Stop the blood, I thought. So I put both hands over the wound in his chest and pressed down, but the blood kept coming, covering my hands, sliding over them and down onto the floor. “Stop,” I said. But that didn’t help. So I put my whole weight behind it, pressing down on top of him with my hands, my chest, with all of my weight. But the blood kept coming. I could feel it soaking through. Soaking through him, to me, everywhere. I let out a sob and screamed, “Brian!” again.
The phone was shattered in the hall. My cell was somewhere upstairs. The door was the closest thing. “Just hold on,” I whispered in his ear, though he made no indication that he’d heard me. “I’m sorry,” I said. Which were, quite possibly, the most inadequate words to ever leave a person’s mouth in the history of the world.
And then I ran. Pushed through the back door, into the rain, into the night. Pushed through the swinging gate, leaving a trail of red behind me. I ran into the alley and screamed, “Help! Somebody help!” Then I ran into the neighbor’s gate and pounded on the back door, screaming for help. Then through the next gate. And the next. I painted the whole street red with his blood. People came out and I screamed, “Help!” But they looked at me like I was the one needing help.
I pointed a single finger toward my backyard. “He’s bleeding!” I cried. And they started to run.
But what I’d really meant to say was he’s dying.
It hadn’t been enough. Not nearly. They couldn’t stop the blood either. Or else there was no blood left to stop by then. I never asked.
I wiped my hands on my jeans and started running faster, toward Monroe.
In the distance, the M rose from the horizon, like a dark sun, dripping ivy. Campus was dead. Everyone must’ve been at dinner. I felt exposed walking across campus, like there were eyes watching me from the dorm windows, secrets spreading like a virus.
I pushed the door open to my old dorm, and the lounge was empty. Stiflingly empty. Then I remembered that Reid had said half of campus was deserted, anyway. I walked down the silent hall, toward my old room, still marked off with crime-scene tape. I wondered if Colleen had been there. Been here.
A door slammed somewhere upstairs, and the echo carried all the way down the steps, through the hall, to me. I paused in front of Bree and Taryn’s door. Bree, at least, knew who Colleen was. Or, if not her name, at least she’d know who I was talking about. I knocked on her door.
Bree opened the door quickly, and opened her mouth like she had been ready to say something, like she was expecting someone, but definitely not me. When our eyes met, she froze, her eyes wider than I thought humanly possible. She took a step back into her room, her arm preparing to swing the door closed on me.
“Wait,” I said, diving toward her room. I wedged my foot between the door and the frame so she couldn’t shut me out. I had a grip on her sleeve, and she was staring at my hand, her nostrils flared. “I need to talk to you.”
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
I removed my hand but took a step closer, my entire body now standing in her entryway. “I’m looking for my friend. Colleen. I think she was here, and she’s . . . missing.”
Her eyes grew wide again and she stuck her head out into the hall, peering out toward the stairs in the corner. “You better leave. They’ll come for you, you know.”
“Who? Who’ll come for me? Krista? Taryn?”
She shook her head. “Get out of here.”
“I know you set me up, Bree. And I’m not leaving until I find Colleen.”
“So stupid,” she mumbled. “She was taken,” she whispered, just as I heard footsteps echoing down the stairwell. “And you’ll get taken too.”
Bree grabbed onto my arm and pushed us both into the hallway. I thought because she was scared or nervous or something.
But then Krista rounded the corner out of the stairwell and raised her eyebrows. Bree dug her fingers into my arm even harder and said, “Look what I found.”
“What—” I started, and then I realized who took Colleen, who Bree was talking about. She meant all of them. Including her.
Krista jerked her head toward Bree’s open door, but I wedged my foot against the corner of the wall and wouldn’t budge. Krista didn’t smile, but I could’ve sworn she wanted to. “So much like that friend of yours.”
I lunged for Krista, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. I had her pushed into the wall, Bree looking on in surprise. “Where is she? What did you do?”
She swatted at my arms, which were pinning her to the wall, but something coursed through my veins, making me stronger than I thought I was.
“Bree,” she said. “Do something.”
“Yeah, Bree,” I said. “Like always. Do what Krista tells you to do.”
Bree gripped me around the waist and started to pull, so I said, “Tell her why you killed Jason, Krista.”
Bree’s arms went slack. Krista grimaced. “I didn’t kill Jason,” she said.
I opened my mouth to argue, then saw her grin. She must’ve convinced Bree or Taryn to do it. Maybe she even watched. She definitely planned the whole thing. But I guess she took that English class lecture to heart: it’s nearly impossible to convict a mob. Where does the blame lie? With her? Or the ones that listened?
“Bree,” I said, still holding Krista against the wall. “I heard Jason threaten Krista to keep you from telling what happened with him under the bleachers. What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Bree said, getting closer. “Thanks to Krista. She showed up . . . ?before. She helped me.”
She tugged at my shoulders, trying to pull me off Krista, but her arms were so weak. I remembered Bree showing up in my room, terrified. Was Krista planning this all back then? Had she scared Bree off? She must have. Bree went back to her. But Bree was not solid, not like Taryn. She was the link that could be broken. She was the thread barely holding everything together.
So I pulled.
“And Krista convinced you not to tell anyone, right? You know it happened with Taryn too. Krista convinced her not to tell anyone. She wasn’t on your side, Bree. She was on Jason’s side. She did everything for Jason. She had to. Otherwise he’d tell about her.”
“Tell what?” Bree asked.
“Yes, Mallory,” Krista said. “Tell what?” She knew I didn’t know everything. But she didn’t know that I did know something.
“She’s not his cousin, you know.”
Krista tensed under my weight. But then she relaxed a little, and she laughed. “No, that’s right. He’s not my cousin.” She laughed again, shaking her head. “He was my brother.”
I lost my grip on her from surprise, and she wiggled free. We stood across from each other, three points of a triangle, the whole hall tense, waiting to pop. Waiting for one of us to make a move. Waiting for Bree to pick a side.
“Yeah, so that’s the truth. He’s my brother. Only nobody could know. Because my own father doesn’t want me. Nobody wants me, Bree. I had nobody until Taryn and you.” Bree looked between me and Krista, but Krista didn’t give her time to think. “The state took me from my mom, which definitely was not the worst thing in the world—but you know what is kind of shitty? Foster care. And you know what’s even shittier? Tracking down your dad and finding out he’s fucking rich. And you’ve been poor. Know what’s even worse? Finding out he already had a family, and nobody’s supposed to know about you. He’s not evil, though, and he wasn’t about to send me away. He just wanted me to keep it a secret. From Jason and his wife. If I kept it a secret, I got to stay. He’s not evil. He’s just an asshole. You know who was evil, though? Jason. And he overheard the whole damn thing.”
Krista took a step toward me, blocking me in. She looked to Bree, but Bree stayed against the wall. “You know what Jason would’ve done to you? Did you want to end up like Taryn? She’s drugged and sleeping upstairs until her daddy shows up. You want to be like her? Everything I’ve done is because I care about you guys. Jason was a predator. He’s a fucking psychopath. You know that, right? I hated him, it’s true. I had to do what he said—always. You can imagine what that was like. But I did it for you guys.”
“I thought you said you didn’t do it,” I said.