“Cold?” a voice said from behind me.
I jumped about a foot.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.” The voice was so smooth… so familiar.
I turned around, ready to offer an apology and a polite smile. I lifted my head, and the smile froze on my face.
“Or maybe…” He leaned in. “…that’s exactly what I meant to do.”
“Taylor.” I couldn’t breathe.
“Miss me?”
CHAPTER FIFTY
It always comes full circle — life. The choices you make, even the ones you don’t make on purpose. They always come back to haunt you. They always come back. —Lisa
Tristan
“SHE’S NOT ANSWERING her phone,” I barked into the receiver while Gabe swore on the other end.
“She could be in class,” he said in a hopeful voice.
Urgent rapping on the door sent a blast of relief through me. It must be Lisa; she could have forgotten her key. I quickly ran to the door and jerked it open.
“Dad?”
“Son…” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.”
He collapsed into a fit of tears, holding on to me like I was his lifeline.
“Dad, what—?”
Then I looked behind him.
Lisa was crying softly.
I reached out to her just as my dad stepped to the side, revealing a very pissed-off looking Taylor. He held a gun to her head, his eyes blazing with fury. I recognized that face; it was the same face in the picture, the same one that looked like it was hanging on by a thread.
In a cold detached voice he said, “Brother, we finally meet. Tell me, did you like the nighttime reading? I always thought it was kind of heavy stuff, but you never know, to each his own, I suppose. Oh, by the way, I hope it’s alright for us to come in.”
He stepped past me and my sobbing father and jerked Lisa toward the living room. She met my gaze briefly and then averted her eyes as she stumbled with Taylor.
I followed them but not before dialing Gabe’s number and leaving the phone on, my only prayer was that he’d still be available, that it wouldn’t go to voicemail — that he’d hear everything.
“Get ahold of yourself,” I snapped to my father, grabbing his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Well, damn!” Taylor shouted from the living room as I dragged my father with me. “This place sure is nice. Did Daddy buy it for you?”
“No!” I barked. “I bought it myself. How kind of you to ask.”
“So…” He released Lisa, throwing her onto the couch, then sat down across from us, scratching his head with the gun. “…tell me everything.”
“Everything?” I repeated, making my way toward Lisa. Her arms were wrapped around her middle as she rocked back and forth.
“No, no.” Taylor laughed. “I don’t think you get to touch her… that might make me angry, and you do not want to see me angry.”
I held my hands up and stepped back, while my dad sat on the couch near Lisa. His face was tortured, pulled tight. Swear, it looked like he was about ready to have a heart attack. Where the hell was his security detail?
“Was she good?” Taylor asked.
“What?” I snapped.
“In bed.” Taylor nodded encouragingly. “I remember some good moments, some not so good. Then again, when someone’s unconscious…” His voice trailed off as he winked at Lisa. “She liked it, though.”
Her entire body started convulsing as her face paled.
“So?” Taylor folded his arms, the gun resting against his shoulder.
“We didn’t sleep together,” I said honestly. “Not once.”
“Aw, big brother, don’t lie to me.”
“He’s not.” Lisa’s voice sounded strong to my ears. I almost sighed in relief. “We didn’t have sex.”
“Because you still love me,” Taylor said in a serious voice, leaning forward. “I waited for you. I planned all of this…” He brandished his gun through the air. “…for you.”
“It’s… nice.” Her smile was forced as her eyes met mine briefly before looking back to him. “Thank you.”
“I knew it!” Taylor jumped into the air. “Wasn’t it beautiful? The perfect plan. There were so many players, so many conditions I couldn’t control, so many factors.” Taylor sighed as if he’d just accomplished world peace. “But, all good things come to an end… and Jack,” he added with a sigh. “…he needed to come to an end.”
“Jack’s in prison,” Lisa said tightly.
“Easily manipulated.” Taylor waved us all off. I didn’t recognize the man in front of me; he looked like the guy in the picture, but his mannerisms were so… off, so sporadic, not human, just plain crazy. He looked normal but spoke with such weird tones, like he believed himself to be a god among men.
“I should have died, you know.” Taylor shrugged. “I knew if I lived, it meant what I’d suspected all along… that I’m unstoppable, unbeatable.” He spared a glance at the sniveling man I knew as Dad. “Even my own father couldn’t keep me down.”
“Taylor…” Our father spoke for the first time. “…you know I never meant to hurt you. I was helping you.”
Taylor pointed the gun at my father and smirked. “Drugs? Is that the answer? “Here, Taylor, take this it will make you feel better. Oh, and if you could just write down your damn symptoms and the side effects, that would be great!” I was your own personal lab rat! You put me through hell!”
“Taylor!” Tears streaming down his face, my dad held up his hands. “I tried to help you. Please, you have to believe me. We tried everything.”
“You tried to keep me quiet!” Taylor shouted, spit falling from his lips. “You tried to weaken me! But you can’t do it! I should have died! And I’m alive! I’m alive because I’m indestructible!” He pounded his chest. “And now I have the perfect revenge…” He smiled. “…on the brother who was always better than me, no matter what I did… and the father who drugged his dirty little secret then didn’t even have the balls to claim him once he was in ICU for six months. And finally…” His demented eyes turned to Lisa. “…the broken girl who I fixed, the girl who I’ll spend eternity with, even if it is in hell.”
