile,” I said.
Nicole bowed, as if I had given her a compliment.
“So,” she said briskly. “Your itinerary. Pay attention. The Emory Summit, a gathering of leaders in the world of banking, investments, trade, is being held at the brand-new Willamette Convention Center right now, not far from here. It’s in full swing today, over a thousand attendees, and tomorrow at noon, Owen Halliwell will give the keynote address.
Tomorrow morning, your job is to drive a caterer’s van full of explosives into the Conference Center’s parking garage.
It will detonate during Halliwell’s speech, on live TV.
The explosion will kill everyone in the radius of an entire city block. ”
“I can’t do that,” I whispered. “I can’t.”
Nicole did not seem to hear me. “The whole country will hate and revile you, but it won’t matter, because you’ll be dead.
We’ll have your boyfriend running his magic algo for us, if he wants to keep his little niece in one piece.
He’ll manage the financial chaos post-bombing, and we’ll come out vastly rich. Rulers of the new world order.”
“I won’t do it,” I told her.
“Of course you will,” Nicole said briskly. “Your van will have a screen with an open video call. It will show you everything I’m doing to your little friend. In real time.”
The icy hole inside me got bigger, deeper. Impossibly deep. Nicole saw it, and started to laugh. Nicole was absolutely right, and we both knew it.
She had me by the throat.