The Third Twin

by Cj Omololu

  Flicking through some more photos, I can’t believe what I’m seeing, but it’s all right in front of me. The photo of Eli and me at the party, the one of Ava and Dylan at the beach, along with the picture of Casey standing outside my car that night in the parking lot. Cecilia took them all and then posted them to Alicia’s page. She’s not afraid of technology. That was a lie.

  I flick back to the first picture and study it, a feeling of dread seeping into my limbs. My hand shakes as I toss Cecilia’s phone onto the passenger seat and turn the key in the ignition. Zane guessed right—she was trying to protect us in some twisted way. And now he’s the only one left alive. I have to find them before she can finish the job.

  I’m driving just to be moving, when I realize I don’t know where I’m going. Where did she say she was getting the food? Los something? Shit. I pull over again and grab her phone. It sounded like someplace they go all the time. I scroll through her address book and see it—Los Pericos. I quickly push the CALL button and wait until a guy with a heavy accent answers the phone.

  “Hi,” I manage, trying to sound calm. “What’s your address?”

  “Two seventy-eight East Fourteenth Street,” he says, the background noise almost deafening. They must be busy.

  “Where is that?” I say, looking at the green street signs hanging on the traffic lights above my head. “Exactly?”

  “In the Pelton Center. Next to the Bank of America,” he says abruptly, and hangs up.

  I’m already on East Fourteenth Street. I see a neon sign a few blocks ahead that starts with a P, and I pull into traffic. I slow down as I realize that they might not have even gone there. What if making Zane go with her was just an excuse to get him alone? I remember how he didn’t want to go, how she basically guilted him into it. I feel time slipping away—it must have been close to an hour ago now.

  The parking lot of the Pelton Center is pretty big, but I spot Cecilia’s gold Lexus right away, parked directly in front of the restaurant. It has the dent above the back left tire that Ava put there when she was learning to drive, back when it was Dad’s car. The restaurant is packed, and I can’t see inside very well, but I keep my eyes trained on the front door. It feels like hours, but the clock says I’ve been here only a few minutes when the glass door swings open and Cecilia walks through, followed by Zane carrying several plastic bags full of food. They’re talking and relaxed, and I can barely believe the relief that floods through me. Zane’s fine, at least for now.

  Before I can decide what to do, the back lights of the Lexus come on and Cecilia pulls out of the parking space. I try to pull out behind her, but my aisle is blocked by an old man in a giant Cadillac with his turn signal on, waiting for a car to pull out from in front of the bank.

  “Come on!” I shout, honking my horn, but he just waves into the rearview mirror and keeps waiting. I can’t sit here. I have to get to Cecilia and Zane before anything happens. Reaching over, I pick up Cecilia’s phone to call Zane again, but it goes straight to voice mail.

  I finally back all the way down the aisle, which is harder than I thought it would be in Zane’s giant van full of blind spots, and turn toward the exit, but I don’t see the gold Lexus anywhere. I crane my neck to see down the busy street and spot them at a light about a block away. I hit the gas, pull in front of a bus, and manage to make it to the light four cars behind them. The light changes and they cross the intersection, but instead of turning right like she should to get back to the house, Cecilia keeps going. I only sort of know where we are, so she’s probably using a shortcut. I swing around two of the cars in front of me so that there’s only a VW and a small red car between me and the Lexus. I’m trying to figure a way around the cars, when Cecilia takes a quick right, and I’m too slow to react. I watch the Lexus disappear down an alley between two strip malls.

  Damn it. I can’t turn around in the middle of the busy street, so I turn right at the next light and then right again at the end of the next block. If I’m lucky, the alley will come out directly in front of me. I see an alley, but I don’t see the Lexus, so I turn into the narrow space between the buildings, and the gold Lexus screeches to a stop about ten feet in front of me.

