The brightness that comes into his eyes then has all the confidence of someone who’s sure their answer will be all three: what I want, what is right, and the truth. He beams all that brightness onto me. ‘I didn’t love her more than you, you know I didn’t. I did love her, but with you it’s always been different. Easier. Better.’ His smile is sad, eager. ‘I chose El because you’re right, she needed me more than you did. I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t.’
I let out a long, slow breath. ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’
He hears something in my voice, some remnant of anger that I’m no longer trying so hard to hide. He withdraws his hands, his smile disappears. It hasn’t worked, his perfect answer, and he knows it.
‘Cat, this is beginning to feel a bit like an interrogation, and I’ve just about had enough of them. I told you I didn’t kill El. I would never have killed El. But if that’s what all these bloody questions are leading up to, I’ll tell you again. I didn’t do it.’
I don’t answer him, barely manage to look at him. But a part of me – the good little girl who has never been able to learn that love can’t ever be trusted, still – still – wants to comfort him, wants to press the pad of my thumb against that deep frown line between his eyes and smooth it flat.
Emboldened, he sits up taller. ‘I mean, think about it, Cat. You must have. If I’d wanted to kill her, if I’d organised it all down to the most minute detail like that fucking oily lawyer said, why would I screw up my alibi so badly? Why would I have let a witness see me leave? Why would I have left my phone on? And why the fuck would I have left all that so-called evidence lying around the house? That Treasure Trophy stuff was juvenile crap, and you know it. He twisted it, just like he twisted us.’ He’s angry now and can’t help directing some of it at me. ‘And you let him. You helped him.’
‘Maybe I believed him.’
‘You didn’t!’ He bangs his fists on the table, making me jump, and the prison guard looks over. Ross lifts up his palm again, drops his head, but when he looks back up at me, his gaze is anything but submissive. ‘Why would I do it, Cat? Why the fuck would I have done any of it?’
I think of that terrible day under the willow tree when he cupped my face in his hands, tried to catch my tears with his thumbs, his eyes full of grief as I begged him Don’t, please. I think of him barefoot, in old jeans and a Black Sabbath tour T-shirt. His messy hair, his dear and familiar face. The filthy, wonderful words he always whispered against my skin: the promises, the kindnesses, the hope. The fierceness with which he held me, touched me, kissed me. As if nothing else mattered. As if there was no one left in the world but him and me. How much I wanted that to be true.
And I think of a child who chose to believe in superheroes and fairy-tale villains rather than in anything real. Anything sharp enough to wound, to cause scars that she’d be unable to forget. To unsee.
‘You did it because, one day, we might have sailed away from you again,’ I say. ‘Because you couldn’t trust us to stay. Better to be sure. Better to make us. So you lied and you manipulated, and you drugged and you plotted, and you divided to rule. Because you’re a coward.’ I think of the Shank. I’ll let both of you out, but only if you promise never to run away. If you promise to stay with me forever. ‘Because stealing someone else’s air is how you breathe.’ Stay with me. Be with me. I love you. I need you. El would want us to be happy.
I look down at the plastic tabletop, its stains and scratches. ‘You chose El because you thought she was weaker than me.’ I think of her lying in that hospital bed, dark-ringed eyes in a talc-white face, that tired and trembling smile. But I can’t. I can’t. If I think about that, I’ll unravel completely. ‘And you’re so good at it, Ross. You can make someone believe that your want is their want, their idea, their betrayal. And afterwards, when you banish them into exile, you can make them believe that was their fault too.’
‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’
I haven’t heard this voice before. Low, snide, sharp. I wonder if it’s the one he was born with.
‘Mum was the only one who saw you, who knew you for what you were. And she never even met you. She tried to warn us, but she’d brought us up in a dark and exciting world, full of pirates and witches and red poisoned apples. It was why we wanted a sly and handsome Prince Charming who couldn’t ever be trusted in the first place.’
I watch his face change. All his rage twisting and boiling under his handsome, careful mask. And it bolsters my resolve. I prefer him angry. ‘Except that was never what you were, was it? It was never who you were. Are.’
‘What the fuck are you—’
‘You’re Blackbeard.’
Mum pinching our skin, pointing at that black ship always on the horizon. You hide from Bluebeard, because he’s a monster. Because he’ll catch you, and make you his wife, and then hang you on his hook until you die. But you run from Blackbeard, because he’s sly, because he lies. Because no matter where you go, he’ll always be there, right behind you. And when he catches you, he’ll throw you to the sharks.
His eyes darken, his mouth curves up into a sneer that’s pretending to be kind. All that boiling rage is calm now; I’m not worth its trouble. ‘Cat, I think maybe you need to see someone. The last few months have been—’
‘I’ve made a choice, Ross.’ I look at him, commit every line and colour and shadow of him to memory; everything on the surface and everything beneath. This is Ross. This is what I’ll remember if ever I think of him again.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘I wasn’t sure what my choice would be, but now I am.’ I reach into my pocket, take out the small piece of paper. I allow myself just one more second’s hesitation before I put the Black Spot on the table and push it towards Ross. ‘I choose Punishment.’
He reaches out a hand, and then snatches it back. His face is a study in baffled anguish.
‘Cat, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what you mean.’ He looks down at the Black Spot. A single tear splashes against the underside of his wrist. I flatly ignore the clench in my belly. ‘I don’t know what this means.’
I stand up, put my palms flat against the tabletop, lean as close as I can bear to. ‘It means give it up, Ross. I can see you.’
When he looks at me, I recoil from his expression, stumble against my bolted-down chair.
‘You’re witches,’ he says, and his smile is pure Ross: crooked and sexy, slow and intimate. Left canine overlapping his front incisor. ‘Both of you. Crazy, fucked-up witches. You’ve ruined my life.’
The last gasp of doubt drains out of me. I smile, and it’s easier than I ever imagined it would be. ‘You just chose the wrong victims,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’
And then I start to walk away from him, towards the waiting room.
‘No!’ Ross shouts, standing up and lunging for me, squeezing my arm tightly inside his fingers. Hard enough that I know I’ll have to see their black imprint for days. ‘You can’t leave me. You don’t get to leave me!’
Everyone is looking at us. The tall guard is striding towards us, followed by at least two others, even though I’m not afraid, I’m not trying to struggle, I’m not trying to get away. I look hard at Ross, and something in him deflates. His face goes slack, his eyes turn wet and pleading. ‘You can’t leave. You can’t leave me. I didn’t do it, Cat. Please! I didn’t kill her.’