“What’s up, girls?” she asked in a perky voice.
Her cheeks were rosy, the smattering of freckles across her nose brought out by the glow of the lights. Her long blond hair was back in a black velvet headband, and she wore tan riding pants, a tight black T-shirt, and black riding boots, like she’d just come in from exercising her horse.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I croaked.
“Well, that’s the thing I love about life, Reed,” she replied, taking a few steps toward me. “It’s just full of little surprises.”
CRAZY BITCH
“No,” I blurted, backing up. My mind was reeling so fast it made my eyes water, while my heart felt like it was being torn from my body, oh so slowly. “No, no, no! You’re dead. I saw your dead body. I held your dead body!”
Cheyenne smirked as Graham advanced slightly, keeping me in his sights. If I wasn’t so completely thrown by the presence of a living, breathing Cheyenne Martin, I’m sure I would have been freaking out over the fact that he had a gun trained on my chest. Unfortunately, for the moment, the walking-dead thing was a bit distracting.
“Amazing what modern science can do,” Cheyenne said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her gaze flicked over my friends dismissively. “I thought I told you to leave your friends in the car. Five murders are so much messier than one.”
Kiran whimpered and clung to Noelle as her knees gave out from under her. My eyes flicked to Graham, who darted an uncertain look over his shoulder at Cheyenne. I got the sudden hopeful feeling that this was the first time she’d floated the idea of actual murder. Whatever the case may be, he didn’t seem quite so certain all of a sudden.
I had backed my way behind Kiran and my eyes flicked to the heavy pocket of her black hooded jacket. As she was currently cowering with her eyes closed, I had a feeling I couldn’t trust her to whip out that stun gun at the appropriate moment. Surreptitiously, I reached into her pocket, withdrew the gun, and slipped it inside the waistband of my tight, soaking, itchy jeans.
“Graham, the door,” Cheyenne said.
Keeping the gun aloft with one hand, Graham walked behind us and opened the door. I wondered, briefly, if Sawyer was in there.
“Get inside,” Cheyenne ordered, taking a few steps forward. “Now!”
Taylor jumped and Kiran whimpered. Noelle and I turned and walked through the door, helping Kiran along. Taylor was right behind us, and Ivy brought up the rear.
“I don’t want to die, Noelle,” Kiran murmured. “I don’t want to die.”
“Shhhhh. We’ll get out of this,” Noelle promised her. “Don’t worry.”
We found ourselves inside an airy, high-ceilinged, dark-paneled room. In the center was the biggest bed I’d ever seen, surrounded by four posts and covered with swaths and swaths of pink fabrics and lace. There were at least two dozen silk and satin pillows perfectly arranged at the head of the bed, and a huge, swirling pink C embroidered into the bedspread.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ivy said, backing her way into the room so she could face Cheyenne. “This isn’t you.”
“Yeah, well, a lot can happen to a person in a year. I, for instance, killed myself,” Cheyenne said snarkily.
She let out an evil, barking laugh that sent chills down my spine. That was not Cheyenne’s laugh. I had never liked the girl, but she’d always been a normal kind of obnoxious. This? This was off.
“Yeah, would you mind explaining that?” Ivy asked as Cheyenne closed the heavy oak door with a thud. “The whole school went to your funeral.”
I kept a watchful eye on Graham as Ivy and Cheyenne talked. He walked over to the window and used the gun to move aside the curtain, peeking out. Then he slipped a cell phone from his pocket and checked it for messages. Where was his brother? Was he keeping him locked up here somewhere? I racked my brain, trying to place the room we were in now and figure out how far we were from the room in which I’d seen Sawyer, but my panicked mind was drawing a blank.
“Yes, but no one ever saw my body, right?” Cheyenne said, crossing her arms over her chest. “At least not after that first morning.” Her eyes flicked to me, an amused glint shining from their depths. Suddenly I wondered if she’d heard what I’d said that morning when we’d found her unconscious on the floor of her room. Had I been emotional? Stupid? Scared? I couldn’t recall much aside from the sight of her pale skin, the burst blood vessels around her eyes, and Rose sobbing in the corner. Just remembering how devastated and scared and crushed my friends had been brought the hot, sour taste of hatred into my mouth. “My mother had to pay off a lot of people to make it look real, but it wasn’t all that difficult. As soon as she found out who that Sabine girl really was, she knew she could blackmail her into doing anything in return for keeping quiet.”
