Of course, Shane hadn’t plowed into a family of four. Halfway down the hill, he’d lost control of the car and had gone careening into the forest. According to the police report, the car had flipped several times before settling. And innocent little Ruby, clueless, stupid Ruby, had just reached the base of the hill when it happened. She made it just in time to see the fireworks.
The explosion.
“What do you say, Brianna?” she asked, finger sliding over the trigger. “Have I kept my part of the bargain? Siphoned the secret from Brett, and handed over your brother’s killer? Am I free to go?”
Brianna stared at Ruby’s revolver. Slowly, hesitantly, she waved Ruby across the patio. But once Ruby had passed the line of gasoline, she didn’t race to safety, or plead for Parker’s life.
Instead she held out a hand to Brianna. “Give me the candle.”
“Ruby.”
“You aren’t a killer, and we both know it. Come on, baby doll, I did everything I promised. Now it’s your turn.”
Brianna swallowed. The candle was dripping wax, and ever so delicately, she slid it into Ruby’s gloved hand.
Ruby exhaled in relief, turning to Parker. “Do me a favor, would you?” she asked. “Stay close when the fire starts. I want to see you transform into a dripping ball of wax. I want to see your big, clumsy fingers peel away to the bone. Would you do that for me, darling? Pretty Parker. My little Human Torch.”
Parker jerked backwards, his mouth dropping open, but Ruby broke in before he could speak. “Oh, you’re going to run? Well, don’t waste time. That was my mistake, wasn’t it? Taking my time getting out of bed. Searching for my warm winter gloves. Pushing the car out of the driveway, so my mother didn’t wake up. What if I hadn’t done all that? Could I have stopped him? Or would we have gone up in flames together, bonded to the death?”
“You . . . ?” Parker croaked, and Ruby couldn’t help it. She envisioned a prince turning into a frog. She envisioned stomping on him, seeing his guts splayed out on her shoe. When he looked up, to the balcony, she said, “I suppose you could mimic our death-defying escape, but is there enough time? If I were a betting woman, I’d say you were a couple of minutes short. Like I was with Shane.”
Parker swallowed, backing away from the glass when he should’ve been leaping through it. In Ruby’s movie, he was the beautiful, big-eyed blond, and she was the killer. But she wouldn’t be slashing anyone up tonight, oh no. She wouldn’t be shooting anyone either.
Ruby knelt on the patio stones. Tipped the candle down, so gracefully, as the wind picked up. For a moment, she thought the flame was going to go out. It flickered. It sputtered. Then, kissing the line of gasoline, it snaked around the house.
Ruby leapt back. Something stirred inside of her, something like breath rushing into lungs. Something like life. As the flames rose, curling and tangling in the air, Ruby’s limbs turned back into flesh, and her heart softened to red.
34.
INVISIBLE MAN
The monsters rose up, threatening to swallow Gavin whole. He couldn’t stop running into them. That was the problem with lugging someone twice your size through impenetrable blackness. Every time he got a handle on his destination, some massive topiary beast clawed at his skin. By the time he and Juniper had carried Brett halfway across the yard, he thought his body was going to collapse.
But it didn’t. He could see the tall, wrought-iron gate in the distance, and it strengthened his resolve. He told himself that he’d run into a million topiary monsters if that meant getting away from Brianna. His skin would be bloodied and his lungs would be pissed, but he’d make it to the end of his own movie, with Juniper at his side.
And so, Gavin ran. A Minotaur with horns made of branches tried to take away a chunk of his skin, but he simply veered around it, seeking the light at the end of the tunnel. The gate. Soon, it loomed over them. Gavin hoped that shorting out the power in the house hadn’t shorted out the gate as well. Or if it had, he hoped he could open that sucker manually. Hell, he’d scale the damn thing if he had to. He’d do whatever was necessary, because Juniper was wheezing to his left, a body was hanging between them, and that body was growing cold.
They didn’t have much time.
