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“Thanks, Dad.”

The three of them left.

I pulled my blanket up to my chin and hit play on my movie. It only took me half an hour to realize that this was a terrible, no good idea. Two people had already been murdered and I already felt like someone was watching me. I guess either Porter or Briggs was.

But still. It felt a lot more like someone with a chainsaw was watching me.

There was a knock on the door and I swear I almost shit myself.

I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders like a cape and crept toward the door. My heart was pounding against my ribcage. But if it was someone with a chainsaw, surely Briggs or Porter wouldn’t have even allowed them to reach the door. Right?

But then again, they didn’t know about my trapdoor. And that was a major security breach.

I peered through the peephole and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a delivery guy holding several takeout bags.

He must have come to the wrong address.

I opened up the door. “Hey, sorry, wrong place. I didn’t order anything.”

“Are you Scarlett?”

“Yes?”

He glanced at something scrawled on the side of one of the brown paper bags. “It says it’s for Scarlett. And there’s a note. I hope this is enough soup to let you know that I care. Here you go.” He handed me the two big takeout bags.

And I noticed the familiar logo on the side. It was the soup place I always sent Axel soup from. Had he really sent me soup?

The delivery guy walked away and I closed the door. I peered into the bags. There were at least a dozen soup containers. It felt like each bag weighed ten pounds. It wasn’t just soup for this week. It was enough soup to make up for every day I’d ever missed of school.

I pressed my lips together. Axel did care. I walked into the kitchen and laughed as I started unpacking all the containers. No one could eat this much soup all at once. I put all of it but one container in the fridge. I poured it into a bowl and microwaved it until it was super hot, just the way I liked it. And then I grabbed a spoon, blew on a spoonful of the broth, and ate it. Delicious.

Axel had sent only chicken noodle. My favorite. And what I thought was his, before Gigi announced that he preferred minestrone.

I took another bite. It was actually just what I needed tonight. And getting soup from a friend made my heart feel a little better. It was probably more healing than a scary movie that was just a Band-Aid to mask my pain for a bit. I needed to thank Axel. I knew he was at the Halloween party, but I’d just send a text. I carried the bowl of steaming hot soup to my room.

I’d gotten a lot less addicted to my phone after my kiss thief had been revealed. And the whole needing glasses to unlock it. But I was already wearing my glasses tonight.

I walked into my room and over to my desk. I took another bite of soup and grabbed my phone.

“Hey,” a deep voice said from behind me.

I jumped and spilled my hot soup all down the front of my pajamas. Ah! It’s fucking hot! I yelped and spun around.

A masked man was sitting on my bed with a chainsaw.

I wanted to scream from the pain of the scalding soup on my skin and to call for help, but I’d just swallowed a noodle wrong and my throat failed me. So instead, I tried to run out of my bedroom.

But the masked man caught me and put his hand over my mouth.

“Sh,” he whispered into my ear from behind. “If you scream, I’ll make this worse.”

Chapter 17 – Trick Or Treat

Friday

I threw my elbow back, slamming it into the intruder’s hard abs.

He cursed under his breath and released me.