45. Elody

45ELODY

I climb to my feet, tightening my grip on the knife. Max crawls away from me and toward his saviors, one hand pressed to his arm like it might actually fall off, even though I barely grazed him. And I’m the dramatic one. He looks at me with terror in his eyes, like I’m a monster, and it hurts. All of this hurts.

But here’s another secret: ever since things started to fall apart today, I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to do this anymore. To keep playing this game, waiting around for everyone to realize it’s been me the whole time. Dying for them to finally see me. I’ve been lost, stalling as I try to decide how this story ends, but now I know what I have to do.

This is my island, and I’m taking back the fucking control.

I paint on a smile.

“The classic fake-your-own-death bit,” I say, turning to Kira, alive and well. With a gun aimed at my chest. “You really had me confused for a minute there.” I clock Corinne and Logan. “Oh, but you had help, didn’t you? Corinne got everyone outside to be your little search party while you snuck back in and snatched the safe right out from under me. So clever.”

One look at Corinne’s face tells me I’ve got them completely, and I laugh.

“I bet this was your idea, wasn’t it? Ouch. I really thought we were a team, babe.”

“We’re not a team,” Corinne snaps.

I wince, sucking air through my teeth. “Ooh. Pretty sure the contract you signed would disagree.”

“Put the knife down, Lacey,” Kira repeats, her knuckles white around the gun.

I hold up my hands, letting the knife fall to the sand. “Okay. God. I mean, you’re the one with a gun in my face.” I wait, my heart thudding, but she doesn’t move. I smile. “Well, come on. I’m dying here. How’d you figure it out?”

“Your birthmark,” Corinne says. “After I saw the picture from Max’s DMs … it took me a while, but I saw it when you went out to swim, and I realized.”

I fight a pulse of shame, remembering the way she looked at me when I was walking down to the beach. I thought she was embarrassed or sad for me, but really she was watching. Thinking. God, I can’t believe I was that careless. I didn’t even try that hard to cover the birthmark up. I guess I didn’t count on anyone who makes a living as an influencer being clever enough to figure it out, even one smart enough to be on my team.

“So you went to Kira with your little fake-death idea.” I look back and forth between them. “A little dramatic, but I get it.”

Standing a few steps behind them, Logan shifts, her jaw clenched.

“Oh, sad.” I pout at her. “They didn’t trust you enough for their little plan, did they?”

“I don’t give a shit about the plan,” Logan says. “We got you. That’s all that matters.”

I grin now, because I realize they don’t know everything. I still have the upper hand. “Actually, you don’t, though.”

“We caught you with a knife two inches from Max,” Kira says. “I’m pretty sure your own cameras will prove the rest.”

For the first time, I see Max’s camera in Corinne’s hand. My heart shudders, but I keep calm. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to work a camera.

I look right into the lens.

“Oh, but that’s the thing, babe. I only ever kill in self-defense.”

Corinne scoffs. “Right. Because everyone else you killed just happened to have a gun on you, too?”

My smile gets even wider. “So even my little assistant didn’t figure it out.”

Max gives Corinne a confused look.

“Ugh, catch up, babe,” I tell him. “Corinne’s been helping me out this whole time.”

“I didn’t know I was helping you,” Corinne says. “I didn’t know you were going to do this!”

Okay, now I’m pissed. Corinne didn’t know I was behind this, fine. And she didn’t know anyone would die, but she knew what she signed up for. Tilly made that clear enough, as per my instructions. All I did was what I said I would, what we agreed on: I made these assholes pay. So what if I went a little off-script?

“First of all, I didn’t kill anyone,” I tell her. “Well, except Aaron, but that’s different. Second, you should be thanking me. Like, maybe I had to scare you a little with those messages saying to keep following instructions or you’d be next, but come on. We both know there was never going to be an Instagram post exposing you, so you had nothing to worry about. And McKayleigh can never screw anyone over again. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“What I wanted,” Corinne says through gritted teeth, “was for her to live with the consequences of what she did. You took that away from me.”