  Thank God I found them! I’m reaching for the door handle when I sense that something’s wrong. Cecilia’s eyes go wide as she sees me in the van, and it’s not just surprise. There’s guilt there too. I know without a doubt that she’s behind everything that has happened. She didn’t cut herself making dinner the other day—that was all for show. She cut herself struggling with Dylan that morning. Right before she put a blade into the back of his neck.

  I need to get Zane away from her. I’m up much higher than they are, and I don’t think she can see my hand as I reach for Cecilia’s phone, barely glancing down as I dial 911 and hit SPEAKER. Cecilia’s staring at me through the windshield of her car, so I turn to the side and rub my nose to cover my actions as I give the dispatcher our location.

  “Do you need police or fire department?” the dispatcher asks.

  “Police,” I say. “Hurry!” Zane’s already at my window.

  “Lexi! What’s going on?”

  I’d better be right, because there’s no turning back now. I leave the phone on the seat and climb out of the van. I have to play this right—not let on that I know anything and stall until the police get here. “Oh my God, you guys! You’ll never believe what happened at the house!” Even to me, my words sound false and hollow.

  Cecilia plasters on a fake smile as she slides out of the driver’s seat. “Lexi!” she says with surprise. “Is everything okay?” Her left hand is empty, but her right hand is in her coat pocket as she steps out of the car. I’ll bet everything that she has a knife in there. This was no innocent shortcut. She was planning on killing Zane right here, next to the filthy green Dumpster.

  “What happened?” Zane’s eyes are full of concern as he stands next to me.

  I have to keep going like I don’t know what Cecilia is doing. Who she has become. “The cops came. To the house.” I’m standing awkwardly by the hood of the van, but I can’t think of what else to do without giving anything away. It’s taking everything I have to stay in this one spot. I have to keep her here and keep her talking. “They took Ava. And Rubi, because they thought she was me. I hid in the closet until I could get out through a window.”

  Cecilia looks shocked. “So they think they have you already?”

  “Yeah. But it won’t take very long for them to figure it out.” I let the built-up frustration come to the surface, and my voice breaks. “And I don’t know what to do now.”

  Usually Cecilia would be the one to put her arm around me, to tell me that it’s going to be okay, but this time it’s Zane. I can feel his heart pounding as I press into his chest. I pull him down toward me even more. “The cops are coming,” I whisper into his ear.

  He leans away from me, looking confused. He doesn’t understand.

  But Cecilia does. “You need to get away from her,” she says, a menacing tone in her voice that is totally out of character for the person I know so well.

  “Why?” He grabs my hand and steps slightly in front of me.

  “Because Cecilia is the one we’ve been looking for,” I say, my eyes steady on her.

  A strange sort of calm seems to come over her as she gestures toward the Lexus. “Look, why don’t we all get back into the car and get out of here? We can talk about this rationally somewhere else.”

  My heart’s pounding. What’s taking the cops so long? “I know what you did,” I say, stepping out from behind Zane. “I found your phone. The one you didn’t want us to know about. And I saw the photos.”

  Cecilia’s face pales as she absorbs the information. She stands up straighter, and I can see her resolve strengthening. “I did it for you. For both of you. To protect you, because that’s been my job since the day you were born.”

  “To protect us? Are you serious?” It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I kne
w that Cecilia did this, but to have her actually admit it almost knocks me off my feet. Cecilia’s been my mom, my nurse, and my shoulder to cry on. And now she’s my enemy.

  “Those boys were bad. All of them. They hurt you, and I knew that if I didn’t do something, it was going to get worse.”

  “So you killed them? You really killed them?” I know in my head that it’s true, but it’s so hard to picture Cecilia plunging a knife into Dylan’s neck and then coming home to pack my lunch for school. It’s crazy.

  Cecilia shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It wasn’t even that hard—I just pithed them like we used to do to suckling pigs when I was a kid.” She makes a twisting motion with her right hand, like she’s putting a key in a lock. “You should have seen the look on Casey’s face, so surprised and bug-eyed.” She smiles a little wistfully, her eyes flat and emotionless. “He deserved it the most.”

