Page 6 of The Bargain

“Alright, enough already.”

I surge to my feet. Grabbing William by his collar, I haul him upright.

“Tell me what happened. Now.”

William and Austen exchange a look, a whole conversation unfolding silently between them. Finally, Austen nods, and William looks back at me.

“You might as well see for yourself.”

Birnam Hastings lies unconscious, facedown in a corner of the old boathouse.

It’s cold inside—colder than outside—and I wrinkle my nose at the thick smell of rusted metal and old wood. The floorboards under my feet creak as I step closer, slick with lichen. Tendrils of ivy coil through the broken window frames, pushing into the space like creeping fingers.

I draw a deep breath in and step closer.

Oh god.

Birnam is half-curled, one arm bent awkwardly under his body, the other stretched out, as though he’d tried to crawl before his body gave up on him. The back of his head is dark and sticky, strands of pale hair matted against the nape of his neck. His school shirt is torn at the shoulder, dark with blood.

His face is turned just enough that I can make out the swollen bruises. A jagged line stretches from the corner of his eyebrow down to his jaw, a thick, oozing tear in the flesh that looks like it was made by something sharp. A rock? An oar?

No. My stomach clenches.

A ring.

No. No no no.

For a second, the whole room seems to tilt and sway. I have to brace my knees to stop them buckling, to breathe deep into my diaphragm like Dad taught me.

“Alright,” I say. My voice doesn’t even sound like my own. “Alright.”

“He’s alive,” Austen says quickly, like he’s trying to reassure me. “I checked his pulse, Dess. He’s breathing.”

I ignore him. Turning abruptly away from Birnam’s inanimate body, I grab William’s arm, raising it into the thin ray of moonlight slicing through the open doorway.

His fists are black with blood. On his pinkie finger is the signet ring he’s been wearing since he was sixteen. I wrench it off him—he doesn’t even try to stop me. Inside the seal, blood has coagulated like a deformed garnet.

I look up at William. He’s staring me in the eyes, refusing to look away. I know what he’s saying. Yes, we did it. No, we’re not going to lie to you about it.

So I ask the next most important question.

“Why?”

And finally, William’s gaze drops. He looks away, hesitates, glances at Austen. Austen sighs, wipes his hand over his face, smearing blood spatters across his cheeks.

“We have to show her,” William whispers.

His voice comes out raw and broken. I’ve never heard him like this. My heart tightens. I’m struck by the sudden and jarring realisation that my brothers are no longer the little boys who would hold my hand on the beach, running out to find me perfect seashells, then straight back to me if they’d tripped and hurt themselves.

They’ll always come running to me when they trip and fall—only their falls are different now.

Now, when I’m going to be wiping blood off them, it’s not even going to be theirs.

“Alright, yea,” Austen says, voice breaking. “Let’s show her.”

He pulls out his phone. His phone case, too, is covered in blood. He swipes his thumb across the screen, hesitates, taps on something. The blue bubble of a message pops up. Austen’s face darkens, his jaw clenches; the phone shakes in the force of his grip.

And then he shows me the text—the one Birnam Hastings sent before all this happened.