What Lies in the Woods(102)

“There’s a tarp in the bag. We should lay it down so we don’t leave blood behind,” she said.

He turned away, mouth set and eyes downcast. He knelt to unzip the bag, and Cass turned her wrist this way and that, as if getting used to the weight of the gun.

“I really am sorry about this, Naomi,” she said, sounding tired.

“Fuck you,” I ground out. “You can’t even tell me the truth when I’m about to die.”

“What? I am sorry. I would rather not have to kill you,” she said, irritated.

“Not about that. You lied about Liv. About that day.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. Cody had paused, looking up at us.

“Why did you say it was Stahl?” I asked.

She blinked. “To protect Liv, obviously. Prison would have killed her. You know that.”

I let out a sound like a growl, my fingers curled into claws in ineffectual anger. I could believe that Liv thought Persephone wanted her to do it. That she had believed she had to.

Seventeen times, she’d stabbed me. There had been so much blood. Marcus said it himself. And Liv hated blood. Had almost vomited at the sight of it, when I cut myself. Yes, Liv might have thought killing me was what the Goddesses demanded.

But she couldn’t have done it.

She wouldn’t have.

And only one person had ever been allowed to declare what it was Persephone demanded of us.

“How did Liv get the idea that killing me was the final ritual?”

A shrug. “She was crazy.”

I shook my head viciously. “She was never violent. Never.”

“Except for stabbing you seventeen times. Kind of a giant exception,” Cass said flatly.

“Why would she have decided that Persephone needed a sacrifice? You were the one who told us what Persephone wanted. You made the rules. It was always you.”

Her fingers tightened around the grip of the gun. Her face was bloodless, but her gaze was steady.

My lips peeled back from my teeth. “You made her do it. You told her a story and made her believe it. But I can’t figure out why. Why did you want to hurt me?”

“Because she was my friend,” Cass snarled. “You were both supposed to be my friends, but you kept trying to go off on your own. You don’t think I noticed? Any time I left the two of you alone together, it was all whispers and holding hands and laughing at your private jokes. I thought if I waited, you’d forget about your stupid little crush and it would go back to the way it was supposed to be. But you didn’t. You were going to be together and leave me behind.”

I gaped at her. “So you told her to kill me?” I asked, bewildered, my heart hammering wildly. If I was going to die, I wanted to know the truth. All of it.

“She said that she wanted to be my friend. That she wasn’t picking you over me. She had to prove it. I didn’t think she’d actually do it. I thought she’d chicken out and then I’d be able to hold it over her. I didn’t realize how nuts she was,” Cass said, but even now she was lying. I could see the hint of satisfaction in her eye. I could imagine her elation at realizing it had actually worked. Maybe she hadn’t expected Liv to follow through, but she’d wanted it.

“She stabbed me seventeen times?” I said. “Liv did that?” I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought it might be true. One more way I had failed her. Betrayed her.

Cass’s lips parted ever so slightly. “You think she was so gentle, so perfect? She did stab you, Naomi. She’s the one that stabbed you in the back, but she was too much of a fuckup to even get that right. She panicked. She dropped the knife and stood there screaming. Saying she was sorry, that she took it back. But what were we supposed to do? You were going to tell, and we’d be in trouble. I had to do something. I was just cleaning up her mess. I still am.”

I shook—not with the cold, not with fear, but with rage. Cass had seized on Liv’s delusions, her fragile state of mind. She’d manipulated her. Liv would have had to be terrified, to be utterly convinced that what Cass was saying was true—that hurting me was the only way to avert something far worse. And still she hadn’t been able to do it.

Cass had tried to make her a monster. She couldn’t—but she could make Liv believe herself to be one. And Liv had carried that, all this time.

“The thing is, Naomi, it worked,” Cass added, as if she didn’t quite believe it. “I saved us. I made it so we would always be tied together, we would always be friends—and Liv would never let anything happen between you that might take you two away from me. And we got to be heroes, Naomi. Do you think your life would have been anything but utterly mediocre, if I hadn’t done what I did? It all worked out. For all of us.”

I thought of how brave she’d been, after. How she’d flourished, playing the spokesperson for the three of us, interviewed by serious journalists who spoke to her with deference and kindness. How she’d flung herself into the role of caretaker and protector, and everyone had bought it. Had worshipped her.

And part of me wondered if she was right. If I had never been attacked, had never turned into the miracle girl, where would I be? In Chester, probably. In a dead-end job, a drunk like my father.

But Liv would be alive.

“She was going to tell. She was going to ruin everything I worked so hard to make,” Cass said, as if imploring me to understand. As if she truly believed I might.