The Black Coats(83)
Ahead of her, a light peeked through a small opening as Thea stumbled out into the clearing and fell to her knees. When she looked up, she realized with horror that she had stumbled into a mass grave. Handfuls of bones littered the ground where the recent rains had flooded the area. With a shriek, she lifted her feet, trying to not step on them, but it was too late. Plain gray tombstones rose up from the ground, one after another. There were no names or crosses or flowers, just rocks draped with brown condensation and moss, no more than a foot apart. The bodies couldn’t be buried here; there was no room. Thea’s eyes rested on the deep marsh beside her. Oh God. The bodies were in the water. She took a step closer, only to leap backward: just above the surface, reflecting the flames behind her, were several pairs of watchful eyes. She shivered; there were alligators down there. She backed up from the edge of the water.
She heard a small creak, a breath. Ahead of her, a flashlight was tied to a branch and was swinging back and forth in the wind, the light flickering with the breeze. Bait. Thea turned slowly, hoping the light hadn’t brought the monsters closer.
Julie stood in front of her, her eyes wide and wild, a gun in her hand pointed right at Thea’s head. “Do you know what you’re standing on?”
“Julie, listen to me. . . .”
“The rich soil of justice, made fruitful with the bones of evil men,” she intoned.
“You’re crazy,” said Thea as she moved sideways, her eyes on the barrel of the gun.
Julie went on. “And now you can be a part of it, too! Your parents won’t even get to bury you next to your cousin.”
Thea winced at the words but stayed calm. “It’s over, Julie. And if you shoot me now, you still won’t win. It will just be a girl’s life on your conscience.”
Thea kept her eye on the gun, her mind going over every possibility. Could she lunge and grab the gun? Could Julie hit a moving target? From the way she held the gun, Thea thought so. She needed to end this. “You have something that belongs to me.”
For a moment Julie looked confused, and then a grave smile crossed her face. She started laughing. “You want the file. You sad, desperate girl,” she sneered. “Well, go ahead and take it.” She reached and pulled a black file out from behind her. “Help yourself.” The file slipped open and blank pages spilled onto the ground. Thea grabbed one, her fingers angrily crumpling the paper in her fist. Rage rose up inside of her.
Julie laughed. “If you must know the truth, there were only blank pages in that file when I got to it.” She tapped her head. “But I know who it was. It’s all in here, Thea, and if I stop breathing, you will never know who killed Natalie. And it’s not who you think.”
Thea stared at her for a long moment, blinking as uninvited memories flooded her mind.
Natalie, at five, running through the sprinklers. At ten, playing dolls. At thirteen, lying on Thea’s floor while she talks on the phone to a boy, her feet tangling in the cord. At eighteen, dancing in a yellow dress at her graduation party, pride beaming from her face.
Logic and desire battled within her. Her hands ached to attack Julie, to force her into telling the truth, to get justice for Natalie so that the wounds inside her would close.
Except that they never would. The realization struck her heart first and then her head.
It is time to let her go.
Thea’s eyes filled with tears. It is time to let Natalie go. In her desperation for justice she had put one more life in danger: her own. It wasn’t only her heart at stake here; it was the hearts of Drew, her parents, her team. Thea stepped back. My God—what the hell am I doing out here? Was she ready to kill to get that file? No, she wasn’t.
Julie was still talking when Thea looked up. “Did you hear what I said? Were you crying again just like that time I found you in the hallway? What’s funny about that, is that the man who killed Natalie will go on to kill others, and more girls will be crying in hallways forevermore, and you’re just going to walk away.”
Thea jumped as the sound of footsteps crackled in the woods behind them.
Julie threw her head back and laughed. “They’re coming for me now. I can hear them. I’m ready to go with them. My time as a luminary is up, one last gift from Robin. I have one more thing to take with me, though, the girl who brought down the Black Coats by falling in love.”
Thea heard the click of the gun and threw herself sideways. The shot missed her, but Julie leaped at Thea with an inhuman growl. Thea spun and met her head-on, knocking the gun from her hand. It landed hard in the mud. Julie raked her fingers down Thea’s cheeks and tried to get her hands around Thea’s throat as Thea punched her in the stomach. Julie paused, and Thea thought maybe it was over, when something thin and sharp cut into the soft spot between her ribs. Thea let out a cry as she instinctively threw Julie off her and curled over to protect her wound. Her hands came away covered with her own warm blood. She stabbed me. Oh my God, she stabbed me.
Thea tried to stay on her feet, tried to lunge for the gun, but the pain was too much; she couldn’t stand, and she watched as Julie stumbled back to her feet and picked up the gun from the dirt. With a mad look in her eyes, Julie pointed it toward Thea’s heart. “Soulevez-vous, femmes de la vengeance.”
Thea heard the shot echo through the marsh. Her hand grasped at her chest, waiting to feel the life slowly dripping out of her.