“That’s cool,” I said. “I get it. I’m not that much older than you, you know. I’ve been through all the same shit.”
“I know,” he said. “Believe me. I know everything about you, Lana.”
And here I thought I was so good at keeping secrets, at hiding myself away from the world. Beck, Luke, Langdon… they had all figured me out.
“You can call me Lane,” I said.
“Lane,” he said, as though he were testing it out on the air. “That’s a really gay name.”
“So,” I said. “How do you want to play? You think of something and I guess what it is?”
“Don’t you know how to play twenty questions?” he asked.
“It’s been a while,” I said. No, I’d never played twenty questions.
“I’ll change the rules a little,” he said. “You can ask any question. It doesn’t have to be just yes-or-no answers. We don’t have all night.”
He sat on the edge of the grave, dangling his legs over the edge, kicking his heels against the dirt. He gazed up at the sky and seemed to be thinking. In the moonlight, he was an angel in a parka. If he’d sprouted wings and flown away, I wouldn’t have been surprised. “Okay. I’m thinking of something.”
I watched his face. It was perfectly still, carved from stone. But there was a flicker of something. I knew how lonely he was. I knew because I had been lonely like that, too, all my life.
“Just get me out of here,” I said.
“No,” he said. He was cool and certain. “Play with me.”
30
“Is it a person, place, or thing?”
“It’s a person,” he said. “But it’s also a state of being.”
“Male or female?”
He gave me a look. How ironic that I would ask, his face seemed to say. “Male. That’s two questions,” he said.
Beck said something unintelligible, and I looked down at her.
“Shut up!” he barked at her.
I don’t think Luke saw me jump. I knelt down to Beck, and she suddenly seemed so much paler, weaker. She was drugged, probably starved, dehydrated. I put a hand on her and her skin felt cool-that couldn’t be good, right? Shock or something like that? She opened her eyes at my touch and all I saw on her face was fear; it opened something up in me. I realized how deeply fucked we were, and bit back panic. The brain seizes in panic, and I was already out of my league. She reached for me and whispered something, but I could barely hear her.
“That’s cheating!” he said. He held the gun now and I could see that he was getting angry.
“She doesn’t even know what’s happening.”
“Yes,” he said petulantly. “She does.”
I stood to face him, and I could feel Beck’s hand on my leg. “Young or old?” I asked.
“All ages,” he said.
“Look,” I said. “Can we just end this? Why are you doing this?”
“Three, four, and five,” he said. His kicking grew rhythmic, and he was biting on the edge of his thumb. I began pressing my toe into the earth again. It felt like I was getting deeper. A few more inches, I thought, and I might be able to lift myself out of the grave. I thought I heard something on the air then. Was it a siren? The wind picked up and a light snow started to fall. I could feel Beck shivering. Were we going to die out here tonight?
“Do I know someone like this?” I asked.
“Quite a few, I’d say.”
“Am I like this?” A little deeper.
“You are, but you don’t know it.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Honestly? I had no idea what he was getting at. I mean, really, I was intellectually shut down. All I could think about was getting Beck and myself out of the hell we were in. Luke cocked his head, seemed to be listening to the night. I used his diverted attention to kick harder at the foothold and my toe slipped in deeper to the frozen ground. My hands were shaking from cold and fear.
“Where do men like this live?”
“Everywhere,” he said. “Anywhere.”
Beck was tugging at my jean leg but I was ignoring her. If I looked at her again, I was going to fall apart and risk Luke’s anger.
“Don’t look at her,” he said. “Look at me.”
His ankle was well within my reach. But if I pulled him into the grave, we’d all be stuck. The flakes falling from the sky were sharp and cold. The snow had already started to stick to the ground. If I was going to make my move, it would have to be one motion. I’d have to step up hard, grab his ankle, and push myself up and pull myself out at the same time. Maybe he’d be too surprised to shoot. How much experience could Luke have with guns?
I couldn’t even think of another question to ask. Luke and I locked eyes.
“Do you give up?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
I heard a moan from up above, and Luke looked toward the sound. Then he bounced up out of sight. Langdon’s arm slowly disappeared as he was dragged away from the edge.
“Luke,” I called, but he didn’t answer.
After a second I heard an ugly thwack. Then again. The sound of it made my stomach turn, but Beck was pulling at me harder. I bent down to her. This time I heard her. Her breath was hot in my ear as she whispered the answer.
I felt myself reel back from her. But even in my utter disbelief, I knew that what she said was the truth. Part of me had known it all along.
When I looked back, Luke was standing above me. He held the shovel in his hand, and there was a fine spray of red across his face and jacket.
“Next question,” he said.
I pretended not to notice that he looked like a horror-movie killer standing there, blank, empty, covered with blood. I tried to offer him a loving smile. Isn’t that what we all want, really, deep inside? Just to love and be loved? Well, maybe not everyone.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Langdon used you. I get that none of this is your fault.”
He made a little noise somewhere deep inside his throat, and for a moment I thought he’d break down with relief. His face did a little wiggle, the corners of his mouth twitching. But then I realized he was laughing.
“Is that what you think?” he asked. “That he used me? That pathetic gay pedophile? No.”
I did it in one motion. I dug my foot in hard and lifted myself up high enough to grasp the edge and pull myself up. Luke already had the shovel lifted by the time I landed on the slick ground, but I rolled away before he could bring it down.
It landed with a thud, spraying dirt and sharp cold flakes of snow inches from my head. But I was up quickly. And in the next second, I was diving at him, throwing all my weight in his direction. I caught him by the waist and we both fell hard to the ground, Luke issuing a thick groan when my body hit his.
I had his wrists. The shovel had fallen out of reach, and the gun sat uselessly on the edge of the grave. He struggled at first, writhing beneath me, issuing a strangled yell of rage. But I held him down, and after a while he started to sob. Big, gulping, pathetic sobs.
“You’re right,” he said. “He did use me. He molested me and used me to get to you.”
“I know the answer,” I said, still pinning him.
“No, you don’t,” he wailed.
“I do. The answer is ‘brother.’ You’re my brother.”
He drew in a little gasp, all his fake wailing drying up instantly.
“She told you,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at me. “You cheated. You didn’t win.”
“No,” I lied. “I knew it all along.”
“I’m your half brother,” he said. He almost spat it at me. The tears left his voice and it was suddenly flat as glass. “We don’t have the same mother. Your mother is dead. He killed her because he wanted to be with my mother. But instead he went to jail-because of you.”