Carefully, they laid Brett on the ground. Juniper tended to him while Gavin tackled the gate. There was a little box to the right of it, and he flipped it open, fingers numb in the cold. For once, it seemed that fate was on his side. The big red button was clearly marked, and when Gavin pushed it, the gate started to open. It didn’t even creak! No dust fell over his head, and no ghosts howled at his back. As he spun around to meet his companions, the smile fell from his face.
It wasn’t the sight of Brett that scared him. It was Juniper, or rather, the tears sliding down her cheeks.
“What?” he demanded, sounding harsh and not even feeling sorry for it. They had not come this far to lose Brett now. They hadn’t.
“He’s freezing,” Juniper said, placing her hands on Brett’s cheeks. “I can hardly make out his breathing.”
“No.” Gavin dropped to his knees, refusing to see what Juniper saw. Sure, Brett’s skin was pallid and his shirt was spattered with red, but that didn’t mean he was dying. “No, you’re not doing this.”
“What?” Juniper looked up, her hair sparkling with ice. The water from the pool was freezing, right there on her head. She was turning into a snow princess. And Brett was turning into a corpse.
“Not you,” Gavin said, his hands tightening to fists. He supposed he should feel sympathy in this moment. His chest should be swelling with forgiveness. But it wasn’t. All he could feel was fury, hot, sharp, and invigorating, and before he could stop himself, he’d struck Brett across the face. “Get up.”
“Gavin.”
“No.” He cut Juniper off before she got started. He didn’t want to hear it. All he wanted to hear was Brett laughing or taunting him or doing literally anything but lying there like a stone. “Get up,” he said again.
“He can’t get up. Gavin, he isn’t going to—”
“He isn’t going to die like this! Are you kidding me? Like this?” He lashed out again. This time, Brett groaned a little, and Gavin’s heart leapt. It was working, he knew it was. And because of this, he dug his heels in. “I will go to your funeral and tell everyone what you did to Shane. I’ll tell them what you did to me. You should’ve fought for me, but you left me alone. You left me.”
Gavin hit him again.
And again.
By the time Juniper got her arms around him, Brett’s cheek was a stinging red, and still, Gavin struggled to break free. He fought and he fought, and he didn’t even realize he was screaming until Brett started to cough. Softly at first, then violently, blotting out the wind that whipped around them.
Gavin lowered his forehead to Brett’s. “About damn time,” he whispered.
Brett inhaled sharply, his eyelids fluttering. He managed to say, “Didn’t give me . . . much choice,” before his eyes closed again. But it was all right. It was more than all right, because he was conscious, and on the other side of the gate, Gavin could see light. A car was coming up the hill. It inched along slowly, as if the driver was afraid of running into a tree and going up in a big, fiery burst, but still. A car was coming.
“Thank God.” Juniper slid one of Brett’s arms over her shoulders. Gavin did the same, and together, they hoisted him off the ground. “Oh, thank God, Gavin. I thought he was going to die.”
“He can’t,” Gavin said, feeling a little cavalier at the moment. Feeling giddy and dizzy and terribly light. “He isn’t the disappearing act.”
“No, that’s Ruby.”
A chill went up his back. “Kind of funny, isn’t it, that she’s been in front of our faces the entire night?”
“No, she hasn’t. She got taken.”
“For, like, ten minutes,” Gavin said as they carried Brett through the gate. “And her punishment didn’t fit with her name. How does being covered in bru
ises make her ‘disappear’?”
“I don’t know,” Juniper admitted. “Maybe it had something to do with her dad.”
“What does that mean?” Gavin asked, watching the light creep up the hill. He was starting to get a strange feeling in his chest.
“Her dad left her covered in bruises,” Juniper explained. “Then he disappeared.”
“Split town, you mean.”
“Yeah, but she never says that. She always says ‘my father disappeared.’ ”
“Right! Like she’s a southern belle on a freaking plantation. It’s like she can’t help herself. Like it’s—”
“Compulsive.” Juniper’s voice was breathy, and she’d turned away from the light. That light seemed like an illusion, like it’d never really reach the top of the hill. And even if it did, something much more interesting was happening inside Juniper’s head.
“What?” Gavin asked, following her gaze back to the house.
