Maybe that’s how one becomes a killer. Not with decision, but with acceptance.
Truly, it was the only way any of this could end. With one of us dead. Once I knew that, it was easy to decide it should be him. It wasn’t even a choice, really. More that it fell to me to accept the reality and to act.
But I hadn’t accepted that reality in full, not until I stood with rain-sopped clothes that stuck to my body in odd ways, with my hair in perfect curls that only ever appeared when it was wet, with my best friend lying among the roots of a giant willow tree, still refusing to move. I stared down Sherlock with eyes most likely streaked with mascara and tried not to flinch when the first tendrils of rage started their heated path up my spine.
“Stay with her.” My voice was a still pool that somehow managed to survive the escalating violent tremors inside me. I didn’t wait for his response, didn’t stop when he called after me. The silence had returned, as though the heat had seared away all sound. I was surprised I didn’t leave a wake of ash behind me as I wove through throngs of people on the streets, clutching umbrellas while typing or talking into their mobiles. I didn’t even remember how I got to our front door, but I remembered the noise it made when I threw it open.
This time the house really was empty. And something about that broke my silence again, just in time for the -muffled clicks and clacks of the restarting turntable. Maybe it wasn’t the song that set me off. Perhaps the heat had to dissipate somehow. But my first victim was that bloody record. I thrilled at the scratch of the needle across its delicate surface, then again when it shattered against the wall. I gripped the largest shard with a torn up T-shirt that was wadded up on the floor and used it to rip a large tear in the sensible brown duvet Dad had chosen to replace the tulips of Mom’s bedding. I ripped open his pillow, until the ugly mess of brown and white feathers spilled across the floor. But that wasn’t enough. I smashed everything I could find that was his, emptied his dresser drawers, and scattered and ripped his papers.
I’d managed to rip and shred half his clothes from the closet when I saw the box that held my mother’s things. I tried to press on and flung a stack of his sweaters onto the floor behind me, but the whirlwind inside had slowed to almost nothing. I wiped a tiny feather from my sweaty, flushed cheek and stared at the box long enough for even my breathing to slow.
I took the box. I took it upstairs with me and began to pack some of my things, including those things of my mother’s that I’d kept hidden, and the pictures of me and Sadie that I’d left stuck to my mirror, even when things had gone wrong. When I left, I turned off the light and wandered out the front door like I was never going to return. And maybe that’s why I felt so light as I crossed the street and walked over to Sherlock’s house.
I stopped on Lock’s front steps and peered through the quasi dark to stare back at my house for a while. I wanted to see him come home to the mess, to the nothing that would be the rest of his short life. I wanted to see his panic or anger or indifference. It didn’t matter which. But soon the exhaustion of the day caught up to me, and the strain of holding my bags and managing the heft of the box sent me inside. Still, I watched my porch until the very last moment before Lock’s door opened. I wasn’t quite done with that place, I realized. But I wouldn’t return until I had a fully formed plan to end things for good.
He would pay for all of it.
Chapter 20
I’d always been bad at the next part—the waiting. Still, sitting in Sherlock’s window and looking down the street toward mine, I felt the power that comes with patience. My rage roiled within me, strengthening, sharpening, controlled. I could control my breathing, my expression, and even the curve of my shoulders, but I couldn’t seem to control how and when the image of a slumped-over Sadie Mae hijacked my thoughts. And I couldn’t afford to walk the path that kind of thinking would lead me down.
So, instead, I thought of How.
How he would die.
Poison would be something—to surprise him after he’d ingested it and watch him slowly fade, so that my face hating him was the last that he’d see of this world. But it seemed too easy to me. Too gentle a death. A courtesy he’d never offered any of those he’d killed. It also left too many open questions.
And this had to be perfect—no holes, no clues, no questions.
“Can you see your house from here?” Somehow Mycroft had silently appeared. Again.
I couldn’t be bothered to look at him, or answer.