STORY
We discussed the plan. The outrageous, insane, possibly suicidal plan. The one that hinged on blowing up our world.
On me telling the truth to the world.
I looked at the phone Gemma had loaned me. The first thing I’d done when Gemma gave it to me was text Grayson a message.
I still hadn’t heard back.
Now I looked at my account, at the hundreds of thousands of followers I’d accumulated, who had been listening to my veiled truths.
As the Horsemen did their thing behind closed doors, Gemma played fairy godmother. She’d bought the dresses without going to Crowne Hall, and I vaguely wondered if she’d gone back at all during this time.
“What are they doing?” Lottie asked, staring at the closed door the Horsemen disappeared behind.
“You don’t want to know.” Gemma fiddled with lace at my back. “Okay. Done.”
Lottie and I stared at each other, two mirror images that refused to obey one another. Matching diamond feathered masks and dresses.
“Do you think it’s going to be enough—my confession?” I bit my lip. “I deleted all the videos West had saved.”
Lottie pushed a curl behind her ear. “We have one video. The video of you and Grayson on my wedding night; my mother saved it…” She looked dark. “She saved it so I would have leverage on him in case my secret got out. It’s on her phone.”
Lottie’s baby started to cry, and she went to tend to him.
“What will we do with our babies?” Lottie asked, lifting him to her arms. “We can’t leave them here.”
Our eyes traveled to Gemma, our unlikely guardian angel.
“Oh no—oh, hell no.”
“I can’t exactly blend in with a baby on my tit.”
“Fine,” she gritted. “But we’re going to watch a shit ton of horror movies in the hopes that it messes them up internally, and then you have to deal with that, like…ten years later as punishment.”
“Oh, well…” Lottie sighed. “If I’m anything like my mother, I’ll just pretend all the bad things about my child don’t exist.”
Gemma went silent at that, brow furrowing. I wondered what it was about what Lottie had said to make her look so…thoughtful.
As if she knew I was thinking about her, she turned to me.
“A year ago, when my sister left with her dog, she came to me and we spent a night together drinking. I asked her if it was really worth losing everything for him. You know, my grandfather has been controlling our love lives since before I was born. Our aunt and uncle lost everything for love, and then her hopeless romantic ass went and left and lost it all too. I’ve been engaged since I was a teenager, but to me, it wasn’t so terrible. Horace and I have an agreement. He fucks who he wants and so do I, and we keep our pretty things.
“Now you’re here and Grayson was on the verge of doing the same thing…” She eyed me and I prepared for the iconic Gemma Crowne tongue-lashing. “But then for a moment, the littl
e boy who used to play hide-and-seek with us when we were kids was back.”
I stared at her.
“Maybe we all died years ago and that house holds all our ghosts captive.”
“Gemma…” I trailed off, not sure what to say, how to offer comfort.
“What will happen to my grandfather after?” she asked.
Again, I was at a loss for words. I wasn’t entirely sure of Gemma’s relationship with her grandfather, so how did I tell her I wanted him dead?
Bleeding.