Ree
“Lena?” My voice sounds disembodied, otherworldly as I glance to the gun still wavering in my hand. “Did it go off? Did I kill her?”
“I killed her,” a voice drones from behind, and I turn just in time to see a gun pointed at me, a steady hand, an unfamiliar redhead standing with her feet in a defiant stance. “You’re going to live, Ree. Put the gun down.”
“Ree,” Bram barks. “Shoot.”
I look to him as he rises to his feet, his hands right back in the air.
“Hello, Simone.” Bram’s voice is strangled, his eyes focused right over hers, and my heart detonates in my chest over and over, my adrenaline spiking anew as if it had never even crested this evening.
“Simone,” her name expires from me like a collapsing tire. “You killed Lena.” I take a stumbling step toward what’s left of my sister. Her hair is clotted with blood, her face torn open on the right, her teeth splayed out unnaturally.
A horrible wailing sound rips from my throat.
“Ree!” Peter roars, and I turn to Simone, my gun shifting toward her.
Her face, her beautiful face, she looks exactly how she did in those pictures. I had worshipped her for so long, admired her from afar, felt sorry for her, grieved her as if she were my own blood.
Her lips turn upward as if flirting with a wicked grin. “You’re going to kill Bram.” Her green eyes pin to mine, her steady aim sending my own limbs bucking all the more.
“Shoot her,” Peter riots so loud the windows reverberate.
“Don’t do it.” Simone’s voice wavers with anger. I can feel the rage emanating off her like a heat from a radiator. “You’ll miss and I’ll be forced to kill you. I don’t want to do it, but just know when you pull that trigger it’s you who will die.”
“She’s lying.” Peter takes a careful step forward, and Simone twitches the gun his way.
“You’re going to die, Peter. You will meet your maker. You will live forever with Isla and Henry.”
My eyes widen in disbelief. What has happened? Was Bram right all along? This monster had laced my mind against him. I was nothing more than another one of her pawns.
“All of this because he had an affair.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Then it’s true. You killed your children. Did you have the third? Or did you kill it, too?”
Simone lets out a barking laugh, her cackle unnaturally dark. “I have Peter, my Peter.” Her eyes flit to Bram. “He is strong and beautiful and smart, and you will never know him. You could have, though. We could have had it all, but you had no desire to love me. You were going to leave and take my babies. I gave you everything!” Her voice thunders as she looks right at him. “And you destroyed it all for a cheap fuck. Divorcing you would have been too easy. You didn’t deserve my children or me. I watched you once I was gone. I lived where you lived.” That smile reprises itself on her lips as she glances my way. “I was right there out in the open, dancing through life, laughing at how easy it all was.”
“And then he met me.” My voice trembles lower than a whisper. “You left us alone. You watched us build a family.”
“Yes.” She nods, incredulous, as if there was no other way. “You had one boy, one girl, and I was hoping it would be so. I thought of killing the kids, waiting until they were as old as Isla and Henry were when Peter killed them.” She glances his way. “You did, Peter. When you killed our marriage, you killed all of us. My hands were your hands the day I held them under. Do you realize how disciplined you need to be to hold two children fighting for their life underwater? I only had minutes before Kelly finished her blubbering conversation. It was the only time in my life I was thankful for teen angst. I made it look as if I were trying to save them and, of course, she believed me. The world believes me. No one believed you, though, Peter—did they? You don’t get to keep your horny girlfriend and get the kids on weekends. You don’t win because you cheated. You don’t get to rid yourself of me and the so-called misery I inflicted on you. I loved you the only way I knew how. I warned you the night we were married.” She nods his way. “What did I tell you? Pop quiz. Pass and I might make it quick for you.”
Peter closes his eyes. His chest bucks a moment. “You said, ‘you may never leave me.’”
“And you left. Emotionally first and then physically. You brought home her filth and defiled our bed with it. You thought you could do it again and again and your stupid wifey would be none the wiser.” She scoffs my way. “All you are, Ree, is just another fling I’ve allowed my husband to have. When he met you, when you built your family, I knew the perfect revenge would come in time. Make Peter suffer a little bit more, let him live with the uncertainty of what might come next, just like I did. Lilly and Jack are just about the same age that Isla and Henry were when they died. Newsflash, Ree, your fake family has reached its expiration date.” She looks to Peter, and her lips curl unnaturally on the sides. “Your wife, who you love so very much, is going to kill you. My hands are clean. I am a living, breathing ghost in this world, new identity, great job, great new man in my life. Peter and I are doing just fine. Ree will go to prison, unfortunately.” She manufactures a frown my way, and I try my best to steady the gun her way. “Ah-ah! Remember, Ree, you pull the trigger, you die, Peter dies. Murder-suicide, such a bad romance. At least in prison, you might see your children’s faces again.”
“Ree.” Peter’s voice shakes. “She’s wearing a vest. You’ll have to hit her head or shoot the gun out of her hands. Look at me, Ree. I want you to look right at me. I have to tell you something important. Simone, you’re going to want to hear this, too. There’s—”
A gunshot goes off behind me, the same stifling whistling sound the silencer made, and Simone’s head explodes like a piñata.
Oh God. The blood.
It’s everywhere.
So much blood.
The world goes gray as I fall softly to the floor.
