She nods. Then she opens her mouth to say something else, but Miles screams.
I turn and my blood runs cold. Easton is getting to his feet. His hand is pressed against his shoulder, blood spilling through his fingers from the bullet wound beneath. He glares at me, hunched and wincing as he breathes sharply between clenched teeth. For the first time, I see the real Easton. Before, when he killed JT, I thought I was seeing the real him. But he still had part of that person-mask he wears up. This is the terrifying,realmonster that’s been hiding all along.
He lunges at me.
I raise the ice pick at him, but he grabs my arm.
The gun. Where did I put the gun?
It’s on the floor, behind Miles’s chair. Too far to reach, but at least Easton doesn’t have it. He tackles me to the ground, slamming myarm against the floor, trying to get me to drop the ice pick. But I hold on for dear life.
Then I see the bullet hole in Easton’s right shoulder.
Blood drips from it in a slow stream.
Without stopping to think, I reach up and shove my finger into it. He screams in agony and punches me in the face. My vision trembles, and the taste of blood fills my mouth again before I feel another wallop from his fist.
The ice pick clatters to the ground. Easton reaches for it, but Valencia’s leg kicks his hand away, then the ice pick. It slides across the room.
Easton pushes off from me, cursing at his mother as he scrambles for it. I pull at his shirt, trying to keep him from going after the weapon. He spins and tries to punch me again, but I roll away. I pull his arm with me, and he rolls on top of me, his knees on either side of my chest. He grabs my head with both his hands and slams it hard against the floor.
I scream and reach once more for the bullet wound, but he slaps my hand away and bangs my head down again.
Everything is blurry.
He stands and I reach for his ankle, but he kicks me away.
Easton slowly limps over to the ice pick; whatever adrenaline that was fueling him seems to be wearing off. I try to scramble to my feet. But the whole room lurches around me, as if we’re on a boat instead of in a boathouse. My head pounds as I spit out blood.
Behind me, Valencia and Miles are shouting, but their words don’t register.
All I can focus on is Easton. Walking toward the ice pick.
I lunge toward him as he bends down for it. I leap onto his back, wrapping my legs around his sides, and try to pull him over. He uses the momentum to move back toward the other wall where the workbench is. Then he spins, losing his balance, and I fall back onto the countertop.
My back knocks into something and it falls to the ground.
The smell of gasoline fills the room.
The gas canister. It’s on the ground, and the yellow spout has fallen off. Gas glugs out slowly onto the floor behind me.
I kick away the can and stand upright as Easton lunges toward me, the ice pick raised high above his head.
He screams loudly as he brings it down. I try to duck but it’s too late. The point pierces my skin with a sharp, hot burst of agony as Easton buries it in my chest all the way to the hilt, then pulls it out in a quick movement. I almost fall to my knees but brace myself against the countertop.
Easton drives the ice pick into me again, but it hits the back of my shoulder. I feel a horrific scraping shudder in my body.
I scream again and tackle Easton to the ground.
His hand comes away from the ice pick, but it’s lodged in my shoulder. Blood pours out of the wound in my chest, half an inch below my clavicle. And maybe only inches from my heart.
I hope.
We’re covered in blood and sweat. Easton reaches up and wraps his hands around my throat. He squeezes hard, and the ragged breaths I had been heaving immediately stop while the pounding in my head grows heavier.
I reach for his hands, clawing at them, drawing more blood. Trying to stop him. Trying to breathe. But he’s too strong.
“Looks like you die the same way I killed Nate,” Easton says through clenched teeth.
