What Have We Done (80)

Jenna dives right as the gun fires. She looks at her own torso. She isn’t hit.

“No! ” Casey cries.

Jenna takes a quick glance back and sees a large red stain blossoming on the blouse of Haley’s once immaculate business getup. Casey accidently shot her twin. Without wasting another second, Jenna scoops up Haley’s gun from the leaves and takes the shot, hitting Casey in the forearm, which spins her around. Jenna races over and pistol-whips Casey. She collapses to the ground again.

Jenna knows she should take care of both of them, finish this. But that’s not the person she wants to be anymore.

As she works through the options, despite being shot, Haley is miraculously on her feet, her blouse soaked in blood. She’s found her sister’s cattle gun and wields it with a renewed vigor. She stabs it at Jenna, who dodges around the deadly bolt. Jenna raises her pistol, but the cattle gun swings back the other way and knocks the gun loose. Jenna dodges a third pass and is about to charge when she is grabbed from behind, and her arms pinned to her sides.

Casey grips Jenna as she bucks and kicks, trying to free herself. “Put this bitch out of our misery,” Casey says to her sister. “Finish her.”

Brandishing the cattle gun, Haley grins.

Jenna is reined in once more. The tube gun is rising, stopping at Jenna’s abdomen, then rising again. To Jenna’s solar plexus, her chest, her chin.

The rest seems to unfold in slow motion.

Still pinned from behind, Jenna shifts her head to the side, twists her body down and around, thrusting her hip back. At the same time, she plants her leg just beyond Casey’s foot and pulls forward. The twin falls forward onto Jenna, who twists more until Casey’s head comes front and center and directly into the barrel’s sight as Haley pulls the trigger.

Jenna hears the distinct hydraulic whoosh and crack of the steel bolt striking home. The arms holding her fall away and Casey drops to the ground; a large red dot marks her forehead, blood trickling out.

She turns back to Haley, who’s in shock at killing her own sister. Jenna aims a kick at her kneecap, hears the telltale crunch of bone, and watches as the woman folds, hitting the dirt hard.

Lying supine, the twin whimpers, the red on her shirt turning dark scarlet. Jenna hears Haley gasping to say something, but she never gets the full word out.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

Jenna darts through the trees, back to the knoll. She’s taken care of the twins, so that leaves Artemis.

She doesn’t have time to put all the pieces together as she hurries back, but she knows this much: Nico anonymously blackmailed Artemis and the billionaire decided that the easiest way to figure out who was behind it was to kill everyone associated with that night. But he didn’t count on Ben also being blackmailed and learning the truth: that Artemis had tricked them all into killing Mr. Brood.

That he manipulated them to believe it was Brood abusing the girls, then selling them off to the likes of Sabine or other boogeymen. And even tonight he manipulated them: making them think that Mr.

Brood’s son was responsible for the failed efforts to take them out one by one.

Jenna reaches the knoll and she sees no one. But there’s a sound … groaning, it seems. Where’s it coming from? She listens carefully. It’s definitely a groan. Then she realizes it’s coming from one of the holes.

She runs to the edge of the fresh grave and finds the tangled bodies of Nico and Artemis. Both appear to be bleeding. Jenna’s heart jumps when an arm—Nico’s—juts up and out. She’s startled again when a figure appears next to her, extends an arm, and tugs Nico out.

Donnie.

A moment later, all three kneel at the edge of the grave, pushing the dirt back in with their bare hands.

Jenna can’t help but think of that night twenty-five years ago, the rain coming down. Donnie speaking for them all:

What have we done?

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

ARTEMIS

In the last moments of his life, Artemis has no regrets. His work will live on forever. Did he make mistakes? Every great inventor does. Did he betray friends? Again, show him an innovator who doesn’t do whatever it takes to change the world. He stares up at the sky from the bottom of the hole.

He’s losing blood, losing consciousness. There’s nothing that will save him. As he takes his last breath, dirt raining down on him, his mind retreats to the house where it all started:

“I think you are making a mistake,” Artemis says to Mr. Jones.

They’re in Park Jones’s dining room, which is jammed with computer monitors and equipment.

“Let me worry about that,” he says, tapping on the keyboard. He’s wearing a cardigan and plucking at his mustache. The other kids are right: With his sweater, glasses, and mustache, he looks like Ned Flanders.

“They want you to call Social Services about Marta to report her missing. It’s only a matter of time before they get someone to pay attention. If another one goes missing, someone’s going to realize they’re not all runaways.”

“You’re a smart kid, Artemis, but just do what you’re told. Tell her to come over tonight.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know—tell her what you told the others.”

“Annie’s sharp, she’s not going to—”

“Get it done. Tonight.” Park stares at him over his glasses.