“Oh my god. What happened—how did this happen?” I rush over to them, feeling for a pulse on his neck, and thank god when it’s there. “Help! Somebody help us!” I yell from the attic. There’s blood on his head, like someone knocked him out first.
“Wes told me to meet him here,” Annica says through tears. “And when I got up here she just stabbed him.”
“Who? Who stabbed him?” I look all around the room. Are we not alone up here? “Was it Marissa? Kate?”
She sniffles once before shoving something cold and hard into my hand. “It was you,” she says.
I pull away and it clatters to the wooden floor. “What?”
Annica stands, looking down at Wes, and wiping away her tears with a bloody hand. A small smile spreads across her face and I can only stare at her, while firmly keeping a hand where I assume the stab wound is. The blood makes the shirt squelch under my fingers. I try to gather it up to apply more pressure. Annica turns and shuts the attic door, locking it. She grabs something from the corner of the room, crumples it up, and tosses it at me. It lands on the floor in front of me and I already know what it is. With my other hand, I shakily open it to confirm my suspicions, and there on the white paper is the printed copy of my journal page, the one for Wes, with just his name. I breathe in shallow breaths. “You?”
She grabs something else, something small and dark. The metal clinks against the rings on her hand. A gun. “I honestly can’t believe you never figured it out.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. It can’t be. It can’t be her. This must be some kind of mistake.
“I found your journal Welcome Weekend, recognized all the names as your exes. Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and saw Wesley’s name. God, I was furious. After I specifically asked you not to! I wanted just one thing from you and you couldn’t even do that. You just take, and take, and take with no regard for anyone but yourself.”
The way she talks to me now with such disgust in her tone, thesame way she talks to Asher on a good day, I have no doubt in my mind. It is her. It has been her the entire time. I brought her to Ryan’s apartment, I brought her to Marco’s restaurant. I thought I was saving Bryce by keeping him around, but I only brought him closer to the killer.
She continues, because I am too stunned to speak. “Ryan was easy enough; he was already pretty drunk when I pushed him. And all I had to do to get him out there was tell him I had dirt on you. He really didnotlike you. Then we have Marco. I had been to his restaurant twice before we went as a group, so I could see what time he leaves and who all stays to close up. And wouldn’t you know, he was always the last to leave. He’d play music and scrub that kitchen clean every night until long past midnight, with nothing but a bottle of wine to keep him company. The tricky part was making sure he’d be there until at least 3 a.m. So I had Dalton unknowingly suggest a bottle of wine to him that I put Rohypnol in. That’s a whole other story, though.” Annica shakes her head, waving a hand as if to say she’ll tell me that story later.
But I have a feeling there won’t be a later.
“None of you even noticed when I snuck out of Dalton’s party to start the gas leak and plant a gasoline canister in your trunk. And let’s see... who was next? Oh, Bryce.” She laughs. “The sword was kind of crazy, wasn’t it? I just really wanted to do something special for Halloween. Luckily, he was already drunk and coked out of his mind when I found him in the back room. I was in and out of there in under thirty minutes. Graham’s was a real challenge. Pretending to be his manager and meeting with the building security, convincing them to have all cameras pointed to themost expensive gallery piece, creating the perfect blind spot, then shooting him and getting the gun into your hotel room all before you got back. I almost had Tristan too but you just had to go and get a police detail on him.” Annica pauses like she’s trying to remember if that was everyone. “And you know what really made this whole thing even better? You always let yourself get so fucking drunk that you black out almost every time. It was honestly amusing to watch you unravel each time that you couldn’t remember what happened the night before, thinking that maybe it reallywasyou. I know you thought that in the beginning, I could see it in your face.”
“Why?” I say finally, when I think I have heard enough.
“To ruin your life. I wanted you to know what it feels like to have something taken from you, so I tried taking everything from you. I wanted you to rot in prison for crimes you didn’t commit. And it was going so well. I really thought I had you when you went to the police. I thought surely you would not be walking back out of that station unless you were in handcuffs. But they let you go. They let you fucking go. So I had to redirect. You already thought it was Holland, and I couldn’t let them find out it was me, so I was the one to put the evidence in his office.”
“What about Jonah?” She didn’t mention him, but I have to know.
“Jonah? No, I owe the whole idea to Jonah. He was my inspiration. I saw how his death affected you and I just knew this was how I’d get my revenge.”
“All because I slept with Wesley?”
“It wasn’t just Wes. I was so sick of you always getting your way. You don’t even try and you still get everything handed to you.Every boy I like likes you first. You fucked a professor, ruined his marriage, got him fired, and still got to continue on with no repercussions. You got a DUI and they expunged it from your record. All four years of school you hardly put in any work and you get better grades than me. I’ll bet you would’ve even won this short-story competition... if you were still going to be around to submit it.” She points the gun at me now.
“I already called 911; the police will be up here any moment.” Though I didn’t. I just told Dani to, in hopes that she would. There could be no one coming at all. That would explain why I haven’t heard a single thing from downstairs.
“Then I guess I should make this quick. Walk to the balcony,” she demands.
I look at Wes, unconscious. “I can’t, I can’t leave him,” I cry with my hand still pressed to the wound.
She points the gun at him instead. “Oh, don’t pretend to care about him now. Not when you’re still sleeping with Asher. I could say I went to fire at you and missed, hitting him by accident. I wonder if he’d survive a stabbing and a gunshot—probably not.” I stand up with my hands raised, and back up to the open door. “You were so guilt-ridden by all the lies and the murder that you couldn’t take it anymore, so you jumped.”
I make it onto the balcony and peer over the edge. The party is still going on below. I wonder if I scream for help if anyone would hear it. Did anyone hear it the first time? Did the people downstairs call anyone? Did Dani? Or will Annica get away with two more murders? “I thought we were friends,” I say.
“I thought so too.”
Finally, I can hear voices and stomping on the stairs growinglouder, coming toward the attic. We both look at the locked door on the floor.
“You’re just going to have to shoot me,” I say. “I’m not going to jump. And then you’ll be the one in prison for murder.”
Annica laughs, and it’s cold and maniacal. “Me? For using self-defense against the Pembroke Psycho? Your prints are on the knife now, and that is your journal page. I’ll tell them all about how I saw you stab him, your final victim. I’ll be a hero.” There’s banging on the locked attic door, as whoever it is tries to get in.
“Asher knows the truth.”
“Asher?” She laughs, she actually laughs, like I just told her the funniest joke she’s ever heard. But the door is about to bust open, and she knows she’s out of time. I’m out of time. “Goodbye, Sloane.”
