Page 23 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

“But what is this?” Caulder asks, scrunching up his nose. “This is stuff my grandma likes.”

I bristle, even though he’s right. Dad’s passion for the old and classic is something he passed down to me, and I hate it almost as much as I hate the fact that I inherited his freckles and his round face. I got his hair texture, too, wavy-but-not-curly, no matter how much mousse I use. But the color’s Mom’s dark brown, and my green eyes are hers, too. My pale cheeks that turn red under any amount of pressure are also because of her genetic pool. Even now, they’re heating up, and I turn away from Caulder so he doesn’t see it as I move toward the door, reaching out to touch the wood.

“I doubt this place keeps a lot of modern options around,” I say. “Sorry it’s not Tyler, the Creator or whatever else you listen to.”

He scoffs but doesn’t argue. Someone turns the music up. I imagine the rest of the team’s maybe dancing or singing. Or, more likely, they’re all huddled near the door, trying to hear what’s going on in here. I wonder what they think we’re capable of. What they think is happening.

“How much longer?” Caulder asks, glancing at the mantel clock on one of the bookshelves. “I forgot to check the time when we came in.”

I didn’t. I checked the time and set a timer. I glance at it now, seeing that we have four minutes and thirty-eight seconds left. I try to focus on the muffled music outside, the words “everybody wants you” floating through the wall. I tune them out.

I feel Caulder’s gaze on me, so I turn around and focus on the window as if it’s the most interesting thing in the room. It’s so dark outside that it’s hard to see anything at all.

“Avery,” Caulder says, and I stiffen at the use of my name. “If something happened and you need to talk about it, you can.”

I look over my shoulder at him. Caulder makes everything sound so easy. For him, life is easy. His parents aren’t divorced. No, he has two wonderful, perfect dads who love him. Plus, his dads are so damn likable. They don’t show up late to parent-teacher conferences or mix up his teachers’ names. In fact, both of his dads are always at our local debate competitions and wave at me every time. Meanwhile, I might remember the songs Dad played when I was a kid, but he hasn’t been to one of my competitions since tenth grade.

Maybe it would be different if I were able to go home and call Dad and tell him I pulled out a win in my first tournament as co-captain. But instead, I proved that I’m just as much of a disaster as he is.

“Nothing happened,” I say. “You heard what Mr. Jay said. I messed up. He wasn’t wrong, was he?”

Caulder sighs, running his hand through his hair. “He wasn’t right, Avery. And what he said—”

“I’m not saying his delivery wasn’t…wildly inappropriate,” I say. “But he wasn’t wrong. I fucked up. I lost us this competition. I did that.”

“We can still make Nationals,” Caulder says. “This was just our first—”

“I’d like to go back to not talking,” I say, striding over to the bookshelves. I run a finger along an old leather spine. Anything to hide my shaking hand and the tears threatening to surface.

“Well, my preference would be to talk,” Caulder says. “So looks like we’re at a stalemate.”

Not a stalemate. Not really. Because he thinks he’ll win this, just like he wins everything else.

“I told you back at the hotel,” I say. “We both need to forget what—”

A thump from above interrupts me, and I look up toward the sound. I wait for more noise, but there isn’t any. I wonder if the others got bored and we can leave our prison early. I check my phone, and we still have roughly two minutes left.

“Right,” I say. “As I was saying—”

But I stop again. Caulder’s jumped off the desk and is heading for the door. He presses his ear up to it.

“It’s quiet,” Caulder says.

“Only because you finally stopped talking,” I say, even though I was the last one to speak. I wait for him to call me out on this, but he just keeps his ear to the door, eyebrows knitted together.

“It’s too quiet,” he says. “And something weird’s happened to the song. Do you hear that?”

I roll my eyes, but then I hear it. It’s like the words are being dragged out, like taffy being pulled. It makes me shiver.

“Probably a problem with the record player,” I say. “They’ll fix it in a second.”

We wait, but nothing happens. The song continues, and now it sounds haunted as it echoes through the enormous house.

“Avery,” Caulder says. “Something’s not right.”

“I’m telling you, they just—”

My alarm goes off, marking our seven minutes, and I don’t want to stay here a second longer than we have to. I don’t hesitate—I go to the door, nudge Caulder out of the way, and throw it open.