Chapter 44: Endgame

Chapter 44: Endgame

After Wendell carried Prudence away, Joseph looked around him. “Molly?” he called out. He didn’t see her anywhere. She must have gone to find Samantha and Veronica. That’s where he needed to go to save Samantha before Veronica killed her.

A hand reached out to grab his ankle. The boy who’d nearly burned Prudence alive looked up at Joseph, his face covered in sweat. “What happened to me?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,” Joseph said. He helped the boy into a sitting position. “What do you remember?”

“Everything.” The boy started to cry. “My God. Three hundred years like this. How could we let this happen?”

“It’s all right. Everything will be fine now.” Around him, Joseph saw the other children similarly reviving, looking at each other as if for the first time. Many of them, like the boy, cried from the shock. The only one who didn’t seem fazed at all was a girl with honey-colored hair in a light blue dress. She stared at Joseph, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. He went over to her and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Everything is as it should be,” she said. “Veronica has Samantha in the cabin. She’s in the crib right now.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s not important. You know what you must do now.”

Joseph took a step forward and then stopped. “I can’t do this by myself. Not against Veronica. I need help.”

“We’ll help you,” the boy Joseph had comforted said. Around him, the other children nodded. They picked up their makeshift weapons.

“We have to be careful, though,” Joseph said. “She has Samantha. We can’t let Veronica hurt her.”

“We won’t,” one of the girls said. “She’s the closest we’ve had to a mother.” The other children agreed with this assessment. It occurred to Joseph as they marched towards the cabin that this was why Samantha kept leaving him to come back here. These children loved her like a parent and she like her own sons and daughters. All this time he’d thought she did it out of misplaced loyalty or as an excuse to keep from seeing him. Only now did he see how wrong he was about everything.

As they neared the cabin, Joseph picked up a rock from alongside the path. He didn’t see any other safe way to get Samantha than to hope this show of force caused Veronica to surrender. If not, then maybe they could negotiate a solution. He would volunteer to trade himself for Samantha. Veronica would agree to that so she could get rid of the algae and use the Fountain of Youth again. Unless she had become too unstable to care about the fountain anymore. Someone who would have her best friend burned at the stake couldn’t be too stable.

He reared back to hurl the rock through a window of the cabin. A moment later, he saw a head of curly black hair and a pair of brown eyes peer over the top of a crib. Samantha! Joseph’s heart leapt at the sight of her. Before he could wave or call out to her, a pair of hands ripped her from the crib.

Veronica opened the door, Samantha tucked under her arm like a bundle of laundry. She surveyed the line of children with their makeshift weapons. “Look at that, the Lollipop Guild is armed for battle,” she said.

“Let Samantha go,” Joseph said.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you Prince Charming? Did you really think you’d walk up with your little friends and I’d hand her over to you?” Veronica took a knife out of her belt to hold at Samantha’s head. “We’re going to walk out of here and there’s nothing you can do about it unless you want your girlfriend to get a lobotomy.”

“She’s not the one you want,” Joseph said. “Take me instead. I’ll help you get rid of the algae.”

“Joseph, no!” Samantha said.

“I don’t think so,” Veronica said. “Fatty is mine.”

“I can’t let you take her,” Joseph said.

“You can’t stop me,” she said, taking a step forward. The children behind Joseph whispered to each other, the grip on their weapons loosening. “You see, Prince Charming? I win. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to put Fatty here on a boat for Seabrooke and then I’m going to dump her body next to your father’s. After three days I bet he’s not smelling too good.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Joseph said.

Samantha reached out towards him as Veronica passed by. The tips of Samantha’s right hand brushed against his fingers. Then she was gone. Veronica walked past the line of children, a smile fixed on her face.

After she disappeared into the trees, one of the boys said, “Come on, let’s go after her!”

“We’ll set an ambush for her along the road and take her by surprise,” another suggested.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Joseph said.

“We can’t let her get to the boat or she’ll kill Samantha for sure,” one of the girls said.

Joseph considered this, tears coming to his eyes. The girl was right. If he did nothing, Samantha would surely die. If he tried to rescue her, Samantha would very likely die. The odds either way were not good. “All right, let’s go,” he said.

The children let out a cheer and then took off running. Joseph lagged behind, in no hurry to witness Samantha’s death. As he walked, something Veronica had said stuck out in his mind.

She had told them her plan. Granted this might be arrogance on her part, but why tell them where she planned to go so they could try to intercept her as they were doing now? Unless her plan wasn’t to head for the boat. He stopped in the middle of the path, a shiver running the length of his body.

If she didn’t plan to get to the boat, where would she go? The fountain cave maybe, but to get there she would need to double back. Where else could she go? A horrible thought occurred to him. He broke into a run.

#

As they entered town, Veronica kept running straight along the row of shops instead of turning right towards the boats. “You said we were going to the shore,” Samantha said.

“We’re going to a shore,” Veronica said. “I think you’re in need of a good bath.”

“What? No,” Samantha said. She kicked at Veronica as hard as she could, but it did no good. “You wuh die once they find you. Wet me go and save youself.”

