“No one. Go back inside, Petey.”
I pull Brandon aside by the arm, my pulse ticking in my ears. “He knows you were here. What you look like. You’re not a kid killer, Brandon. Please just leave and I’ll pretend you were never here.”
Brandon’s eyes flick from me to my brother, who hasn’t moved.
“Please,” I say quietly. “You didn’t think this through. He’s just a kid. And if you take me, he’ll be able to lead the cops straight to you. You won’t get away with it.”
A bead of sweat crops up on Brandon’s lip. I’ve gotten through to him. He’s not a kid killer.
When I feel the tension leave his body, I knee him in the balls and scream for Petey to run. “Go straight to Ginny’s house. Number eighty-four. Call the police there.”
Brandon doubles over and yelps with pain. He stands up straight as I’m stumbling toward Tom’s workbench and grabs me by the shoulder.
He’s hurting; I can hear it in his labored breathing. I could probably fight him off, but I need to give my brother a head start. I struggle against Brandon, keeping my eye on the open garage door; as soon I spot Petey running down the street, I twist and elbow Brandon in the face.
When I start to scramble away from him, pain sears the back of my head. He has me by the ponytail; I scream as he yanks me to a stop. He covers my mouth with one hand. I bite him, hard. While he recoils, I grab Petey’s baseball bat off the rack next to the workbench. I use one hand to keep the bat pointed at Brandon.
“You move, I bash your head in. Hands up.”
Brandon complies. The hand where I bit him is pink, blood drops forming where my teeth met his flesh. I think of Susan Berry’s dog, trying to stop Brandon from smothering her. I tighten my grip around the bat.
“Sit there.” I nod to the rack where we keep our dirty shoes. Brandon obeys.
“Okay,” I say. “You said you wanted to talk. Talk.”
He winces, from the pain in his groin, his hand, or both. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“Why’d you kill them?” I ask. “Did Juliana threaten to tell Allie?”
Brandon shuts his eyes, muttering, “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” He probably thought this moment would never come.
I hit him in the kneecap with the bat, yelling over his moaning and cries of Oh my God. “Why did you kill them, Brandon?”
“It wasn’t just about Allie finding out. I was twenty-two, and Juliana was fifteen,” he says. “If she told anyone, I could have gone to jail. You should know that.”
The snideness that’s crept into his voice makes me want to hit him in the knee again, harder. “What happened that night?”
“I told Juliana we had to stop, the morning after Allie found the earring in my truck. Juliana was really, really mad. She’d thought I would break up with Allie for her—she didn’t get it, that I couldn’t be with a fifteen-year-old.” Brandon swallows. “She asked me to come to Susan’s house to talk. We sat in my truck. It was fine, at first, but when I told her again I wasn’t leaving Allie, she started crying and yelling about how she was going to tell her. She got out and slammed the door.”
“You followed her inside.”
Brandon closes his eyes. Tears drip down his face, over his lips. “She wouldn’t answer the front door. When she said she was going to call the cops, I freaked. I climbed the fence, and I saw the back door—she saw me and opened it and started yelling at me. When I followed her into the house she went nuts. I was afraid Susan would hear, so I covered Juliana’s mouth. She bit me, and when she jerked away, she fell back into the mirror. Her head was bleeding, and she came at me with a shard—I just panicked.”
“So instead of calling to get Juliana help, you killed her and Susan.”
“Susan heard. She came downstairs at the noise. She started running back upstairs when she saw everything, so I ran after her and grabbed her.” Brandon chokes out a sob. “I didn’t go there planning to hurt anyone. It just got out of control.”
“You’re disgusting!” I scream. “It was all an act with me, wasn’t it? You pretended sleeping with me was a bad idea because of my age, while you were really a fucking pedo—”
He lunges at me, mashing his fist into my mouth before I can lift the baseball bat. I stumble back, but he presses his forearm into my throat, pinning me to the wall. When he reaches for the bat, I throw it as far as my short reach will allow. It clatters when it hits the ground, but Brandon doesn’t go after it; his eyes are locked on me. I’m staring back at a cornered animal.
“Is this what you did to her?” I gasp.
Black spots are swimming before my eyes. Then, screaming. His screaming. He releases me, stumbling backward; I’m bent over, clutching my throat, trying to process the scene in front of me.
Ginny is standing over Brandon, the bat in her hands. She’s calm, her hands steady around its neck; Brandon is on his back, not moving.
“Where’s my brother?” It comes out garbled; my lips are swollen and my mouth tastes like blood. “Where’s Petey?”
“He’s at my house. We called nine-one-one, and Tom.”
I look from Ginny to Brandon. It’s just the three of us now. I don’t hear sirens yet. Brandon is watching me from the floor, his temple leaking blood. I realize that Ginny hit him in the head with the bat.
Brandon’s eyelids flutter. He needs an ambulance; he has a concussion, or worse. I look at Ginny again.
“Give me the bat.”
“Monica,” she says.
“Please.”
Ginny hands it over. Brandon’s eyes roll back. He’s finally passed out, either from the pain or from the sight of me standing over him with the bat. He must see it in my face—how badly I want to kill him. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. It would just take a few swings.
My fingers tremble around the handle of the bat. I look at Ginny. Her face is calm. “If you do it, I’ll say whatever you want.”
She’ll tell everyone it was self-defense. That I had no choice but to kill Brandon.
“I want to.” A tear slips out of my eye. “I want it so bad.”
“I know,” Ginny says.
The thoughts swirl through my head, landing on what my mother said to me last night in her car. Even at your worst, I love you more than life itself. She will still love me if I execute Brandon right here. I know Tom would, too, and maybe even Petey as well.
But the Ruizes, the Berrys—all the people whose lives he destroyed—they deserve the chance to look Brandon in the face as well. If I take that from them, I won’t be able to live with myself.
Brandon’s eyes open again. I hold his gaze as I kick him in the stomach. I keep kicking and kicking until I’m out of breath, until a siren blares from down the street, until my foot’s gone numb and Ginny has to drag me away from his limp body.
“We can go home now.”
Tom’s voice snaps me out of my trance. He sets his phone down on his desk and rubs his eyes. My mother has pulled her seat so close to mine she is practically on top of me.
When Tom speaks, her grip on my shoulder tightens. “What about him?”
“Being treated. Won’t be able to talk to him until tomorrow, most likely.”
“Why is he getting medical care?” Mom demands. “He should be in a cell.”
Tom shuts his eyes. Holds up a hand. “Phoebe, please.”
I touch the tender skin on my neck where Brandon tried to choke me. The first responders said to expect nasty bruises there. They checked me for any serious injuries at the house and cleared me, which is the only reason my mother let me skip going to the hospital.
I saw them carting Brandon off to the hospital. I can’t be in the same building as him. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as Brandon Michaelson.
A flutter of panic. “They can’t let him go, right?”
“They have enough to keep him for assault.” Tom doesn’t look at me as he says it, but my mother moves her hand to mine. “They’ll move to charge him for that and the statutory rape as soon as possible.”
My mother flinches at the last part.