The Ends of the World (The Conspiracy of Us #3)(41)

Her arms were crossed over her chest, and the tube that must have held the scroll with the cure lay beside her, open and empty. Scattered around her body were jewels and baubles of all colors and shapes, shimmering in our flashlights, and on her head rested a gold diadem, its center, above her brow, forming a sharp point.

Elodie pulled out her phone to take pictures from every angle. "There is so much history here." She gingerly picked up a piece of jewelry from the casket, and looked around. "The Circle's been looking for this their whole existence." She stood up accusingly, and turned to the twins. "How did you find it?"

Lydia just shook her head. Cole laughed.

"It doesn't matter right now," Jack said. "They're not going to tell us. Let's get them out of here before they have a chance to call backup."

Cole laughed again, then spit right on Jack's shoes. "You'll never get out of here alive. We have people waiting outside. They'll kill you." He turned to Lydia. "I don't know how we ever got a Keeper who was so gullible."



       
         
       
        

"Walk," Jack said, obviously trying to hold his temper. They pushed the twins up the stairs. I started to follow. Elodie lingered on the pyramid floor, taking in as much as she could in the short time we had. I knew we'd send people back to look-and come back to look ourselves-when we could, but it was hard to see all this and just leave.

"It's true," Cole went on from partway up the stairs. "Just the fact that you think we changed. We didn't change. We've always done what had to be done, haven't we? You were too stupid to see it. We even used you to do it."

"Cole," Lydia warned. "No."

"What do you mean?" Jack said.

"I bet you still, after all this time, believe that what happened to Oliver was your fault. Well," he said, correcting himself, "it was, technically. Instead of doing your job, you were kissing my sister. This one," he clarified, nodding at Lydia, "since there are enough of my sisters you've kissed that we have to specify."

I remembered that, too. On top of the drama with Elodie and Stellan, Lydia had kissed Jack the day Oliver Saxon died.

Jack was rigid. "Keep moving," he snapped. We had stopped at the top of the stairs, at the small platform just inside the door, and he pushed them out and down the stairs, toward the water.

"We could have terminated you for that. I was all for it. Lydia was nice enough not to, since she'd done it on purpose. You've always been too soft when it comes to the Keeper," he chided Lydia. "You're just lucky he's even softer."

"Wait." I came up behind Jack and squinted into the dark at Cole. "What do you mean Lydia did it on purpose?"

"Only because I wasn't told what was going to happen," Lydia said under her breath. And then, louder, "Cole, that's enough."

Jack was blinking down at them. Below, Stellan had stopped, too, so we all waited just above the water. "Are you telling me . . . You're not saying you killed your brother."

"Of course we didn't kill him. We-" Cole rolled his eyes at Lydia's intake of breath. "Fine, I just let it happen, but everyone later realized it was for the best. We'd been in an alliance with some other families for years. Our brother wanted to stop it, so instead, he was a martyr. It primed the Circle for what's happening now. And it just happened to work out that Lydia wanted to make sure the Keeper stayed around. She didn't have him under her thumb anymore. It was easy enough to let him believe it was all his fault, then act like we forgave him so he'd have to be loyal to us." 

Jack just stared at Cole. "You killed Oliver and let me think it was my fault. You killed Avery's mother. You killed Fitz."

"Well . . ." Cole squinted into the distance. "Probably not quite yet, but . . ."

I had to have heard him wrong.

"Cole, no," Lydia pleaded once more, but it was too late. It was way too late.

"What do you mean by that?" Stellan sounded lethally calm.

"How stupid are you?" Cole said. "How else do you think we got here? The old man can hold up to a surprising amount of torture, but everyone snaps eventually."

My lungs were collapsing. I couldn't breathe. "Fitz is alive?"

Cole shrugged. "Barely."

It only took a second, but I did realize what was happening. I didn't try to stop it.

Jack swung his gun away from his guard on Lydia. And he shot Cole Saxon in the head.





CHAPTER 15



Cole dropped like an abandoned puppet, falling into the water. Lydia screamed, the sound reverberating around the cavern. And she kept screaming as she abandoned any pretense of being a good hostage, throwing herself into the water by her brother. She kept screaming as Elodie emerged from the pyramid and ran down the stairs.