I race up the driveway past Kellan’s car to the front porch, and rap my knuckles against her door. I step back, panting, and check my phone, though I know no one’s called or messaged; I can’t help the nervous habit. Almost ten. Two hours. I knock again. This time I stay close to the door, listening. No footsteps. No voices. Maybe she’s out back.
It’s too cold to be out here.
Rubbing my hands over my arms to keep warm, I walk around the side of the house. I follow the unlit string lights to the backyard. Her patio set sits empty. The leaves on the oak trees rustle in the wind, filling the midnight black backyard with a gentle hiss. I round the table to the sliding glass doors. On the other side of the glass, in the dark kitchen, a glass of red wine sits on the counter alongside a butcher block with some sort of diced vegetable. I take a step closer, and there’s someone on the floor. Kellan.
I yank on the handle, stumbling with the force as it slides open.
“Kellan,” I call to her.
Without the glare from the reflection on the glass, I can see her clearly, positioned on her back, hands over her chest. Her bloody chest. She’s not moving.
Morgan. That’s how I found Morgan.
Is she… no. Please, no.
I inch toward her, scanning the kitchen, and pull my cell phone from my pocket. As I reach her side, I notice the sneakers sticking out from the other side of the counter. Someone else is here, laying on the floor. I creep around.
It’s Cam.
His body lies face down in a pool of blood on the white tile, his red hand clutching the metal handle of a kitchen knife.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, pressing my hand to my mouth, my fingers trembling.
What happened?
I take a step back and dial 9-1-1 as a sharp gasp comes from behind me. I jump, turning as Kellan clutches at her chest, staring at me with wide eyes.
“Chelsea,” she gasps.
She’s alive. Relief washes over me.
“Hang on,” I tell her, returning to her side and dropping to my knees. “I’m getting help.”
I grab one of her bloody hands with one of mine and press the phone to my ear as a sick feeling sinks in my stomach. Déjà vu.
“I need an ambulance to… to Fifteen Fowler’s Way. Two people are badly wounded. Stabbed.” Pain courses through me with the word and I squeeze her hand harder.
“Ow,” she hisses, yanking it away. Blood drips down the large gash along the inside of her forearm, and she stares at it, blinking. “I think I killed him.”
“What was he doing here?”
He was headed here while we were talking. He knew what he was going to do.
She lifts her head off the floor and winces.
“Kellan, just stay still—”
“He wanted to know what I knew about Austin.” She rests her head against the floor again. “He was questioning me. Trying to get it out of me. I didn’t tell. I wouldn’t break.”
I notice the purple bruise forming beneath both her eyes.
“He tried to b—beat it out of you?” I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, but there’s no movement from Cam.
“He tried to take me,” she cries. “He grabbed me, and I had the knife. Oh, God, Chelsea, I killed him.”
He was going to bring her to the house on Waterfront. He was going to make me tell the truth or else she’d die. He’d kill us anyway. Kill us both.
My hands tremble as I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to keep from swallowing it. You can’t just swallow your tongue, but as I try to rationalize, my skin goes cold and clammy. I can feel my tongue slipping down my throat. I’m sure of it.
He said he’d do anything for the truth. This is beyond brutal. The blood on her chest is from her arm. The blood on our hands…
Kellan stares up at me, wide-eyed. “You’re having a panic attack.”
I freeze, sure my heart will stop at any moment if I dare move again. If I look away from the blood dripping down her arm. I can’t breathe. The dispatcher tells me help is on the way.
The dispatcher’s voice.
The stickiness of Kellan’s blood on my hand.
The knife in Cam’s hand.
It’s all the same.
I gasp for breath, but I can’t get a full one, staring down at Kellan as she grazes her fingers over the gash in her arm and presses her hand against it. The blood trickles out from between her fingers. I want to tell her it’ll be okay, but I can’t speak. I can’t see straight. I’m going to die.
The phone slips from my hand to the floor by the counter, and Kellan’s eyes open wide as she takes in the sight of me. Her eyes grow wider, still, until I turn and see Cam behind me. He struggles to his knees, reaching for the countertop for support. The knife is in his hand.
“Chelsea,” Kellan hisses. “Oh, God, no.” She gasps for breath. “Please. Don’t let him—”
Cam pulls himself up, pointing the knife at us. Reality slips for me; the image of Steven, knife in hand, alternates between what I’m facing, from Cam’s face, to Steven’s, back to Cam’s. It can’t happen again. I can’t let him kill us. Ellie’s words echo in my mind as Cam stumbles toward us.
I told him what—what we did was wrong. Chelsea… I told him… eee said… we’re all going to pay.