“My name is the Disappearing Act,” she said in a soft, ethereal voice. “I am secretly in love with a corpse. My weapon is a revolver because I have a killer’s instinct.”
“Juniper?”
“My greatest secret is . . .” Her breath hitched as she spoke the final line. “I made an entire person disappear.”
“Yeah? So?” Gavin glanced at Brett. He was breathing. And now, pressed between them, he was warming up a little. Even better, the car was cresting the hill, and they were about to get out of there.
Two of them were. Gavin realized it as his eyes found Juniper’s across the bloody expanse of Brett’s chest. For God’s sake, they’d been drowned, beaten, and almost consumed by fire. There was no reason to go back. But Juniper was going. Already, she was disentangling herself from Brett as the car pulled up to the side of the road. “Listen, I have to—”
“You cannot be serious. Honestly, I will drag you into that car. You saw me slap Brett silly.”
A ghost of a smile, and then Juniper was walking backwards, into the darkness. “Call the police,” she yelled, her voice wrapping around him. “By the time they get here, I’ll know.”
“Know what? Juniper! Know what?” It was pointless. She was gone, and the driver was climbing out of the car. It was a hunched, gray-haired woman, and now Gavin had the delightful task of trying to explain their situation. The blood on Brett’s skin. The words written on his.
He stepped forward, taking a breath. But the words died in his throat, long before they’d made it to his lips, because something was happening on the other side of the estate. First, a spark, rising in the night. The flicker drew Gavin’s eye. In the span of a single breath, a glittering trail went snaking around the house.
Then the world exploded in light.
35.
BABY DOLL
Brianna Ferrick was taking off her costume. There was nothing left to do. A show was unfolding before her, and it was the greatest show on earth, but it wasn’t tickling her quite like she’d expected. A human torch sounded fascinating in theory, but in real life . . . Well, reality was often disappointing.
And karma was a bitch.
Brianna’s gaze cut across the darkness, settling on Ruby Valentine. Ruby was standing beneath the inferno, watching a person disappear. The flames hadn’t reached him yet. When the fire had started, Parker Addison, in all his golden glory, had spun around three times and bolted to the stairs.
Then there was a pause. It wasn’t quite like silence, what with the flames ravaging everything in their path, but it felt like silence, because the screaming hadn’t started yet. That was what Brianna would remember, as the circus faded to black. The silence.
And then the noise.
There was a great clattering up above, like Santa’s reindeer prancing about the roof. No. There was a rattling, like Marley’s ghost dragging heavy chains. It was panic. It was prophecy coming true. It was Parker, banging on the inside of the balcony doors, trying to get outside.
But there was that rope. A rope had led to Ruby’s downfall. A rope had lashed her to a chair. And now, wrapped around those balcony doors, a rope was doing the opposite.
Containing Parker and setting her free.
Ruby strode to the shadows, helping Brianna out of her dress. It was sweet. It was almost like they were sisters, and Brianna had wanted a sister, before she started losing the family members she had. Now she wanted a death-defying escape, and a story to guide her into it.
“Tell me again,” she entreated, pulling on her jeans. “Tell me the story of the girl who turned into a doll.”
Ruby seemed distracted. Her attention was split, half staring at the boy on the balcony (the boy still inside the doors), and half staring at the doll they’d hidden in the bushes. What she wasn’t staring at was Brianna. It must’ve been hard for her, so close to the end.
“There’s no time for that,” Ruby said, gathering the white lace dress in her arms. Within seconds, she’d slid it back onto the life-size doll, where it had begun. “Are you ever going to take off the mask?”
“Eventually.” Brianna flashed a big, creepy grin. She felt more comfortable this way. With the mask covering her face, she was protected from the world. Safe. “Please, tell me the story? I don’t even hear sirens yet.”
Ruby sighed, as if she were dealing with a petulant child. “Quickly, then. We have to get you on that flight. You never told me where you got the passport.”
“Online.” Brianna pulled the little blue booklet out of her bag. It was one of the only things she was taking with her. That, and the clothes on her back (a T-shirt and jeans, along with a sweatshirt that had belonged to her twin) and a big wad of cash, courtesy of Parker’s trust fund.