“You knew Sabine was Ariana’s sister?” I demanded.
“Of course.” Cheyenne lifted a shoulder. “What, are you miffed I didn’t warn you? Why would I? My mother and I both wanted you dead. It would’ve been so much easier if the little twit had been able to pull it off.”
“Yeah, but I was shot instead,” Ivy snapped, her face burning red. “So that didn’t go exactly as planned, did it?”
Cheyenne tsked under her breath. “I’m sorry about that, I,” she said, pouting her lips. “Sometimes collateral damage is a necessary evil.”
Ivy advanced on Cheyenne like she was going to tear her hair out, but Graham lifted the gun and aimed.
“Freeze!” he blurted, and Ivy did.
“Back up there with your friends,” he said, waving the gun toward the rest of us. Taylor started to cry quietly and Kiran let out a low moan. Ivy took a couple of steps back.
“Sabine’s mom is some kind of voodoo specialist or something,” Cheyenne continued. “We told her we wanted to make it appear that I was dead, so she whipped up this awful sludge for me to drink, and voilà.” She lifted her hands at her sides. “No more Cheyenne. Then it was just a matter of paying off Mrs. Naylor to confirm I was door-nailed and make a fake phone call to nine-one-one, and hiring some dudes to come in, throw a sheet over me, and cart me out of there. Two hours later I woke up back here with a massive headache, but otherwise alive and well.”
“Why?” Noelle demanded, holding Kiran’s hand at her side. “Why would you do that?”
“Yeah, if you wanted to leave Easton so badly, why not just leave?” I added.
Cheyenne’s scowl turned venomous as she looked at me. “Because it was the only way we could be certain that I would be safe from you.”
A chill went through me and my fingers twitched, curling inward. “Me? What did I ever do to you?”
“As long as you, a descendant of both Theresa Billings and Eliza Williams, are alive and well, none of the Billings Girls are safe.”
“Not this again,” Noelle groused, rolling her eyes. “Did you and your mom both drink from the same cup of crazy juice or what?”
“We’re not crazy!” Cheyenne snapped, whirling on Noelle. “The curse is real. But it ends here. Tonight.”
She straightened up and walked over to me, facing me toe-to-toe. Graham moved slowly behind me and suddenly I felt the cold steel end of the gun’s barrel pressing against the back of my head. I tried to stare Cheyenne down, but all I saw were terrifying black and purple spots swirling across my vision.
“Tonight, Reed Brennan, you are finally, finally, finally going to die.”
“Oh my God,” Noelle said with a laugh. “I take it back. You’re even crazier than your crazy bitch of a mom.”
I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to distract Cheyenne. Trying to give me a chance to escape. And for a moment, it worked. Cheyenne let out a guttural wail, turned toward Noelle, and brought her fist down and across Noelle’s cheek and jawline so hard I heard the crack. Just like that, Noelle and Kiran both hit the floor. I let out an involuntary scream and Taylor started to cry in earnest. Kiran managed to push herself to her knees and weepily tried to
revive Noelle, but my best friend, my sister, was out cold.
Now my heart began to pump furiously. Cheyenne had taken out Noelle? She was stronger than I could have imagined. My hand reached behind me for the stun gun, but it was too late. Cheyenne had already returned her attention to me. I dropped my hand at my side and lifted my chin, but it was all for show. I was suddenly certain that she was right. I was going to die here, tonight.
“One down,” she said quietly. “Four to go.”
Then Graham lifted the barrel of the gun away from my skull and brought it down so hard I saw stars—right before my knees hit the hardwood floor, and everything faded to black.
