Page 119 of The Last Time I Lied

“Oh, I know. That’s why you came back here, right? Trying to find out what happened. Snooping around just like I did. As a result, look what happened to your new best friends.”

Her mention of the new girls catches me off guard. I spend a millisecond wondering just how she knows about them. Then it dawns on me.

She’s not real.

She has no power over me.

I’m stronger than everyone realizes.

Strong enough to understand that Vivian isn’t a ghost haunting me. Nor is she a hallucination. She’sme. A fragment of my distressed brain trying to help me figure out what’s happening.

Which is why I stare her down and say, “You know where they are, don’t you? You know where I can find them.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not real,” Vivian says. “That’s your motto, right? I have no power over you?”

“Just tell me.”

Vivian moves on to another statue, hugging it from behind, her chin resting on its delicate shoulder. “Let’s play a game, Emma. Two Truths and a Lie. One: Everything you need to know is already in your possession.”

“Just tell me where they are.”

She shifts to the statue’s other shoulder, her head coyly tilted. “Two: The question isn’t where to find them but where to findus. As in me and Natalie and Allison.”

“Vivian, please.”

“Three,” she says. “As for where we are, that’s not my place to say. But I can tell you this:Ifyou find us, maybe—just maybe—I’ll go away and never come back.”

She slips behind the statue, temporarily eclipsed. I wait for her to pop into view again on the other side. When a minute passes and she doesn’t appear, I take a few weak steps toward the statue.

“Vivian?” I say. “Viv?”

There’s no answer. Nor is there any sign of her presence.

I continue my approach, picking up speed on my way to the statue. When I reach it, I peer around its marble shoulder.

Nothing is there.

Vivian is gone.

Yet her parting words remain, hovering in the middle of the clearing like moonlight. Those three statements. Two true, one a lie.

I have no idea about the first two. Like much of what Vivian said while she was alive, it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false.

As for her third statement, I hope it isn’t a lie.

I want it to be the truth.

Every word of it.

36

I return to Dogwood the same way I left—zigzagging around the cabins to avoid being spotted. The helicopter seems to have packed it in for the night. So, too, have the search boats. When I get a glimpse of the lake, I see no activity on the water. It’s just an empty black mirror reflecting starlight. But the camera is a different story. I know it remains, ever watchful, which is why I slip to the back of the cabin and hoist myself inside through the open window.

Mindy’s snores tell me she’s still asleep. Good. I get to avoid having to explain both where I’ve been and where I plan on going next.

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