40

Beau

“Willow!”

I find her laid out on the swampy soil. Body fixed to the earth. Jorie crouched above her, hands around her throat.

“Don’t come any closer,” Jorie warns.

She lets go of Willow and grabs a knife from the ground. There’s something decidedly ominous about her tone. A wind whips around us.

I ignore Jorie’s warning and move toward them.

“Don’t!” she yells.

My eyes dart to Willow, willing her to stand. I don’t know if she’s conscious or if she’s even breathing at all.

“Let her go,” I say.

“I can’t do that.”

I eye the knife in Jorie’s hand. I didn’t bring a weapon. There was no time. A decision I now regret, considering that the station and its officers are a half hour out. Willow needs help now.

“Why?” I ask.

I don’t actually care why she did it. What I need is for her to keep talking. What I need is for her to be distracted. I hope she can’t see the way I shake with nerves. If only I could touch Willow, feel the warmth of her skin and her soft breaths, to know if she’s okay.

A pinecone hits the side of a tree to Jorie’s left with a thwack.

She turns, and I waste no time. I run at her head-on. But she’s quick, slashing out at my stomach. I crumple to the ground, nearly retching from the pain. I don’t have time to look at the wound. I need only to get back up.

“Don’t fight me, Beau,” she says. “Don’t make me kill you, too.”

A bitter laugh escapes me. It’s too late for that. She’ll kill me anyway now that I know too much. I stand, clutching my middle, feeling warm, wet blood on my skin.

There’s movement behind Jorie, and I try not to alert her. Blending into the tree beside Willow is Charlotte. She grabs Willow’s hands and pulls, but the binding doesn’t budge. Willow’s eyes are closed, and I fear she’s unconscious. Or worse. Charlotte searches the ground, finds a rock, and begins sawing at the ties.

Jorie spins around. It’s too late for Charlotte to hide.

Jorie cackles. “Did you honestly think you could bring your sister and hope for an ambush?”

I try again to get to Willow, but Jorie rises on the balls of her feet, her movements swift and calculated, swiping the knife at me once more, sending me sprawling backward. This time, she just barely misses.

“Quit fighting me, Beau.” A simple command, full of menace.

“The police are on their way,” I say. “They know you killed the girls. I told them so when the pieces clicked. You made a mistake, Jorie. There was a wad of gum left at the last murder scene and analysis came back that the saliva belonged to a female.”

“You’re lying,” she says, but I see the fear in her eyes.

“I’m not. How else do you think we figured it out?”

For all the times I’ve lied, I’m actually telling the truth.

“Is Willow alive?” I call to Charlotte.

I can’t tell from where I’m standing, and not knowing is slowly killing me.

Charlotte nods once, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I inhale another shaky breath and contemplate my next move. Jorie is alone. Willow is unconscious. It’s two against one, but I’m injured. I won’t be as fast or calculating.

With each drop of blood that leaves my body, I feel more of my strength escape. I shudder and struggle to hold myself upright. The pain to my stomach is quick, sharp, and unrelenting, but I attempt to block it out. I have to get to Willow. The thought of losing her is more agonizing than any wound. I don’t want my arms to be empty of her. I don’t want to never feel her warmth.

I focus on Charlotte’s assurance. Willow is alive. We still have a chance. I will never let Jorie win.

“You’re done. Give it up.”

“No.” She sneers. “If you’re telling the truth and the cops are coming, then I’m going to make damn sure you suffer the way I have.” For the very briefest second, her lip wobbles, and I swear I see a flash of hurt dart across her features. “The way Ericka did.”

Finally, I understand. Ericka, the girl who disappeared. Jorie must have known her. Cared for her.

“So you’ve come to return the favor?” I say as Charlotte creeps steadily closer to Jorie’s back. “You want to break my heart the way I broke hers, is that it?”

It hurts to admit some of the blame.

“I want you to know the pain of losing the person you care about most in this world! It’s time to kill Willow the way you killed my best friend!”

“I didn’t kill her. She left.”

“Right, but after she left, she killed herself, so you might as well have forced the pills down her throat. You are the reason she’s dead. You, Beau! And you’ll be the reason Willow dies, too.”

She’s crazy, but she’s right. I am partially to blame. My actions led Ericka to feel desperate. Maybe if I had been kinder or cared more about how much the breakup affected her, she could have felt differently. I’ll never know now, and the guilt of that weighs heavily.

Charlotte moves from behind a tree. I focus on Jorie and not on my sister.

Just another second…

Charlotte tackles Jorie from behind, a tangle of limbs. I try to run to them, but black eats away at my vision, darkness swallowing the trees. I glance down to find the front of my clothes coated in blood.

I fall to my knees. I’ve lost too much blood. I’ll crawl if I have to.

I look up just in time to see Jorie’s face contorting with rage. She slashes the knife at Charlotte, and it meets its mark. The skin at Charlotte’s forehead separates into a gash inches long. She wobbles and catches herself on a tree before slowly sliding down its bark to the ground.

Get up. Get up!

I silently will my twin to hear me, to summon all her strength and fight.

