Ty lunges.
Hope lifts the gun.
He’s so fast, so strong. He catches Hope around the ankles, and shegoes down hard. She drops the gun and it slides across the room. He pulls another knife from his pocket. “You forced my hand,” he says to Hope. “You couldn’t leave things alone. You couldn’t let us be together after I found you here.” He’s panting, holding the blade over her. The others have frozen in place.
“We were never going to be together.” Hope’s voice is calm. “You might have watched our lives, but you’ve never been a part of them.”
And in that moment Ty brings down the knife.
71
ASH GRABS THE GUNfrom the floor and shoots.
The flare catches Ty in the stomach, and the impact is horrible, the most terrible sound of flesh and pain. Caro remembers that her dad used to say,Death is only easy for a lucky, lucky few, and Ty isn’t dead; this won’t kill him, will it? She knows she said they should shoot but did she mean it, does she want someone todie? Caro remembers how her dad saved a boy who had a firework go off while he was holding it, but is this the same thing? It’s not, and now they’ve done this, she told Ash to do this to a human being—
The screaming is awful. Even though he terrorized them, tried to kill Hope,didkill Eve… Ash can’t bear it. She’s weeping, pushing her way toward the door to help Caro with Page because they have to get Page out; no matter what, they have to do this. Hope has gotten up; she is with them. Ash fired in time.
In a sharp split second, the three women meet each other’s eyes. It almost feels more merciful to do something, instead of leaving him like this, screaming on the floor.
Will we shoot the gun and light the fire? Will we cut the string? Will we end, at last, what began over a decade ago, with a girl killed in a canyon?
It is almost finished.
They could burn it all down.
72
WE ARE WITCHES.
But we don’t burn.
73
“I KNOW,” HOPE SAYS. “I’m the worst friend ever. Do you think I’m a narcissist?” She coughs, and Ash and Caro lean closer. They are in one ambulance with her, Page in another with Dan and Henry, Ty in a third on his own. “Give me some space,” Hope says. “I’m not pulling a Beth fromLittle Women. I’m not going to die right here.” She’s on a gurney, and the others are sitting near her, crowding the EMTs.We are horrible patients, Caro thinks.The very worst.
Hope coughs again, but it sounds clearer, and the other two relax slightly. “Nowthat’sa role I never wanted to play,” Hope says. “Give me Jo every damn time.”
“You’re not a narcissist,” Ash says. “You were looking out for us. Weallagreed on this. Weallwanted to lure the lurker.”
“If I were really looking out for you, I never would have come up with this disaster of a plan in the first place,” Hope says.
“We would never have forgiven you if you’d tried to do this all alone,” Caro says. “Which youdidactually attempt.”
“Not alone,” Hope says. “I had Page. Which was another horrible choice. I should never have brought her into any part of this.” Her green eyes are wide, clear as sea glass in the overhead lights of theambulance. “I wanted to fix everything because I wanted you guys to keep loving me.”
“Wedolove you,” Ash and Caro say at the same time.
“I know,” Hope says. “But this whole time, ever since we met, I’ve wanted you both tolovelove me. Like, people are always coming up to me and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I love you!’ because of my movies, but they don’t know me. I didn’t want you to like me because of that. That’s why I didn’t show you my face at first. And then I did, and things kept going so well! AndthenI realized someone was stalking me.”
“He might have been followingme,” Caro says. “We didn’t know for sure yet.”
“Or me,” Ash adds. “You’re the one who pointed that out.”
Hope shakes her head. “I know I said that, but—” The movement cracks the cut on her throat and blood seeps from it again. Caro tears into a sterile gauze pad, and the EMT gives her a murderous glare but doesn’t stop her from pressing it very softly against Hope’s wound to stop the bleeding. Caro’s hands have been wrapped until a doctor at the hospital can stitch them up. Her white bandages are bright against Hope’s face. “I know I said that,” Hope says. “But the night before we went into the Underground, the expert I’d consulted—Jane—sent me a message. She’d figured out that itwasme that he was stalking, and it’s been going on for years. Ever since I came here as an extra forThe Last Portal.” She shifts, and Caro pulls away the gauze. The bleeding has stopped. Hope swallows. “We’d already made all the plans to disappear to draw out the lurker. We’d sent the messages on our regular phones, we left a trail online for him to follow. And I knew I had to see it through. I had to draw him aftermeand take care of it.”
“It would have been nice if you’d kept us in the loop,” Ash says.
“Icouldn’ttell you both everything, or you’d insist on coming with me, or calling the police, and that wasn’t going to work.” Hope presses her hand to her throat. “They never do anything in cases like this. They never doenough, anyway. Not in my experience.”
