“You want to see it?” asked Derek.
Brooke froze, and I looked back at Derek. His guilty smirk had turned into a wicked grin and he reached behind the culvert and pulled out a hunting rifle—not a handgun but a full, meter-long rifle. It seemed insane, but I supposed it was the only gun he had quick access to. He worked the bolt action, showing a long, bright bullet in the chamber, then pointed it at us. “I killed four deer last year; two does and two buck. Had to tell the ranger they were my dad’s, because that’s over the limit for a youth license and I was still just seventeen.” I watched his eyes, wondering if he felt the same thrill in killing that I did, but I saw was nothing there but anger. His lips curled back in a sneer as he spoke, trying to terrify us with his monologue. “One of the bucks was four points,” he said, “but the other was twelve point, one forty-two net score, so it’s not quite trophy level, but we hung it on the wall anyway. I skinned them myself, and we’re still eating the meat nine months later. You ever skinned a deer?”
“No,” I said simply.
“There’s way more blood than you think there’s going to be,” he said. “I was drenched in it. So please, don’t assume for one second that I’m too squeamish to pull this trigger right now.”
“Please don’t,” said Brooke.
I shrugged. “He won’t.”
“I told you,” said Derek angrily, “I’m not afraid of some little pissant with a knife.”
I thought about the knife and how much I wanted to use it right now, but I calmed myself. Scaring him would only give him the excuse he needed to pull the trigger. If I didn’t give him that excuse, he’d never dare. He didn’t want to kill us, just freak us out.
So instead of scaring him, I got to make fun of him. And I was ready to tear something apart.
“I don’t think you’re afraid to do it,” I said. “As much as it shocks all three of us to hear this, I think you’re too smart.”
He raised the gun a bit, scowling. “You want to say that again?”
“You’re too smart,” I repeated. “Maybe not smart enough last night, drunk and embarrassed and out in the middle of nowhere, which is why you’re lucky we were gone, or there’d be a cop collecting forensic evidence right now, tracing the bullets in our corpses right back to your rifle. Lucky for all of us, then. But now, today, in the middle of this bustling metropolis, not twenty yards from the nearest house, even you of all people are too smart to shoot us. They wouldn’t even have to collect forensic evidence because this whole town would see you running from the scene. And you wouldn’t be able to argue self-defense because we’re unarmed and just came from church. So no, I don’t think you’re smart enough to have thought this through, and I don’t think you’re smart enough to have avoided this situation without my help, but now that I’ve explained it all in short, easy words, yeah, I think you’re smart enough not to kill us.”
He growled. “You don’t know anything about me—”
“What?” I asked, cutting him off. “Were you about to argue with me about how you actually are that stupid? Go ahead—I’m excited to hear this. Tell us all about how stupid you are—”
The gun fired, and my bravado turned to mindless terror in an instant, deafened by the blast. I scrambled backward through the willow branches, hands and feet churning the wet grass to mud. Brooke was already outside of the tree when I got there, running for safety, but she turned around to help me to my feet. We ran, too scared to stop and check ourselves for injuries, and all I could remember was Derek’s face, laughing and laughing.
In hindsight, I didn’t actually think he was going to chase us. He shot once to scare us, probably confident that, with no bodies or actual damage, he could talk his way out of whatever trouble he got into, saying it was only an accident. Or maybe people shot off guns in this town all the time and he wouldn’t get in any trouble at all. But in the moment I was too scared to think clearly, still coming down from the emotional overstimulation I’d been going through all day, so we ran straight to the first safe haven we could think of: 42 Beck Street.
“Wait,” said Brooke on the porch, grabbing my hand. She was bent over, her other hand on her knee, gasping for breath, and I had to stop and do the same. She looked behind us. “He’s not chasing us. Let’s take a minute.”
“Be quiet then,” I whispered. I studied the front of the house. “She’ll hear us and come out.” I hated Derek so much in that moment I could have screamed.