I can’t leave Willow lying there.

I can’t abandon my sister, either.

I don’t have energy left to save them both.

“Enough of this,” Jorie says.

She averts her attention to Willow. “Your turn.”

She approaches Willow, and dread makes the hollow in my stomach heavy. She slaps Willow’s face.

“Wake up! I want you to look at him as I kill you.”

Willow stirs, moaning. I’m not prepared to watch what will happen if I don’t get up.

Jorie smiles and turns to me. “I would have made this quick, you know. But now? I don’t think so.”

Willow is suffering because of me.

Slowly, I rise. Agony shoots through my stomach in waves of torment, but still I get to my feet. I surge forward, walls of blackness eating more of my vision, unconsciousness threatening me with each breath I take. I hear a noise in the distance, a rushing river or maybe a sea of pounding footsteps, but I don’t stop to confirm what it could be. Jorie hears the noise, too. She looks wildly around.

I promised to help Willow, to not let her become the next victim, and I meant it.

I use Jorie’s distraction to close the dozen yards between us. She doesn’t see the discarded, fallen branch in my hand until I bring it down hard on her back, tearing a scream of agony from my lips and causing the cut to pump more of my blood onto the swamp floor.

Jorie screams, too, a wail so high I wonder if the entire bog can hear it. Her legs are lightning fast, kicking out at me. And then she’s on me, tackling me to the ground. I wrestle her for the blade clutched in her hand. My movements are slow, wary, and unstable. Before she can drive the knife down on me, I grab for a small, sharp stick within reach of my other hand and stab upward.

Jorie gasps. Her eyes bulge and follow the line of pain down to the point where the stick is embedded just above her left hip. It’s not high or disabling enough. My aim is as wobbly as the rest of me.

She reaches for the stick, giving me time to catch my breath, to blink away unconsciousness. I clutch my stomach. If I could just get to Willow and Charlotte, if I could just pull them both away from danger. I spare them a look. Willow groans on the ground. Charlotte blinks in a daze.

With a grunt and a quick pull, Jorie frees the stick from her side. I don’t understand how she’s still so fast. She favors her good side. Her blade nicks my shoulder. It would have met its mark had I not rolled out of the way just in time. I attempt to rise on shaky limbs, first to my knees, my palms flat against the dirt, and then to my feet. I sway like a leaf caught in the wind.

With every ounce left, I charge her. It’s my final effort. It is the very deepest store of energy I own. I have nothing left but this. I meet her with an elbow to the face and a crunch of bone. Jorie screams as telltale silver flashes to my left so close to my ear that I hear the woosh the blade leaves behind, so close it nearly slashes my face in two. Jorie catches another elbow to her sternum. She groans, struggling to pull air into her lungs. I lunge forward and grab for the knife in her hand, and she uses my momentum against me, spinning out of the way and shoving me right where my flesh is already severed.

I fall with the weight of realization. I can’t get back up. Bile rises to my throat, leaving a sick taste in my mouth. I have nothing, not even a drop of energy left to fight her. Jorie has won, and her cruel smile says she knows it. She stands over me, her eyes trailing my crumpled form. I only hope I’ve bought Charlotte and Willow enough time to get away.

My eyes find Charlotte, who has come out of her daze. She’s near Willow, attempting to help her to her feet. Blood pours into her eyes, and she desperately wipes at it. Willow wobbles and allows Charlotte to lead her to the water’s edge, where a boat waits.

If only they get away, it is worth it. I try to convey my love for my sister through the last look I give her. A sob shakes her shoulders.

“You’re done, Beau Cadwell.” Jorie mocks my weakness with words dipped in victory.

That’s when I see it—something weaving in and out of the trees. If I concentrate hard enough, I can keep my eyes open. Until I can’t. Until the blood loss weighs too heavily and my lids begin to close.

“Beau.”

I hear my name on Willow’s lips. I force my eyes to open long enough to see a thundering sea of officers and to hear their command to drop your weapon. I don’t have a weapon, but Jorie does, and she has no intention of letting it go. Another warning from the police. Jorie raises the knife above me, ready to bring it down on me once more, just moments before an explosion rips the air in two. It’s quick, much faster than Jorie. The blade pauses midair. The pop of a bullet rings in my ears.

And down, down, down Jorie falls.

Blood drips from her back, blossoming on the dirt. Her mouth opens in a grotesque silent scream. She wildly grabs at the dirt, only feet beside me.

But there’s nothing to save her.

Police officers close in from all sides. One relieves Charlotte of Willow’s weight and guides her to the base of a tree, directing her to sit while he temporarily bandages her head. Another frees Willow’s arms from the restraints and checks the bruises forming around her throat. Two officers move toward me, as well.

Jorie blinks one, two, three more times before her eyes stare, glazed and fixed, open wide, at nothing.

For a moment, I gaze at a dead murderer and fight the urge to vomit. I begin to shake.

“Stay with us,” an emergency worker says.

A storm of blackness eats more of my vision until all I see is a tiny light.

Then nothing at all.