My stomach hurt even worse than it did after he punched me.
“And you obviously care about other people,” he said. “You’re here because of what I did to your friend, not anything I did to you. So let me sweeten the deal. Your mommy and daddy will be in beds right next to you. The three of you can stare at the ceiling together.”
“Okay,” I said. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“Not say anything.”
“To anybody. You will not say a goddamn word to anybody.”
“Right. Yes. Nobody.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Now. The problem is that after you walk out of here, you won’t be feeling the same level of terror that you are now. You’ll relax. You’ll feel safe again. You’ll start to think that maybe I was bluffing.”
“No, I won’t.”
Mr. Martin gently tapped the barrel of the gun against my forehead. “Again, I believe you now. But I need you to remember how scared you are. I need you to remember that you looked into my eyes and saw how deadly serious I was. You know that trick where you tie a string around your finger to help you remember something?”
“Uh-huh.” I’d never done that, and didn’t know anybody who had—it seemed kind of stupid—but I was familiar with the concept.
“We’re going to do something like that. Give you a nice little reminder. I want you to stand up, and then you’re going to very slowly walk into my kitchen, and if you give me even the slightest reason to believe that you’re not taking my threat seriously, I will execute you. Understand?”
“I completely understand, yes.”
Mr. Martin stood up and stepped away from me, giving me room to shakily get to my feet. My legs had gone numb and I worried that I might lose my balance and fall over.
“Go on,” he said, waving the gun at me. “Nice and slow.”
I walked into his kitchen, focusing all of my attention on trying to stay upright.
“Very good. You’re doing great, Curtis. I’m proud of you. Walk over to the sink.”
I did as I was told. I wasn’t working out any kind of brilliant plan to escape or to somehow turn the tables back in my favor. I was going to do everything he said, slowly, and hope that he really intended to let me go.
“Open the drawer next to it. No, the other one. Yeah, that one.”
I slid the drawer open. Silverware.
“Choose a knife.”
I picked up a steak knife and held it up.
“That one? Eh, that’s fine, I guess.” Mr. Martin kept the gun pointed at me and took a step back, removing any possibility that I could charge at him with the knife before he could shoot me. “You’re going to cut yourself. Don’t worry, I didn’t stay stab yourself, just a cut. It’ll hurt and it’ll bleed but you won’t die. Somewhere nobody will see.”
“We don’t need to—”
“Calm down. I’m not going to make you cut your dick. A guy like you doesn’t walk around without a shirt, does he? Maybe a nice quick slice underneath some of that belly fat. Deep enough that it really stings. And later, when I’m not pointing this gun at you, you’ll have a painful reminder of how scared you were.”
I lowered the knife. “This is a bad idea.”
“Well, yeah, the person who’s about to cut himself usually doesn’t think it’s the best idea in the world.”
“I get what you’re trying to do. But I’m a bleeder. My blood is too thin, so it takes a long time for me to stop bleeding.” This wasn’t true, but there was a kid in school who had that problem. Hemophilia. When he got a bloody nose, he had to spend the rest of the day in the nurse’s office. “If I have to keep changing the bandage, my parents might find out. Where am I supposed to keep hiding bloody bandages? What if it soaks through? I promised I won’t say anything, and you’re trying to make it harder for me to keep that promise.”
Mr. Martin stared at me for an uncomfortably long moment. Then he nodded.
“Fair point,” he said. “Put the knife back.”
I’m pretty sure that a large part of his motivation was that he simply wanted to watch me cut myself. But I was relieved that he could see reason. I put the knife back in the drawer.
“I just want to say that I admire how brave you’re being about this,” Mr. Martin informed me. “No bawling or blubbering or anything to make me just want to shoot you. I can see why you were friends with Todd. He was brave…for as long as could reasonably be expected.”
I said nothing.
“I’m going to let you go now,” said Mr. Martin. “And we’ll never speak of this again. If I get arrested, even if it’s not your fault, I won’t be able to make the call to keep you and your parents in one piece. If I find out that anybody knows details that I shared with you in confidence, it’s a feeding tube for you. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Shake on it.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Will there be anybody else?” I asked.
Mr. Martin chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “No. I couldn’t ask you to stay quiet if there were. I can control this, so I’m telling you, man to man, before we shake on it, that there will be no more victims. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He stepped over to me, switched the gun from his right hand to his left, and then extended his right hand. I shook it. He had a painfully tight grip.
We silently walked out of the kitchen into the living room, and then over to the front door.
“Don’t break our
