“Because I’m in his mother’s will,” I offer as an explanation.
Brendan’s eyes widen in surprise. “What?”
“You knew.” There’s accusation in those two words.
Brendan shakes his head. “No. I don’t know anything about the will.” He directs his gaze to the ceiling in thought. “I guess it makes sense. Vic’s like you. He doesn’t share. He asked if I knew you one night when he was really fricken rocked on something. He thought I would since our mothers were friends. But he called her the lying bitch. So of course, this got me interested. Why would this guy hate your mother? He must know something. I tried to get in with him. Hooked him up with whatever he needed, thinking maybe he’d slip up or let me know what his mother’s letter meant. After getting to know him, I was beginning to wonder if her regret was bringing him into the world. He’s a real piece of—”
“I’m familiar. We’re well acquainted,” I interrupt icily. “Tell me the part when you betrayed me.”
“I didn’t know you,” Brendan protests. He leans back into the chair, exhaling.
I am a statue made of corded muscle. My eyes are lasers, drilling into Brendan’s brain. He’s about to tell me something that, in the pit of my stomach, I already know. And if he says it, I may never forgive him. Ever.
Grant’s hands curl into fists and press into his thighs.
“He wasn’t supposed to bring a gun. Who robs a piece-of-shit convenience store with a real gun? The guy behind the counter would’ve given him whatever he wanted if he growled at him loud enough. But, no, he had to be a dumbass and take his grandfather’s gun.”
Grant is rigid beside me.
My thoughts are homicidal. But I wait to hear him say it. All of it.
Then I’ll murder him.
“How did you know I’d go into …” It hits me. “You texted me. Not my mother.”
Brendan lowers his eyes and nods. “I followed your location on Vic’s phone and sent him a message when he was close to the convenience store, so he’d ask the driver to pull over. After giving him enough time in the store to do what he was supposed to do, I sent the text, asking you to get the meds.”
“Huh.” The pieces slowly fit into place. “I thought it was weird when she asked for flu medication. How’d you know she was sick?”
Brendan is trying to play it relaxed, like he’s unaffected. But his hand is clenched against the side of his leg, his knuckles white. “You called her from school that day, asking if she was feeling better.”
I close my eyes, chills running through me. “You were listening?”
“I cloned her phone, so yeah.”
I swallow, my stomach flipping and churning. The sour taste of bile burns the back of my throat.
“You set up the robbery.” Grant’s voice is low and barely controlled. No longer resembling the guy who offered to get Brendan aspirin a few minutes ago. He is fury and rage. He is me. And I hate Brendan for making him so. “You got Lana arrested for something she didn’t do, just so you could get her sent here?”
“You should be thanking me,” Brendan gloats with a hint of his signature arrogance.
Grant roars so loudly, I startle. “He pointed a gun at her! What the …” He is up and swinging before I can blink. After crashing his fist into Brendan’s face, Grant shakes his hand in pain. “Shit.”
Brendan folds in half, blood spurting out of his nose. “What the fuck?!”
“I wish you had let me do that,” I say to Grant, inspecting his reddened knuckles with sympathy. I calmly walk into the kitchen and open the freezer. Too calmly. Maybe I’m in shock.
The cold air is a balm to my hot skin. I stick my head in and take several deep breaths, trying to find a way to keep listening without bludgeoning Brendan to death.
Removing an ice tray, I crack some cubes onto two towels. I blow out a lungful of air, preparing myself before I return to the living room to hand each of them a bundle.
I begin pacing, allowing his story to play out in my head. The manipulating. The conspiring. The lying. The clearer it becomes, the harder it is to breathe. When the full implications of what Brendan has done finally hits me, I’m seconds away from screaming.
“That makes you responsible for what happened to Allie.” My words are cold and sharp as blades.
“I never …” Brendan stops, taking in a shaky breath.
I refuse to look at him. Nothing he says will make any of this go away.
“I want to make it right. I really do, Lana. I let a monster loose, and I have to stop him. But I need your help.”
I reel on him. “My help? You expect me to trust or even talk to you again after knowing what you did? I can barely stand to look at you!” I dig my fingers into my waist to keep from wrapping my hands around his throat. “Why won’t you release the video? What does Vic have on you?”
Brendan slumps forward, the towel of ice dangling between his knees. He looks at me, his eyes shimmering. “Enough to take me down with him.”
He was destined to love you. And I’m not fated to survive this.
My entire body is trembling as I pace the master bedroom, needing to get away from Brendan to think. Grant closes the door behind him and leans against it, looking shell-shocked.
“What do we do? I don’t know what to do. I want to kill him. And I want to understand. But I really want to kill him,” I stammer out in a rush. “He lost his mother. And no one would help him. So he did something so, so stupid. Why would he do that? What was he thinking?”
Grant sits on the end of the bed, pensively examining the floor.
“What do I do?” I ask again. My head throbs from the nuclear bomb Brendan just dropped.
I always knew he was hiding something. But this is everything. Brendan orchestrated the worst night of my life. Now that I think of it, it was his security app that got us into The Point party. He controlled it all … except for Vic. And because of that, a girl’s in a coma, and Vic’s hurting everyone I care about.
A warm hand wraps around my forearm. I stop. Grant motions for me to sit next to him. I lift up onto the bed and collapse against his side when he wraps an arm around me.
“What’s more important—intention or action?”
I tilt my head up, confounded. “Huh?”
“His intentions were to understand why his mother took her life. It sounds like it became his obsession, and I’m sure you can understand how it must have been for him, finding the letter and the pictures.”
I don’t say anything, knowing he’s referencing the letters and pictures I’ve received all summer and what that’s done to me.
“He set it up so you’d be sent to Blackwood. Granted, it didn’t go as he’d planned. And his plan was extremely flawed to begin with. But he wasn’t the one who had the gun, used it to rob the store or pushed a girl down the stairs. The guy who did do that is now out of control and is threatening everyone in your life, including Brendan. All for the same reason that both of you are trying to understand. It has to do with your parents and whatever happened … that summer.”
“What are you saying?”