Maybe my mother didn’t abandon me because of Nolan. Maybe she cut off contact because ofme.
What if we’re the same?
What ifIkilled Jackson? Will? Mitchell? Ace? Wasn’t I near them when they died? Who is to say I didn’t carry the knife? I’msleeping with one, aren’t I? Is this real, or is this a dream? What if I hurt Tasia? What if I took her phone? What if I texted myself to make everyone worry about me because I’m not starved just for food,but I need attention?
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
It gets worse.
Less pauses between each one. Like my thoughts slicing inside my mind.
What if I’m broken? What if I’ll never be okay?
What if?—
There’s a shriek. No, a laugh? Something odd outside the door. A sound that doesn’t fit. Someone who doesn’t belong there, on my doorstep. But they had to have a key to get in, so who could it be?
Is it Faust again, like it was before? He stalked me once. Why couldn’t he fit the profile of a killer?
I mean, doesn’t he? Quiet, controlled, calm. Until he isn’t.
Or am I at Faust’s right now? In the castle? They could jump the fence, right? Despite his alarm, the camera, in some ways, it occurs to me he has less security than I do.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
“Neve, wake up!” A familiar voice.
A smile spreads across my drowsing face.
Cynthia Espinosa. My best friend. I was scared to move to Canada. Terrified I’d never fit in, never understand washrooms and loonies and the TTC. Or Toronto traffic. Or Leafs Nation. Or hockey at all.
But none of it mattered with her. Everything was easy. Even the six hour wait at urgent care when I sprained my ankle freshman year, both of us running in sneakers on ice like absolute morons. She sat with me the entire time. We laughedso hard my stomach hurt watching Reels of people falling down, just like I did.
“Neve. Get.Up.”
My smile widens.
Maybe I’m not a psychopath. Maybe Cynthia showed me that.
“There’s someone at our fuckingdoor!”Those words are spoken in a hiss.
I snap my eyes open.
“Why are you on the floor? And why do you have…” Cynthia gestures vaguely, her brow wrinkled as she tugs at an oversized cardigan over her PJs.“Knives?”Her curly hair is loose, down around her shoulders, her eyes wild as she flicks her gaze past me, toward the entrance door, then back.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Fuck.
I suck in a breath, as if I’ve just come up from underwater.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
My phone. I pat around my blanket for it, my heart hammering hard inside my chest as the tapping sound grows stranger, a quieter, slower pattern, but just as incessant.
“Did you look through the peephole?” I ask absentmindedly as relief floods my body when my fingers close over the sleek rectangle.
“Are you insane?” Cynthia counters.
