THE DECISION
Becca is dead. Dead.
Her hands are curled into claws, fingers red and black. One hand rests on her chest, two fingers tangled up in the red silk noose around her neck. Where she fought. Tried to get free. Her face is ruined, the gaping black holes where her eyes once were a testament to the insanity of a girl who wants to leave a mark on the world.
And make it look at first glance like this girl was driven crazy by some sort of demon and hurt herself, gouged out her own eyes and strangled herself on the gate.
But there is no doubt in my mind, this is murder.
Ashlyn killed Camille. Ashlyn killed Becca.
Her parents. My mother.
Ashlyn will kill me, too, as soon as I help her recover her money.
The tears are flowing freely down my face, I don’t bother to check or hide them.
Ashlyn has done this.
Ashlyn has done all of this.
Ashlyn, Ashlyn, Ashlyn.
Get it together. Hold it together.
I can’t think about myself anymore. She is insane. She has to be stopped.
Just look what she’s capable of. Look what she’s done. Nothing I’ve done comes close. Lies. Just lies. She is a murderer. I have to throw her to the wolves.
You get half, the nasty little voice in the back of my mind says. No matter what, you can go anywhere, do anything, with half of Damien Carr’s estate. You have nothing to lose, not anymore.
The dean is staring at me as if I’m speaking in tongues.
I straighten to my full height, which puts me a full head above her. Even this simple motion makes me feel more in control. I’ve been slouching around for months now, trying to look smaller, wider. More like her.
“I know who did this. We aren’t safe. We need to get everyone inside and block off the tunnels to the school.”
“What are you talking about?” Westhaven asks, her voice edging toward hysteria. “Who did this?”
“Trust me. Please.”
The dean doesn’t move, and the sheriff is standing next to her like an avenging angel. Rumi is at her side, too.
“Rumi—” I say, and the sheriff explodes. Everything happens at once.
“Are you saying Rumi is responsible? You are blaming him?” he says, loudly enough that the remaining girls hear, and the whisper campaign starts again in earnest, a few squeals and “catch him” filling the street between us and them.
Rumi goes white. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
The dean puts a hand on the sheriff’s arm. “He was with me, Tony. He didn’t do this. Becca was troubled. I have letters from her mother, emails, records from her psychiatrist. The senator was worried about her daughter, worried enough that she sent me the doctor’s notes.”
They barely notice me pleading, “No, no, she didn’t kill herself, there’s no way. Please, we can’t stay out here, can we have some privacy?”
But the damage is done. The girls of Goode need a logical explanation for this atrocity, and Rumi Reynolds, the son of the notorious campus murderer, is the perfect target. Whether he killed her or she killed herself because of him, the buzz is flowing hard, the angry hive looking for blood.
The sheriff has a hand on his cuffs.
Rumi is shaking his head, shock on his features.
I have to fix this. I speak loudly, so everyone can hear.
“No, Sheriff, you’re wrong. Rumi didn’t do this. Please, can we go inside?” I say again, and finally, he seems to hear me.
“You’re saying it wasn’t Rumi.”
“That’s right. But I think I know what happened, and it’s a convoluted story. We need to get everyone safe, first.”
The dark-eyed female cop has arrived, and the teachers are on the scene now, too. I see Asolo and Medea, pale and teary, standing together with their hands covering their mouths, and the dean goes to them, gives them instructions. She turns back and marches toward me. Gone is the kind, friendly woman who has been sheltering me since I arrived in America. She is a glittering Valkyrie now, furious and intent.
“Come with me,” and she grabs my arm and drags me toward her car. “We’ll go in the back.” Yes, we can hardly drive through the gates. God, Becca.
“Rumi?” she says, calling her dog to heel.
Something flickers in his eyes and he cocks his head ironically as if to say, Yes, Dean, anything for you, Dean, then tosses her the keys. “Drive yourself,” he says flatly. “I’m going to search the grounds with the sheriff’s deputies for anything amiss.”
“Look at the tunnel coming from the graveyard,” I call to him. “She’s been using it to get in and out.”
“She?” the dean, the sheriff, and the detective say simultaneously.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t hide any longer. It’s time to come clean.
“My sister,” I reply. “The real Ashlyn Carr.”