“She had already taken one when I went over there,” Moody says. Her voice is barely a whisper because she doesn’t want Sadie to hear. “She was half-asleep on the couch, and she looked at me and she said, ‘You’re not Jade, are you? You’re Lisa.’ ”
The thought hurts and warms me at the same time. Dara knew me well enough to recognize me, even in her haze. I don’t move, don’t say a word, because I know that this is the only chance I’ll get to hear the truth.
“She asked why I was there,” Moody goes on. “I told her that I was going to make it stop hurting. I drew her a bath, and she climbed in, just like she was getting into bed. I fed her the pills, and I was gentle, Sissy. I stroked her hair and I told her that it would be over soon. I think she understood.”
I can see it too clearly. Dara, pliable and heartsick, trusting Moody because she had a kind face that looked like mine, and because she said nice words, and because she was something sweet after so much violence.
I won’t let myself cry. I won’t let Moody see. But it’s no matter—she already does. “Sissy,” she says in that honeyed voice she must have used on Dara, “it was for the best.”
The scream starts deep within my chest and explodes out of me. Only then does Iris intervene, prying me away before I can do something to Moody that I’ll regret, something that can’t be undone. She’s my sister; some small whispering voice reminds me that there’s nothing more important than this. But the louder voice comes out of me as a rabid cry, and I see the briefest moment of shock in Moody’s eyes, not because she thinks I’ll hurt her, but because she can see how much she’s hurt me. More than she thought was possible, because I cared for Dara—someone who wasn’t family, someone who should have been nothing—more than should have been possible.
If Moody can break my trust, then I can break hers too. I tear away from Iris and run for Sadie and press my phone into her hands. I work frantically at the knots around her ankles. She kicks and writhes, trying to help me.
“Run and call the police,” I tell her. She stares back at me, wild, breathing hard, wondering why I would help her and if she can trust me. “Go!” I tell her, and she snaps out of it and scrambles to her feet.
Iris only watches, and I think I can hear her let out a sniffle, but I don’t have time to look at her. I don’t have time to think about the consequences for what I’m about to do. Sadie’s left foot comes loose just as Moody grabs at her. But Sadie is surprisingly quick.
I grab Moody’s legs and she falls, hard, on her stomach.
“You don’t know what you’ve done!” she roars, and there’s so much frustration in the words, like I’ve just set all our lives on fire. Maybe I have, but only because she forced my hand.
“Yes.” I climb onto her back, pinning her arms. “Yes, I do.”
Iris grasps at my shirt, trying to pry me off of Moody, but I dig into Moody’s wrists with my nails, unrelenting.
Iris lets go, and then moments later, the cloth that was binding Sadie’s ankles is around my throat, tighter and tighter in Iris’s fists until I can’t get any air. She’s played this game with me before, but it’s different this time. I’ve never felt this much desperation, this much anger. She hauls me to my feet, and I’m only distantly aware of Moody scrambling out from under me and then taking off after Sadie as the thunder booms and the rain turns riotous.
I grasp helplessly at the cloth, trying to ease it up even an inch, even just enough to draw the littlest breath. I know that this too is futile. I’ve seen my sister at work. Men twice my size haven’t been able to fight her off. She kills her victims from behind and it only occurs to me now that she does this so she won’t have to see their faces, their shocked, gaping eyes staring back at her through the veil of death. Reconciling with the aftermath is my job, but who will come to clean her mess if she kills me now?
Iris.The sky is getting dark. My arms have gone numb, and I reach feebly at my throat before my hands fall like deadweight. I don’t blame her for hating me because I let Sadie go, but I could never have believed I’d be one of her victims. The strongest sister, the bravest, the one who raised hell to teach us how to survive.
She lets go of me and I collapse to my knees. I hear my ragged gasps before I feel the burn of air stabbing its way back into my lungs. Dizzy, vision tunneling, I claw at the mud.
Iris drops to her hands and knees beside me. She peels back the curtain of my hair so she can see me.
“You don’t want to kill him,” she says. It’s not a question. “Tell me the truth.”
“No,” I cough, my voice raspy. “I don’t want to kill him.”
The words are such a relief to say out loud. All the images of Edison decomposing beneath an Arizona suburb dissolve like water going down a drain.
Iris takes my face in her hands. I flinch, but she’s gentle. “I tried to spare you from having to kill him,” she says.
“That’s why you wanted us to leave,” I say, finally understanding. “When you saw our kill on the news.”
Her thumb brushes the curve of my cheek. She gives me a wistful smile, and there’s so much love in it. “You shouldn’t be with us,” she says. “You should run off to someplace where Moods and I can’t ruin your shot at happiness.”
She wasn’t going to kill me, and she didn’t make a move to stop me as I freed Sadie and handed her my phone. She didn’t betray me. She betrayed Moody.
I don’t have time to ask her why. I start running down the trail after Moody; if she hasn’t caught up to Sadie, there’s still time to stop her. The rain obscures my vision, and I slide on the wet ground, but I keep fumbling my way down the mountainside, screaming Moody’s name.
For what feels like an hour, I stumble through the brush, my voice raw, vision compromised, wet hair clinging to my face. I’m lost. “Moody!”
I know I’ve somehow made my way to the bottom of the trail when I see the police lights flashing. This is also how I know that Sadie managed to escape.
Someone grabs my arm, reeling me back behind the giant shrub at the mouth of the trail. I turn and am immediately face-to-face with Iris.
“Moody got away,” she tells me. “The police aren’t going to find any of us if we’re smart. We can split up.”
