At the time, Alex had been so careful with me. But tonight her eyes were slate and cold, her mouth thin as wire.
“You need help. And you need to get a fucking grip.”
“Go to hell,” I managed to get out, but my voice was shaking. It was weakness, and to Alex, weakness was like blood in the water.
She moved closer, but I refused to be weak. I refused to let her pin me against the trees like a coward. I could feel Margery there, watching. Her eyes burned into the nape of my neck.
I stepped toward Alex and shook my head. “No. I’m not letting you do this. You’re…You’re being mean, Alex. Stop it.”
“Mean,” she echoed, and let out a breathy laugh. “Fuck you, Felicity. I’m so sick of this. I’m so…I’m so sick of you acting like the martyr all the time. Like you’re so goddamn patient, and understanding, and if I’m not, well, that’s just Alex being Alex, isn’t it? Just evil, mean Alex, who talks back and curses and defends herself. But I guess standing up for yourself isn’t very Dalloway, is it? I guess I’m just showing how uncouth I am, since I didn’t go to goddamn finishing school and learn how to act like a perfect little princess all the time—”
“You—”
“But they’ll figure you out soon enough, Miss Morrow. You can’t hide it anymore, can you? You’re fucking broken. You’re batshit, just like your mother.”
And I pushed her.
I didn’t mean for her to fall. She wasn’t even that close to the edge. But she was drunk, and when she lost her balance, she stumbled. For a split second I thought she was going to recover and lunge for me—
Instead she pitched, and dropped, and vanished, screaming the whole way down.
Alex died. Alex was dead. I killed her myself.
The shock of seeing that body in the grave sends me reeling back toward the crumbling wall of the pit I dug. Only there’s nowhere to go, the space too cramped to allow for anything but this:
Me, half tumbling into the open casket, staring down at Alex’s beautiful red hair tangled against the satin pillow, her pale cheeks and limp hands, the scarlet bloom of blood staining her white shirt.
No. No, no—
That isn’t Alex’s mouth, nor Alex’s nose. Her cheeks have too many freckles, her body isn’t decayed.
Not Alex’s body.
Clara’s.
I scramble back along the narrow space I’ve dug, flattening myself against the grave wall and staring down at the dead body of my friend.
And maybe I’m a terrible person, as dark-hearted as I’ve always feared, because my first reaction isn’t to grieve. It’s the cold and clinical assessment:
She hasn’t been dead long.
I twist around and press my brow against the dirt, eyes clenched shut. I can’t fake innocence. I knew it. I knew it.
The body in Alex’s grave has a bullet in her stomach. Her throat is slit. Wormwood leaves wreathe her hair, and hellebore flowers bloom where her eyes should be.
She’s the perfect picture of Flora Grayfriar’s corpse.
This whole time…some part of me suspected, deep down. Some part of me knew how this would end, and I kept going anyway. Even with my eyes shut, the truth stares back at me.
For Ellis, this was never a game.
I feel as if I’m falling—a hundred miles through an endless pit, into water, cold and black and closing overhead, filling my lungs and flooding my veins.
Ellis killed her.
She really killed her.
My heartbeat is the only sound I hear as I force myself to face the coffin—the girl in the coffin—the corpse. I’m sick; it’s the kind of nausea that devours. I shove the lid back onto the coffin with my heel, my mind suddenly tumbling through a litany of realizations—the kinds of realizations that become reflexive after studying murder for months on end.
My fingerprints are on the coffin. I shift forward, crawling across the lid with my hands balled in fists and my weight pressed against my knuckles to scrub the cuff of my sleeve against the places I touched. I hope those are the only places I touched. Can I be sure? Do I know? I should wipe down this whole coffin, should—
Only it’s already dawn, the sun beginning to rise beyond the trees. Cold light filters down even into this hellhole. Someone could find me here. A mourner, or the cemetery caretaker back to shovel the snow and throw away wilted flowers.
I pull my phone out of my coat pocket, swiping away my notifications. It’s seven. I’m already out of time.
I claw my way to the surface, elbows digging into dirt. Panic is a living thing, I discover: It twists and quivers in my chest. It strangles every breath. I don’t bother with the shovel; I shove dirt into the open grave with both hands, tears freezing on my cheeks. I can’t even feel my hands anymore, my fingers like rubber.