“The world was on fire,” Ruby said, her eyes glittering, like they always did when she told the story. “Inside the great, glimmering inferno was a car. Inside the car was a boy.”
“Did he suffer?”
“He was tired after almost drowning. Tired after being hit. He would’ve just drifted to sleep, and his soul would’ve drifted into the sky, and there it remains, waiting for you. For me.”
Brianna nodded, her eyelids fluttering. She understood being tired. It had been a long night. But she couldn’t sleep, because she needed to hear the rest of the story, and then she needed to disappear.
“But?” she prompted, zipping her bag.
“But he wasn’t the only one who changed that day. There was a girl climbing through the forest, her heart bleeding red. Skin so delicate, the slightest touch could make her gasp. As she watched the boy transform to a creature of ashes and bone, she transformed too, into an unfeeling doll. And she would remain that way until . . .” Ruby looked up, to the balcony. Finally, finally the rope had given way, but that gift was a curse. The fire had burned away the rope, which meant the fire had reached the doors. In order to escape, Parker would have to hurl himself through the wall of flame, and he wouldn’t do it.
Parker was not brave. He would throw Brett to the wolves, drug Gavin’s drink, and expose Ruby’s most private moments, but he would not be exposed. Everything he did, he did behind closed doors, and now he would die behind them. When Parker bolted back into the house, the girls turned to each other.
Instantly, they forgot him.
“You have to get going,” Ruby said, lifting the doll from the bushes and hurling it into the fire. It landed by the patio doors. “It’s a temporary illusion, but as long as the fire’s raging, the police will suspect it’s you. Who else could it be? And I’ll spin a yarn about a struggle, where you knocked the revolver from my hand. Then, in a terrified frenzy, I shoved you backwards, and you stumbled toward the fire, and I ran off into the night.”
A grin. Ruby was so comfortable when she was acting, wasn’t she? She was so comfortable playing a part. But after the fire had died down, and the skeleton had been pulled from the wreckage, she’d have to face what she’d done.
“It’s over, Ruby. It’s time to come back.”
“What do you mean?” Ruby
’s brow was furrowed, and there was a little wrinkle above her nose. In that moment, Brianna understood why her brother had fallen for this girl. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, although of course he would’ve noticed. It was the life in her limbs. The color in her cheeks. Ruby was life embodied, a painting come alive, and when Brianna had found her at the funeral, wandering like a wraith emptied of a soul, she’d had to do something.
To bring her back to life.
She hadn’t known, at the time. She’d had no idea what Ruby was planning. If she’d heard the story then, she would’ve said no. Girls couldn’t turn into dolls, and a fiery inferno couldn’t bring them back to life. But over time, over months of crawling into each other’s windows, and curling into each other’s arms, because it was the only way to feel close to him, Brianna had started to entertain the idea. It was horrifying but it was also . . . enticing.
The way a fire is enticing when it ravages through a forest, making it impossible to look away.
Ruby hadn’t been able to look away. That night, watching the fire burn. Watching Shane disappear, a moon-pale face turning into a candle of wax. Dripping and contorting. Before she’d heard that, Brianna hadn’t even been mad. She had known the futility of being angry at death, had known it was like screaming at a pebble in the road, and she’d honestly believed Shane’s crash had been an accident.
Accidents happened all the time.
Once, when Brianna was five years old, she’d lost control of her bicycle and had gone careening into a bush of thorny roses. And Shane, trying to spare her the embarrassment of attending school adorned in slashes, had spun and spun in those very thorns until his skin matched her skin.
Until they were the same.
When they were seven, and Brianna had tried leaping from the roof with a parasol, Shane had limped beside her until her ankle was healed.
And when their mother had died in a bathtub, Shane had fought to keep Brianna from entering the room. He’d wrapped his arms around her, while she’d sobbed and struggled, until she was too tired to go in there and see the blood. He’d done everything in his power to make her feel happy, to make her feel loved, and then he was gone. Taken from the world. And the people who’d taken him were going to walk free?
This Lie Will Kill You Page 22
