Alex avoided the others for the afternoon. He locked himself in the back room with Shadow. When David and Kaitlyn knocked, he let them in, explaining that the mudmen they had run into had really shaken him up. They accepted that and left him alone when he asked. It wasn’t exactly a lie—the mudmen had certainly scared him—but he couldn’t tell them that they practically belonged to Jared and his friend.
For a while Alex wondered why Jared called the older boy “Steve” when they met, but now called him “Jack.” Then he remembered all of Jared’s earlier stories—the ones he had tried to ignore. The villain in the tales was Psycho Steve: a tall guy in a leather jacket. This Steve was tall. He wore a leather jacket. The same guy. Probably, the horrible things “Steve” had done were actually done by him and Jared.
Sitting alone with his sleeping dog, Alex grew more and more paranoid. Guesses and ideas. Assumptions and questions.
Where was Steve coming from?
How many others are out there that are also Jared’s friends?
How long is it going to take them to find us?
What horrible things will they do when they do find us?
They will find us.
They’ll outnumber us.
They’ll take all our stuff.
They’ll kill us.
Maybe he could tell Nicole. She was smart, and wouldn’t tell Jared. She saw through him, too. Only, the last time he had talked to her, she was on Jared’s side. They were all on Jared’s side. Of course, they didn’t know that Jared would kill them if the opportunity came along.
Or, if he just felt like it.
Maybe Alex could run away alone. There were still food and supplies at his own house. Plenty for one person. Maybe even one other person. David, or Ryan, or Kaitlyn ...
No. He couldn’t leave. If he did, they’d be alone with Jared.
He would just have to silently live with what they had done to him. It was the only way to guarantee his own safety and the safety of his friends. Not that it was much of a guarantee at all.
After a few hours, there was a knock at the door.
“Alex?” Nicole called in.
“Yeah?”
“Is the cat in there with you?”
Alex said nothing, his guts twisting.
“Ryan is really upset,” she continued, “and it has something to do with the cat. He got even worse when Jared asked to see him.”
Why would he do that? Alex thought. What is he trying to do? Why mess with Ryan? The poor kid never did anything to him, and he knows it.
As soon as he thought of the question, he realized the answer.
He’s not messing with Ryan. He’s messing with me.
“No. I haven’t seen him,” Alex lied. “Not at all today.”
He put his head against his knees, curled up on the floor, and wept as he heard Nicole walk to Kyle’s room. He knew that the image of the cat—not as he had last seen it, but rather being held so lovingly by Ryan—would haunt him.
Knock, knock, knock.
Alex woke up, surrounded by darkness. He must have fallen asleep on the floor.
They probably forgot about me, he thought bitterly. Good. I’m glad. Then I don’t have to talk to them.
Knock, knock, knock.
Right. Someone had woken him up.
A thin line of light from the hallway showed under the door. He imagined Steve holding a flashlight on Jared as he gripped his mangled hockey stick, ready to smash his head in.
He ignored the knocking.
“Alex?” Kaitlyn whispered from the other side of the door. “Alex? Are you awake?”
He jumped up, surprised. He grabbed Shadow’s fur and she led him to the closed door.
“Yeah,” he whispered back, fumbling with the lock.
He opened the door and saw her with the flashlight in one hand and Hannah’s hand in the other.
“Okay, good. Can we come in?”
“Be careful. It’s dark.”
“I have a flashlight.” She shone the light around the room, pulling Hannah in and closing the door behind her.
After far too long a silence Alex asked, “So ... what’s up?”
“Well, we were wondering if we could sleep down here tonight?”
This was the last thing that Alex was expecting. “Um ... well ...” he stammered, unsure of what to say. “Um ... why?”
Kaitlyn shrugged. “It’s weird back in the other room.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jack’s weird,” Hannah blurted out.
Alex suddenly grew very worried. “What do you mean? What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Kaitlyn replied, looking at Hannah. “Nothing really. He’s just ... I dunno.”
“What?” Alex asked, taking a step closer and grabbing for the hand that held the flashlight. “He’s what?”
“You know that feeling like someone is watching you?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Yeah?” Alex replied, warily.
Kaitlyn shrugged again. “I get that feeling from him. Like he’s ... watching me or something.”
“He was,” Hannah jumped in. “I saw him. Jared, too.”
Alex felt a lump growing in his already twisted stomach. Dread grew as he thought of the horrible possibilities.
“But ... anyway,” Kaitlyn said, “we’d just feel ... better, if we could stay down here. Is that okay?”
Alex nodded in the darkness.
“Are you nodding?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, shaking his head at how stupid he was acting, and not entirely sure why. “Yeah, of course you can stay down here.”
After a brief silence, Kaitlyn replied, “Thanks.”
Alex smiled until another worry came to him. “What about Hannah? Is she okay with Shadow? Shadow has to stay in here too.” He would not let Shadow out of his sight after what Jared had done with Ryan’s cat.
“I’m okay,” Hannah said. “She’s nice.” She paused. “I don’t know about Jack though.”
“I’m just being paranoid,” Kaitlyn quickly said. “I think I’m just making her paranoid too.”
“You’re not being paranoid,” he blurted out. “You can’t trust them.”
Silence filled the room again.
“What really happened out there?”
This
