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“Shit,” Raisa muttered. She pulled to a haphazard stop, already running as her feet hit the ground, taking the pine needle–strewn path toward where she could hear the waves slamming into land.
St. Ivany was only a few paces behind her.
Raisa’s lungs burned, as did her thighs, but she pressed forward, desperate for a reason she couldn’t even make sense of.
The day was almost too clear and lovely for the sight they came upon when the trees finally opened up.
Gabriela stood at the very edge of the world, her arms spread wide. There should’ve been a storm brewing in front of her to match her clear turmoil.
“Gabriela,” Raisa cried, her voice scratchy. “Stop.”
Gabriela turned, cocked her head. “How did you find me? Delaney?”
“She dropped an AirTag on you,” Raisa confirmed, as she stepped closer, making sure not to pressure Gabriela into shifting back. “Come away from there.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” Gabriela said, with a small smile. “You know, all I wanted was a better world.”
“I know,” Raisa said, because that was what you did for someone standing at the edge of a cliff. You appeased her. Raisa held out her hand. “Come away from there.”
Gabriela stayed where she was, swaying back and forth. “I didn’t think killing would feel like that.”
“What do you mean?”
Gabriela met her eyes and smiled. “Good.”
Raisa inhaled sharply.
“Didn’t expect that, huh?” Gabriela said, seemingly pleased. “You wanted me to be some helpless soul, transfixed by the evilest monster you could ever imagine. But I’m just me. And I liked killing Peter and Lindsey and Emily and Declan.”
“And Isabel,” Raisa couldn’t help but point out. Before she shook her head. “Come away from there. We’ll talk about all of this some more.”
“You don’t want to talk,” Gabriela said. “You want to lock me in a psychiatric ward.”
That was true enough.
“You think you see yourself in me, don’t you?” Gabriela said, taunting. But most of the edge was gone from her voice. This wasn’t the smug mastermind from the boat. This was just a sad, lost girl. “That’s why you chased me here, that’s why you want to save me.”
“No,” Raisa said. She took a step closer. “Come away from there, Gabriela.”
“You see yourself in me,” Gabriela said, stubborn now. “You were the one who chose law enforcement. You were the one who always wants justice. You’re the one who is one bad decision away from burning down the world.”
“No,” Raisa said, and believed it for the first time in two years. “I’ve never wanted the world to burn.”
“You think that until you get a taste for it,” Gabriela said. “And then you’ll crave it.”
“No,” Raisa said again, staring at this terrible product of a monster’s hand.
Broken by Isabel.
“You see yourself in me,” Gabriela said again, this time sounding so desperate. “You see Isabel in me.”
Raisa shook her head. Isabel was nothing like this girl, who would never see that as the compliment it was.
“No, darling,” Raisa said softly, so that only the two of them would hear. And she finally admitted to the reason she was standing on this cliffside begging this girl not to throw herself into the ocean below. “I see Delaney.”
Confusion and then rage and then betrayal flickered in and out of her expression. “But she’s pathetic.”
“Aren’t we all?” Raisa asked with a smile. “At least a little?”