I nodded, trying to process everything. “So with the Billings stuff, you were trying to help me, but still protect your brother.”
“Yeah. I’m such an idiot.” He looked over as the sirens whooped to life and the ambulance carrying Cheyenne zoomed off, followed by two police cars. “Like he needed so much protecting.”
His eyes filled with tears and his bottom lip quivered. I put my arm around him and squeezed, my heart filling and swelling and breaking for him. First he’d lost his mother, then his sister, and now Graham. I couldn’t imagine what this was doing to him.
“Sawyer?”
We both flinched, and I let go of him. Mr. Hathaway jogged toward us, his tan trench coat billowing out behind him, a haggard look on his face. I saw his car idling at the curb as he swooped in on Sawyer and wrapped him up in a hug.
“What happened, son?” he asked. “What happened?”
Sawyer just started to bawl. He cried all over his father’s sweater, clutching on to him for dear life. I stood up slowly as his dad whispered into his hair. Now it was my turn to tactfully walk away. A few yards off, Graham stared out from the back window of the police car—staring at the family he’d destroyed. Can’t say I didn’t warn him.
At the bottom of the steps, Ivy, Taylor, Kiran, and Noelle had all gathered. I joined them slowly, feeling more broken and tired with each step.
“So,” Noelle said.
“So,” Ivy echoed.
“Detective Hauer told us they arrested Daniel Ryan at the airport,” Taylor said. “He was the one who tried to kidnap you tonight, and the second he realized Trey might have seen his car, he bolted.”
“Okay, I don’t know who has the more effed-up DNA, the Kane-Martins or the Ryans,” Kiran said, splaying her fingers.
“It’s a toss-up,” I replied.
“Do you think we could maybe get together one time without any cops involved?” Taylor asked.
I snorted a laugh, but it was a short-lived one. “There’s still one thing I don’t get. How did Graham get hooked up with Cheyenne in the first place?”
“My money’s on Paige,” Noelle replied instantly, shaking her still drying hair back fro
m her face. “We already know she was buddy-buddy with the alums who tried to kill you guys on your birthday, so clearly she bought into all that curse crap too. She’s probably known all this time that Cheyenne was alive, and when Cheyenne decided she wanted to come after you, she needed eyes at Easton—”
“And Paige knows all about Josh and Jen’s history, so it wasn’t the biggest leap to make, thinking Graham would help her,” Taylor finished.
“In a disgusting, twisted way, that actually makes sense,” Ivy said, shaking her head.
“Holy crap. Ivy Slade just agreed with me,” Noelle said jokingly. “Does anyone have a pen so we can write this down? I need witnesses.”
Ivy rolled her eyes and shoved her hands into her pockets, drawing her jacket closer against a cool breeze. “Well, we already know Paige tried to kill Reed. I’ll bet when it didn’t work and she got locked up, Cheyenne convinced Daniel to do it, and when that didn’t work out, she moved on to Graham.”
“Notice how she never had a plan that involved getting actual blood on her own hands,” Noelle said flatly.
“Are you kidding?” Kiran blurted. “Blood is far too messy for Cheyenne Martin.”
“Well, she ended up covered in it anyway,” I said, staring off after the ambulance. “It just turned out it was her own.”
We took a collective deep breath and I turned to look up at the castlelike home Cheyenne had apparently spent the past few months locked up inside. I couldn’t help remembering what it had looked like the night of our off-campus Christmas party last year. All the windows aglow with light, happy revelers waving around champagne glasses, a dozen overprivileged and life-clueless kids hanging out in the hot tub. That night I had felt truly included for the first time—like a real Billings Girl. I had thought that Noelle, Kiran, Taylor, and Ariana would be my best friends forever.
Until about an hour after we left, when Ariana tried to kill me.
“It’s so weird,” Taylor mused as if reading my mind. “The last time we were here, we were all together . . . even Ariana. We had no idea how insane things were about to get.”
“Oh, things got weird way before then,” I said, looking down at my feet as I cradled my cast with my other hand. I scuffed my sneaker against the edge of the stone step. “They got weird the second I stepped on the Easton campus.”
Noelle made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe the propaganda,” she said. Suddenly, an overwhelmingly heavy sadness threatening to drag me under. “You are, aren’t you? You think you really are cursed.”
My friends exchanged incredulous looks as my eyes stung and blurred. “I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel really, really unlucky.”