The Cheerleaders(87)

“Okay,” I say. “You said you wanted to talk. Talk.”

He winces, from the pain in his groin, his hand, or both. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“Why’d you kill them?” I ask. “Did Juliana threaten to tell Allie?”

Brandon shuts his eyes, muttering, “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” He probably thought this moment would never come.

I hit him in the kneecap with the bat, yelling over his moaning and cries of Oh my God. “Why did you kill them, Brandon?”

“It wasn’t just about Allie finding out. I was twenty-two, and Juliana was fifteen,” he says. “If she told anyone, I could have gone to jail. You should know that.”

The snideness that’s crept into his voice makes me want to hit him in the knee again, harder. “What happened that night?”

“I told Juliana we had to stop, the morning after Allie found the earring in my truck. Juliana was really, really mad. She’d thought I would break up with Allie for her—she didn’t get it, that I couldn’t be with a fifteen-year-old.” Brandon swallows. “She asked me to come to Susan’s house to talk. We sat in my truck. It was fine, at first, but when I told her again I wasn’t leaving Allie, she started crying and yelling about how she was going to tell her. She got out and slammed the door.”

“You followed her inside.”

Brandon closes his eyes. Tears drip down his face, over his lips. “She wouldn’t answer the front door. When she said she was going to call the cops, I freaked. I climbed the fence, and I saw the back door—she saw me and opened it and started yelling at me. When I followed her into the house she went nuts. I was afraid Susan would hear, so I covered Juliana’s mouth. She bit me, and when she jerked away, she fell back into the mirror. Her head was bleeding, and she came at me with a shard—I just panicked.”

“So instead of calling to get Juliana help, you killed her and Susan.”

“Susan heard. She came downstairs at the noise. She started running back upstairs when she saw everything, so I ran after her and grabbed her.” Brandon chokes out a sob. “I didn’t go there planning to hurt anyone. It just got out of control.”

“You’re disgusting!” I scream. “It was all an act with me, wasn’t it? You pretended sleeping with me was a bad idea because of my age, while you were really a fucking pedo—”

He lunges at me, mashing his fist into my mouth before I can lift the baseball bat. I stumble back, but he presses his forearm into my throat, pinning me to the wall. When he reaches for the bat, I throw it as far as my short reach will allow. It clatters when it hits the ground, but Brandon doesn’t go after it; his eyes are locked on me. I’m staring back at a cornered animal.

“Is this what you did to her?” I gasp.

Black spots are swimming before my eyes. Then, screaming. His screaming. He releases me, stumbling backward; I’m bent over, clutching my throat, trying to process the scene in front of me.

Ginny is standing over Brandon, the bat in her hands. She’s calm, her hands steady around its neck; Brandon is on his back, not moving.

“Where’s my brother?” It comes out garbled; my lips are swollen and my mouth tastes like blood. “Where’s Petey?”

“He’s at my house. We called nine-one-one, and Tom.”

I look from Ginny to Brandon. It’s just the three of us now. I don’t hear sirens yet. Brandon is watching me from the floor, his temple leaking blood. I realize that Ginny hit him in the head with the bat.

Brandon’s eyelids flutter. He needs an ambulance; he has a concussion, or worse. I look at Ginny again.

“Give me the bat.”

“Monica,” she says.

“Please.”

Ginny hands it over. Brandon’s eyes roll back. He’s finally passed out, either from the pain or from the sight of me standing over him with the bat. He must see it in my face—how badly I want to kill him. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. It would just take a few swings.

My fingers tremble around the handle of the bat. I look at Ginny. Her face is calm. “If you do it, I’ll say whatever you want.”

She’ll tell everyone it was self-defense. That I had no choice but to kill Brandon.

“I want to.” A tear slips out of my eye. “I want it so bad.”

“I know,” Ginny says.

The thoughts swirl through my head, landing on what my mother said to me last night in her car. Even at your worst, I love you more than life itself. She will still love me if I execute Brandon right here. I know Tom would, too, and maybe even Petey as well.

But the Ruizes, the Berrys—all the people whose lives he destroyed—they deserve the chance to look Brandon in the face as well. If I take that from them, I won’t be able to live with myself.

Brandon’s eyes open again. I hold his gaze as I kick him in the stomach. I keep kicking and kicking until I’m out of breath, until a siren blares from down the street, until my foot’s gone numb and Ginny has to drag me away from his limp body.





“We can go home now.”

Tom’s voice snaps me out of my trance. He sets his phone down on his desk and rubs his eyes. My mother has pulled her seat so close to mine she is practically on top of me.