Lisa stood, holding her hands out in front of her. “Taylor, is this really how you want the story to end?”
His head twisted to the side. He shook it twice as if he wasn’t seeing us clearly. “What — what do you mean?”
“You worked so hard, baby,” she soothed. “You worked so hard… for years, the perfect revenge. And look, we don’t even have any proof. No video… nothing but your own admission. This is big — huge. It deserves a massive stage.”
“Yes.” Taylor nodded, his gaze becoming even more feverish. “Yes. You’re right. I should be on TV.”
“The world should see it,” Lisa agreed. “They should see how powerful you are.”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not afraid?”
Lisa uncrossed her arms and answered softly. “I feel nothing.”
“Me too.” Taylor nodded a few times. “Me too. But you make me feel. It’s why I wanted to hurt you. You make me feel now… I don’t like feeling. The pills didn’t make me feel.”
“Taylor,” Lisa held out her hand. “Give me the gun… you don’t want the story to end, do you? After all your hard work?”
He hesitated, the gun held high above his head as if he was either going to throw it or shoot the ceiling. “I don’t know… you’re confusing me. You’re supposed to be… I don’t know… this isn’t right, something isn’t right.”
“Taylor,” I tried, knowing exactly what Lisa was doing, playing into his fantasy, making him feel like a god. ”You win. Take her.”
“She isn’t yours to give!” he yelled, pointing the gun wildly in my direction.
“I know…” I shrugged. “It was always you.”
“How’s it feel!” He laughed. “How’s it feel being the other loser of the two brothers! How’s it feel??
??
“Horrible,” I choked. “I may not survive it.”
“Ha! And I did! So what does that say about me?”
“You’re amazing, baby…” Lisa took another step forward. “Now, give me the gun.”
Taylor swallowed and looked down at my dad. “But we can’t have witnesses. They need to be punished, punished for hurting me, for doubting me.”
“Not having Lisa is punishment enough,” I said quickly.
My father moved to stand. “And knowing my son has bested me in intelligence is… more than a father can bear.”
“Ha!” Taylor did a circle in place. “I win. Don’t you see? Regardless, I win, I win, I win! I’m better than all of you. I’m not sick, Dad.” He spat out the name like it was a curse. “I’m healthy. I’ve died and been reborn!” He turned his gaze to Lisa. “You know I still have to punish you.”
Lisa gave him a pout. “But I always enjoyed your punishments.”
“Which is why I have to make it hurt, love. I’m so sorry. But I need to make you understand that I’m the only one for you. Not my brother, not Jack, just me.”
“Jack helped you?” I asked.
“Jack was a fool. I promised him Lisa… I promised him revenge, and then I drugged him. Guy was tripping.”
“That’s okay,” Lisa said quickly. “He was horrible to me. He tried to take me from you.”
“I know.” Taylor nodded. “I know.”
He brought the gun slowly down over his head and grimaced, shaking his head back and forth. “Now, you know… the voices are quiet. It’s because I finally finished my task, but one more thing… one more thing. Lisa, I’m sorry, but you need to hurt like I hurt.”
My breath hitched as Taylor pointed the gun at Lisa and pulled the trigger. She fell back against the couch just as the door burst open and police in SWAT gear exploded through the opening.
Shouts of “Drop the gun!” reverberated off the walls.
Taylor didn’t move.
He didn’t run. Simply watched in fascination as Lisa’s chest rose and fell slowly. Crimson blossomed on the right side of her chest, spreading in a downward pattern as it soaked into her gray T-shirt.
“Drop your gun!” shouted the cop closest to Taylor.
A tear ran down the side of Taylor’s face, and he shook his head. Before I realized what he was going to do, he pointed the gun at his temple and pulled the trigger.
Through a slow motion filter, I watched blood and brain tissue blast through the air and settle around me like ruby rain. The splatters and splotches landed everywhere, but I stopped seeing the gory horror show as I rushed to Lisa’s side and covered her wound with my hand. “Stay with me! Stay with me, Lisa! Stay with me!”
Around me, the SWAT team buzzed like bees in a hive, securing the scene, I supposed. “Clear!” one of them called out.
EMTs arrived four minutes later and shoved me out of their way. I knew I should step back, but I was terrified that if I left her side, I’d lose her, and I couldn’t lose her.
Finally, it was my father who pulled me back and then stumbled to the floor, weeping.
“She has to make it.” Tears streamed down his face. “I’ll never forgive myself… she has to!”
The last sound I heard was one of the EMTs yelling, “She’s suffocating!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I’d always thought death would be peaceful — it’s not. Especially when the last thing you see before you close your eyes is that of a person ending their own life. You have to wonder. Is anything ever so bad that death seems the only option? —Lisa
Lisa
MY CHEST HURT.
My legs hurt.
Everything hurt.
And it was almost impossible to open my eyes. I tried, but they seemed too heavy, like something was pinning them shut. Flickers of the dream I’d just had resurfaced.
