Chapter Eighteen

He had my hair in one hand and the knife in the other. He was pulling me back to the stockroom. He was saying something to me, but I wasn’t listening.

I was praying. Not to God. I don’t know who that is. I was just praying. “Please help me. Please. Please. Please.” Over and over and over again. I was hoping somehow that Dad or Leo or Kyla or someone would pick up my radio waves and come get me. With the knife to my throat, it was all I could do. Hope.

I wanted to believe it would work, but I’m not that stupid. No one was coming for me. Mr. Abdul was at the hospital. Dad was asleep in front of the TV. Leo was…I didn’t know where Leo was. I just knew he wasn’t coming for me.

Once I realized that, the weirdest thing happened. I felt almost calm. Not calm in a happy way, of course. But calm, like the way you feel when you realize there’s nothing more you can do. I think the word for it is “resigned.”

I knew it was all over.

I thought about Devin. I realized I should have figured him out earlier. That story about Tom Orser? If I’d done the math, I’d have known he didn’t have time to have all those kids. The recording deal? I just had to look at Devin’s clothes to realize he didn’t have any money. Us choosing exactly the same book? Yeah, right. He’d been in the library, spying on me. I bet he saw what book I was reading and then went looking for the file number.

I felt sad that I hadn’t been smarter.

It seemed like such a waste, to die at seventeen.

I felt sad for my mother. We’d gone through some rough patches, but we were still really close. I knew she was excited about me going to art college. I was getting to do something she’d always wanted to do. Now neither of us would go.

I felt sad for my father. He’d blame himself. He didn’t like me working alone at a convenience store out on the highway. He’d tried to stop me, but I’d won. We both knew he didn’t make enough money to pay for my college education. Somebody had to.

I felt sad for my brother, too. I should have been nicer to him. He wasn’t that bad. All fourteen-year-old boys are irritating. He couldn’t help it. Now I was going to die and really screw up his life. With me dead, there was no way my parents would let him do anything. They’d watch him like a hawk. They’d worry about him all the time.

I even felt kind of sad for Kyla. She was going to be all alone. No one else in Lockeport really got what was so great about her.

Devin pushed me down on one of the cardboard boxes. My back was against the wall. He stuck the tip of the knife under my chin. I had to lift my head so it wouldn’t cut me.

He was still talking, but now tears were rolling down his face.

“I wanted this to work out so badly,” he said. “We have the type of love that only comes along once in a lifetime, but you threw it away! Like it was a wad of Kleenex you blew your nose into. Like it was something stuck to the bottom of your shoe! And why? I asked myself that over and over. You used to feel the love between us. I saw it in your eyes, right from our first night together. Then Leo went and poisoned your mind against me.”

He turned the knife. I felt a little pinch and then something trickling down my neck. He gently wiped the blood away with his index finger and shook his head.

“I thought I could help you. I thought if I just gave it time. But you’re too far gone. I can see that. I don’t have any choice.”

He twisted up his face to stop crying. A groan came out of him as if he was pushing something really heavy. Or like he was in pain.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Believe it or not, right then I did feel sorry for him. No one loved him. That was the only thing I knew for sure about his life.

“Sorry’s not enough, Frances. I need more. I need to have you.”

“You can’t have me,” I said. I wasn’t screaming or mad or anything. I was just telling him the truth.

He nodded.

“Then I have to kill you,” he said.