The Games We Play | ✓

6. A VOICE AS DEAD AS HER

06.
[A VOICE AS DEAD AS HER]

—

LILY'S DEAD VOICE rang through the speakers.

If all I could do
Is spend summer with you

The softness rendered Charlotte silent.

Sun kiss the seaside and swim in the waves

Even Reed couldn't deny how beautiful her voice was.

If all I could do
Is spend summer with you
I'd make it a movie and put it on loop

They killed Lily in an alley behind the concert venue.

They were cruel about it too, debating where to knife her right in front of her. In the end, Reed stabbed her three times in the stomach as Charlotte held her hand.

As Reed plunged the knife into Lily's delicate skin, Charlotte watched the life bleed out of her. She watched the trust and the hope evaporate from those once loving eyes.

There wasn't anything quite like watching the light go out in someone's eyes. It was like stealing the flame from a fire or the air from a wind. It was the ultimate robbery.

"Had fun being Quinn for the night?" Reed questioned, wiping the blood from his hands. He looked at her, eyes so compelling, anyone else would've gotten lost in them.

"All the world's a stage," Charlotte grinned, taking a dramatic bow.

She had always been a master at feigning friendship. She knew just what to say and just how to act to gain someone's trust. People were easy to toy with. They believed any lie as long as it was sweet. They eagerly gave their trust away to monsters like Charlotte, who took it and cruelly broke it down under false pretenses.

In a way, it was a double murder. With each victim, Charlotte killed off a character of her own creation. Ellie and Quinn – names as temporary as the life they represented.

"What made you pick this one?" Reed asked, referring to Lily.

Lily was an innocent. She smiled like summer and laughed like spring. She had high hopes and colorful dreams that matched the sweetness in her eyes. She held a rare light that had yet to be taken away.

Charlotte shrugged, "She checked all the boxes. Pretty little girl, all alone in a big bad world, just desperately waiting for her moment to shine."

She liked to think they did Lily a favor. Nothing in the rest of her sad life would have been able to compare to that last moment. If she had lived, Lily would have spent the rest of her life defining herself by Reed Monaro's company. She would have clung to the false hope that he gave her, foolishly believing that she could actually become something. Purity and innocence like that never got far in the real world.

Reed smiled. "We make one hell of the team, no?"

He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. His hand gently ran down her arm, sending a million sparks into her violet veins. It was as if they were finishing the act off with a kiss of death.

"Hm," she whispered against his lips. "You make good bait."

He chuckled, his chest rumbling against her body.

"I must say," Reed remarked. "She was talented."

But talent was nothing in a cruel world. Talent could be lost. Talent could be stolen.

He scrolled through the files on Lily's phone. There were pages upon pages of lyrics, voice memos, and ideas. Priceless, unique, musical creativity that only Lily Sinclair had.

"It'd be a shame for all this work to go to waste," he said. "I think I'll use it."

And so he did.

They stole not only the life of a dead girl, but her legacy. Lily lay helpless as her dreams and lyrics were delivered through the lips of the liars that silenced hers forever.

And the world is too much for me
And five weeks has been far too long

But you never know,
you never know what could go wrong
Never know, you never know what could go wrong.

original song: Tuscan by Healy