Page 66

66

BLAKE

Please open the door, Whitney. Please…

I am fading fast. I can barely even stand up anymore without holding on to the doorframe. I have too much saliva in my mouth, yet I can’t seem to swallow it. None of this is good.

I hope the hospital has an antidote to whatever it was that Krista gave me. I don’t even know what the hell it was.

Just as I’m about to ring the doorbell again, the door swings open. I expected to see Whitney standing there, but instead, it’s Krista. Oh no, it’s too late. But on the plus side, I only see one Krista. At least I think it’s Krista. Maybe I’m starting to hallucinate.

“Blake.” She reaches out to grab my arm. “Come inside. Where have you been?”

I follow her, trying to do my best to hide the fact that I am actively dying. “I was…driving.”

Shit, are my words starting to slur? Not good.

“Driving? Where did you go?”

“I told you. I went to Telmont.” I wipe some drool out of the corner of my mouth because I can’t seem to swallow right anymore. “I…I went to talk to Whitney’s mother. And she told me…”

Krista arches an eyebrow. For a second, there are two of her, but then she’s back to being one again. “She told you I’m Whitney.”

“No, I saw the photo, and…” I wipe my lips again with the back of my hand. “I don’t understand. If you’re Whitney, then who is…”

A dark shadow passes over Krista’s face. “An impostor. A girl who stole my name while I wasn’t using it. You can see why she needed to pay the price.”

“Pay the…”

And that’s when I catch sight of the living room sofa. The girl I knew as Whitney Cross is lying slumped down, her midsection drenched in blood, which has leaked all over the fabric of the couch.

I’m too late. I couldn’t stop her.

I step into the living room, trying to get a closer look, but I can’t walk right anymore. I almost fall, but Krista catches me at the last second before I go down. She supports me for a moment; then I grab on to the wall to help me stay upright.

“Oh Christ.” I rub my temple with my other hand. “Krista…”

“Don’t be such a soft touch,” she snaps at me. “She deserved it. Just like you deserve it for what you did. You and Stacie.”

“That was nothing .” I do my best to get the words out clearly. She needs to know this. “It was a onetime thing, and I regretted it immediately. I felt awful about it. I didn’t care about Stacie. I cared about you . I loved you .”

Her lips twist into a grimace. “Do you still?”

I don’t know how to answer that question. How can I tell her that I love her after everything she’s done? I don’t even know who she is. And on top of that…

“You tried to kill me,” I point out.

“Tried?” She smirks. “It looks like I’m doing a pretty good job of it, actually.” Her gaze rakes over me. “How are you feeling right now, Blake?”

She knows I ate the cookies. Of course she knows—I practically fell on my face two seconds ago. I was kidding myself thinking that I could hide this from anyone. My speech is slurring, I can’t walk a straight line, and I’m back to seeing two of her.

“It was tetrodotoxin,” she informs me. “You know, the stuff that’s in blowfish that’s supposed to be so toxic? Usually, death results from respiratory failure within four to six hours.” She looks at me curiously. “How long since you ate the cookies, Blake?”

I don’t even know. I think it’s been about three or four hours. And now that she mentions it, it does feel a little difficult to breathe all of a sudden. I am leaning against the wall now to keep from collapsing, and even that is not going to be enough in a few minutes.

“There’s no suicide note,” I manage.

“What did you say?” She bats her eyes at me. “You’re slurring your words quite a lot.”

I try again, enunciating every word: “I. Ripped. Up. The. Suicide. Note.”

“Oh.” She waves a hand. “No problem there. I’ll write another one. I am very good at those.”

I fall to my knees, knowing that I won’t be able to get back up. This is it. I am not going to be able to survive this. I don’t want it to end right here, right now, but what can I do? I can’t call 911. I can’t even work my fingers anymore.

I can’t believe Krista did this to me. I loved her. I wanted her to be my wife.

And now she’s standing over me, watching me die.

Except a second later, she’s not standing over me anymore. She’s on the floor next to me. Our eyes meet, and suddenly, the front of her white tank top turns bright red. She opens her mouth to say something, and blood drips from her lips.

“Krista?” I gasp.

I look up, and Whitney is standing over us, swaying on her feet, gripping a knife so tightly that her blood-speckled knuckles are white.

“Krista!” I do my best to crawl over to her. I’m not doing so hot myself, but she looks even worse than I do. She is literally choking on her own blood, which is now coming out of her mouth and out of her back, soaking the floor beneath us. “Krista…”

“I’m calling 911,” Whitney says in a shaky voice, clutching her blood-soaked abdomen.

I crouch over Krista, watching the life drain out of her. I don’t understand how she could’ve watched me dying a few minutes ago and felt nothing. Because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to watch. Even harder than when my mother died. Because I never expected to have my mother forever, but I thought I would grow old with Krista.

“Please don’t die, Krista.” Despite everything she did to me, my eyes fill with tears. “I love you.”

Her lips crack open, and a bubble of blood forms at her lips. “You…don’t…even…know me.”

“I do,” I insist. “I know you. Come on, Krista. Hang in there.”

As Whitney talks on the phone to the 911 dispatcher, I pick up Krista’s hand. It’s cold and clammy. Her eyes are still cracked open though—she’s still alive and conscious but barely.

“I love you,” I say again. “I know who you are, and I love you. Please…”

For a split second, a ghost of a smile touches her lips. But then her eyes flutter closed, and suddenly, her body becomes very still. My gaze drifts down to her chest. Is it still rising and falling? Has she stopped breathing?

“We have to do CPR,” I tell Whitney.

She hangs up with 911, and she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “CPR? Blake, you can barely breathe. And I’ve got a stab wound.”

“I know, but…”

She’s right. Even if I could remember the right ratio of breaths to compression, I don’t have it in me. I can’t breathe for another person when I can barely breathe for myself.

Krista is going to die. The life is draining out of her before my very eyes.

And the truth is it’s exactly what she deserves.