I rolled my eyes.
He groaned. “Don’t do that. I like it too much.”
I laughed. “When I roll my eyes?”
“So sexy.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He laughed. “Yeah, but you like it.”
I shook my head. “Can we please focus?”
“Sure thing.” He tossed me his notebook.
I looked down at what James had written. Drop her off in the middle of nowhere. Take her clothes. Point a gun at her head. Threaten to kill her best friend. “Best friend” was scratched out with “minion.” Make her disappear? A chill ran down my spine. Matt had wanted me to be the bigger person. He didn’t want me to stoop to Isabella’s level. He’d said I was better than her. But God, I desperately wanted to make her disappear. And I was pretty sure the Hunters had the resources to make it happen.
I should have corrected James. Convinced him that I just wanted it to be a silly prank like I’d insisted before. But I just kept staring at the question mark after the word disappear. Like he was asking me for my permission. Like he was offering to do it for me.
And I wasn’t sure why, but I wrote down yes and then handed it back to him. His eyes locked with mine. For a second I’d forgotten that his life was just as tangled up in Isabella’s as mine. Maybe his mom just wanted him to marry a Pruitt because she liked Isabella. Or maybe it was more sinister like Isabella had said – that the Hunters owed my dad a debt. And they’d paid it with James’ future. Either way, Isabella was going to ruin both our lives. Unless we ruined hers first.
James raised his left eyebrow at me.
And I nodded.
“New plan,” James said. “I think we all know what we really want here.” He tossed his notebook to the side. “We want to make Isabella disappear for good. What do you say, Rob? Got something in your evil genius mind for that?”
“Now we’re talking.” Rob rubbed his hands together. “Oh! We’re going to need pizza for this. Nothing like pizza to plot murder.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text. “So what are we thinking, cheese or pepperoni?”
How could Rob think about what kind of pizza we wanted when he just said we wanted to kill someone? Disappear was different than kill. Right?
“Cheese sounds good,” James said. “Unless you want something else?” he asked me.
I shook my head. James wasn’t freaking out. Apparently he’d meant kill too.
“Perfect,” Rob said. “Cheese it is. Now how do you want to kill the troll?”
Chapter 13
Monday
Rob didn’t need to ask us our opinion. Because before we even had a chance to respond, he told us his whole plan. A plan that was clearly well thought out because it was so detailed. And graphic.
“The key is making sure every inch of her burns so that they can’t trace anything back to us,” Rob said. “Unless you’d rather use lye. But I really like the idea of fire. It seems like a more graceful way to end it, you know?”
I finally found my voice. “What the fuck, Rob?”
He started laughing. And then laughing some more. He pointed at me, barely even able to breathe. “You should see your face right now.”
How was I supposed to look after hearing that?
“Your pizza, young Robert,” someone said and poked his head through the hole in the floor of the treehouse.
I almost screamed. After hearing Rob’s murderous plan, it almost looked like the man’s decapitated head was on a platter.
“Thanks, Eric,” Rob said and grabbed it from him. “Could we have something to drink too?”
“Already on top of it, sir.” The butler slid a tray of sodas into the treehouse with his gloved hand. “Will that be all?”
“Yup.”
“Will you be attending classes after lunch?” Eric asked.
“Nah. We need the whole day off. We’ve had a stressful weekend. Right, James?”
James nodded.
“Very well. Let me know if any of you need anything else. Good to see you again, Miss Sanders.”
“You too.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. Help me, Rob’s a murdering psychopath probably wouldn’t work with his butler.
Eric disappeared down the hole.
“Pizza?” Rob asked and lifted up a slice.
“We can’t kill Isabella,” I said. “I just meant…make her go away.” Twenty four hours ago, I’d wanted her dead. But after talking to Matt… I swallowed hard. I didn’t want him to ever think I was a monster too.