“Sure, babe. Be a victim if that makes it easier for you.” I take a step toward them, and Kira shifts the gun. I hold up my hands, trying to keep them steady. “I never would have killed you, by the way. Any of you. Not unless you made me. I meant it: only self-defense.”

Kira lowers the gun a little. “What does that mean?”

“Um, exactly what I said? I only killed Aaron. And that was kind of a life-or-death moment for me, babe.”

Another flash in my memory of the look on Aaron’s face as he held the gun to my chest. So smug, like for the first time ever, he was one step ahead. Nice to meet you, Lacey. His breath hot on my skin.

Kira’s face gets this haunted look. “Then who killed everyone else?”

I watch her for a few seconds, making her wait. Even Corinne doesn’t answer, and I realize she must not know either. I smile, letting the tension build, because even though the masks are off now, I live for a performance.

“Now, that’s where this gets interesting, doesn’t it?”

“Lacey said Cole was an accident,” Max jumps in. “He got drunk and fell.”

Ugh. I know he’s trying to be the smart one, but it would be a lot more convincing if he wasn’t literally cowering on the ground right now.

“I don’t believe you,” Kira tells me.

I shrug. “Believe me or don’t. But the cameras will prove it.”

Corinne takes a breath. “The way Cole looked when I saw him going upstairs … I believe it.”

Finally. I mean, how hard is it for my literal assistant to back me up for once?

“After Cole, I messaged Tilly that the plan was still on—just a little revised,” I say with a smirk. “We’d go ahead with the votes and the Instagram posts, only now, we’d let everyone think there might be a killer running around the island. See how far we could really push you.”

Watching the confused horror flood their faces, I laugh out loud. I’m having a literal supervillain monologue moment, and maybe it’s cliché, but it’s also fun as hell.

“And it was even easier than I thought,” I tell them. “All it took was a dead body and a few threatening messages for Zane to crack.”

Logan deflates.

“Graham was right,” she breathes. “Zane killed McKayleigh.”

“Ironic, right? Graham started to figure out what was going on just in time to get knifed in the shower by his old bestie Aaron.”

“Prove it.” Kira takes a step forward. “I don’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth.”

“You know what? Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.” Tapping on my watch, I open my voice recordings, and flash Max a smile. “It’s funny. We had the same idea. But I guess I did it a little better.”

I press PLAY, and the sound of the waves comes through the speaker. Then, McKayleigh’s annoying accent, high and panicked.

“I swear, Zane, I’ll tell everyone what you did.”

“Yeah? And how’s that gonna go for you?”

“I’m not the one who killed Jenna.”

I watch as Jenna’s name hits Logan. Her eyes widen.

“Well, you sure as hell went along with it,” Zane says.

“I’ll tell the truth. Graham and Logan, too. All three of us. They’ll be happy to let you take the fall. And honestly, wouldn’t that be better for you anyway?”

Zane breathes through the speaker. “What?”

“I mean, what do you really have going for you outside of the Bounce House? Face it. We’d be just fine without you. Honestly, we’d be better, ’cause that crap you’ve been pulling with all those girls? That’s a liability, hon.”

“Shut up.”

Footsteps, and then running. Zane grunts, and McKayleigh squeals.

“Get off me! What are you—”

“SHUT UP!”

A sickening crack, rock against bone. Everyone on the beach freezes, the blood draining from their faces when they realize what they just heard. If I were a nice girl, I’d stop it here. But I’m not a nice girl, and I want them to hear it. Zane breathing, cursing, calling her name. I want them to hear him realize what he’s done. When they all look good and sick, I press PAUSE.

“Believe me now?” I ask.

They’re all silent.

“But no. That doesn’t…” Kira’s eyes shift like she’s doing math. “If Cole was an accident, and Zane killed McKayleigh, and Aaron killed Graham, then who … what happened to Zane?”

I sigh, because this part makes me sad. It really does. I know she deserved to be punished like the rest of them, but still, I see so much of myself in her. All that anger. The spark that just might burn it all down. So, I decide to give her a small mercy: a choice. A chance to say it in her own words.

I turn to Logan. “Do you want to tell them, babe, or should I?”