Page 15 of Last Summer

Chapter thirteen

WRONG TURN

DANICA

DANICA

Monday Midnight

Holy fucking shit!

Holy…

Julie is Jonathan’s twin sister. Why didn’t I see it before?

Their eyes are exactly the same. She didn’t just love him.

From the looks of her phone contents, it appears that she was obsessed with him.

And they weren’t just siblings either, they were— can’t even bring myself to say it, to think about it.

It’s so wrong. The man I thought I knew, thought I loved, was someone completely different.

From what I can see on her phone, it looks like Julie spent all her time pining over him until he died.

Cold, sinking dread turns my veins to ice.

She knows.

She knows what happened.

She must know. That’s why I’m here. And why Abby is here. Julie orchestrated the entire thing to get revenge on us. But what about the others? They don’t have anything to do with Jonathan’s death… Do they?

A smart person would run. An innocent person would get the cops and bring them back here. Fuck! I have already lost enough this weekend, I’m not letting Julie take anything else from me.

Putting the truck into gear and flipping a quick U-turn, I swiftly head back towards the campsite.

If it’s a confrontation she wants, then it’s a confrontation she’ll get.

I make sure to send as much evidence as I can quickly find on her phone to the only number I know off the top of my head while keeping my other hand on the wheel.

If I don’t make it out of here, at least there will be evidence of what Julie did.

I beg them to call the police, to send help, but at this hour of the night, who knows if my sister will even be awake.

We haven’t talked much lately. She didn’t approve of some of the life choices I was making.

It all came to a head when she told me that she couldn’t watch me throw my life away.

If only I could have told her the truth—explained how the guilt and the pain was eating me alive.

Hopefully she still cares enough to help.

The dirt road twists and turns around ancient trees until, coming out of the final bend, I make out the distinct shape of the yurts against the night sky. This is it.

Parking the truck in the middle of the road for easy access should I need to get out quickly, I stow the keys and phone in the center console, and hop from the truck.

It’s eerily quiet here—the sole sound is that of the cicadas calling to each other.

The earth is still at this time of night.

My eyes scan the campsite. Chris’ body lays right where he fell—bathed in a dark pool of cold blood.

His pale face is vacant, his unseeing eyes staring straight up at the moon overhead.

So much death.

So much pain.

Julie is nowhere to be seen. “Hello!” I call out, beckoning her from her hiding spot. “Julie?”

Silence.

I take a tentative step forward. Then another. The gravel of the ground crunches beneath my shoes.

“I just want to talk to you!” I cry out into the darkness.

“Talk?” Julie’s voice is soft and smooth, like a warm caress across my skin.

I spin to see her standing in the doorway of the furthest yurt.

Her curvaceous outline is bathed in the glowing light coming from behind her.

What was she doing in there while dead bodies surrounded her? “You want to talk, Danica?”

Something about the way she says the last part is unsettling. She’s like a predator, luring me in with the promise of safety, while secretly preparing to strike. I need a weapon but all that I see are sticks and rocks. Shit.

“I know that Jonathan was your brother,” I tell her as I frantically scan my surroundings for something, anything, to defend myself with. “I know that you loved him.”

She scoffs as she pushes off the frame of the door, descending the steps towards me. “I didn’t love him, Danica. He was the other half of me. We shared a womb, we shared a birth, we shared our lives, our love… everything !”

She’s spiraling. Her rage is hot and palpable. Something metallic catches my eye off to my right—the knife. It’s sticking straight out of Chris’ torso. Julie is closer. If I run for it, she’ll get there first. I need to keep her talking.

“I get why you’re mad at me, Julie. Why you’d want to hurt me. But why the rest?” I pivot, side stepping around the firepit, making sure to keep distance between myself and this psychotic bitch.

Her laugh is heartless, cold. “Did you really not know that Abby was fucking your boyfriend?”

Her words don’t make sense. Abby and Jonathan? Wouldn’t I have known? They barely talked.

“Jonathan wouldn’t have done that to me,” I counter.

She moves a step closer, so close that I can nearly see the whites of her eyes reflecting in the soft moonlight. I skitter backwards, desperate to keep space between us.

“Jonathan was desperate for me. Our souls were always meant to be combined back into one, you see. But I was a virgin, scared of what it would mean if I gave in and slept with the other person I’d been in love with my entire life.

” She talks about him so fondly and easily.

As if fucking your twin brother isn’t some seriously messed up shit.

She’s out of her fucking mind. “He was using you, and when you wouldn’t put out, he’d use Abby.

You two were just warm holes for him to stick his cock in while he pretended it was me. ”

I don’t dare let her catch me looking at the knife, but I pivot slightly, trying to move closer to the only chance I have at surviving this. I take a step back, but she takes one forward. I freeze. My heart feels like it’s going to beat straight out of my chest.

“And Lucy? Sarah? Were they fucking him too, Julie?”

Her eyes narrow, a cruel sneer pulling at her upper lip.

Her mask of lighthearted beauty falls, revealing the broken and monstrous creature beneath.

“You don’t fucking remember, do you? You were drunk Danica!

You were drunk and you got behind the wheel.

Lucy was riding her motorcycle too fast on that curvy mountain road.

There was no way your drunk ass had time to react when she came around the bend. ”

The light. The light I saw that night before I swerved. I’d almost forgotten about it, so consumed by the grief that I’d repressed most of those memories. But she’s right. There was a motorcycle. That’s why I swerved. That’s why we crashed.

“Stupid fucking underage bitches,” Julie continues as I inch backward as slowly as possible.

