What Have We Done (84)

Simon isn’t visibly restrained, so there’s a reason he’s not doing anything. He’d fight to the death

for his family. Yet his hands are folded calmly on the table. He looks down and makes a mushroom-cloud-explosion gesture with his hands.

Now Jenna understands. There’s an explosive device. If he does anything. If she does anything …

boom.

He looks again to the kitchen. Jenna stealthily pads over and pushes the swinging doors in.

She thought both twins were dead, but one stands here. She holds a device in her hand. It’s not the cattle killer. It’s a detonator.

“I’ll come with you,” Jenna says. “Just don’t hurt them.”

“Oh, I’d love to kill each and every one of them in front of you. But that would be bad for business.” She gestures to the back door.

Jenna wants to go back to the dining room, say her goodbyes, get one last look at them, but she needs to get this woman as far away from her family as possible. Jenna makes her way outside, the woman following behind. It’s then Jenna notices the limp. She flashes back to the woods, her foot connecting with the woman’s knee, collapsing the joint in the wrong direction. Is this one Casey or Haley? She can’t remember. It doesn’t matter.

“One move and I will blow this house sky-high.”

Jenna raises her hands. “I told you, you can do whatever you want to me.” She means it. Her heart is breaking. She’ll never see her family again, she knows. But at least she had this last, perfect day.

The surviving twin leads her to Jenna’s car in the garage. With one hand still gripping the detonator, she uses the other to give Jenna a pair of handcuffs. Jenna takes them and clicks them on.

Her only goal now is to get this wretched woman away from here.

She gestures for Jenna to take the driver’s seat.

Jenna has never felt so powerless in her life. She wonders how far the detonator can transmit.

As if reading her thoughts, the woman says, “It has a ten-mile radius. Don’t worry, we’re going less than five. I told your husband that if he calls anyone or leaves the house, you’re dead and he and his girls will be in a million little pieces scattered across the neighborhood. He doesn’t seem to get that you’re already dead.”

Jenna doesn’t say anything. She reverses out of the garage and follows the directions the woman gives her. Soon they’re only a couple miles away, in an industrial area of Rockville, Maryland. She passes a glass-repair shop, a kitchen-remodeling center, and a plumbing supply company.

With the detonator still in hand, the twin motions to an open warehouse, and Jenna drives inside.

Jenna considers bargaining with her. Explaining she was only defending her family. But the woman’s eyes are dead. Her twin is dead. She’s been planning this for some time. This is revenge, but also something else: a clear message intended for the wet-work market.

“Get out.”

They both climb out. The woman walks to the warehouse’s double doors and pulls them shut.

There’s a rope draped over a support beam. At the end of the rope is a metal hook. The woman gestures for Jenna to clasp the hook to the chain of Jenna’s handcuffs.

Before Jenna does so, she contemplates charging the woman, swiping the detonator out of her hand, killing her. But she knows it will never work. Her mind jumps to an image of Simon making

pancakes. Lulu on the bus waving goodbye, Willow in her prom dress, asking her advice on the car ride home. She clasps the hook around the handcuff chain.

The woman comes over and yanks on a rope, which tightens, and Jenna starts to rise from the floor, the cuffs digging into her wrists. The woman is having trouble raising Jenna with only one hand.

She sets the detonator down and yanks the rope and Jenna’s feet now dangle eight feet from the ground. The woman ties off the rope and then walks toward the corner of the warehouse. This is Jenna’s chance. If she can get down, she can get the detonator, then take out this disgusting specimen of a human being.

She twists her wrists, but the cuffs have clicked tight from her weight. The rope is thick and there’s no way to cut it. And the beam is solid.

She watches as the woman removes a tarp from something in the corner. It’s a dolly with an industrial barrel on it. She gets behind the dolly and slowly—seeming to use great care—rolls the barrel over until its open mouth is under Jenna’s feet. If Jenna could get lower, she could wrap her legs around the woman and snap her neck. But she’s too high.

The woman moves away from the barrel and back to the rope.

“Do you know there are six types of screams?”

Jenna doesn’t respond.

“For my sister’s sake, I wanted to hear you make every single one of them. This was the best I could come up with.”

That’s when Jenna understands. Inside the barrel is liquid.

Acid.

She’s going to lower her into it—slowly.

A wave of panic smashes into her. She starts to buck and kick, flails for what seems like an eternity. She finally stops in exhaustion and looks at the woman, who has a smile on her face. She’s getting off on the terror.

It’s then that Jenna decides she won’t give her the pleasure. She gives up the fight and closes her eyes. As she feels the rope lowering, she says a prayer for Simon, for Willow, for Lulu. For her parents. She’s had a better life than she deserved, given all she’s done.