Her mouth falls open. “How can you say that?” Her eyes fill with tears. “She lied to you. Everything you went through—”
“Nothing regarding her matters,” he interrupts her softly. Pulling her into him, he pushes her wild brown hair behind her ear.
“You guys are sicker than I thought.” David speaks. “Becky let me read your journal, Austin. Gotta say, Cole, I was jealous at how much she let you abuse her and still fuck her.”
“Stop,” Becky cries.
“And that video …” He whistles, looking her up and down.
This time, it’s Cole who throws a punch. Right into his face.
“Well, well, well, he’s telling us all of your secrets.” I smile.
“I know she wanted to pay you all back for how you used her in your own sick games,” David shouts, getting angry before spitting blood into the snow from Cole’s punch.
“Game?” I ask. I loved her. I never used her. Cole did when Austin came into the picture, but that didn’t happen until after the car wreck …
“Why were you even with them that night?” Austin demands. Her thoughts mimicking mine. “Why were you with Eli?”
Becky doesn’t answer, and neither does David. I arch a brow at him. He’s willing to throw her under the bus but doesn’t want to implicate himself as well.
I look at Cole and nod. He steps away from Austin, grabs his knife from his pocket, and flips it open. He steps behind David and places the knife to his neck. Cole doesn’t say a word as he drags the blade down the side of his neck. David screams, and Becky tries to crawl to him, but Shane prevents her with his hand in her hair. “Stop! Stop! I’ll tell you!” she cries. “Please, just stop.”
Cole brings the blade to a stop but doesn’t remove it from his neck. David is panting as blood runs down his neck to cover his shirt.
“We took Demi to a party at the beach. I … drugged her for Maxwell. But she ended up leaving with Eli, and when I went to pick her up the next morning, he wouldn’t let her leave with me ’cause he found out what we had done.” She sniffs.
Demi had told me this story when she was drunk the night Cole and I found the girls at the bar. But I don’t think she told me everything. This is my chance to find out.
“How?” I demand.
“David had given her his phone to use ’cause she left hers back at the house. When she passed out with Eli, he went through it and found our chats about our plans …” she cries, shaking her head. “Eli threatened him … David and I staged a separation, and I met up with them later on that night. He thought I was just trying to piss you off for sleeping with Kaitlin.”
That’s why Eli told me I could do better. He knew exactly what kind of woman she was. I wish he would have just told me. I’m not sure I would have listened, but I wish he would have tried. Instead, I thought the worst and have hated him when I should be thanking him. He saved Demi. He stood up for her. I’m glad she had someone in her life to do that, and I’m proud to say that he was one of my best friends.
“Becky!” David yells at her. Cole digs the knife into his throat again, silencing him.
Becky sucks in a long breath as fresh tears run down her face. “David thought that Eli was gonna go to the cops. Or send the sharks after him for what we did to her. He told me to seduce him. The night of the party, I was to get Eli away from the sharks and bring him to a secluded location where David and Maxwell were going to make sure he couldn’t speak.”
Cole steps away from David, and he growls at her. “Fuck! You bitch! I never heard you tell me no! You wanted him silenced just as much as I did.”
“Then the wreck happened, and I panicked …” she cries. “After I went home to Demi, I met up with David, and his father stitched up my wound …”
His father is a doctor at the hospital where Shelby works. Now it all makes sense. Becky had told me that she cut it while at the lake. I never second-guessed her.
“They fucking deserved it! You all deserved to be in that car!” David shouts.
“We all get what we deserve.” I nod my head and pull the matches out of my back pocket. Done with all of this. I don’t have the time for this shit.
Cole reaches down and grabs the can of gasoline sitting next to him that we found in the garage of the Lowes house.
“What the fuck?” David barks.
Cole throws the gasoline onto him.
I nod my head to Shane, and he grips the back of Becky’s neck where we cut her. Yanking her head up, forcing her to watch. “Do you love him?” he asks her.
It’s the same thing she had asked me regarding Demi. I know what he’s getting at.
“Yes.” She sobs. “Please just let us go. I won’t talk … He won’t talk …”
“We’re not afraid of you talking, baby.” He smiles down at her, and her body wracks with a sob. “This is what happens to those who fuck with the sharks.” She whimpers. “You can’t beat us, Becky. No one can.”
“Deke—” She cries my name, about to beg me.
I interrupt her, no longer caring. “I’ve heard that burning to death is a painful way to die.” I strike the match on the side of the box. “I hope it’s true.” Then I toss it on David.
He screams out as the flames lick his body. Falling to his side, he rolls, and Cole grabs Austin to pull her farther away from the flames.
Becky leans forward, screaming out into the cold night as she watches the only guy she ever truly loved burn to death. And I feel nothing for her. For him.
There are times I wonder how we got here.
Evil.
Ruthless.
But then I remember that we started playing the game a long time ago and that turned into real life. And life is a fucking mess. It’s bloody. If you want to survive, you fight. And just because I’m not afraid to die doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up living. I’ve finally found a girl who I know will accept me for me. Love me for me. And I’m not ready to give her up yet.
DEKE
The guys and I stand around Austin as she kneels on the snow-covered ground, pounding away on the guys’ smoldering bodies with a hammer. She has a lot of pent-up aggression after everything they have done. The cold air smells like burnt flesh, and Cole stands next to me, watching her with pride and lust. I’m pretty sure if me and the rest of guys weren’t here with Becky, he would fuck her right here and now.
She wipes the sweat off her still blood-covered forehead and stands. “Done,” she states.
“Now what?” Shane asks.
“Scoop up the remaining ashes and throw them over the cliff.” She lifts her chin over to the right where the ocean hits the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. “Get rid of everything. The grass will show where the fire was, but by the time winter is over, it shouldn’t be that noticeable.” Then she looks at me. “Where are their phones?”
“I have them,” Cole answers, removing them from his pockets.
She takes them from him before throwing them to the ground. Then she walks over to Shane who still has Becky on her knees. “Where is your phone?” Austin demands.
Becky sobs, and Shane pushes her forward by the back of her neck, leaning down and ripping it from her back pocket. He hands it to Austin.