Page 26 of Last Summer
Time to pay for your sins, you bitch.
Chapter thirteen
WRONG TURN
DANICA
DANICA
Monday Midnight
Holy fucking shit!
Holy…
Julie is Jonathan’s twin sister. Why didn’t I see it before? Their eyes are exactly the same. She didn’t just love him. From the looks of her phone contents, it appears that she was obsessed with him. And they weren’t just siblings either, they were— can’t even bring myself to say it, to think about it. It’s so wrong. The man I thought I knew, thought I loved, was someone completely different. From what I can see on her phone, it looks like Julie spent all her time pining over him until he died.
Cold, sinking dread turns my veins to ice.
She knows.
She knows what happened.
She must know. That’s why I’m here. And why Abby is here. Julie orchestrated the entire thing to get revenge on us. Butwhat about the others? They don’t have anything to do with Jonathan’s death…Do they?
A smart person would run. An innocent person would get the cops and bring them back here.Fuck!I have already lost enough this weekend, I’m not letting Julie take anything else from me.
Putting the truck into gear and flipping a quick U-turn, I swiftly head back towards the campsite. If it’s a confrontation she wants, then it’s a confrontation she’ll get. I make sure to send as much evidence as I can quickly find on her phone to the only number I know off the top of my head while keeping my other hand on the wheel. If I don’t make it out of here, at least there will be evidence of what Julie did. I beg them to call the police, to send help, but at this hour of the night, who knows if my sister will even be awake. We haven’t talked much lately. She didn’t approve of some of the life choices I was making. It all came to a head when she told me that she couldn’t watch me throw my life away. If only I could have told her the truth—explained how the guilt and the pain was eating me alive. Hopefully she still cares enough to help. The dirt road twists and turns around ancient trees until, coming out of the final bend, I make out the distinct shape of the yurts against the night sky. This is it.
Parking the truck in the middle of the road for easy access should I need to get out quickly, I stow the keys and phone in the center console, and hop from the truck. It’s eerily quiet here—the sole sound is that of the cicadas calling to each other. The earth is still at this time of night. My eyes scan the campsite. Chris’ body lays right where he fell—bathed in a dark pool of cold blood. His pale face is vacant, his unseeing eyes staring straight up at the moon overhead.
So much death.
So much pain.
Julie is nowhere to be seen. “Hello!” I call out, beckoning her from her hiding spot. “Julie?”
Silence.
I take a tentative step forward. Then another. The gravel of the ground crunches beneath my shoes.
“I just want to talk to you!” I cry out into the darkness.
“Talk?” Julie’s voice is soft and smooth, like a warm caress across my skin. I spin to see her standing in the doorway of the furthest yurt. Her curvaceous outline is bathed in the glowing light coming from behind her. What was she doing in there while dead bodies surrounded her? “You want to talk, Danica?”
Something about the way she says the last part is unsettling. She’s like a predator, luring me in with the promise of safety, while secretly preparing to strike. I need a weapon but all that I see are sticks and rocks. Shit.
“I know that Jonathan was your brother,” I tell her as I frantically scan my surroundings for something, anything, to defend myself with. “I know that you loved him.”
She scoffs as she pushes off the frame of the door, descending the steps towards me. “I didn’t love him, Danica. He was the other half of me. We shared a womb, we shared a birth, we shared our lives, our love…everything!”
She’s spiraling. Her rage is hot and palpable. Something metallic catches my eye off to my right—the knife. It’s sticking straight out of Chris’ torso. Julie is closer. If I run for it, she’ll get there first. I need to keep her talking.
“I get why you’re mad at me, Julie. Why you’d want to hurt me. But why the rest?” I pivot, side stepping around the firepit, making sure to keep distance between myself and this psychotic bitch.
Her laugh is heartless, cold. “Did you really not know that Abby was fucking your boyfriend?”
Her words don’t make sense. Abby and Jonathan? Wouldn’t I have known? They barely talked.
