Page 116 of Petrify

The party and all its guests disappeared, leaving behind glasses and decorations and dirty plates on the tables. Golden tinsel and confetti litter the floor, crystal flutes tipped over into puddles of champagne. The piano is still in the center of the room, and on either side?—

Leo and Mariane, bound with hands behind their backs, a loose length of rope knotted at their necks.

Tears stream down Mariane’s cheeks, her blonde hair a matted mess, her makeup ruined.

Leo doesn’t look much better, as his face is sporting purple bruises. His lip is busted and blood dribbles down his chin. His glare is a rain of daggers pointed straight at us.

But they’re totally, completely, eerily silent.

“Baz, what is this?” I can’t move past the threshold. He didn’t tell me aboutthis. “Where is everyone?”

“This isit, Mallary.” He grabs my hands again, pulling me inside. “After tonight, we won’t have to hide.”

He told me he would take care of them in the night—I assumed he meant something placed in their drinks, so they’d never wake again. I just thought?—

There are nooses around Leo’s and Mariane’s necks, strung over old chandelier hooks on the ceiling, the ends tied to the legs of the grand piano I played only hours ago. My eyes trail the line of the rope up, back down to their throats.

They don’t say a word. They don’t beg for their lives, they don’t try to convince me to let them go.

“Just imagine,” Baz is saying, eyes wide with fervor, “the entire estate to ourselves. No one to disturb us. I have all of their money—we wouldn’t be able to spend it all in one lifetime. Think of all the music we could play.” His fingers tighten around mine. I can’t pull away. “I’ll write you a whole sonata. And you’ll make the musicreal—we’ll get you on the stage, and everyone will hear it, everyone will know your name—just like I promised. You won’t have to go back to New York yet.”

By the time he’s done, he’s crushing my hands to his chest, my trembling hands. Watching as Leo struggles to keep his swelling eye open, and as Marianne struggles to keep her composure when there’s rope looped around her neck—I don’t feel anything for them, I know I should be afraid for them, I should be afraid of Bastien.

This isn’t normal, this quiet in my head.

I’mnot normal.

Everyone will know about Jason. Everyone will know I did it. And Bastien—he’s so unashamed of his cruelty, and he’s going to drag me down with him, when I still might have a chance out in the real world.

He must read it all on my face because his grip is steel when I try to wrench myself away. “No, don't look at me likethat. Don’t look at me like I scare you.”

“You don’t scare me,” I say, too terribly soft.

“Notyou. Anyone but you.”

He finally lets go, and I am able to stumble back a few steps, find some air between us to breathe. “They are afraid.” He points behind his back to his parents. “They have every reason to be—theydeserve it. But you.You. What reason have I given you to be afraid of me? You’re still fighting this, aren’t you? When this is who you are.”

“Baz, I am amusician. I’m not—” My throat catches.

I’m not a murderer.

Jason was still an accident.

He’s shaking his head like he doesn’t want to hear it. “I didn’t know who you were until they brought you here, butyouhave been my whole world ever since. A fucking decade locked up in these walls and suddenly you waltz in, and the moment you began to play I knew that we were the same.”

“No, Baz, we’re not. Not like this?—”

He stalks closer to me again and I’m stricken by how beautiful he is, his dark lashes framing molten irises that can’t hide the sincerity in his words. He presses his free palm to his chest, rubbing at his sternum, like his heart aches.

“I would have killed Jason for you,” he says, “I would have saved you from ever having that on your conscience. But you already took care of him. And then when Reece figured you out—I couldn’t let him tell anyone. I couldn’t let him take you from me. I did that foryou. You don’t have to get your hands dirty. Letmedo this for you.”

He’s inches away, close enough I could reach up and wind my fingers in his hair, pull him down to kiss me. It’s the only way I know how to get him to stop.

“We both have this urge, don’t we?” His breath fans my lips and I see the hunger in his eyes, too. “We’re both terrible people.Theywould think we’re terrible. But I’m very good at keeping secrets and soon I will befree.”

I expect Mariane to wail, to chant her pleas, to beg him to let her go just this once.

This is his final offer, I realize. His proposition. If he does this, he is beholden to no one.