Page 65 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

“Kaitlyn!” Ms. Dorman chides, but Kaitlyn only picks at the fuzz from her blanket.

“Lock the door after me,” he tells Ms. Dorman. “I’ll knock three times if it’s me, okay? Don’t let anyone else in.”

“I’ll have to,” she points out. “What if it’s the other kids?”

Mr. McCullough doesn’t answer. He tests his flashlight once more, pulls on his raincoat, and takes Ms. Dorman’s hand before squeezing it. I notice she doesn’t pull back. I notice, in fact, something I’ve never noticed before.

The look in her eyes. Not just fear. But something deeper and pained—and not just because of her stab wounds.

And then he’s opening the door, looking at Caulder, who’s right there with him.

“Let’s go,” Caulder says. “Let’s find them.”

Mr. McCullough nods, disappearing into the night. Caulder looks back at me, but I can’t read what’s in his eyes.

“Stay safe,” he says, and I nod.

“You too.”

And then he’s gone, the door shutting behind him.

In the silence that follows, Kaitlyn says, “Well, that’s interesting.”

Ms. Dorman doesn’t look at her. In fact, she doesn’t look at either of us. She goes to the door and flips the lock, then goes to the kitchen and roots around in the fridge. She pulls out a can of Olipop, cracks it open, and takes a long drink.

“Not your ideal chaperone trip, is it, Dormy?” Kaitlyn prods.

Ms. Dorman ignores her again but walks over to us, can in hand, and slips into the large armchair that Emerson was in earlier. She taps her nails on the side, and I notice one of them is broken, a jagged edge that she worries with her thumb in between taps.

She looks at Kaitlyn. “If this is how you need to behave to process this, I understand. But I’m not in the right headspace, Kaitlyn. I’m just not.”

Kaitlyn smirks. I look at her, again wondering how she continues to flip from terrified and hysterical to…this. She’s looking at Ms. Dorman like a cat that’s spotted a very slow-moving mouse, ready to give it a long, unrelenting death.

“I wonder if they’ll fire you immediately,” Kaitlyn muses. “Or if they’ll let it be more of a witch-burning kind of thing. You know, where they hand it over to the town.”

“Kaitlyn,” Ms. Dorman warns, rubbing her temple. “That’s enough.”

“No, I don’t think it is,” Kaitlyn says, tucking her feet under her. “See, my boyfriend’s dead because of you. And now you’ve sent my ex-boyfriend out to die.”

At her words, I stiffen. There’s a callousness to her tone that makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

Kaitlyn seems to remember I’m there, and she turns to me. I freeze, realizing I’m now the one caught in her crosshairs.

“Oh, I’m not saying he’ll die right away,” she continues. “Not yet, anyway. He’ll probably be one of the last to go. He’s tough like that, isn’t he?”

Ms. Dorman takes another sip from her can, her eyes closed. There’s a tightness to her jaw, and I wonder if she’s counting the seconds until Mr. McCullough comes back.

Kaitlyn’s gaze is still fixed on me. “But nope. I knew we were all doomed. Things have been set in motion and now…Look at us. None of us can do anything about it. Not even Caulder.”

Her eyes flash. “Like I said before, we’re all going to die tonight.”

I don’t say anything, and neither does Dorman. She just sips from her can. Maybe she thinks that if we ignore Kaitlyn, she’ll just stop talking. But she doesn’t.

“People like to think that Caulder’s perfect,” she says, eyes cutting to Ms. Dorman. “They look past his flaws. I can admit that even I did, too, for a while. But really, he’s got the same bullshit ego as all of them.”

She lets her hair down and begins to rebraid it, each move both sharp and careless at the same time.

“It’s partially his fault,” she says, “but it’s also the fault of the people who enable him. People who think that, just because he’s a guy, he gets to do whatever he wants.”