Fear Games

12. The Devil Within

ESME STOOD UP off the ground, looking at me in horror. She looked more than hurt. She looked angry. "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

I backed away from her, clenching my fists. "It all makes sense now," I said softly, trying not to panic. "The killer was you this whole time."

The rain fell from the heavens above all around us. I nearly slipped on the mud backing up, but quickly regained my balance. My best friend was a killer.

"And what the hell makes you think that?" Esme spat. "Why would I go through all of this trouble to kill people? Especially people I don't even know, huh? And what about the Noah thing? I would never hurt you like that, Rachel."

I didn't believe her. Before I could even stop myself, I was running, trying not to trip on the mud, to get away from her. She called after me, but I couldn't stop. I got to Ryan's car, which was still burning, and tried not to look. I didn't want to see him burning.

Except something felt strange. I didn't smell burning flesh as I ran by. That's when I noticed Esme also wasn't chasing after me, but was instead still sitting by Elijah's car, sobbing into her hands. I walked over to Ryan's car, with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked inside the car, only to realize that Ryan wasn't in there.

"Esme..." I called, slowly stepping away from his car. "Esme, I think we have a problem."

I started running back toward her, but screamed when I saw someone come up behind her. I called her name, screaming at her to turn around, but before she could move, the killer jammed his knife into her jugular, and I watched blood spill out on the ground.

And holding the knife was Ryan.

He smiled at me, pulling the knife out of her throat, letting my best friend fall to the ground. "Surprise, bitch. It's me."

Panic washed over me, consuming me. I didn't have time to cry over Esme. I had to get out of here. "Ryan...you're...you're..."

"You're...you're..." he mocked, grinning at me as he twirled the knife around in his hand. "The killer? Why yes, I am. Of course, I'm astonished that it took you so long. I mean, blaming your best friend before you blame me?" Ryan took a step closer to me and I took a large step back. "What a thing to say to your friend before she dies."

My heart pounded in my chest, getting ready to explode. "It was you the whole time. You set up the Fear Games house. You were the one who blackmailed Isaiah." Speaking of him, where the hell was he?

"Of course it was me, you stupid little whore," Ryan said, taking a few more steps closer to me. The rain was falling so hard that I couldn't see beyond a few feet in front of me. "You must be dumber than I thought, because I didn't think it'd take this long."

I couldn't believe it took me this long, either. "I don't understand...I just...why would you do this?"

Ryan groaned. "God, do I have to explain everything to you? Aren't you lucky that I love storytime?" He continued to twirl the knife as he spoke. "Tell me this. When you met me, I'm pretty sure you were immediately attracted. I could tell just by the way you looked at me. That should have been your first clue."

"How?" I asked. "How was I supposed to know then?"

Ryan laughed. "You weren't. But I thought after spelling out my brother's name on the walls of the house, you would have put the pieces together."

Brother. The word tightened around my chest, nearly suffocating me. Noah was his brother. The resemblance now was uncanny, with the same type of black hair, same facial structure. In fact, he looked almost identical to Noah now that I knew the truth.