Page 156 of Runaways

"Get me the fuck out of here now!" she screams. "Help! Somebody fucking help me."

"Ugh, god," Silas says, taking the tape from me. "That fucking accent—it grates on my nerves."

"You're ugly, you know that?" Jodie says, spitting at me again. "Inside and out. You fuck them both, too, don't you? I bet your mama is glad she's dead; she doesn't have to see what a nasty little whore you are anymore. God will punish you! I hope you die…slowly and painful—"

Before she can finish the sentence, Silas tosses a few pills into her mouth and tapes it shut, wrapping it around the back of her head and through her hair before tearing it off.

"Let's go," Silas says.

Tate gets up from the sofa and moves toward the door, but I stay there, frozen, her eyes pleading with me to stay, to help, to do something that isn't just leave her here and run off with a couple of serial killers.

"Hey, baby?" Silas says, doubling back. He takes me by the hand and places a hand on my cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. "Don't listen to her. You're beautiful, andthere's nothing wrong with you. I'm going to take care of you now, okay? The way you deserve—the way I should have been taking care of you all along."

She's searching my eyes, perhaps hoping to find that fabled ounce of good. But Tate's right, too. When she learned my name, she came after me with a gun. When I saved her life, she spit on me and told me she hopes I'll die and rot in hell. She called me ugly.

Mia called me ugly. Too ugly to love.

And my mom did call me a whore.

There's a knock at the door. I look at Tate, standing in the back doorway, but it wasn't him.

"Jodie!" Raymond, her boyfriend, calls out. "Are you home?"

His fist pounds against the door again, and Jodie smiles beneath the tape.

"I'll get it," I say, glaring at her over my shoulder while I grab the knife from the coffee table.

She's not smiling anymore.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Silas asks, following me toward the front door. When I don't answer, he pulls another knife from the counter and stands close behind me as I open it.

"Hi, you must be Raymond," I say, smiling. "I'm Lilah; I live in the apartment over the garage."

"Oh, hi, Lilah," Raymond says. "I've heard a lot about you. What are you doing here? Is Jodie home?"

"Yeah, she's upstairs sleeping. I just came over to do some laundry. Come in."

"Oh, well, I worked second shift today, and she asked me to come by after work, but she wasn't picking up her phone. I guess that's why."

Raymond laughs a little, and I step aside, letting him pass me into the home. He removes his jacket, hanging it on one of the hooks near the door, and then he sees her.

And I drive the knife into his back in front of her…not so much for self-preservation as for revenge. Because I loved her, and I jumped in the fucking hole for her.

But there are only two people who would ever jump in the hole for me.

I pull the knife out and stab him again and again, stopping once he falls to the ground.

But he isn't dead. I must not be good at it.

"Help…" Raymond cries.

A sputtering sound comes from somewhere in the back of his throat as he pulls himself forward on his stomach toward Jodie, maybe moving a foot or two, before Tate takes the knife from me, pulls the man's head back by his hair, and slices across his neck deep enough to expose the bone.

I watch the blood run from his slit throat, seeping into the white shag rug beneath him. And I can't help it—I cry.

I did it. I finally gave in and became what they all already thought I was, anyway. In a way, it's a relief—only because I don't have to scream that it wasn't me anymore. I can just let it be.

"Iknewit," Tate says. He releases Raymond's hair, letting the man's head drop onto the floor, and then beams at me like he's proud, but I ignore him.

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