“Your boyfriend might kill me, but I’ll die happy knowing you’re going with me,” Veronica said. “We’ll go out together like a couple of old friends.” She took the heart necklace out from under her shirt. “Best Friends Forever.”

“Veronica, this is cwazy.”

“Is it? I think we’ve both known this day was coming. I had been hoping to live a good long time without you, but in a way it’s more appropriate this way, don’t you think?”

“Veronica, pwease, we can find a way,” Samantha said. Veronica continued to trot along the path towards the stream. Samantha’s heart sank as she heard the sound of water. She didn’t have much time left.

“What are you afraid of?” Veronica asked. “Don’t tell me Miss Rough-and-Tumble G-Woman is scared to die. Being in this fat little body must be making you soft.”

Samantha considered this. All her years in the Bureau she had charged into harm’s way, not caring if she lived or died. Even as a child on Eternity death didn’t scare her so much, because she had so little to live for. But ever since she had met Joseph life had gained new meaning. Now she really did have something to lose. “I wuv Joseph. Can’t you unduhstand that?”

“It’s so adorable when you say it like that,” Veronica said. “It really touches my heart.” She wiped a fake tear away from her eye. The sparkling waters of the stream came within sight now, beckoning to Samantha. “Think of it this way, when you die you’ll get to see him again. If you believe in all that Christian shit about Heaven and Hell.”

“I don’t want to hut Joseph,” Samantha said. “Haven’t you ever wuved someone so much you never wanted to hut them?”

“Life is pain,” Veronica said.

“I know your parents were mean and—”

“Shut up! Stop trying to pretend you understand me. You don’t. If you did, you never would have betrayed me like you did. You never would have abandoned me for him!”

“I didn’t abandon you. You were awways my fwiend.”

“I’m sick of your lies. I ought to cut open your throat right now.” The knife hovered over Samantha’s throat. She waited for the blow, but Veronica lowered the weapon. Tears had come to her eyes again. “Why couldn’t you love me? Why couldn’t anyone love me?”

Veronica knelt down at the edge of the stream with Samantha still tucked beneath her arm. “No one ever wanted me. Not you, not my worthless parents. None of you ever cared about me.”

“That’s not twue. I did wuv you. You were wike my sister,” Samantha said.

“Do you still wuv me?” Veronica asked, a hint of menace in her voice. “Am I still your sister?”

“I wuv the widduh girl I met in kindygarden,” Samantha said. “I wish she wood come back.”

Veronica shook her head. “No, it’s too late for that. But at least we can die together like sisters.” Veronica got to her feet and started to wade into the water. Samantha took a deep breath, knowing her only hope lay in outlasting Veronica once they went underwater.

The water reached up to Veronica’s waist, seeping into Samantha’s shoes, when she heard Joseph call out, “Wait!”

Veronica turned around so that Samantha could see Joseph standing on the shore, his empty hands raised. “You’re too late,” Veronica said.

“Let her go,” Joseph said. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

“Of course there is.” Veronica gestured to the water. “Samantha and I are going for a swim. You can join us.”

Veronica began to wade out of the water. At the shore, she threw Samantha against a rock. Samantha’s head banged against the stone; she felt blood when she touched the back of her head. Through dimming and swirling vision she watched Veronica approach Joseph, her knife raised.

“I might as well finish off the whole family tree,” Veronica said. “First your mommy, then your daddy, and now you. Then I’ll take care of your little girlfriend.”

The dying words of Joseph’s mother rang in Samantha’s ears. I won’t fail again, she thought as she wobbled to her feet. Joseph backed away from Veronica until his foot caught a loose stone. He fell down and rolled onto his back, both hands raised as a feeble defense. Veronica stood over him, her knife raised over her head to strike.

As the blade arced downwards to tear into Joseph’s chest, Samantha threw herself between them. The knife plunged into her stomach. Joseph caught her as she fell, pressing her close to his chest. “Samantha, no,” he said.

“I’m sowwy,” she said. She looked down at the blood spreading across her tattered princess costume. “I pwomised.”

“How sweet,” Veronica said. A smaller knife appeared in her hand. “It only changes the order in which you die.”

She brought the knife down towards Joseph, aiming for his throat. Halfway into the swing, her hand stopped, hovered shaking in midair, and then dropped the knife. She looked down at the handle of her own blade sticking out of her chest. “At least we go together,” she said, collapsing to the ground.

Samantha’s breathing turned ragged, the color draining from her face. She had kept her promise to Joseph’s mother. No harm would come to Joseph now. He took her bloody hands in his, squeezing them as tightly as possible. “Please don’t go,” he said. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m sowwy,” she said again. The world around her faded away so that she could only see his face. In that instant she saw not the face of a little boy, but the man she’d fallen in love with. “I wuv you.”

“No, Samantha, please. Don’t go. Stay with me.”

“I can’t,” she said. His face faded away into darkness. Her breathing slowed to stuttering gasps. She felt cold, so cold. She wanted to ask Joseph for a blanket, but couldn’t make a sound.

She heard him crying and wished she could tell him not to be afraid. He would find another woman to love as much or even more than her, much as she’d found him after Andre died. Sometimes you did get a second chance at love. She was glad Joseph was hers.

Then she felt his lips touch hers and the darkness exploded into red light.