71 Joey
Joey
Cal tips his head to the side. He grips one glass in each hand. “Hello,” he says.
Joey searches his face for signs of malice, of ill intent, but there is nothing. He’s blinking at them, seeming to try to work out who they are and what they’re doing here.
“These are my friends,” says Elena casually. Her words aren’t careful or measured at all. It’s solid acting.
There’s a moment of quiet during which Joey thinks Cal might not know he’s about to kill Elena. Maybe he hasn’t thought that far in advance.
“Welcome, friends of Elena. Come in,” he says. “I’ll make more drinks.”
They don’t discuss any kind of plan out loud, even when Cal disappears and pours two more cocktails with the calm of a man about to host a dinner party. The only sign that he is at all wary is his small glance up at them while he twists open a fizzing ginger beer.
In minutes he’s near them again, and Joey feels her body react involuntarily.
She has already changed the course of history tonight, simply by coming here, and it strikes her that she’s the only one who knows what happened in the previous version of events.
Not even Cal knows. The horror of watching her friend bleed to death—she’s glad neither Elena nor Sophie has any memory of it.
She watches his eyes glide between the three of them, and she can tell he’s thinking on his feet.
She knows then that he still plans to go through with it.
Elena cradles her drink up by her face, pushing the lime around the rim.
Sophie puts hers on the bookshelf and starts to browse the books there.
She holds one hand with the other, plainly steadying her nerves.
Joey is relieved to see that neither of her friends have taken a sip because it’s just occurred to her that his plan will almost certainly have changed. Anything could be in those drinks.
“How long have you lived here?” Joey asks. She’s risking glances around the room, searching for potential danger. He’s only one man, but the way he’s standing between all of them and the door makes Joey nervous. She’s not sure how she let him block their best escape.
“I don’t actually live here,” he says. “But I fixed it up a few years ago. I do love it, don’t you?
It’s peaceful.” His voice is thick with charm, and Joey grinds her teeth back and forth.
Elena’s face is locked on his. She’s watching his every move.
They are all taut, tolerating the small talk while they wait for the right moment.
“Huh,” says Elena. “Was that before or after you killed Quinn?”
Joey makes eye contact with Sophie, whose face opens in dismay. Neither of them risk a look at Cal, but Joey tries to imagine what he’s thinking now. Her heart is suddenly a hammer, and she opts to paper over Elena’s outburst. “Listen, we shouldn’t keep you. We’ll just go.”
His eyes are quick, moving back and forth between them again, and Joey expects him to step closer, to corner them. He won’t let them just leave. Joey knows this, and there’s a part of her that has just realized how insane this is.
Cal doesn’t move an inch, but he leans to examine the bookshelf. For a minute, Joey thinks he might relent and try again another time. But sensing something, she follows his gaze. There’s a row with books leaning in on each other. It looks like there’s one missing. He has noticed.
For a breath, they’re all frozen. Then, several things happen in quick succession.
Joey throws her drink into Cal’s face, and he, undeterred, pulls something out of his back pocket with one hand, grabbing Elena with the other.
His arm links around her while the barrel of a slick black gun digs into her neck.
It dimples the skin, and Elena bucks once, knocking the books and knickknacks off the shelf.
But she must see the fear on Joey’s and Sophie’s faces or feel the pressure of the gun constricting her airway because she checks her anger instantly.
“Where’s the book?” He literally spits the words. His face is soaked with tequila and ginger beer. His look is wild, and Joey has no doubt he’ll use that weapon at Elena’s throat.
Joey puts her hands out, low, as if backing away from a startled bear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
“Give me the book.” He’s calmer than Joey expected him to be. He is a thinker, a planner. He has had to be. But Joey and Sophie’s presence has thrown him off balance just slightly, and he’s rotating on an axis he didn’t plan for. Which means he’s improvising.
“What book?” she asks.
He flashes a nervous smile. “Don’t insult me.” Then, he smiles more confidently. “I’m one of you.”
Cal notices her flicker of doubt and bites his lower lip. “My mother had the magic in her. She told me to come back and claim it for myself. I promised her I would. That’s how I met Quinn.”
“Don’t you dare say her name,” Elena growls, and Joey is aware of an echo of the previous version of events. He tightens his arm around her. Muscles strain at his shirtsleeves. “Elena,” Joey tries to tell her with a look, “for once, shut up.”
He doesn’t look away from Joey, and his glare is so intense, it makes something inside her give way, turning her insides soft.
“I know you most of all, Joellen Close. I know exactly who you are. I thought it would be you who I’d kill to get the magic this time around, before this one walked right into my life, like a puppy who needed a home.
” Elena jerks, and he suddenly looks furious.
He shoves the barrel of the gun into her mouth.
Sophie makes a small shocked sound, but Joey doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t move her gaze from Cal’s.
