The Edge of Everything (Untitled #1)(90)

She finally understood what her father was about to say, and she didn’t know if she could stand to hear it.

“I didn’t have any ideas,” he said. “But Stan had gotten—he’d gotten rabid, almost. He demanded I come up with something.”

The hole was deepening, widening. Sweat trickled down her father’s neck.

“I told him there was an old couple who lived on the lake,” he said.

The ice was changing faster, the red crawling toward them like a tide. Zoe’s phone was buzzing. Her father still wouldn’t look at her.

“I told him I thought they might have some money,” he said.

Her father dropped his head to the top of the auger, sobbing. He was oblivious to everything but his own misery.

“I feared for those people, I swear to god,” he said. “I told Stan I wanted no part of hurting Bert and Betty. But he went crazy on me—went absolutely ape-shit. You don’t say no to somebody like that. He threatened to tell your mother everything. Threatened to hurt you kids. Threatened to tell the world who I really was. I didn’t care if the world knew—the world never gave a crap about me—but I couldn’t let your mom and you kids down again. I figured I’d rather die than do that.” He paused. “So I started looking for a way to die.”

Her father straightened up now, and resumed drilling.

The hole was nearly finished.

“Bert and Betty didn’t have any money,” said Zoe. “Stan killed them for nothing! He killed them because of you!”

Her father gave the auger one last twist, then fell backward, bewildered.

Red water surged up through the hole, like blood.





twenty-one


X strode toward them, Ripper at his side. He was so close to his bounty that the Trembling had all but taken over his body and begun breathing for him. He never felt more inhuman, more monstrous, than in these moments. He was ashamed that Zoe would see him like this a second time. She’d see him shake and scream and spit vile oaths, all the tenderness she’d awoken in him suffocated by rage.

Could she really choose him? Over her own father?

X looked to her for a sign that she was still committed to their plan, but she was turned away. He couldn’t make himself believe that he deserved her. The sensation of being loved was still too alien and new. He wanted to trust it, wanted to wrap himself in it, wanted to give himself up to it entirely. But this anger coursing through him made him feel polluted. Unworthy. Undeserving of even the name she’d given him. Love felt like a blanket someone was bound to yank away. The warmer he got now, the colder he would be later.

He needed to see Zoe’s face. He needed to be sure she hadn’t changed her mind.

X turned to her father, and found that he was gaping at him in shock. He held a strange, twisted piece of metal in his hands. Dark water was pooling at his feet.

He seemed to recognize X from their moment on the beach the day before. X could see him replaying the conversation in his head: “Is this your first time in Canada?”

“Is this Canada?”

X motioned for Ripper to stay behind. She made a small, pouty sound, and stopped walking, the hem of her dress waving above her boots. X went ahead alone.

Yet again he looked to Zoe—and finally she turned.

Her face was aflame with anger. X had never seen her features so distorted. She looked ready to kill her father herself.

She rushed toward X.

She embraced him, but for the first time she felt cold and stiff. Utterly unlike herself. She gripped his arm so hard he could feel her nails even through his coat.

She gestured toward her father.

“He’s the reason Stan killed Bert and Betty,” she said.

“Yes,” said X grimly. “He is.”

“Take him,” said Zoe.

X was startled by her fury. Had he done this to her? While she had been teaching him about kindness, had he been teaching her about rage? He tried to banish this new fear—tried to unthink the thought—but it had taken hold. Its roots were spreading.

Nonetheless, he nodded.

“Go to Ripper,” he said. “Walk to the woods. Do not look back.”

Ripper stepped forward. X did not know how she would greet Zoe—he prayed she would not be sarcastic or manic or dance in some outlandish way—nor how Zoe would respond in her present state.

They were tentative at first, but seemed to recognize something in each other. X could not stop studying them. It occurred to him that they were the only two people who had ever held him, had ever praised him, had ever loved him. He could see his entire life—everything that was decent and humane—in their faces. When X was young, he hadn’t understood that Ripper cared for him as if he were one of her own lost children. He understood it now. He watched as Zoe’s rage began to melt in her presence. He watched as Ripper put an arm around her shoulder, like a great, warm wing.

“I feel as if we are already well acquainted, dear girl,” she said. “Perhaps it is because X made me read your letter aloud twenty-five times.”

Zoe smiled weakly.

X watched as they crossed the lake, their arms linked, their heads touching gently. He heard Ripper tell Zoe that the lords were on their way.

“But they’ll leave us alone once X takes my dad?” said Zoe. “Right?”