“Tristan?” I sniffled. “Say something!”
“You want me to say something?” he sneered. His blue eyes might as well have been steel as they pierced through every inch of my body. “Fine.”
I braced for impact.
“I hate you.” He said it slowly as if he wanted me to hear each word and commit it to my memory. “I love you.”
“What?” Tears fell across my lips. “What did you say?”
“Both.” He put his hands on his hips. “I feel both.”
I took a tentative step toward him. “Which wins?”
“The one you give power to,” he said seriously. “The one I choose to give power to.”
“Love?” I begged, pleaded, my voice hoarse.
Tristan’s smile was sad as he took a step back and gave his head a solid shake. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry, but no.”
He left.
Hope died in my chest.
I stared down at the ground, closing my eyes, wishing for snow, wishing for a do-over. Wishing I could go back and make the footprints straight in the snow, wishing I wouldn’t have chosen death.
Because that’s what I was experiencing. Death. Taylor had killed me, and in killing me, he had taken away Tristan.
My eyes stung with unshed tears. Why couldn’t I move?
“I hate hospitals, freaking hate them.” Gabe’s voice trickled into my consciousness.
Wait a second, I wasn’t dead? My fuzzy mind started gaining more consciousness.
“Right.” Wes laughed. “Because out of the two of us, you have a better reason than me?”
“Touché.”
“Shh,” Tristan grumbled. “She’s still sleeping.”
More voices, this time from Kiersten and Saylor, and then another voice, a deep one I didn’t recognize. I tried to open my eyes again but finally gave up. Too exhausted to care. Sleep was coming for me again, but I wanted to stay awake. I strained to stay awake.
Instead, I drifted in and out of the fog of sleep, not sure how much time had passed. When I finally got one eye open, it was to see Tristan and another man — the Secretary of State? His dad? — talking in the corner.
“You tested products on him?”
His father sighed. “Nothing was working. His diagnosis was… well, at the time everything seemed to make him more erratic. The only reason I gave him his freedom when he turned eighteen was because he begged for it, said he’d do better. And I believed him because, until his attempted suicide, he did fine. Stayed out of trouble, spent money, even said he had a girlfriend. I thought things were fine.”
“And the drugs?”
“I kept sending them.” His father shuddered. “I sent the newer ones, hoping they’d be stronger, hoping they’d work better.”
“But they didn’t.”
“A week after Taylor’s attempted suicide, I went to the hospital to check on him. He was in a coma… the doctors said he’d never wake up. And when he did… a year later, I panicked. Your mom never knew he even existed. You only found out because of the journal that was mailed to you and… I didn’t know what to do. His real mom had passed away from a drug overdose, so he had nobody, nobody but me.”
“So you let him go?” Tristan cursed.
“After several rounds of psychological therapy and being at the institution, he was showing such great progress that he was released, got a job working on his own and… he was… good. For a while, he was good.”
Tristan exhaled. “Until he saw the news.”
“I remember that night so vividly. He called me, asked if I knew about his ex-girlfriend, could I make some calls, he thinks she’s in Seattle and wants to surprise her. Her picture was everywhere — Melanie Faye, found! He said he was in love with her, thought about her all the time. I believed him.”
“So all his planning…” Tristan let out a heavy sigh. “He sent the journals truly thinking he was going to die… and when he didn’t… when he saw her picture on the news, he snapped all over again.”
“A psychotic break,” his dad repeated. “I’ve been trying to reach him for weeks. When he finally called and sai
d he was in Seattle, I panicked, more worried for you than anyone. I arrived at the house just as he pulled up with Lisa in tow. I had no idea…” Things went silent, and then he spoke softly. “I told security to stay at the hotel, that I was going to the pool for a swim. I begged for some private time when I should have had them follow me. If I would have had them with me, none of this would have happened.”
“Dad…” Tristan put his hand on Mark Westinghouse’s arm. “…we all made mistakes here.”
“A young girl was raped, tortured, and almost died because of me.” His dad shook his head. His voice sounded more tired than I felt. “Not to mention, I lost one son, only to see the look of disappointment on another’s face. No… this is on me, Tristan. This is all on me.”
He slowly got up from his seat and walked out of the room.
“You can stop pretending you’re asleep now,” Tristan whispered as I opened my eyes.
“Sorry.” My throat ached. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s probably good for you to hear. At least you know that Taylor wasn’t stewing for the past two years, thinking about ruining your life.”
I snorted. “No, my picture just caused him to have a mental breakdown.”
Tristan smiled sadly and sat on the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I hurt.”
“I almost had to give you a lung.”
“You can’t give people lungs.“
“I know,” he whispered. “But for you I’d have died to give you a lung.” Tears pooled in his eyes. “You can’t do that to me again. You can’t be brave. I’m begging you, just be weak for the rest of your life. If I ever have to see you stand up to a psychopath again, I’m going to be the one that needs to be institutionalized.”
“Tristan,” I croaked. “I had to… he had a fantasy. I was playing into it.”
“Yeah, well, stop listening so well in class. Better yet, I hereby revoke all criminal minds’ privileges.”
I smiled, but it hurt. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You probably saved all our lives.”