Page 54 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

Ms. Dorman doesn’t wait for us to finish. She bolts from the couch, cradling her bandaged arm, and flies out of the room. We hear her heavy footfall as she runs past the entryway and around the corner.

Caulder looks at me, and without a word, we follow her. But we don’t run. We know what we’re going to find.

When we get to the bathroom, though, Ms. Dorman’s standing next to the bathtub, looking around. Lucas is gone.

“Lucas?” Caulder says, eyes widening before he turns and starts shouting, “Lucas, man? Where the hell are you?” He takes off down the hall, yelling for Lucas, and Ms. Dorman takes my arm and pulls me around to face her.

“Avery,” she says. “Please tell me you’re joking. Please.”

“Not a joke,” I say, my breath hitching. I want desperately for the answer here to be that Lucas just woke up, that he’s wandering the house, looking for us. But judging by Caulder’s continued shouts, I’d guess he isn’t here. He’s done another disappearing act, just like Emerson.

Then I suddenly realize that there’s something I can show her without leaving the house. “Upstairs,” I say, tugging at her sleeve. “Follow me.”

I take off out of the bathroom and start up the stairs to the hallway that lines the second-floor rooms. My breathing’s threatening to turn ragged again, and I force myself to inhale and exhale with each step.

At the top, Lucas’s blood is still easy to see, long streaks of crimson in the carpet. The hallway lamp’s shattered, bits of glass dusting the floor. At the sight, Ms. Dorman’s mouth drops open. I point down the hall, to her room, and watch her walk toward it. I hear her gasp when she sees her bathroom, splattered crimson.

When she turns to me, her face is white with shock that I believe in my heart she couldn’t fake.

“Who did this?” she says, voice choked with fear.

“We don’t know,” Caulder says, appearing from the hallway behind me. “But like we said, Mr. Jay’s outside. Or…his body is.”

“O-outside,” she stammers, shaking her head. “Mr. Jay’s…outside.”

She looks like she might pass out. I reach over, touching her shoulder, but she jerks away.

“No,” she says, eyes shining as her head whips toward the front of the house. “Gerard…I need to go find him.”

She turns and hurtles back through the hall and down the stairs, and we follow her to where she stops at the front door. She goes to reach for the doorknob, her hand pausing before she touches the metal. Outside, the rain’s not as heavy as before, but I still feel the sting of it in the air. Her hand hovers there, shaking.

My stomach twists. Is she going to leave us again? Or stay?

The wind howls, bringing with it the sound of what I could swear is a scream. Am I imagining this?

But Ms. Dorman must hear it, too, because her breathing hitches and she pulls back her still-shaking hand.

“Are all the doors locked?” she asks.

Caulder reaches over, flipping the deadbolt.

“Now they are,” he says.

She stares straight ahead, eyes never moving. The only sounds are the wind and my blood rushing in my ears.

“Jay,” she says quietly. “You say he’s dead?”

We nod.

“I checked his pulse,” Caulder says. “He’s gone.”

Something unreadable flashes across her features. A tightness seizes her jaw. And when she looks at me and speaks, my heart begins to hammer.

“Tell me again. Where exactly are the others?”

Chapter 29

Kaitlyn