Page 83 of Chaos
“Vegetable lard will work better anyway,” Shasta says confidently. “And it won’t taste goaty.”
“Fridge!” He bellows and points toward the industrial-sized fridge.
I follow his finger. “Is that where Ruby’s body was kept?”
Goose flesh prickles along my skin.
I still can’t believe I missed her funeral. Something akin to shame slithers along my belly. I haven’t even visited her grave.
“Yeah,” Plumberger says, his voice softer than before.
I tug open the door, cold air hitting my skin along with another memory that washes over me.
It was before we went to the gym that day in the snow, before I was taken and kept in the cellar. I was in here with Shane.His hand had just been hurt and he was helping me sort the vegetables when Mitsy came in.
She froze when she saw us.
And she saidgross.
I remember that distinctly.
Mitsy screwed up her pretty little face and saidgross.
Why?
Shasta jostles past me, groping her hand out toward the shelves. “Where’s the shortening? Can you see it?”
“Oh.” I look up, letting the memory slip away, and find the stacks, neatly labeled, on the top shelf. “Up there. I’ll grab it.”
She walks me through the recipe, substituting applesauce and extra baking soda for the eggs Plumberger says we can’t waste on cake, filling muffin tins we find in a supply cabinet, which seems like a safer option than true cakes, considering poison is involved, and we muddle through mixing the batter with the vanilla bean paste Ruby made so long ago.
I imagine her saying,You get that son of a dick,in her raspy, blunt voice as Shasta stands behind me to block everyone’s view.
I shake powdered rat poison into a single muffin cup in the corner of a tray. No book explains needed dosage for poisoning a grown man, but if a rat only needs a nibble, and Ben weighs a hundred times as much as a rat, then Ben needs at least a hundred nibbles. What’s that? A tablespoon? A quarter of a cup? How much is too much?
I refuse to feel guilty. Renata said he shouldn’t live. He swore he’d spend his life ruining mine. Even if you set aside my need for justice, this is the right move.
It’s not revenge.
It’s self-defense.
If he lives, he’ll keep hurting the people I love.
With a grimace, I dump in a little extra for good measure.
BY THE TIME THE CUPCAKES ARE DONE,it’s nearly lunchtime. I’m exhausted, and the chefs are bustling about as they bring vats of what Plumberger is hopefully calling Butternut Marinara Penne Al Dente up to the Tastemaker.
Right before the chefs take the final vat of pasta away, he slaps a bowl out on the worktop and spoons out a serving. “Here—take it in to the swineherd.” He shoves the tray toward a sous chef.
This is the last chance not to do this, to stay the Frankie who’s never poisoned anyone. But that Frankie nearly got stuck in a cellar and never got out again. That Frankie is desperately trying to clabber a little bit of control of an uncontrollable world.
“Let him have a cupcake. It’s what St. Theresa would do.” I carefully set the poisoned one on the tray beside the pasta, and one of his sous chefs takes the tray off for delivery to Ben.
My fingers tingle with nerves, imagining Ben seeing the tray, the godawful butternut marinera, the cupcake. Will he go straight for it? Any sane person would. Plumberger’s food is terrible. How long before his stomach starts to rebel? Was it too much poison? Not enough?
What if it doesn’t work?
Most people don’t die of poisoning. Most of them just get sick.