I held his gaze. I wasn’t going to deny it, every word was the truth. I had the power now, but what was I going to do with it?
Suddenly, Ethan lurches towards me, hands outstretched and desperate. Grabbing at me, clinging like he always did.
‘Stop it!’ I recoil back. ‘Let me go!’
‘He’s crazy,’ Ethan gasps, face twisted with fear. ‘You can’t listen to him, you’re my Chloe. My good, sweet Chloe. Remember? Remember we said, we’d always belong to each other. Please!’
He sobs, clinging to me, but now my shock is hardening into disdain. He could take the knife from me in an instant if he wanted, but he’s too weak to even try. He thinks he can blackmail me instead, wrap that old affection around me like a deadweight, pulling me down.
‘Get off,’ I tell him, shoving at his limp body.
‘You love me,’ Ethan whimpers, pathetic. ‘You wouldn’t hurt me. I believe in you!’
He claws at me again. Revulsion rises in me. I can’t take it: the guilt and the obligation he’s using to trap me, all the broken hope in his eyes. I don’t owe him anything, I never did. He was the one who grabbed me tight and didn’t let go. Didn’t let me breathe.
I meet Oliver’s gaze over his head. ‘Do it,’ he whispers, and I see the thrill in his eyes. He’s waiting for this, holding his breath, watching his brother fall apart. The darkest soul I’ve ever known. The mirror of me.
I remember watching the deer through the cross-hairs, my finger on the trigger. Ashton’s head smashing into the wall, the lightning fury in my veins. What would it feel like this time? To be the one who decides.
I feel that surge again, lifting me, pulsating, something white-hot and undeniable.
‘Are you going to stay?’ Oliver demands. ‘You’ll die in this godforsaken town.’
I think of snow on the dark roads, the screech of tyres. I feel hope rise in me, stronger than anything. Fight or flight.
‘Do it,’ Oliver orders.
And I do.
A heartbeat, a split-second’s whim, that’s all it takes to change your life forever.
But what happens when you get it wrong?
When you feel the sigh of the knife sliding in, and hear the low, pained gasp; disbelief in his eyes that he could misjudge you so completely; the sticky wet smear of red on your hands.
What happens when you realize in that sick, bloodied moment – no, no, no! – that you can’t take it back?
You chose wrong.
I approach the bed cautiously. Ethan doesn’t take his eyes off me, but his expression is unreadable. I feel a faint glimmer of hope. The doctor said he was confused, maybe he doesn’t remember.
‘Thank God you’re OK.’ I sink into the seat beside the bed and reach to clutch his hand. ‘You lost so much blood – and the fire . . . I didn’t know if I’d get you out alive. Your parents are here, did they see you already? I can get them if you want, I just had to see you for myself.’ I babble, the words tripping over themselves. ‘I’m so glad you’re OK!’
‘Are you?’
‘Of course!’ I exclaim. ‘We were so worried, you were in surgery for hours, and even then, they said you might never wake up.’ I catch my breath, squeezing his hand tightly. ‘But here you are, look at you. You’re going to be OK.’
There’s a pause.
‘I’ll never be OK,’ Ethan says quietly, steel in his voice. ‘Not after what you did.’
Oh God.
I meet his eyes and the accusation there robs the breath from my lungs.
He remembers. He remembers everything.
‘Ethan . . . ’ I gasp, my mind racing for something to tell him. Anything to pull him back from the edge. ‘You don’t understand, let me explain—’
‘Don’t.’ Ethan looks at his hand in mine, then slowly pulls it away. ‘Weber will be here in a minute and then I tell him everything. The truth, this time.’ His jaw is set in determination and I realize, with a sinking heart, he means every word.
He’s done with me, the way I was done with him.
It’s over.
A coldness slips through me, settling deep in my bones. Resignation. All night, ever since I made that choice, part of me has been waiting for this. I thought I could claw my way out of the wreckage, with lies and tears and twisted truths, and I came close, so close, to slipping loose of their chains. But the panic is over, now, there’s nothing but inevitability. An ending, instead of my beginning.
‘There’s only one thing I need to know from you,’ Ethan adds slowly. ‘They said you saved my life. They said Olly’s . . . Olly’s dead.’
I nod silently, looking down.
‘Why would you save me?’ Ethan asks, his voice lifting. ‘After everything you did to be with him. Why did you save me from the fire?’
I force myself to glance up again and find him looking at me with an anguished expression on his face. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘You picked him. You looked me in the eye and you picked him.’
‘I know,’ I whisper, my voice breaking. ‘And I know, I can never take that back, but I was wrong. It was all wrong.’ I gulp a breath, my voice desperate, trying to make him see. ‘The second it happened, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. It was, I can’t explain it, it was like I’d been under Oliver’s spell and, suddenly, I woke up.’ I meet his eyes, tears already wet on my cheeks. ‘You know what he’s like, he made everything seem so . . . simple. Like it wasn’t real, it was all just a game. But when I hurt you . . . ’ I take his hand again, gripping tight. ‘It was real. Suddenly, everything was real, and I couldn’t let it happen. I had to keep you safe from him.’
I hold on, waiting for some reaction. Ethan takes a long breath, still so pale. He’s got wires trailing from his body, an IV hooked to his arm.
‘What happened?’ he finally says. ‘I remember the knife, and then . . . I was on the ground. He said something about starting a fire, to make it look like an accident,’ Ethan shakes his head, frustrated. ‘But everything else is gone.’
‘You passed out,’ I tell him quietly. ‘You were bleeding and you passed out. Oliver was lighting the fires. He’d brought kerosene with him; he’d planned it all, even calling you over to find us.’ I shiver. The candles and the rose petals were all props in his final game: to make it look worse, when Ethan walked in. To help him hide the evidence when we were done.