Page 135 of Pretty Nightmare

The boy.

I don’t know his name. He wouldn’t tell me, even though I told him mine. He said someone smart ordered him to keep it a secret. That’s probably a lie. Almost everything people say on the island is a lie.

Like what they told us before the hunt started. Just run. Run as fast as you can and you’ll be fine.

Lie. Nothing was fine. And everybody ran. Even I ran. But not for the same reasons as the other kids. I did want to get away from the hunters, but I wanted to get away from the other kids more.

I know how to handle the hunters. The kids were the ones gonna get me killed.

But then I stopped. They like it when you run because it makes your blood pump chemicals. Donovan told me that. They want that chemical inside you when you die. That’s why they like us to cry.

And that’s why I don’t cry.

That’s why I’m not afraid of nothing.

Nothing.

So I stopped in the woods. I stopped running. And I screamed their ugly words back at them, daring them to kill me. Because I would show them. I would die unafraid and they would get nothing from me.

Then the boy with the blond-blond hair and the light-light eyes was there. Dragging me down into this little river.

Yup. Now I remember. That’s how I got here in the river.

I think he was trying to be nice even though I couldn’t breathe when his hand was on my mouth.

I’m shivering. Freezing cold. And I should get up and go somewhere else.

But I’m having second thoughts about staying alive.

Donovan said it only gets worse from here. He said, “Indie, it’s gonna be bad.” I like the way he talks. It’s a special way of talking. And his words make me want to believe him.

Not like Carter. He talks like me. His words are just regular and stupid. And he always lies. His words come out and I know right away who’s speaking. The liar.

They look alike. Almost exactly alike. But they are nothing alike.

Donovan is good and sweet and brings me little cakes he steals from his grandfather’s afternoon tea. He wraps them in pretty cloth napkins and sneaks them under my pillow so that after the house mother turns off the lights, I can eat them and no one even knows.

And he brought me a present for my birthday. I didn’t even know it was my birthday. I didn’t even know what a birthday was until Donovan told me. He said I was five. Five whole years old. And that was special because when the kids on the island turned five, we had to do new things like run in the woods. And Donovan said he was going to help me. He couldn’t help everyone, he said. They would notice. So I was special because he picked me to help this year. I was his special friend, he said.

But I could not tell Carter. Not even one word of this could get back to Carter because he would tell and then Donovan might be killed too.

I didn’t want to imagine life without Donovan. He was my only friend. And he told me all the secrets. If I didn’t have Donovan then I would have no one.

But then that boy with the blond-blond hair and the light-light eyes was here. And maybe he would be my friend too?

I wonder where he is?

I sit up in the water and look for him. Really look this time.

Nope. He’s gone.

And I can still hear Carter. Still laughing. Whoever he caught is still screaming too. He’s not close, but he’s not far, either.

So I just close my eyes and let the cold water flow over me.

Some time after that I stop shivering. Just go numb. And then the next thing I know, someone is picking me up. They carry me back to the bunkhouse and put me in my bed.

The shivering comes back. The pain too. But there are no screams so I sleep.