but I can’t. I look up to watch the length of it move through the beam. Tears stream down my face as I stand, the chair moving beneath me on its wheels.
He’s going to hang me.
He’s going to hang me like his father hanged my father.
The chair stills.
“I got you, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
I try to drag in a breath.
“Don’t worry. Get on your feet now. Up. That’s it.”
I can breathe. There’s some slack in the rope. But as soon as I’m on my feet, he tightens it again, and that slack is gone, and I’m on tiptoe again.
If he moves, if he lets the chair go, I’m dead.
I look down at him and he looks up at me.
“You don’t want this,” I say, words choked.
“No, you’re right. I don’t want it for you. But I can’t let you go. Don’t you see? It has to end. And you’re the sacrifice. One way or another, you were always going to be the sacrifice. I’m sorry, Cristina.”
I think it’s the first authentic thing he’s said to me. And behind the madman, I see him again. I see that boy. The scared, hurt little boy.
But I also know it’s too late. Too late for him. Too late for me.
That’s when I hear commotion coming from outside
“There he is,” Lucas says, the Joker-like tone back, the madman. He switches the monitor on my father’s desk on. We watch the men gathered outside. Tobias and Damian walk to the front door and open it.
I’m surprised Lucas’s men are gone.
“Leave your weapons at the door,” he yells loudly. “And you come in alone, Brother. Alone or she swings,” he calls out. “I’m watching.” He’s behind me keeping the chair from rolling.
“I’m coming alone. Do not hurt her.”
“Aww. He does care,” Lucas says to me, making a face that makes me want to punch him or kick my foot into his nose. But if I do either, I’m dead. He lets go of that chair and I will swing.
The door opens a moment later and I take in Damian’s face, his eyes, as he sees me. As he sees the only reason I’m not dead is because his brother has his foot on the leg of the chair so it doesn’t slip out from under me.
“Cut her down and let her go.” He sounds calm, but I hear the tension in his voice. I’m learning Damian. “She has absolutely nothing to do with this.”
I want to tell him to run. To get out. It’s a trap. He must know it. He must smell the gasoline. Lucas is going to kill him. He’s going to kill us all. But every breath is torture, and it’s taking all I have to remain as still as possible.
“Don’t move, Cristina,” Damian tells me. He must see my struggle.
“When did you buy the house? I had no idea,” Lucas asks.
“Let her go, Lucas. I’m here. You have what you want.”
“No, not really. Actually, I don’t have anything I want.”
“Then tell me what the hell it is. Tell me and I’ll give it to you!”
Lucas stops, and I see the change in expression, like something’s dawning on him. And then I see that grin, the Joker-like one.
“You already are, Brother. Everything ends tonight. We all end tonight.”
I hear it before I smell it. A whoosh.
Fire.
Fire catching.
Fire racing to devour the gasoline.
Damian takes two urgent steps closer.
“Stay where you are. You come closer, and I let go of the chair.”
Damian puts his hands up and stops.
“You have to admit, it will be a poetic end, don’t you think? Everything back to where it all started. Sorta. I mean, I can’t take you back to the train tracks, but she hangs like her father did. Like she should have eight years ago. And you and me and Father, we all burn. Like we should have. But only after you watch her die.”
“You are not this person, Lucas,” Damian says.
Do I feel the heat of the fire already? Is that possible? I hear it coming closer. It’s raging.
“I’m exactly this person, Damian. Dad was right to choose me. I am what he wanted. I am exactly that. He must have seen it, too. Recognized himself in me.”
“You’re not like him.”
“I’m more like him than you’ll ever let yourself believe.”
“She’s innocent. Let her go. I’ll burn. If that’s what you want, I’ll burn. I don’t care. Let her go before it’s too late.”
“There’s the answer I was looking for. My brother’s in love.” Lucas turns his face up to