Page 66 of Liar
God…damn, was he heavy. I had to sling one of his arms over my shoulder blades and pull his giant frame up the steps. He weighed more than me, but I could handle it.
Barely, but I’d manage.
I lugged his ass up the steps, nearly dropped him as I tried to open the front door, and pulled him into the house. Once I set him on the floor, I got to work. In my suitcase, beneath my clothes, in a separate compartment to hide the items just in case someone snooped, I grabbed what I needed. Gloves, first. Second, that pen and pad of paper. I threw the rope around my shoulder and returned to the front of the cabin.
A small table sat near the kitchen, and I had to move one of its chairs to place it directly under one of the wooden tresses up top. Being a cabin, everything was wonderfully open. A perfect place to hang.
I wrote just a quick note on the pad—I’m sorry—in the messy handwriting I knew was Sawyer’s before bending down and curling his right hand around the pen, getting its length nicely coated in his fingerprints. I dropped the pen beside the pad before climbing up and tying the end of the rope to the wooden beam up top.
A hassle to get everything exactly how I wanted, but it was something I had to do. Sawyer dying like this was fitting. He would go out just like his sister. Neither of them deserved to live. They’d both lied and hurt my brother, and Sawyer would do nothing but hurt Ash in the future. I was saving them both more heartache in the future; I hoped they’d realize that, if they ever found out the truth.
I wanted to tell them, but now was not the time.
Right now, it was Sawyer’s time to shine. I lugged his body onto the chair. Out of all of the mistakes he’d made, coming to this little retreat with us was the worst, because the last thing he’d see was this cabin, these walls. Ash would be nothing but a distant memory to him as he strangled to death.
Chapter Twenty-Four – Sawyer
Something wasn’t right. I knew that could say a lot, could mean a lot, but right now, my head pounded, my thoughts not all there. I struggled to open my eyes when I felt myself being lifted, as if I was weightless, floating in the air. And then a tightening of something around my neck.
Wait. That wasn’t right.
I fought to open my eyes, to see just what the hell was going on. It took me a while, but my eyes eventually opened, and I found myself back in the cabin, although nothing was normal. First off, I couldn’t remember getting back here. Second off, my whole body felt like shit, like I’d ingested a whole shitstorm of drugs without knowing.
But, you know what was the strangest thing? The fact that my feet were on a chair, a rope tied around my neck.
My senses were slow to come back to me, and as I realized more, my heart began to pound harder in my chest: I was about to hang. Just like Sabrina.
A foot nearly slipped off the chair when I tried to look around. I didn’t hear anyone else in the cabin, but I sure as shit didn’t string myself up. A note sat on the table to my left, a pen near it. A quick, short message reading I’m sorry.
“I had no idea how long you’d be out,” a familiar voice spoke, causing my eyes to move away from the table and dart to my right, where someone else stood, looking mighty confident and pleased with himself as he stared at me in my current predicament. Hazel eyes a shade too dark, a mouth thinned into a line, a face that looked like Declan’s, but more angular.
Will. Fucking Will.
“What the fuck is this?” I spoke. Or I tried to. My words came out a little jumbled, and in all honesty, it was hard to get anything out. I did my best though, and Will heard me well enough, for his stare hardened.
“You know, I’m actually glad you woke up, because now I get to see you hang,” Will said, his lips curling into a smile that chilled me to my core. A vengeful, vindictive smile that made me cold. A cruel, evil smile. “I didn’t get to see Sabrina hang.”
My heart nearly stopped when he brought up my sister. How could he…
“What?” I could barely get the word out.
“Well, you are kind of stupid, so I’ll tell it to you straight. At least you’ll know before you die—and I can get some practice in, before I tell Ash and Declan.” Will took a step closer to me, and I tried reaching out for him, grabbing him, but he was still too far. That, and I had to keep one hand around the noose. “My father didn’t kill Sabrina. I did.”
If I wasn’t where I currently was, if I could get my hands on him, I’d fucking kill him.
Will let out a chuckle. “You know, that wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it’d be, but maybe that’s just because it’s you.” He paused, running a hand through his hair. “Don’t think my father was innocent, though. He deserved what he got. He did sleep with her. He said it was only once, but how could I really be sure he’d never do it again? He was never a good father, so it isn’t like Declan and I are missing much now.”
“You fucking psycho—”
“Yeah,” he agreed with another laugh. “Imagine that.”
I knew right then, without asking, Will was the one who’d left those pills for me outside my door before my date. He’d been testing me, trying to get me to fuck up when it came to Ash, to show her, and maybe even Declan, that I hadn’t changed a bit. I’d known to be suspicious, but I’d let my guard down. I’d gotten so wrapped up in Ash that I forgot to take care of myself.
Now I was going to die. At the hands of Sabrina’s true killer, no less. I was going to die, and Will…who fucking knew what Will would do. If he’d ever come clean, or if he’d continue to get rid of anyone he thought was in the way, or anyone he imagined to be hurting Ash or Declan. A sociopath like him, there was no telling when he would stop his madness.
Fuck.
I wasn’t ready to die. I might’ve wanted to die before, but that was…that was a long time ago. That was when I wanted to make myself miserable because I had nothing to live for. Now I did. I finally found purpose again, and fucking William Briggs was going to take it from me.
