“Whoah,” said Rick. “Whoah, whoah,whoah.”
“Get out,” I spat. I needed them gone because, in another few seconds, the urge to put a bullet in both of them was going to become irresistible. And Sylvie wouldn’t have wanted that.
“We can’t leave him,” said Carl. “He’s got the body!”
Rick ignored him. “You go to the cops,” he told me, “and I’ll put a pillow over her brother’s face.”
“No cops,” I snarled. “I just don’t want you to touch her. I’ll bury her. Me.”
Rick stared at me for another few seconds. “Let him,” he said at last. “If he gets caught, he can take the heat.” He backed away. “I don’t ever want to see you again, Aedan.”
I kept the gun on them until they reached the door, then waited until I heard their car drive away. Only then did I toss the gun away and cradle Sylvie’s body again. “It’ll be okay,” I said, rocking her gently. “I won’t let them touch you.”
58
SYLVIE
Three hours earlier
Heather,Alec’s doctor, listened as I laid it out for her. The Pit. Aedan. My brother’s fight. The fight I’d have to have with Aedan. I explained why we couldn’t go to the police and then I explained what I needed from her.
“I can’t kill him,” I said simply. “And he can’t kill me. And that means Rick will kill us both. Our only chance is for me to do it to myself.”
I swallowed and looked her right in the eye. I spoke slowly and deliberately.
“I need you to give me something that’ll kill me,” I said. “Quickly. Within seconds. I don’t care if it hurts or not. But I need to be able to inject it, so I can do it just before Aedan knocks me down.”
Heather’s mouth moved soundlessly. “He’ll think he killed you!” she said at last.
“I know. And it’ll destroy him. But he’ll be alive and so will Alec.”
She shook her head. “You’re talking about suicide! I can’t do that! I can’t help you!”
“You’re saving two lives. If youdon’tdo this, we’re all dead.”
Heather stood up and walked away. My chest tightened because I thought she was going to call security and then the cops, but she started to pace instead. “No. No way. There’s got to be another way.”
“Thereisn’t,Heather. This is the way things are when you’re dealing with people like Rick. There are no ways out. Only ways to minimize the damage.”
She walked back around to the chair she’d been sitting on and braced herself on it, staring down at the floor, thinking. I sat down, shut the hell up and let her think.
“What if I gave you something to knock you out?” she said at last.
I shook my head. “They’re not stupid. They’ll see I’m just unconscious. Then they’ll try to make Aedan kill me and he won’t be able to do it. Then we’realldead—Aedan, Alec, me....”
She went quiet again, hanging her head and letting her long blonde hair hang down to cover her face. I could see her knuckles whitening as she gripped the chair. I really thought she was going to snap and call security. But then she spoke and her voice was drawn from somewhere way down deep, as if each word made her feel physically ill. “I can’t give you poison,” she began.
I stood up. “It’s okay,” I said. “I shouldn’t have asked you. Bleach will work, right? If I get a needle and shoot it into—“
Her head snapped up. “Sylvie, stop trying to be a fucking hero andlisten!”Her voice was like the crack of a whip.
I shut up.
She took a long breath. “I could mix you something,” she said. “Vecuronium would paralyze you. I could put in something to lower your heart rate and breathing. It wouldn’t be perfect. Any half-decent paramedic will be able to tell you’re not dead. But your boyfriend, in a panic...it’d fool him.” She bit her lip. “There’s a very good chance it’d just kill you. And there’s no way to tell when you’d wake up.”
Daylight.
That was the first thing that crept into my awareness. A red, warm light. My eyelids were closed. Why were my eyelids closed?
