“Shut up!” Maxwell’s hand comes up, a gun in it and I flinch as he shifts it to her. As he crushes the barrel against her skull.
My heart hurts for her, but I don’t move.
“Come on out too, William!” Maxwell shouts over the storm.
The passenger door opens, and William joins him. He places himself directly between Maxwell and me.
“Maxwell, Sunday is here. Please, let Veronica go. She isn’t part of this, she hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“She hasn’t?” Maxwell presses the barrel of the gun further into Veronica, his foot coming up and landing on her back, smashing her into the gravel below. “She dated the enemy. She got into bed with Augustus and then he just so happened to know to take those pictures? To come to our parties? I didn’t see the patterns at first. But she was always lingering in the background when you came over. She was always privy to my plans.”
“Maxwell”–William’s voice breaks–“please. I have done everything you have ever asked. You promised you would keep her safe if I did. You promised she wouldn’t be caught up in this.” William falls to his knees, bowing his head.
“A sniveling coward.” Maxwell removes his foot from Veronica, but then he kicks her flat onto the ground. “Stay down there and keep your mouth shutfor once.” He bounces the gun around, from her to William, before landing on me.
She whimpers but doesn’t speak again.
I stare down the barrel at him and jut my chin out, squaring my shoulders.
I am terrified, my blood is frozen, and I want nothing more than to run. But I can’t.
It’s too late.
“I already murdered your brother here, wouldn’t it be fitting to kill you in the same place?” Maxwell bares his teeth. His typical slicked back hair is pressed to his scalp by the rain. “You know, Veronica here was supposedto join them, but then Williambeggedme for her life. He didn’t even ask about your brother once. Nor Tripp.”
My hands clench into fists as Maxwell steps over Veronica and around William. Until he is inches from me. His eyes are unfocused, manic. He brings the gun up, puts the barrel against the bottom of my chin.
“It would be so easy to kill you, church girl. So fucking easy.” His tongue lashes out, licking his lips.
Thunder booms around us, and I cannot help but flinch from it.
“You’ve grown up so much, trying to act all tough.” He uses his free hand to lash out and grab my wrist, he tugs me until I am flat against him. “If only myfatherhad given you to me. We could have had our happily ever after.” The laugh that leaves Maxwell is grating, a rake on a chalkboard. “Or maybe I would have just fucked you and then put you in a shallow grave.” His dick hardens disgustingly between us. “Fuck.”
He shoves me just a bit away before dragging me behind him.
I turn back, trying to catch William’s eyes. But his attention is focused below my head.
On my ass?
Before the thought can circulate, Maxwell is shoving me to the edge of the cliff.
To where Tripp and Auggie went off the road.
Where Maxwell crashed into them and forced them off the road.
“They screamed the entire way down, but I knew when they hit the bottom. It was justsilent.”
My grief which had been shoved down for so long, hits hard and fast.
It takes several beats before I return to the here and now. To realize Maxwell is still talking.
“–and imagine my surprise. They died, but then we couldn’t find the fucking evidence anywhere. And then you clearly had found it. Like brother,like sister.” Maxwell pushes me closer to the edge, and I dig my heels into the ground.
There is barely any space between us, and I am forced to twist around and wrap my arms around him.
It is a horrible creepy feeling as his aura begins to sink into my skin.
Maxwell is no longer a human in my eyes. He is the epitome of every evil that has touched this town.