SAVING MYSELF
The incessant pounding in my skull brought me reluctantly back to consciousness. For a few long, painful moments I couldn’t figure out where I was. Why were my arms wrenched behind me? Why were my knees throbbing? And what the hell was jabbing into the small of my back?
And then, suddenly, I remembered. The stun gun. The stun gun was still wedged into the waistband of my jeans. My eyes flew open, my heart surging with hope. I was in some kind of lounge room, complete with a wet bar, a circular leather couch facing a flat-screen TV, and a poker table surrounded by tall stools. The lights were on, but dim. My feet were bound as well as my hands, and my jacket—and therefore my cell phone—were gone. Luckily, I still had on my baggy black sweater, which accounted for the fact that Cheyenne and Graham hadn’t found the stun gun while tying me up, which apparently one or both of them had done while I was knocked out. My friends were nowhere to be seen, and neither was evil walking-dead girl, but Graham was on the far side of the room, behind the bar, shoveling ice into a glass. Apparently he was going to need a tumbler full of cold vodka before shooting me in the head.
I wanted to say something to him, but then I realized I could use the fact that he still thought I was unconscious to my advantage. I looked around for a clock and found the glowing screen on the cable box. It was twelve minutes after twelve. If Josh kept his word, he’d be calling the police in exactly eighteen minutes. It had taken us about fifteen minutes to drive here. Which meant all I had to do was stall for half an hour or so and pray my friends were still alive.
Now if only I could think of a way to get my hands free. I tugged my wrists apart and found that the ties weren’t exactly tight, probably because my cast had gotten in the way. If I could tear the twine even a little bit, I should be able to slip it off. Jagged barnacles had worked wonders back on that island paradise I was trapped on over Christmas break, but there didn’t seem to be anything sharp lying around.
And then it hit me. Maybe I didn’t need something sharp. Maybe I could singe the twine with the stun gun, fraying it until I was able to pull my wrists apart.
Slowly, quietly, I leaned forward, dragging the back hem of my sweater upward with my tied hands. I had just angled my wrists over the business end of the stun gun, which was sticking out of my waistband by a few inches, when three flaws in my plan suddenly occurred to me. First, the stun gun made that crackling noise, which would definitely catch Graham’s attention. Second, if I attempted this, there was a solid chance I’d set my cast on fire. Third, there was also a solid chance I’d stun myself.
I glanced up at Graham as he poured brown liquid over the ice. The gun was on the edge of the bar. Screw it. Who cared if I stunned myself? This was the only plan I had, and if I didn’t at least try, I was going to be dead. Which was a lot worse than shocked and twitching on the floor. And if I managed to set myself on fire, it would, at the very least, create a diversion.
I took a deep breath and coughed, pressing the small of my back against the wall as I leaned forward. The stun gun sizzled to life, my coughing covering the sound, and I didn’t get a shock. I did, however, get a whiff of the faintest scent of fibers burning. I just hoped it was the twine and not the cast.
Graham dropped his glass, grabbed the gun, and started toward me. I tugged at my wrists, but they didn’t give. Shit.
“You’re awake,” he said.
I kept coughing, kept pressing, shaking my head. The burning scent filled my nostrils. How long would it be until he caught a whiff?
“Water,” I said. “I need water.”
Graham glanced over his shoulder at the wet bar. My arms ached from the effort of not moving while my body was racked with fake coughs. Any second I was going to shock myself.
“Please, Graham,” I choked. “Water.”
He seemed to decide I wasn’t much of a threat. As he turned and went back toward the bar, I yanked my hands apart as hard as I possibly could and they came free. The twine tumbled, singed, to the floor, just as Graham turned around again. My heart hit my throat. I kept my hands behind my back and shifted so that my butt came down atop the twine. I could feel the warm, burnt ends through the fabric of my jeans.
Slowly, Graham approached me with the water in one hand, the gun in the other. He crouched in front of me and held the glass to my lips, tipping it upward. The cold liquid filled my throat and actually did make me feel a bit better. I gauged my chances of knocking the gun out of his hand and getting to it before he did, all with my feet tied together and a cast on one arm.
Answer? Not good.