My fingers itch to land along the handle of the knife.

“That asshole sold you the liquor that got you drunk that weekend.” She motions to Chris’ lifeless body on the ground.

I don’t remember him, but she’s right—I was young and stupid and drunk.

I just wanted to party and have fun and there was a small little liquor store that all of us knew would sell to minors.

Chris could have worked there I guess. I never really paid attention.

I take another step backward as her furious gaze falls on Chris’ lifeless body. She’s right, we’re all to blame.

“And Sarah?” I ask as I take another small step backward. This time my heel hits something hard, stiff. Chris’ corpse.

“Oh, that fucking bitch,” Julie rolls her eyes and closes the gap between us.

I don’t have time to think. I reach down, pulling the handle.

It’s stuck, lodged deep in his chest. Fuck!

I pull again, and this time, I can feel the blade loosening from its bloody sheath.

Spinning, I hold up my weapon just in time to stop Julie from pouncing on me.

Her eyes go wide with horror and white hot fury.

“They had evidence that Jonathan wasn’t driving that night, did you know that?

” Julie says as she sidesteps, circling me like a carnivore would their prey.

I keep the knife held high. “They could have put you and Abby away for a long time for pulling his body from the car and staging the scene to make it look like he was driving.”

The truth of her words hit me like an icy wave breaking against the shore.

My lungs collapse under the weight of her words.

She knows. She knows that I killed Jonathan.

I killed the man I loved and then staged it to look like he was responsible.

I’m not just guilty of his death but also of ruining his reputation.

I was the good girl. The smart girl with a scholarship.

I couldn’t go to prison. He was already dead.

I assumed that no one would be harmed by what I’d done. I was wrong.

“Sarah was an intern at the lab. She compromised the evidence. Her negligence is the reason you walked free while everyone spat on my brother’s grave and called him a delinquent, an addict who got what he deserved. He didn’t deserve it though. Did he, Danica?

Before I can answer, she pounces. Her body collides with mine as she jumps on me, tackling me to the ground.

We both fall to the dirt, clawing at each other's skin and hair as we wrestle on the ground. The knife is still clutched in my hand, but I can’t use it, can I?

She turns us, using her thighs to pin me beneath her.

“He was mine! Mine!” Her voice echoes through the empty expanses of the night around us as she screams down at me from above. The look in her eyes is both desperate and wild. “And you took him from me.”

Her fist collides with my face with such force that my vision goes black.

My head whips to the side but she doesn’t relent.

She hits me again and again. I feel her knuckles snap through my skin, warmth coating my skin as blood splatters across my face.

My fingers tighten around the knife handle as I feel my consciousness begin to slip away.

I feel like I hear something in the distance, but everything seems so far away.

“You stole him from me, and now you’re going to die, bitch!” Julie spits out as she continues to attack me.

Realization hits me—it’s going to be me or her. And I don’t want to die.

Bringing my hand up with what little strength I have left, I plunge the blade into Julie’s back.

The knife slices into her with ease as she shrieks in horror.

She flails, attempting to disentangle herself from me, but I hold tight.

Warm, sticky blood coats my fingers as I pull the blade back out and sink it back in, stabbing her in the back once, twice, three more times. Her screams fill the night air.

Shoving her weakening form off of me and onto the ground, I heave in a full breath.

I turn my head only to be met with Julie’s pained gaze.

Blood pools around her limp form as she lays dying and defeated in the dirt.

I don’t stay to watch the light leave her eyes, I can’t.

I push off the ground and up to my feet. And then I run.

There’s lights off in the distance. Red and blue streaks paint the sky from between the trees.

The police. My sister must have gotten my messages, she must have called them.

Relief floods my system, forcing tears to prick my eyes.

I’m going to make it. I’m going to get out of here.

I run with every ounce of strength I have left.

My legs are numb, but I just keep going, desperate for help.

And then I see them, I hear them. I throw my arms up, waving them frantically.

They see me and stop, the lights blinding me and forcing me to throw my hand up to cover my eyes.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” a uniformed officer calls as he slides from the car.

“Please, help me. There’s a girl back there. She killed them all. She tried to kill me too,” I manage to choke out between sobs. I don’t know when I started to cry, but my cheeks burn with salty tears.

He approaches me cautiously, almost nervously. But as he gets closer, I sense his strength and warmth. Knowing I’m safe, I collapse to the ground, my knees giving out beneath me.

“Woah!” he hollers before sweeping me up in his arms. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” His warm brown eyes stare down at me with such compassion, and I know that everything is going to be okay.

I thread my arms around his neck, allowing him to carry me back to his car. He smells good, like warm vanilla. I breathe him in and let his muscular form comfort me.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers as he places me delicately in the passenger seat and buckles me in. As he leans across me, his stubble scrapes my cheek and tickles me. “You’re safe now.”

He offers me a warm smile,and for some reason, I believe him. I am safe now.

Rounding the car, he slides into the driver's side. I can’t help staring at his veiny forearms. His dark hair is shorter on the sides than on the top.

His skin is a rich tanned tone that compliments his dark features perfectly.

I can’t help the way my body responds to him.

He’s my savior—my hero. The car rolls slowly down the road, the gravel crunching beneath the tires.

When we take the final bend, the headlights shine down on the campsite, illuminating the horrors below.

Blood and gore cover the earth. This place is soaked in death.

But my eyes fall to an empty patch of dirt. A pool of blood stains the ground where I stabbed Julie. But her body and the knife are gone.