“You fucking bitch,” Cam grunts, supporting himself with the countertop.
“Chelsea,” Kellan gasps, shaking my hand.
I look down and notice the bloody knife with the wooden handle by her side.
Cam catches my eye, shuffling toward us. He’s unsteady but determined. I don’t recognize him anymore. He’s not the man I knew.
Kellan hisses in pain and shoves my hand against the knife handle, but I can’t stop staring at him.
Steven came at me with the knife. Without a word beyond my name. Because he didn’t kill them. He was scared. He was trying to get out. He called my name. He was trying to tell me Cam killed them. I can’t let it happen again.
I grab the knife and rise to my feet, my legs barely supporting me against the weight of my fear. “Why did you kill them?”
Cam stares down at Kellan, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
I hold the knife out, but it shakes in my hand. “You beat her, Cam? You fucking coward! You tried to get her to tell you about Austin, but she doesn’t know—"
“She… knows… everything—” he starts, shoving his knife out before him.
Something heavy pushes against my side. Kellan presses her bloody hand against it to stand, grabs the knife from my hand, and lunges forward in one quick, practiced motion, plunging it into Cam’s chest and out again. I gasp as his knife slips from his hand, clanging against the bloody tile. Kellan shuffles backward toward me, muffling her cries and cradling her bad arm against her chest.
I take the knife from her and stare at Cam in shock as she presses against her wound once more.
He drops to his knees, eyes wide.
Kellan sinks to the floor beside me, clutching her arm as she cries, “oh my God,” over and over.
I couldn’t protect them that night. I couldn’t protect us tonight.
The panic swells inside my chest as I look down at her, “Kellan, I’m so sorry.”
“He was going to kill us,” she cries.
He came because I told him I was seeing Kellan. He asked if I was expecting someone, and I said her. I handed him a target on a silver platter.
“I’m so sorry.” My body starts to shake. The adrenaline.
“He’s crazy,” she cries, looking up at me. “He wasn’t going to stop.”
“The police,” I say, looking around for my phone. I realize I can breathe. I am keeping busy. I can breathe. “They’ll be here soon.”
I spot the phone just beneath the cabinet of the counter by the sink.
“Unlock the door for them,” Kellan says, wincing, still on her knees, “will you, please? I’m—I’m losing a lot of blood.”
I nod, taking shaky steps to the counter by the sink and grab a tea towel, bringing it back to her and wrapping it around her arm.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
She’s not mad at me—she doesn’t blame me—but she should.
I rush down the hallway to the front door and twist the lock.
Where’s Cam’s car? Why didn’t I see it when I came? It’s in the driveway. I thought that was Kellan’s. I thought that the other day at Jordan’s, too. They look the same.
I turn back toward the kitchen, but the blue baseball hat hanging by the door stops me.
An eerie sensation sends prickling shivers across the back of my neck as I recognize Cam’s hat and coat, hung below it. Why did he take off his coat?
I slip my hand in the pocket and hit his phone. Pulling it out, I glance over my shoulder toward the kitchen before tapping in Cam’s password with trembling fingers. I open his messages and there are two most recent.
Unknown Number: I’m worried about Chelsea.
Unknown Number: Call me and I’ll tell you what I know.
I shoulder-check again.
Cam said Kellan knew everything. What did he mean?
My mind races as I slip the phone back in his coat pocket and turn to the kitchen.
Kellan stands in the doorway, and I jump. “You okay?”
I nod. She shuffles back into the kitchen and I follow behind her.
She was so hurt before, she could barely move, but then when Cam started talking, she got up and stabbed him. She stopped him before he could say anything else.
Kellan stops a few feet away from Cam’s body, staring at it, cradling her arm close to her chest.
Ellie’s words echo back to me again.
“I told him what—what we did was wrong. Chelsea… I told him… eee…” She gasps and gurgles, squeezing my hand. “Eee said… we’re all going to pay.”
She was choking on her own blood. What if she didn’t say he? What if she was trying to say she?
Kellan turns back to me, a bright red bloodstain growing on the cream tea towel. “What is it?”
I shake my head, staring down at my bloody knife. “I just can’t believe he did it.”
“No?” she asks. Her tone shifts. “You were quick to believe Steve did it. Why not Cam?”
My body goes cold like her stare as she studies me.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammer.
“He tried to kill me, Chelsea. Don’t you see? I saved us.” She slowly turns back to Cam.
I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I know Kellan killed my friends. I know she tried to kill my family. And now, Cam.
I grip the knife in my hand and approach her, slowly and carefully.
I have to be careful.
I need the truth.