Page 56 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

I glare at him. “Stop blaming Marlene. All of this is your fault. You shouldn’t have left the house in the first place—something you still haven’t explained.”

Emerson’s eyes flash in my direction, and I know we’re now transitioning to the Emerson you get when he’s past caring what you think of him, the side where he doesn’t bother to hide his rage or make excuses for it. You get this Emerson only when he’s really pissed. Like when Avery and Caulder were announced as co-captains. I’d expected Avery to look enraged, but when I looked at Emerson, I saw the threat of something beyond fury burning under the surface. It took him a beat to start clapping, and when he did, that usual casual expression had swung back into place. But I didn’t forget it, and I recognize it now for what it is.

“I know you’re hiding something,” I say. “I know you’ve been hiding something since the start.”

He grips the tree next to him to pull himself up to standing. Once he’s on his feet, he turns those tumultuous, stormy blue eyes on me, and he cocks his head. He looks like a predator.

“So we’re talking secrets now, are we?” he says, voice low and dangerous. “Should we discuss yours?”

I hold myself as still as I can, focusing on keeping my expression impassive. Emerson doesn’t know anything—not anything important. He’s bluffing. He’s always bluffing.

He leans on the tree, folding his arms over his chest. “Does Javi know? About why you’d want to kill Jay?”

I hate that the words pull a reaction out of me, that the rage I’ve kept neatly bottled up for the past four years is so close to the surface. I tamp it down, keep my tone cool, but I feel it waiting to bubble over.

“I never wanted to kill Jay,” I lie.

“So Javi doesn’t know,” Emerson says, savoring my discomfort.

I angle my chin up. “He knows what’s important.”

He shakes his head. “He knows your sister’s a liar?”

I can’t help it. My feet move forward before I can stop myself. I’m inches from Emerson, and I don’t care that he’s been stabbed or attacked or whatever else. All I know is I hate him, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get him to shut the fuck up.

“Don’t talk about Hadley,” I say. “Don’t talk about any of my sisters.”

Emerson laughs. “I can’t believe she actually tried to accuse him of rape. Her own boyfriend, the same guy she was posting everywhere and calling the love of her life. Did she really think anyone would buy that?”

The words are cold and awful. They stir up images of Hadley crying in our shared bedroom. My sister, unmoving in bed, staring at the wall, spiraling in shame and depression and locked inside her mind. As she pulled away from school, from her friends, from us. From me. It took years to get her back, and she still disappears like that sometimes. And everything she lost…All because Jay Pearce, her supposedly perfect boyfriend, date-raped her. And when she called him on it, when she confronted him…

He broke up with her and then told everyone it was because she was crazy. Jealous. He made sure her reputation was so thrashed, no one would ever believe anything she had to say. He spread the rumors and the lies before she even had a chance to go public, convinced everyone that she was a liar before she could try to tell her side. Hadley’s friends—people she’d known since elementary school—suddenly looked at her like she was nothing. He made sure she felt so small that she didn’t dare say a word against him, that she wouldn’t even tell our parents what had actually happened.

He got to stay the perfect guy in everyone’s eyes—so perfect that he even got to come back to the very same school as a teacher.

But if Emerson heard, that means Jay must have told someone the truth. Did he tell Emerson’s brother, who told Emerson? Did he feel any scrap of remorse for what he did to my sister, for how he ruined her life?

Not that it really matters. He’s dead.

And yeah.

I’ll admit it.

I’m glad.

“We need to get you back to the house. That’s where the others probably went,” I say, forcing myself to end the conversation here. I’m not giving Emerson or his army of lawyers a smidge of leverage against me. I know how to play nice. Let Emerson think he’s won.

I know the truth.

Besides, the sooner we get to the house, the sooner I’ll find Javi.

I go to Emerson and angle myself so he can lean on me. He looks at me suspiciously, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. With his weight on me, I half lead, half force him to hobble with me in search of the path.

“Keep an eye out for Javi,” I tell Emerson. “And Marlene.”

He just laughs.

“That bitch can die for all I care.”