Page 85 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

I freeze. The words don’t make sense. They swirl with the sounds of the rain, telling me I don’t understand them. Telling me I’m not here, not really. I must be hallucinating. Must be completely delusional.

“I know what each of your smiles mean,” he says, lifting his hand to trace his thumb along my jaw. “And your frowns. Especially your frowns. The way your nose scrunches up. The way your eyebrows rise, or sometimes, just the one eyebrow. Did you know you do that? Because I do.”

I am immobile. I am drowning.

“Leaving you earlier nearly killed me, Avery. I couldn’t stop thinking what might happen to you because of me. And it’s not because I think you’re weak, because there’s no one tougher than you. No one smarter than you. No one who could survive this better than you.”

His hand stills on my jaw, holding my head tilted so his eyes can search mine.

“I didn’t lie about loving Kaitlyn,” he says. “I lied about loving you.”

Then he kisses me—or maybe I kiss him—and it isn’t like the feverish kiss in the hallway at the debate, the one where I was so sure that I hated him, that I was punishing myself for my horrible performance. This kiss is one that replaces everything cold inside me with warmth. His hands are gone from my jaw and instead wrap around my shoulders, pulling me closer, pulling me tight against him.

This is a kiss that tells me what I survived the night for. He tastes like cherry Pop-Tart, and when we pull apart for air, I’m breathing harder than I think I ever have. It’s easy to look into his eyes and feel anchored here, to feel like I can forget the rest of what’s happened tonight as long as I have him to cling to.

“Wait,” he says, and I don’t like that word for two reasons. One, he’s telling me what to do again. And two, he’s telling me to stop this.

“You said you came out here to think,” he says, catching his breath.

His hands drop to my lower back. He’s still grounding me, but he’s giving me space as well. For a moment, I want to tell him I don’t need the space, that I want to just get back to kissing him and never stop.

But then I remember what I wanted to think about, and I know I can’t not think about it.

I pull out of his hold, just a bit, so I can sit back down on the ground. It’s cold, and the cold helps me center myself. I reach up for Caulder, and he takes my hand and then sits next to me, keeping my palm in the warmth of his.

“Things aren’t adding up to it being Ms. Dorman and Mr. McCullough,” I say. “And when the police come, we’re going to need to be able to explain those things. And…I can’t. That’s a problem.”

He nods, then runs his free hand through his hair. When he does, it stirs up the smell of the woods still clinging to him, reminding me that he was out there.

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” he says.

“Why afraid?” I ask.

“Just because I’ve been thinking about it myself,” he says. “Like you said, parts don’t fit. And I didn’t want to say it to everyone because, well, I didn’t want them to be scared if they didn’t need to be scared. But…”

“You don’t think Ms. Dorman and Mr. McCullough did this.”

He shakes his head. The terror of that sentence hangs between and around us. This flimsy wooden garage door could be all that’s separating us from the actual killer.

No, I tell myself. Not just the door. Caulder’s here, too, and he’s holding my hand.

“What parts don’t add up for you?” I ask him.

He considers this. As he does, he runs his thumb in a small circle over my palm. It feels so natural and strange all at once. Caulder Grant. Not my enemy right now. Maybe he’ll change back tomorrow, just like he did after the hotel. But for now…

“We found Marlene’s jacket in the woods,” Caulder says. “McCullough and me. It was covered in blood. I’m talking, we-were-sure-she-was-a-goner levels of blood. But Mr. McCullough didn’t have any blood on him. So did he change in the woods? Or what?”

“But Marlene wasn’t covered in blood,” I say. “So even if he changed, that wouldn’t make sense.”

“Unless it was all on her jacket and nowhere else, but that seems weird, too,” Caulder admits. “And it just doesn’t match up with McCullough. I didn’t want to push it earlier, since she was so sure. But Marlene’s so easily terrified, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have not recognized some guy attacking her.” He shakes his head. “I keep thinking that maybe she was just looking for someone she could blame so that we’d have our answer and we’d all be safe.”

“And Emerson,” I add. “Something isn’t right there, either.”

“Definitely,” Caulder says with a nod. “He’s been an asshole—which isn’t exactly abnormal—but there was something about when we saw him out there…He was out of it, and he kept saying he just has to get through this until four a.m. But why four?”

I frown. “I don’t know.”

“And then there’s Lucas,” Caulder continues. “And him just…vanishing. That…that I can’t even begin to explain. Because if—”