  There’s stunned silence. I look at Cecilia, really look at her: at the wiry strands of gray that are starting to pepper her dark hair, the hands that changed our diapers when we were small, now with nails bitten down to the skin. These are the hands that ended Eli’s life. And Dylan’s. And Casey’s. It’s like the Cecilia I’ve seen almost every day of my entire life doesn’t really exist. It doesn’t seem possible.

  I shake my head, trying to make sense of her reasoning. “But why? Why would you do something like that and make them think it was us?”

  “That was an accident. I never meant for the cops to suspect you. I put the photos up on Alicia’s page to help you—to show that you were the victims here.” She takes a step toward us, her eyes glassy as she seems to stare past me. “None of those guys was good enough for you. They all hurt you.”

  “But you don’t just kill people,” I say, my voice rising in anger even though I try to stop it. Zane and I both take a step back.

  She looks confused, even hurt. “I only did what I had to do to keep you safe. That’s my job, to keep you and Ava safe.”

  Zane’s left arm is twitching against mine, and I put a hand out to keep him calm. It’s not time yet. “Get into the van,” I say to him, tired of all this talking. Cecilia is still at least five feet away from us.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” she says.

  “Why not?” I glance at her, but she hasn’t moved. “You have a knife. What are you going to do to the two of us from over there?”

  Cecilia pulls a small black gun out of her pocket with her right hand.

  I take another step backward.

  “Now just leave Lexi alone and get back into the car with me,” Cecilia says, flicking the gun in Zane’s direction.

  “Zane hasn’t done anything,” I protest. “He’s been helping me.”

  Cecilia looks at me, the gun still level in her hand. “But don’t you see, baby girl? He’s only going to hurt you in the end. They all are. This is all for your own good. Besides, Zane knows too much—he practically said it back at the house. He’d go running to the cops in a second.”

  Zane squeezes my hand one last time and then lets it drop as he starts toward Cecilia.

  “No!” I can’t believe he’s just going to give up.

  She keeps the gun trained on him as he walks toward her.

  Just as he reaches the Lexus, he lunges for Cecilia, and the gun goes off into the air as he forces her hand upward. I run to them, and she starts to fight him off, kicking and jerking as he forces her up against the alley wall. The gun clatters to the ground and is kicked to the side. She’s no match for his strength. I should have known he wasn’t going to give up so easily.

  “Check her pocket for the knife,” Zane says, his breath ragged as he presses Cecilia’s hands against the wall. With one last effort, Cecilia twists away from him, shoving him with both hands so that he loses his balance. In a flash, Zane goes after her, and they struggle on the ground before he hauls her back to her feet and pushes her back up against the bricks. The fight seems to have gone out of her, and she sags under Zane’s grip, her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Okay,” I say, patting her jacket pocket. We need the knife—it’s the only thing linking Cecilia to all the murders. It’s Ava’s and my key to freedom and she’s got to have it on her. As I search, something wet drops to the dusty asphalt, and I follow the dark rivulets of blood up Zane’s arm to his shoulder. “Don’t move,” I say, my voice as steady as I can make it. “I found the knife.”

  “Damn,” Zane says as he sees what I see: the handle of the knife sticking out just below his collarbone.

  “No, don’t!” I shout, grabbing his free hand as he reaches for it. “You have to leave it. If you pull it out, you could bleed to death.”

  “I’m okay,” he insists. I look at the beads of sweat on his upper lip and the waxiness of his skin and know that he’s not.

  “You’re losing a lot of blood,” I tell him. “Try not to move. Can you hold her?”

  Zane presses her against the wall with his good hand. “Yeah.” He nods quickly.

  I yank the door of the van open and find a beach towel wadded into the corner. I grab it and race back to the two of them. Cecilia hasn’t moved, but Zane’s eyes are mirroring the panic he must be feeling.

