“You’ve only just realized?” Saint sighs. “Our plan failed.”
“It did,” I mumble.
“I didn’t anticipate being herded toward the center. I should’ve. It was supposed to be a bloodbath. Bring it down to two or three,” Saint says, echoing what’s been cycling through my own head. Three girls died in the Raid, but that probably wasn’t enough. “And we both survived. They definitely don’t like that.”
I swallow hard. “Probably not.”
“I was wrong about our final-two plan too. They’re going to want you to kill me,” Saint whispers.
“Stop stating the obvious,” I bite out furiously. “If you don’t have a plan—”
“I’m working on one,” Saint interrupts. “Now, turn around so I can zip you into this dress.”
She helps me into it, covering the new marks on my body. I crave the reminder of the older scars that were made in childhood. The gathering of scar tissue at my knee from when I fell while roller-skating my first time with the girls—when Esme had still pretended to love me. The dark burn mark on my inner pinkie from searing bacon on the stove the morning after a sleepover with Toni. But then my eye is drawn to the pink from a knife pressed too close to my body, to the mark on my shoulder from when I fell off Starlight before our first jump.
I am reminded that I do not inhabit the same body that I had before I came to the Remington Estate. I can’t believe that before, I thought I was broken.
The Finish is aptly named, I see now, because they are finishing us here, using our weaknesses and breaking down our needs to harden us into cartilage. I mourn us all.
Hawthorne, and her undying loyalty.
Saint, and her resolve.
Even Esme, and her relentlessness.
And of course Penthesilea for…
“I… I need to see Penthesilea,” I say suddenly.
“Pentecostal?” Saint asks, the same tired joke that doesn’t sound so funny anymore, now that she does it listlessly, like she’s trying for normalcy and failing. “Why?”
“She saved me in the maze. From Reagan. She killed her. And she saved me from Esme. And I want to know why. She told me… to ask afterward why she’s here. Because it’s true: she doesn’t need to be here, but she is,” I whisper quietly.
Saint scoffs. “I didn’t need to be here either.” Then she grows quieter, and her forehead falls against the nape of my neck, her fingers lingering over the hook at the top of my zipper.
“But I know why you did come here—”
“I came here because I had something to prove,” Saint interrupts. She’s embarrassed, not looking at me. “My father didn’t send me here. They don’t even know. I told them I got an internship in New York at some hedge fund. And then, instead, I came here. I really did suggest teaming up with them, but Father turned them down last minute. And they were offended so they… cut off all our prospects here. And then they sent the invitation to the Finish as a way to offend my father further in retaliation. That solidified to him that it was a bad deal, but I was so sure that the Remingtons were our only way of breaking into the market, I came here. I thought I could outsmart them, blackmail them. I thought I’d… prove myself capable and ready.”
She wasn’t. She isn’t, but my heart twinges for her.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. Saint shakes it off, even though the words rub her raw. “Maybe that’s true, but it’s also true that you’re still okay. And the only reason that they’re okay and still alive is because you are not a monster—”
“Oh, I can be,” Saint warns.
It’s a promise.
I nod, my words getting caught in my throat. At least I know that if I don’t make it but Saint does, she will find a way to ruin this family. And I want her to almost as much as I want to do it myself. I look away and step back, barefoot.
“I still need to talk to Penthesilea,” I repeat, and Saint nods slowly again.
I wander out of our room and don’t knock on her door, choosing to just walk in. Her room is like mine and Saint’s, but not. The dying sun breaks through her windows, turning the gold wallpaper into hazy pinks and the burn of fire. This room hasn’t lost its charm yet. It still looks like an illustrated storybook, a room for princesses. Or Remington wives. Whichever.
When I see her, of course she’s put together, ever the fairy queen, ethereal in a way that I have only ever dreamed about being.
“Why are you here, Penthesilea?” I ask sans greeting.
Penthesilea doesn’t shift from where she sits before the vanity, carefully applying a shiny pink gloss to her lips. She sets the wand down, smacking her lips and leaning back. She takes a deep breath, her palms biting into the edge of the wood, and squints at her own reflection. Her fingers drum for a moment before she takes up her brush, dragging it down her hair in precise strokes.
“I’d hoped you’d forget to ask,” Penthesilea says thoughtfully.
“I couldn’t possibly. Is this about Harvard?” I whisper. “You want the free spot so you can get back together with him?”
Penthesilea blinks at me, and then she laughs. “Is that what he told you?” She giggles. “I suppose it’s true. In a manner of speaking. No, I’m not here for Harvard. Not really. I’m here because it is expected and I have to be perfect.”
“I’m sorry?” I say, questioning.
“I have to be perfect. And Pierce is perfect. And we will be perfectly perfect together.” Penthesilea sets down her brush, sitting up sharper. She exchanges it for a blush compact. She dusts pink to her face, painting life to her cheeks. She meets my eye in the reflection of the mirror. “I know that you tried to fuck my boyfriend, Adina.”
I flinch, nearly tripping backward over the edge of the Persian rug. Penthesilea lets out another huff of a laugh that is so devoid of humor, it’s nearly a sob. My tongue feels swollen in my mouth.
“I—I—”
“Don’t bother with apologies. I’ve heard so many of them throughout my life that they all sound the same,” Penthesilea says gently. Her gaze never wavers from me and I can’t look away; it would feel like the ultimate disrespect. Cowardice. I can’t afford that.
“When did you know?” I ask instead.
“When you appeared in front of your friend, defending her from Esme, I saw the way that he looked at you,” Penthesilea murmurs. “He’s never looked at me like that.”
“I’m sure he has—”
“I didn’t say that was a bad thing,” Penthesilea snaps. She slams her compact closed, shoots to her feet, and turns around.
“And I don’t want you to think that it means something that Pierce says he cares about you. Pierce doesn’t care about you. If he did, he would’ve gotten you out of this hellhole,” she says. That word flies from her mouth with derision. “Don’t let him trick you into thinking he couldn’t. He could. No, Pierce doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He looks at you like you’re an ending. You’re the ‘happily ever after.’ He would take your come-up story and make it loud and make it his. Class-crossed lovers. Traversing boundaries to be together. Third has big plans for his son. Governor, I think, and a governor needs a story.”