44. Max

44MAX

Her eyes land on the rock, its ridges pressing into my sweaty palm, and the look on her face isn’t fear. It’s hurt. And then anger.

“Go ahead.” Her eyes water, glowing blue. “Do it, Max. Bash my head in. Is that what you’re going to do?”

I falter, my grip loosening, and it’s a moment too long. She lunges, grabbing my wrist so quickly that I drop the rock. I reach for it, but she knees me in the stomach, holding down my wrists while I writhe from the pain. I look up at her, breathing hard, the ends of her long hair brushing my neck.

She laughs. “That’s the thing with you. You’ve always been too scared.”

That laugh. There’s something about it. It’s too loud. Too messy. It reaches down under my skin, pulling up what I’ve been pushing down this whole time, and now I see. Underneath the dyed hair, the lip filler, and the blue contacts, it’s all there. Her face is slimmer, but I know the slope of her cheeks, the small brown mole at the nape of her neck. It was all there, but I just couldn’t see it.

“Lacey,” I breathe.

She smiles, leaning in close, and says against my mouth: “Took you long enough.”

And before I can ask any of the thousands of questions on the tip of my tongue, she’s biting it, her mouth covering mine as she pins me down.

“Wait—”

Something cold and sharp presses into my neck, bringing me back to my senses.

A knife.

She grins, perfect teeth glowing in the moonlight. Those teeth that used to be crooked, one bottom tooth crowding over another.

“Wait,” I beg. “Please.”

“Oh my god, chill. I’m not going to kill you.” She traces the knife from my neck to my jaw, her eyes flashing. “Yet.”

My pulse beats against the blade. “It was you. You did this.”

“Shh.” Lacey puts a finger to my lips. The knife still hovers, centimeters away from lethal. “It’s my turn to talk now, babe.”

She brushes my hair from my forehead, gentle even with the knife against my neck, and when did she start calling everyone babe? I know so much about the girl pinning me to the ground, but I don’t know anything. I don’t know who this girl has become.

“You know, I really thought you’d recognize me sooner,” she says. “I had this dumb little hope that the first time we kissed, you’d know. Like, boom. Fireworks. If you did, maybe this all could have been different. But it’s like I said: I tell myself stories. We both do. And I guess that was just another one.”

Her smile is so sad that I want to do something to make it go away, but I’m frozen to the ground.

“It was supposed to be different,” she says. “I didn’t plan for anyone to die, just so you know. I’m not an actual psycho. But then Cole happened, and everything started to fall apart.”

“Cole?” I choke out. “What do you…”

“Oh, yeah. Total accident. He was drunk off his ass and trying to sit on the balcony railing. I wasn’t sure at first, but then I went back and listened to the recording.” Lacey bites her lip, tracing the line of my eyebrow with the knife point. “I really did think about calling the whole thing off after that. But then I had this crazy idea. When we first found him and we were all scared … for a second, like, I just knew we were all thinking the same thing. We actually thought one of us might have killed him.”

Her eyes sparkle with the same excitement they used to have when she would talk about her favorite Broadway shows, childlike and unashamed.

“So I started to wonder … what would happen if I ran with it? If I made everyone think there was really a murderer on the island.” She laughs, trailing the knife from my brow to my cheek, pausing at the corner of my mouth. “That would make for some pretty good TV.”

The anger boils over, and I forget my fear. “What kind of TV network would air a show where people get murdered?”

“Oh, babe,” Lacey croons. “You probably should’ve figured out by now that this was never really for TV. Honestly, I’m surprised none of you caught on. ‘IRL,’ the whole ‘hashtag-canceled’ bit … like, ew. It was literally so cliché. But what can I say? I’ve always been a little dramatic.”

She moves the knife against my throat, sending shivers through my whole body. I dredge up enough courage to ask:

“Why did you do it?”

She laughs. “You’re not the only one who can make documentaries, babe. Actually, you kind of inspired me. When I first saw your Jared Sky doc, I was pissed as hell, but then I realized … it’s kind of poetic, isn’t it?” The knife presses harder. “Catfish exposes a catfish. So I thought, how perfect would it be if I could do the same thing to you? And then I started thinking of all the people who deserve to get exposed. How maybe it was time to show everyone what kind of people their favorite influencers actually are.”

So many questions flood my head, but I can’t think with the knife pushing on my throat, almost breaking the skin.

“Lacey, please,” I beg, ashamed of the desperation in my own voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I should have told you I was Jake. You deserved someone better.”

She laughs, throwing her head up to the sky, and there it is again—an echo of the old Lacey, the girl who didn’t care that people thought her laugh was annoying. The girl with the laugh that grew on you, like vines climbing up an old building until they’re part of the architecture.

“Do you really think I didn’t know it was you?”

Cold leaches into my bones. “You knew?”

“Of course I did. Like, ‘Jake Hardin’? Are you kidding? Also, I’m pretty sure the picture you used was a guy from an old Disney movie.” She laughs again. “Yeah, I knew it was you. But I went along with it anyway. It’s just like you said before. You were always so embarrassed of me, but I thought maybe if you just got to know me, really know me, then you’d know: it’s me and you. Always was.” She runs her thumb along my bottom lip, the knife jutting from her fist. “Honestly, I thought you knew that I knew. I figured you were just too embarrassed to admit how much you liked me.”

She knew.It should feel like a weight off of my shoulders, but it only feels heavier, pushing me deeper into the sand. Because the truth is, she’s right. I didn’t have to keep it up for as long as I did. I didn’t have to stay up late, going blue-light blind in my bed, my heart pounding when I saw her start to type another message.

