“Anyway, up to you.” She shrugged. “Oh, and yeah, obviously Imightbe lying about everything. But none of that matters because you love her too much to risk it.”
Through my shock and sickness and grief came the crumpling of the plastic water jug.
“Well?”
The words fell dejectedly out of my atrophied tongue. “Yes, ma’am.”
Satisfied, she grabbed my throat, tilted my head back, and tipped it all down. And because there was no longer any reason not to, I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, whimpering as I gulped cold liquid silver, the life she alone could give and take away, like the mistress she’d been waiting her whole life to transform into. Like the slave it seemed I was always destined to be, no matter how strong, no matter how smart, no matter how capable.
But at least Louisa would never see me this way.
I changed my mind again. I wouldn’t cry after all.
That was the one thing I wouldn’t give Resi.
“Good boy.”
My head collapsed onto my shoulder again, eyes staring dully and obediently at the dirt.
Resi’s hand curled slowly and tenderly around my neck, cool as ice. My eyelashes fluttered. Like I liked it. Like I was already hers.
“You’ll learn to love that phrase.”
HER
I knew now that the man outside Ivy’s house hadn’t even been after Alma and Erica. He may not have even known they were there.
It wasmehe’d been stalking. For hours. Foryears.
Obadiah’s clammy hand clapped onto my face before I could speak, scream, or attempt to fight back. As if I could anyway. It was a miracle I’d even made it up the steps.
Figured. Last time, I could have fought but chose not to. This time, I wanted to but couldn’t.
He wrenched my phone away easily, then dug into the envelope and reached into it savagely, pulling out a fistful of bills, a wad of papers with scientific notation, and a note in handwriting that made my stomach leap. Unfolding the note, the former gardener grinned in what could pass for recognition, though I knew he couldn’t read what it said. In any case, he let it flutter down the rocky escarpment in the breeze, so now I never would, either.
“Ya know, Miss Loulou, I always heard there was nothing in the world better than freedom.” He sloppily folded up the remains of the envelope and jammed it into his pocket. His rotting mouth contorted, and his grimy-as-ever fingers burrowed excruciatingly into my wounds as we descended the stone steps, the rising moon already casting eerie yellow shadows.
My senses clouded over with panic, and the chill again highlighted the dampness of my clothes. I’d hoped to be alone up here, but not anymore. Where were the stoners? Where was Wheatley? Where were the police? Where wasanybody? And most importantly, where was the boy I thought I’d find? I wassupposed tosavehim, and now here I went again, needing saving. Pathetic, stupid, useless girl. And now, a dead one.
Because there was no one. We were alone. The predator, at long last, had trapped his prey.
“But the truth is, it ain’t much different than being a slave,” Obadiah was rambling. “Long hours, hard work, rich assholes telling ya what to do all the time. Sure, having money is nice and all, but now I gotta pay for food and beer and rent, so at the end of the month, it don’t add up to much. And if that weren’t bad enough, I finally get the chance, after all this time watching from a distance, to touch you,reallytouch you, and what happens? My new mistress—uh, boss—tells me I can’t. Even worse, she orders me to burn off all that pretty skin of yours before I get the chance to enjoy it. No,” he continued, “freedom ain’t been all it’s cracked up to be.”
Dragging me off the main path and into some low trees, he released his hand from my mouth. But I didn’t even get to scream before he jerked me around and rammed me by the throat up against the trunk of a palo verde, the bark raining down on my hair and face as I wheezed. Even in the weakening light, his few remaining teeth glowed yellow as they neared.
“That is, until now.”
17
HER
The old gardener seemed hypnotized by his own knife—the same serrated one he’d apparently taken when he left our house, for sentimental reasons. Now its tip traced a cold, meticulous line under my chin, up my jaw to my ear, its path seemingly too precise for a lummox like him. Then again, he’d had years to rehearse it in his head.
I pawed uselessly at my waistband, where Erica’s knife should have been. Gone. I must have lost it in the canal when I jumped.
Useless. Pathetic. Stupid?—
“That white throat deserves a pretty red necklace, I think,” he said, not realizing what I had lost. Then he dropped the hand with the blade. “But if I kill ya first, ya wouldn’t feel nothing, and that just wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