“I knew your mom, Joey,” he continues. “Carly or Carla, was it? She tried to fight me too, and if I’m remembering correctly—it was ten years ago—I made that one look like a suicide.
She didn’t understand that these sacrifices are necessary.
I’m supposed to have this magic. It’s as much mine as yours.
And thanks to her, really, I have all of this.
” He widens his arms to the side, as if to envelop the room, the house, around them.
“Her blood bought me my most lucrative years.”
It’s as if the floor has just opened up. Joey’s legs feel weak, and her thoughts congeal. “My mom took her own life,” she says weakly.
He smiles. “I’ll take it as a high compliment that you believe that.”
Thunder rattles the house.
“What about the other one? Your other sacrifice?” It’s Sophie now. There’s a confident, compassionate lilt to her voice. Like a therapist, or a hostage negotiator.
He looks at her as if for the first time all night. “The other one, as you so compassionately put it, was an old woman, ninety-two. Eliza Hunstad. She was the easiest of them all. I made her death look like natural causes. No one batted an eye, not even her family.”
Joey swallows. She wants to scream, to punch a hole right through the middle of him.
But Sophie speaks before Joey can make a sound.
The hostage negotiator voice is back. “You’re right,” she says with perfect calm, almost curiosity.
“I believe that the magic is as much yours as it is ours. We would have done exactly the same as you have. All of us. And you promised your mother. I get how important that is.” The irony of this statement coming from Sophie, whose own mother walked out on her, is lost on Cal, but she’s so captivating, so believable, even Joey is lulled by her words.
He nods, maybe thinking, maybe perplexed that someone claims to actually understand him. “I’m not a bad person,” he repeats.
“Of course you’re not,” says Sophie, and her words are their own kind of magic.
Joey’s head is pulsing with adrenaline. Elena looks pissed off, but there’s a sliver of fear keeping her from trying to free herself again.
Sophie continues. “You’re just like us. If you hadn’t left, you’d probably be one of us.
You probably would have been initiated too. Rightfully so.”
Joey only dares to look at Sophie for a millisecond, but she sees that, since she’s started talking, she’s inched closer to him.
“You had no choice,” Sophie is saying. “I know that. I can see how painful this is for you.”
He nods. She is disarming him. It’s incredible. She’s peeling away his aggression word by musical word.
But she makes a mistake then. During one of her micro-steps, her foot collides with something that slides noisily across the floor.
He realizes, then, how close she is, and he whips Elena away in one frenzied motion.
Sophie has lost him, and Joey can see the fear growing as she backs away.
She looks at Joey. What now? There’s nothing more to say because Cal takes the gun away from Elena’s face and points it straight at Joey. “Open your bag,” he says.
“Okay, okay, okay.” Slowly, she slides the backpack off one shoulder, then the other. She chances a look up. His rage is obvious. He is not rattled. If anything, he’s more focused on the book than ever. And he’s guessed correctly. The book is in the backpack.
But Joey notices Elena’s hard eyes staring at Sophie. Something is passing between them. Joey doesn’t know what they’re silently communicating, but she can feel her rib cage thrumming. She moves slowly to try to buy them time.
“Okay fine, you’re right. I have the book,” she says. “I’ll give it to you. Just…” She works at the zipper, pretending it’s stuck.
“You know what, never mind,” he says. His patience has snapped. “I think I’ll just shoot all three of you and take it myself.” He aims.
“No!” It’s Sophie who has shouted. And then, she’s charging at him.
He looks at her, startled. Elena uses this fraction of a second to join Sophie.
They both lower their shoulders and barrel into Cal like two tight ends making the tackle of their lives.
Joey crashes in too, and all four of them clatter onto the slate table.
There’s a ringing in Joey’s ears. Cal manages to shove them off with a show of massive human strength. He takes a step backward. Joey and Elena and Sophie wrap each other up. He raises the gun at their huddle once more, and they curl into each other. Joey sneaks a look under someone’s arm.
He is crimson with rage. “You—”
Then, suddenly, his foot slips on something—a book, it looks like—and he goes down hard.
He lands on his back, choking on his words.
The gun flies out of his hand and skids away.
His head snaps back. And with it, there’s a crack like a wet branch.
The sound hits one glass wall and then another, until its echo fills the whole house.
It’s a lifetime before they come up from their nest of arms and hair. He’s lying face up, eyes bloodshot and slick and wide-open. Blood is filling the grout between the tiles beneath his head, gushing out like a dam has been let go.
Joey drops to her knees and puts two fingers to his neck. She looks up at her friends. “Oh shit,” says Elena. Sophie cups a hand over her mouth.
Joey grimaces as she reaches behind his head. Grunting, she manages to lift him enough to see the wound.
Beneath his head, doused in his blood, is the glass mountain sculpture. Its peaks point upright and undamaged, but they’re caked with flesh and hair and bone.