Evan cocked his head at her quizzically. This was new. “You don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I believe what you’re saying, Evan. It makes perfect sense in its own sick way. What I don’t believe is you. You went through all this trouble, you risked life and limb just to give us the bad news before Peter did. You had to see the looks on our faces.”
He slit his eyes as she rolled with pitch-black laughter. Hannah wasn’t sure if it was a Method act or a sign that her mind had finally snapped for good, but it seemed only right to rob this sick little demon of the one thing he came for.
She wiped her eyes. “God, Amanda. You missed it earlier, when he told me why he hated me so much. You won’t believe this.”
“I didn’t tell you anything.”
“You told me everything.” She laughed. “You drew all the dots. I just had to connect them. You see, Amanda, he used to be one of us. In times undone, days gone bye-bye, Evan lived with us in Terra Vista. Then one day I made the awful mistake of being nice to him. I rubbed his arm. Maybe gave him a hug. Though he creeped me out with his constant eyefucks, he’d lost his world just like the rest of us. I felt sorry for him.”
Evan scoffed with forced amusement. “Nice try, but that’s not even—”
“And yet instead of realizing that I’m touchy-feely with everyone, Sad Sack over here convinced himself that something hot and heavy was brewing between us. In his twisted little mind, I was one tender moment away from becoming his devoted love cushion.”
“Your ego’s truly—”
“Shush, now. I’m talking to my sister. Anyway, one night he’s walking the grounds, looking for me as usual. Maybe he went by the pool house, or the garden shed, someplace without a camera. And then he heard it. The sounds of my screwing, my melodious oohing. He looked through the door and learned that while he was picking out china patterns, I was spreading my legs for Jury Curado.”
Evan’s fists clenched with trembling rage. Though the details were off, the gist of her tale was painfully accurate. Her lips curled in a vengeful smirk.
“Oh, how that must have stung him, Amanda, to learn that this brand-new world was just like the old one, where the boys with the biceps got the girls with the tits. Nothing changed. Except—”
“Shut up.”
Hannah’s smile flattened. Her eyes cracked with grief. “Except it got worse. As time went on, this little shit came to realize that what Jury and I had wasn’t all that shallow. He saw the way we looked at each other and he knew we’d developed something strong, something that had eluded me my whole life.”
“You don’t know that! You don’t know anything! You’ve never even seen the guy!”
“I saw him, Evan. You didn’t erase all of him. I glimpsed him with my own two eyes and I know why you killed him. It’s because deep down you knew that Jury wasn’t just the better-looking man. He was the better man.”
Hot blood rushed up Evan’s neck. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Hannah grew a teasing sneer.
“I bet you even tried a round without him, just to see if you could get me on your own. I’m sure that worked out really well for Theo.”
“That’s because you’re a goddamn whore!”
“Right. Hannah Banana, Always-Needs-a-Man-a. Except that man was never you. You stopped trying a long time ago, but you never got over it. So this is how you spend your days. This is what you do between Armageddons. Jesus Christ, Evan. You have got to be the single most pathetic—”
The gunshot shook every wall and window, rattling teeth. While his thoughts and ears rang with clamor, Evan studied the large new spatter of blood on the wall behind Hannah, the trickling hole in her forehead. The two of them traded a wide look of horror before the actress fell dead to the floor of her cage.
For a short hot moment, Evan wondered if perhaps someone else in the room had shot her. He didn’t remember aiming his .38 at her head or pulling the trigger. And yet there was the smoking gun in his hand, still raised. Strange. He’d killed Hannah so many times before but something, something, something about this didn’t feel right. Something—
He shrieked when a cold white blade cut into his calf. Before he could register Amanda on the ground, she jammed her tempic knife through the back of his knee.
Screeching, Evan swung the pistol down and fired a bullet through the top of her skull. Her face splashed down into her own exit blood and she fell still. He only just now realized that Amanda had been howling along with him. She’d been screaming the whole time between gunshots.
Wide-eyed, bleeding, Evan stumbled against the wall and pondered the consequences of his actions. The Deps surely heard the blasts. They’d be here in seconds now, but they were the least of his problems.
“Oh no . . .”
The sisters were dead.
“Oh shit. Shit . . .”