I don’t respond. What’s the point? I can stand here and tell her that sooner or later, I would have looked for Josslyn and taken her from Tate. I can confess that from the moment I spoke to her, we were inevitable. I didn’t believe it back then. I didn’t evenbelieve it when I was keeping track of her movements. It doesn’t matter, though. Josslyn may have been with him back then, but I’ve belonged to her from the moment she called me out on my arrogance.
“Did John help you with all of this?” I ask, finally lowering the gun when she does.
With him gone, it’s just my sister I need to worry about, and everything about her posture tells me she’s tired.
“Yes,” she says.
“Did anyone else know about it?” I ask.
“Mom knew.”
My stomach hollows. I stare at her, waiting for her to start laughing, but I know that expression well. She’s serious. I shake my head anyway. There’s no fucking way. It’s just not possible. She has to be lying. My brain runs a mile a minute, trying to find clues that my mom may have slipped up, but there’s nothing.
Then, I remember her words at the country club. “Your sister’s episode.”Episode, she’d said. Even then the word stood out, but I let it go. I think about the days that followed Mallory’s supposed death—how much my mother cried, how vehemently she placed the blame on me, and then … nothing. By the time I was on the airplane flying to my next game, Mom was “much better” and nearly every trace of Mallory was gone. After being told the Jane Doe at Onyx was a sex worker, no more questions were posed.
“Did Dad know?” I ask, my gaze going to Josslyn, who’s still lying there.
“No,” she says. “But he was easily convinced when Mom told him to put a gag order on everyone. He just went along with it. It’s like no one cared to get?—”
“Icared,” I say, swallowing hard to prevent a knot of emotion from clogging my throat. “I wanted justice for you.”
“You waited over a year! My own brother!”
“It was a lot to process!”
“You were trying to pretend it didn’t happen!” Malloryshouts and tears begin streaming down her face. “You didn’t even miss a fucking game!”
I look at Josslyn again and my chest squeezes. Something is wrong with her. Why isn’t she sitting up? Why isn’t she doinganything? I need her to sit up and get ready to run.
My eyes fly back to my sister. “What did you do to her?
“Gave her a paralytic,” she responds nonchalantly. “Nothing too serious.”
“She drugged me at Onyx that night,” Josslyn says with a scratchy voice. “She was the one who drugged me and took me home.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and after what I saw when I walked in here… “What did you do to her?” I demand. “Did you touch her?!”
My sister’s brows shoot up. “So testy about her. What, you can’t share with your sister?”
I take a step forward, and she lifts the gun. I don’t know where the fuck she’s aiming, but I’m close enough that if she shoots me, she’ll hit something. My shoulder, my arm, my heart, I don’t know. Right now, I’m so fucking enraged at the thought that my sister did something to Josslyn, that I don’t care.
“Leave!” Mallory shouts, her voice cracking. “Please go. I don’t want to hurt you!”
“You think I’m going to leave her?!” I ask, my hands shaking at my sides. “Youleave. Go back to wherever the fuck you came from!”
“I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HER!” she roars.
I open my mouth to scream at her when the megaphone goes off again.
“We are coming in! Please put your weapon down and surrender, Miss Barlow!”
Her eyes widen as if she’s just now—hours later—understanding the gravity of this. Her awareness quickly turns into panic. I know that look well. It’s the same look she had when I forced her to go on rollercoasters. It’s obvious my sister needshelp, and I would feel sorry for her, if she wasn’t holding my girlfriend hostage. Loud footsteps and demands get closer as we stand there, and I bring the gun back up and point it at her.
“Put the gun down, Mallory!” I plead. “This is your last chance. Put it down!”
Footsteps pound on the porch. Everything happens in a fraction of a second, but it plays out in slow motion in front of me. Gun still raised, Mallory turns her body toward Josslyn, and I pull the trigger.
Bang.
