This whole batch could kill almost half the community. Or more specifically … the men.
She closes the box and hands a few vials to me. “Hide these.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere, as long as we can keep these away from Lawrence. If he sees them, he’ll know it was me,” she pleads. “Please, you have to take them. You’re the only one I trust.”
I don’t know how to answer that. Even though I want to help her more than anything, am I ready to do this? Am I ready to risk my own life for … murder?
“You have to do this,” she says. “You know this can’t go on for much longer.”
I nod. “I know.”
THUD!
The loud bang makes me turn my head in shock.
“Interesting book you have there, Marsha.”
It’s Patrick.
He’s standing right in the door opening. He’s been here the entire time. He’s heard everything …
And he knows my mother tried to poison her husband, and that I’m helping her cover it up.
Chapter 22
Natalie
With the vials still in my hand, I completely freeze.
We’ve been caught red-handed.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
What do I do? Where do I go?
It’s too late; there’s no way to hide this.
“There’s no use in lying, ladies,” Patrick says, casually leaning against the doorpost. “If you wanted to hide your crimes, you should’ve thought about that sooner.”
“What did you hear?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Everything.” The smirk on his face is insufferable, and I want to smack it right off. “I can’t believe you thought you could get away with this.”
“Natalie,” my mother murmurs, side-eyeing me.
“What? You wanna silence me?” He chuckles, crossing his arms. “Think you can stop me?”
My mother suddenly picks up the small light standing on the nightstand, and she throws it at his face. He dodges, but the lamp shatters into a million pieces.
“What the—” he growls.
But before he can finish his sentence, she’s already thrown herself on top of him. She’s punching and kicking him in the stomach, trying to get him to go down, but he’s too big and muscular for her to bring down on her own.
Then he grabs her by the waist and picks her up, throwing her over her shoulder. “Simmer down!” he growls.
“Put her down!” I yell. “Don’t you touch her!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, she attacked me,” he yells back. “Why do I even care? You two are going to hang anyway.”
My eyes widen.
Hang?
No. No, no.
Fuck!
“I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell the president his own wife and daughter tried to kill him,” he says. My mom is slapping his back, trying to get him to drop her, but it doesn’t even seem to faze him.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I growl at him.
His lip drags upward. “Watch me.”
And then he turns around, putting my mother down on the ground only to grab her arm as if he intends to offer her up as a sacrificial lamb.
“Let me go!” she screams. And as she glances at me with terror in her eyes, something suddenly clicks.
I lose all self-control.
Like a mad bull, I bolt straight at him, head down, arms stretched out. And without thinking, I ram into him as hard as I can, shoving him forward.
Straight over the balustrade.
Right before she tumbles over too, I grasp my mother’s hand and hold on tight.
Patrick screams.
CRACK!
Silence follows. The floor underneath his head stains with blood, the puddle growing bigger and bigger. And I stare at the scene below like it’s straight from my nightmares.
Did I just … kill him?
Noah
I drop the book I was reading in the study and rush out the door … and run straight into Patrick’s limp body. One glance up onto the balustrade from which he fell tells me enough.
Natalie and her mother are there, glaring at the body.
Did they push him off?
“He saw us,” Natalie hisses.
I frantically look around. All the patriarchs are busy preparing in their rooms for the daily prayer that’s about to happen in a few minutes, but I’m not waiting around until they come out. If any of them see this, they’ll hang my wife.
I immediately grab Patrick’s body and start hauling him, but he’s heavier than I thought.
Natalie and her mother come rushing down the stairs, and Natalie grabs his legs to help me out. “Where to?”
“I don’t fucking know, but he has to go! Now!” I growl. “What the hell did you two do?”
“He saw us with the vials. Heard us talk,” Marsha explains.
“And you killed him for it?” I growl back while dragging his heavy body.
“He would’ve gone straight to the president!” Natalie barks. “What else was I supposed to do?”
I look up, completely stunned. “You killed him?”
They both look at me as if it’s a weird question to ask.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” I hiss at her mother. “Help us.”
“C’mon, in here,” she says, as she guides us along into a hallway up ahead. “To the women’s room.”