  “Here,” I say. “I’m going to wrap the knife in the towel so it won’t move. And hopefully we can stop the bleeding. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He nods just the smallest bit.

  My hands are shaking as I press the towel up to the wound. His shirt is already soaked red with blood. Zane winces as my wrist bumps the handle of the knife.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “It’s okay,” he says, managing a half smile.

  Cecilia says nothing as I finish wrapping the wound. She’s defeated, all the fight gone out of her. I look and see blood already welling up under the towel—all of us frozen in our positions. My heart sinks, and I realize the cops had better hurry. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not really,” he says, looking down curiously. His words are thick in his mouth. “I’m getting kind of dizzy, though.”

  “I’m going to call for help again,” I say, looking down the empty alley. What’s taking the cops so long?

  I’m halfway to the van when I hear the screech of tires and the sirens wail as both exits to the alley are suddenly filled with cop cars, their flashing blue and red lights flickering over the high walls of the alley.

  “They’re here,” I say, rushing back to Zane. I’ve never been happier to see cops, and they swarm the alley and start barking orders over the car’s loudspeaker.

  “Everyone! Hands where we can see them!” a rough voice booms over our heads.

  I put my hands up, and Zane follows as much as he can as Cecilia slips down onto the asphalt. “Zane’s hurt!” I shout. “We need an ambulance!”

  Two cops approach cautiously, guns drawn.

  “It’s Cecilia,” I say, nodding to her on the ground. “She had a gun. It’s over by the car.” The tall officer spins me around and slaps handcuffs hard around my wrists, while another cop yanks Cecilia roughly to her feet and cuffs her hands behind her back.

  “Zane’s been stabbed,” I say as calmly as I can. “The knife is still in him. He needs help!”

  The cop hesitates, but he radios the information to the arriving cars. He shines a flashlight in Zane’s face. “Can you walk?”

  Zane doesn’t say anything, just gives a short nod. His tan has disappeared and his skin is pale and mottled. “Wait!” His voice is strained. “Lexi …”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Just go with him. Don’t worry about me.”

  As soon as they start to move, Zane leans on the cop, taking tiny steps toward the cars until more cops come and half support, half carry him to the ambulance that has just pulled up at the entrance to the alley. People are swarming the street now, drawn to the show by the lights and sirens.

  The cops set Zane down on the bumper of the ambulance, and he’s swallowed up by people in uniform barking orders at each other. The first cop pulls me
aside and shines a flashlight into my face. “What’s your name?”

  “Alexa Rios,” I answer, still trying to see past the commotion at the ambulance door. Zane has to be okay. He has to be.

  Cecilia is led to the open door of a cop car. I can see the top of her head as she slides into the backseat.

  “You too,” the cop near me says. “Let’s go!” He grabs me by one arm and starts to lead me away.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Dad’s voice booms over the chaos.

  I spin around and see Dad and Ms. Alvarez flanked by Detective Naito. “Lexi?” he asks in disbelief as both he and Ms. Alvarez ignore the cops and rush toward me. “They told me you were already in custody.”

  “That’s not me,” I say, not having a clue how to explain the past twenty-four hours.

  “What happened?” Dad asks, his face red with emotion. He turns me toward the sunlight coming in from the end of the alley. “Jesus, are you okay? Look at you!”

  I look down and notice the bloodstains that are all over my shirt and hands. “No, I’m fine.” I take a deep breath and nod toward the ambulance. “Zane got cut. It’s pretty bad. It … it was Cecilia the whole time,” I say, looking toward the cop car where Cecilia is sitting in the back, staring straight ahead.

  “Cecilia?” Dad asks, sounding lost and uncertain. He turns back to me.

  “She did it all,” I say, my eyes filling with tears. I don’t even recognize her anymore—the Cecilia I knew died with Casey. “She thought she was protecting us.…”