“No!” Valencia cries. “NO!”
Marcus mumbles something else, then slumps forward, more blood spilling from his mouth as he lets out one final shallow breath. Valencia sobs, and my own eyes burn with tears. Marcus wasn’t my dad, but it still feels like Easton jammed the ice pick into my own heart. Maybe that pain in my chest is for Valencia, because I shouldn’t feel heartbroken for Marcus if he helped Easton.
But I don’t even know if that’s true. And maybe that’s why this feels so awful.
“Shame.” Easton walks back to the workbench and wipes the blood from the ice pick with a kitchen towel. “How about you, Mom? Do you at least feel a little better knowing the truth?”
Valencia is still staring at Marcus’s body. She shakes her head.
“Well, sorry about that,” Easton says. “But I thought you should know before you die that your husband has been lying to you for years.”
She finally turns to him. Tears slide down her cheeks, but she’s calm. “No, he hasn’t.”
Easton’s eyebrows jump up in surprise. “What?”
“You’re lying. He didn’t help you.”
“You can’t be that delusional.”
“I’m not.” She turns to face me. And there’s something in that look. Like she’s telling me she hasn’t been delusional about anything. Goose bumps rise across my sweaty arms.
“I missed Nate. Every day I missed my baby.” Across the room, Easton grumbles something under his breath. Valencia looks back at Marcus. “He felt the same way I did. That’s how I know he’s telling the truth.”
“You believe him over me?” If my vision weren’t swimmy from the tears in my eyes, I’d think Easton actually looks surprised.
Valencia stares at her son with a look so frigid, it almost chills my burning skin. “He was my husband. I always put the two of you before him, just like he put you both before me. But I’ve known him way longer than I’ve known you. IthoughtI knew you. I grew you inside me for nine months, and when you were born, I thought,Thisis my baby and I will always love him. I knew I’d never feel a connection like that again. And I was right. You and me, we have something special.”
Easton seems as confused as I am. Is she... saying she knew he was a killer?
“When you tell me you killed Nate, I believe you. Because I know what you are capable of.” She doesn’t look away from him. “Maybe it was denial, but I hoped I was wrong. I saw it when you were little. Those warning signs. How you didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and how when one of us was upset you were bored ordisconnected. You didn’t seem to be able to love the way we all did. I wanted so badly to believe you were okay, and then one day you were. I thought it was a phase, and you had grown out of it. And I held on to that hope, like I held on to the hope that my youngest boy wasn’t dead.”
My eyes dart between Easton and Valencia. She’s so calm, while Easton looks genuinely scared for the first time. He’s also distracted. I return to twisting my arms, trying hard to get my hands free, because with Marcus dead, it means the rest of us are next.
I glance back at the red gasoline container. My guess is that’s the finale.
“You knew Marcus only as your father,” Valencia continues. “I knew him as a husband and a father, and my best friend.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “I know what he’s capable of. And I know whatyou’recapable of.” She shakes her head. “He didn’t help you, did he, sweetie? You did it all by yourself.”
Easton stares at her for a few moments and I stop moving. Finally, he smiles that proud, terrifyingly toothy grin.
“I did,” he says.
“So why lie, honey?” Valencia asks. “If this is how it ends, why lie?”
He laughs. “I wanted him to die thinking you hated him. Thinking that you believed he lied to you, and you would never forgive him.”
Valencia puts her head back, looking up at the ceiling. More tears fall. “What happened to you?”
“Nothinghappenedto me.” He takes several quick strides toward her.He puts his hands down on her arms and looks into her eyes. “You said it yourself, you could see me all along. Until you couldn’t. That’s because Isawhow you looked at me. That fear in your eyes, even though you were supposed to love me.”
“Idolove you.”
“Bullshit. You were terrified of me.”
“Every parent is terrified of their kids. We’re scared every fucking second of every day that you’re going to get hurt or sick or hate us or stop talking to us when you grow up.”
I can’t help but wonder if she also worried that he’d turn into a serial killer.
“It’s different with people like me,” Easton says. “Because I knew if I didn’t hide who I was, you’d know.”