And then it hits me. What else this means.

“The picture,” I say.

“It was for you.” Her lip twitches, her eyes filling. She curses and wipes the tears, smudging her makeup. “You’d think by now I’d be done letting you make me cry. But I guess it’s my own fault.” Her hand tightens around the knife. “I should have known it was over when you ghosted me again, but I kept hoping it was only because you were afraid. But then, I heard from a camp friend that there was a picture of me going around. A friend who didn’t even go to your school, by the way. That thing got around.”

Lacey looks at me with so much pain in her eyes that logic fades. I know she brought us here, that she’s done terrible things, but I still feel bad for her. Because it was me. I did this to her.

“It broke me, Max.” Tears fall now, quiet and flowing. “And it wasn’t just the picture. It was you. The fact that it was you who did that to me. But then I realized that I had an opportunity. You didn’t want me as Lacey, so I’d become someone new. Someone you’d want. I’d make you see what you could’ve had.”

She laughs, snorting a little. “Obviously, that got a little easier when I started getting hot. Because actually, that year after you dumped me, between fifteen and sixteen? I finally had my glow-up. Hips, boobs, the works. It was like magic. Well, magic plus some trips to Mom’s favorite doctor.” Her face darkens. “No, you know what? It wasn’t magic. It was work. And it wasn’t easy. It hurt.”

She traces the knife over my lip, pressing just hard enough that I feel blood wetting my skin. Seeing it, her breath catches. She runs her thumb over the blood, smearing it across my chin, her teeth flashing.

“But it was all worth it because I got to be Elody Hart. And she was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” She smiles, almost looking like the girl I knew. “Even better than you.”

“Lacey, please,” I whisper. Her name. I have to keep saying her name, remind her who she is. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do, though.” Her face crumples. “That’s the thing. I had everything, but it wasn’t any better.”

“Lacey—”

“Stop calling me that.”

I search her eyes for the scared girl behind all this anger. “What do you mean, it wasn’t any better?”

“My life.” Her voice is raw and thick. “People look at me now, and all they see is something to fuck or a way to sell their stupid shampoo. My own mom only ever wanted me when she realized what I could do for her.” Her lip quivers. “Do you know what that’s like, Max? To be a product?”

I shake my head.

“Well, Mom finally got what was coming to her. Since we’re sharing secrets…” Her knee digs into my rib, and I wheeze. “I was there when it happened. I could have saved her. But I didn’t. Because when she was lying there on the ground, gasping for air … I realized I had another opportunity. A chance to break free of her. Of all this shit.”

My head spins, struggling to keep up. Lacey let her mom die. Lacey, who has a knife pressed to my throat.

She smiles, like she’s loving this. “Monica may have been a bitch, but she came through with the will. Gramps was loaded. He left her the family island a few years ago, and she left it to me.” Lacey gestures around us with a weak flick of her hand, almost sarcastic. “So, I started making a plan. Doing my research. I found Tilly on this weird online forum, telling everyone the Bounce House did something to her friend. Turns out she wasn’t just some clout chaser making things up. After that, everything started coming together. We dug up secrets, figured out who we wanted to punish. I would stay on the island, and Tilly would be on the mainland, controlling the messages and the Instagram account. It was perfect. The only thing I was worried about was that you wouldn’t come. But it’s like fate, isn’t it?” Her fingers brush my forehead, combing through my hair, a sad smile curving on her lips. “And here we are.” The smile falls, her eyes turning desperate. “But you get why I had to do it, don’t you? I mean, don’t you ever feel sick, knowing that none of it is real?”

My heart hammers in my throat, mixing with the crash of the waves, the thrum of my blood against her blade.

I take a breath, knowing that it could be one of my last.

“I get it,” I whisper. “I do. But do you know what is real?” I swallow, my neck moving against the cool metal. “I love you. I still love you, and I was always too stupid and scared to show it.”

She blinks, her lips parting.

I reach for her wrist, and gently move her hand and the knife away from my neck, cupping her face with my free hand, searching her eyes.

“It can still be us,” I tell her. “It always was.”

When I kiss her, she gasps softly, tensing and then relaxing into me, kissing me back. I bury my hands in her hair and trace my fingers down her neck, her spine, rolling on top of her. When my mouth finds her neck, she sighs, arching underneath me, her fingers loosening around the knife.

And that’s when I grab it from her hand.

Her eyes fly open.

“No!” Lacey grips my wrist, wrenching the knife toward her with a growl.

She pulls hard, the blade slicing across my arm. The pain shocks the wind out of me, giving her time to roll out from under me, the knife in her hand. I crawl backward, hot blood slicking my palm as she lunges toward me.

I catch her wrist, pushing her back, but she grabs my arm, pressing her fingers into the wound, and I cry out in pain. She shoves me back to the ground, and with one hand, she squeezes her bloodied fingers around my throat. With the other, she raises the knife. The blade glints in the moonlight.

I claw at her, but my throat is burning. She’s so much stronger than I thought.

“I really wish it didn’t have to happen like this,” Lacey says, tears shimmering. “But, babe … you kind of asked for it.”

She brings the knife higher, and I close my eyes, bracing for the flash of pain, for death.

“Put the knife down, Lacey.”

That voice. I turn my head, because I’m not sure I really heard it, and for a second, I don’t think I’m seeing right, either. But no, she’s there. She’s real.

Kira, leading Corinne and Logan down the beach like a movie hero, the gun in her hand.