The world spun violently, and she dug her hands into the dirt to steady herself. “I think I’ve done something awful,” she repeated, glancing fearfully at Julie. “I think I’ve done a lot of something awful.”
“Parker? Parker!” Julie cried. “What do you mean?” Her eyes widened. “You did it, didn’t you? All of them? You’re just . . . going down the list?”
Parker’s head began to throb and fill with explosive noise, but still the answer rang out clearly: “They all deserved it.”
Julie made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob. “Oh, Parker.” She sounded heartbroken. “No, they didn’t.”
“They did,” Parker insisted. She felt so, so sure. “All of them did.”
Julie looked crushed, but there was something determined in her face, too. She placed her hands on Parker’s shoulders, her expression stern. “You have to promise me something, okay? You cannot do this again. From now on, we’re going absolutely everywhere together. I’m not letting you out of my sight. I’ll go to school with you and go to your classes instead of mine. You stay at my place every night. Where you go, I go.”
Parker nodded. She felt too shaky and dizzy to speak.
“The only person left on that list is Claire Coldwell,” Julie went on. “We can still save her, Parker. She doesn’t deserve anything bad to happen to her.”
Parker’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?” she sputtered. “You told me about what Claire did to Mackenzie. How she’d, like, stolen her boyfriend and basically sabotaged her future—and how Mackenzie had shown up at your house in tears. Claire’s a horrible person. As horrible as the rest.”
Julie shook her head. “No, she’s not, Parker. She’s a bitch, sure—but she doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”
Parker crossed her arms over her chest. “I need to stand up for my friends.”
Julie placed her hand over Parker’s. “You don’t have to do it like this. It has to stop, Parker. Can you stop?”
Parker peered at her friend. Julie seemed really, really upset. Suddenly, the weight of what she’d done crushed down on her. She shut her eyes. Of course Julie was right: Parker was a monster. She’d interpreted a ridiculous conversation in film class literally. But none of them really wanted those people dead.
She gulped, all at once finding it hard to breathe. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she said hoarsely.
“It’s okay.” Julie petted Parker’s arm. “I’m going to help you. I promise. But for now, we have to get you out of here. Keep you safe.”
Parker swallowed hard, a metallic taste in her mouth. “You want to help me?”
Julie nodded. “Of course. I’m the one who hid Ashley’s body for you—I’ve been helping all along.”
Parker blinked. Ashley’s body. Had she really just left Ashley dead on the floor? “You knew I was there?”
“I guessed you’d been there,” Julie explained. “I cleaned everything up, wiped down all the fingerprints. They’ll never know it was you.” Then she looked toward Ava’s property. “But as for this, let’s hope you didn’t leave prints. And for Granger and Nolan and your dad . . . well, I’ll do the best I can.”
Overwhelmed, Parker let out a heartrending sob and collapsed into Julie’s arms. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she cried through tears. “I’ll do anything you say.”
“Good,” Julie said. She helped Parker up, and they walked through the woods to Julie’s car. But only a few paces in, Parker could already feel herself wavering. Something else inside her, some deep dark part of her, had taken over when she’d done all those awful things.
How did she know that something wouldn’t take over again?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAC COULD BARELY MAKE OUT what Ava was saying through her hysterical sobs. She pressed the phone to her ear, trying to discern a few clear words. Finally she pieced together a sentence, but she almost wished she hadn’t.
“Someone pushed my stepmother off her balcony!”
“Jesus,” Mac gasped. “Just breathe, Ava. Breathe.” She took her own advice, inhaling and exhaling slowly. “Is she . . . did she . . .”
“She’s alive. She’s in a coma.”
Mac shut her eyes. “Oh, thank god, Ava.”
“What’s happening, Mac?” Ava sniffled into the phone. “What are we going to do?”
Mac stood up and shut her bedroom door. Her parents were downstairs fixing dinner, but her sister had spent a lot of time lurking around her room the last few days. Mac wasn’t sure if Sierra was being supportive or suspicious, but either way, she didn’t want her hearing any part of this conversation.
What were they going to do? It was clear now that this wasn’t a coincidence. The killer was going down their list like it was the telephone tree parents used when school was canceled. And it was, in some way, their fault. If they hadn’t said those names, none of this would have happened.
She sat back down on her bed and gripped her phone hard. “We need to stay calm and stick together, okay?”