Page 110 of The Executioners Three
“Theo,” she said again, her words coiling with steam. “Please, answer me.” She reached for his face, still broken. Still beautiful.
But he offered no response. This was not the Theo Porter of her dreams. He didn’t acknowledge her or say,Take it. Only you know how to break it.
Instead, Laina and Bowman were stalking in closer. Closer. To the stage now.Onthe stage.Libérez-nous. Libérez-nous.Their voices rushed out, layered like a hundred souls whispering at once. Bouncing and sliding around Freddie, probing beneath her skin and into her spine.
“Theo,” Freddie said once more, and this time, she rose onto her toes and kissed him. Exactly like the dream. Exactly like their pageant practice when everything had changed between them.
But Theo didn’t lean in; he didn’t make a small sigh.
A screech split the night: “You give counselors a bad name!”
Freddie whipped around, adrenaline surging into her bloodstream all over again… only to immediately run dry. Because there was Dr. Born, and walking before him with her hands held high was Divya. Her eyes were huge and white in the shadows. She didn’t look scared, so much aspissed.
“I hope my dad didn’t pay you much,” she seethed as Born pushed her toward the stage. “And I definitely expect you to give him a refund.”
Dr. Born looked just as pissed as Divya with foam all over his puffer jacket and face. It blended his beard into his skin into his hair. Only his eyes were clear, that dark, piercing brown that Freddie had first noticed in the principal’s office.
He didn’t look like Ross fromFriendsanymore.
“Let her go.” Freddie lurched for the end of the stage. “You don’t need her, Dr. Born.”
“No,” Dr. Born agreed with a glimmer of a smile. “I don’t.”
“What do you want from her, then?”
Divya was at the stage steps. Up, up, up. Now she was on the stage and tottering toward Freddie. “I’m sorry.” Her fury was giving way to horror. “I stayed back to help you, but I’ve only made it worse.”
“Let her go,” Freddie repeated as she tugged Divya behind her—and forced Dr. Born to train his weapon on Freddie instead.
Which she could see now, very clearly, was a handgun. A familiar one, actually, that she was almost certain had come from Sheriff Bowman’s holster.
Freddie suspected Dr. Born wouldn’t appreciate being told he needed a license for that.
“Please, let Divya go, Dr. Born. You can haveme. Just like you originally planned.”
“No, no.” Dr. Born ambled closer, his own fury settling into something more like amusement. Freddie could see every streak from the fireextinguisher’s foam. Every blister, where the chemical had wrecked his skin. His eyes were bloodshot too, as if spiderwebs spindled across the sockets.
“I’ve gotten really skilled at making deaths look like accidents, so no, Freddie. I won’t let Divya go, because I don’t need to.”
“Accidents?” Freddie blinked. “You mean… you didn’t want people to notice the murders?” There went Freddie’s entire theory, then.
“I didn’t.” Dr. Born gave a crooked, almost rueful smile. “At least, not right away. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a hanging, a beheading,anda disemboweling all lined up in a row without getting arrested? You have to find the perfect victims that no one will miss. You have to kill them here, where the original Executioners were buried. And then it all has to happen in the right order within a matter of days; otherwise, you have to start all over again.
“I learned that the hard way many years ago. Trial and error.” He laughed now, a bright, happy sound. “I couldn’t let a pesky little police investigation disrupt my plans. But now, here I am. So close to finally finishing.”
“Finishing what?”Think, Gellar. Think. Stall for time.Maybe if she could get Divya to move all the way to the back edge of the stage, then Divya could duck behind the curtain and run.
It was at least worth trying.
“You only need one more victim, right?” Freddie continued. “So take me and let Divya go. Then let Theo go too. Please.” As Freddie made this plea yet again, she nudged at her best friend, shoving her in the general direction ofbackwardandaway.
“Freddie, Freddie, Freddie.” Dr. Born shook his head with disappointment. As if Freddie were a student he’d been so sure would ace his test but now was failing it. “Youdidread the poem, right? I know you were in Mrs. Ferris’s attic earlier.”
Freddie swallowed.
“So that was you in the attic?” Freddie asked, pushing once more at Divya. They were both creeping ever so slowly backward.
“Of course it was me. Because anything the descendants know, I know too.” He motioned to Bowman, still hovering nearby with flames beginning to curl off her. “That includes Theo and Laina here. They can’t help it. Not once the bell and the curse take control of them. And poor oldMrs. Ferris—she was trying so hard to understand what was happening to her children. She got close, but she didn’t quite figure it out.”
