Page 45 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

I stare at him. “So Javi took care of it?”

Caulder sets his cup down and leans toward me.

“What would you do,” he asks me, “if someone you cared about was hurt like that? It could’ve ruined her chances for playing in college. I sure as shit wouldn’t wait around to see if someone tried that again.”

I don’t like it, the steadiness of his gaze, the ease with which he can look right at me. Lightning flashes outside the window as the rain continues its steady, determined downpour.

“So he did attack Warren,” I say.

Caulder shakes his head. “I did.”

I stare at him, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

Caulder runs his hands through his hair and sighs. “Javi’s always had my back,” he says. “During baseball games, when the other team would heckle me about my dads—say bigoted bullshit—Javi would be the first to tell them to cut it the fuck out. One game, some guy wouldn’t stop, so he punched him. Knocked him out.

“He knew he couldn’t risk something else with Warren. But he also couldn’t let it go. So I did what he’d always done for me. I…took care of Warren.”

I stare at Caulder. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. I saw the pictures of Warren. I’ve heard the stories. Javi walked away from the field covered in blood.

“Javi was there with me,” Caulder explains, reading my mind. “He pulled me off Warren, and he got hit in the process. I kind of…lost myself in it, if I’m honest. Warren’s always been an asshole. And this…this was beyond. But when the admin found us, they didn’t believe me that I did it. They thought I was covering. No matter what I said.”

Shame, deep and potent, seeps through every pore on Caulder’s face.

“I tried to push it, but Javi told me to stop,” he says. “Told me to let it go and let everyone believe he did it. He’d dealt with this shit before, he said. Said it was better if Kaitlyn thought he did it, anyway. So I…I let him.

“So,” he says, meeting my gaze. “Still think you’re the only bad person here?”

I smile in spite of myself. I don’t approve of what Caulder did. But it’s good to see the golden boy taken down a peg or two.

“Well,” I say. “I’m—”

Thump.

Both Caulder and I whip around toward the sound at the same time. At first, I think maybe it’s the echo of the kettle, like the noise was trapped by the house and tossed back to me like a boomerang. But the thump we heard is quickly buried under a new sound, making it indistinguishable. This new noise, though, I recognize. Music, but something’s off. A song that sounds vaguely familiar, except that it’s distorted, stretched and tugged. The record player, I realize. The same haunting sounds that pulled Caulder and me from that room, that led us to Lucas.

“Emerson must’ve started it,” Caulder says. “Let’s go look.”

I pick up the wok, just in case, and fall into step behind Caulder. There’s another sound under the record player. The running water from earlier.

“The bathroom,” I say. “They must still be there.”

We head that way, turning off the record player as we pass it, and wind around the hall to get to the bathroom.

Lucas is alone, body splayed out on the white tile, fresh bandages on his arm. Emerson must’ve done his chest, too, because a white bandage peeks out there as well.

“Where’d Emerson go?” I say, turning off the faucet.

“I don’t know,” Caulder says, checking Lucas’s pulse for the millionth time.

Without the record player or the water running, the sound of rain fills the otherwise silent room.

“Stay here,” Caulder says, and before I can argue, he’s gone. Almost immediately, I hear the now-familiar bang-bang-bang of him checking doors. He’s faster this time, moving through the house at a sprint. I hold my breath, jumping at each bang until—

He’s back, white-faced, eyes steely. Something’s wrong. And just like with Mr. Jay, I know what Caulder’s going to say before he speaks.

Emerson’s gone.

Chapter 23