But at least my hands were free. That gave me the advantage of surprise. Hopefully I had a few minutes to figure out how to use it.
His nostrils flared and he glanced around. “Do you smell something burning?”
I lifted my shoulders. “Nope. And thanks.”
Graham looked down at the half-empty glass of water and suddenly appeared to be offended by it—like it illustrated some kind of weakness. He got up and dropped it on a side table, out of my reach, sloshing some liquid over the rim.
“Don’t know why I bothered. You’re gonna be dead soon anyway,” he said callously.
“Graham,” I said, my stomach twisting into knots. “Why are you doing this? I get Cheyenne with the crazy, but why you? I thought we were friends.”
“We could’ve been,” he said, clenching his jaw. “If it wasn’t for him.”
The word “him” was laced with venom.
“Josh? This is about Josh again?” I demanded.
His eyes widened incredulously. “He killed my sister!”
“He did not kill her!” I blurted, my heart pounding over my own recklessness. I couldn’t believe I was going to die for the two most obscure, insane reasons anyone could imagine dying for—some hundred-year-old supposed curse and the fact that a girl I never knew had dated my boyfriend two years ago, then taken her own life. “Jen killed herself. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but it’s the truth! You’re going to kill me because Jen committed suicide? Do you not realize how crazy that is?”
Graham’s mouth flattened into an angry line and I saw his jaw working, tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing. “You sound just like Sawyer,” he griped.
Sawyer. Sawyer was here somewhere. He wasn’t planning on hurting his own brother too, was he?
“Where is Sawyer, Graham?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even as I looked at the clock. It was now 12:20. “Is he okay?”
“Of course he’s okay,” Graham said with a scoff. “What do you think I’m gonna do, kill my own brother?”
He brought his hand, the one holding the gun, to his heart and pounded. Tears filled his eyes and I took a deep breath. He was becoming unhinged, and unhinged was not going to be good for me.
“I took that stupid phone he was using to warn you and we locked him here in one of the bedrooms until we could be done with this,” Graham said. “That’s how I got you here tonight. I texted you the directions from his dummy phone.”
So it was Sawyer all along. Sawyer was MT. Of course. It all made sense. He couldn’t come to me and tell me what was going on, or go to the police, without implicating Graham, so instead he’d tried to protect me anonymously—to protect us both. And what had he gotten for his efforts? He’d ended up jailed by his own brother and crazy Che
yenne.
“I just don’t get why he doesn’t get it,” Graham rambled, pacing away from me, his heavy shoes clomping across the gleaming wood floor. The second his back was turned I withdrew my hands from behind my back and yanked at the knot around my legs. But seconds later he started to turn around again and I had to hide my fingers after getting exactly nowhere. I bit my lip in frustration and tried not to let my desperation show in my eyes. “Josh Hollis drove Jen to kill herself. She was perfectly fine before he broke her heart. If it wasn’t for him, she’d still be alive right now!”
“I know you believe that, Graham, but please, think about it,” I said. “People in their right mind don’t kill themselves over breakups. They get makeovers, they find rebound guys, they post nasty videos about the guy on YouTube. Something had to be fundamentally wrong with her if she was going to—”
“There was nothing wrong with Jen!” he screeched, storming toward me across the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. “She was my best friend! I loved her more than I loved anyone else in the world. And Josh Hollis took her away from me. So that’s why I’m going to take you away from him.”
He pointed the gun at my head and cocked it. My heart stopped beating. His hand shook and his eyes welled. At any moment that thing could go off. At any moment my brains could be splattered all over the wall behind me. If there was ever a time to make a move, it was now.
“Think about Sawyer, Graham. If you kill me, he’ll never forgive you,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “And then you’ll have lost your brother and your sister.”
“Shut up!” he said, bending and straightening his elbow, bringing the gun even closer to my skull. I wanted to reach out and grab it, but what if doing that made it go off? What if one flinch caused him to pull the trigger?
“You’re better than this, Graham,” I said, frantically rubbing my ankles together to try to free them from the twine. “Think about your father. Think about your brother. Think about your girlfriend.”