Page 89 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

“No,” Lucas says, running a hand through his dreads. “No, of course not. I didn’t…Fuck, I don’t know if I’m telling this right.”

“He’s lying,” Marlene says, shaking her head. “All he does is lie.”

“He told me he’d been working with his tutor for college apps. They told him that his ‘junior lifeguards’ work wasn’t compelling enough to write about. That he needed to dig deep. Well…Volunteering at the hospital wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ‘splashy’ enough. ‘Everybody does that,’ he said. ‘I need to stand out.’ ”

Kaitlyn makes a noise in her throat like she’s trying not to gag.

“He said he wanted to stage a break-in with injuries that made it look like whoever came here wanted to kill us,” Lucas continues, still glancing at Emerson. “He said I was the ‘obvious’ choice for the first victim—”

“Racist piece of shit,” Kaitlyn mumbles. I don’t disagree. Emerson only smiles.

“And that he would ‘compensate me handsomely’ if I went along,” Lucas says.

He looks around at everyone, then settles his gaze on me. And as pissed as I am at him, I see the Lucas I used to play with almost every day. The one who knew me—and who I knew—better than anyone.

“I’m seeing a flaw, though,” Kaitlyn says, holding up her hand. “How would you make it look like it was a real attack and not some…low-rent theater bullshit?”

“He said his dad’s connections in entertainment would get us the materials we needed to make it look real enough, and we’d obviously have to actually cut ourselves also,” Lucas says. “He said the whole no-internet, no-cell-service thing would do half the work for us. He’d also stage some creepy atmosphere—like the record-player thing. And while everyone else was panicking and running around, all I had to do was sleep and, once I woke up, go along with his story and say I was knocked out.”

Lucas sighs and looks at Emerson. “There were so, so many holes in his plan. I tried to point them out, honestly. If I was taking a drug and covering myself in fake blood, how would I convince the ambulance that showed up? What if I woke up early, when you guys were around me? But Emerson didn’t want to hear it. His plan would work because he wanted it to. And if there were problems, he’d throw money at them.”

I feel sick, but I know I need to ask the next question.

“But again, people actually started dying,” I say, turning to Emerson. “Mr. Jay died. Unless that was fake, too?”

Emerson laughs again, his grip on the knife still strong.

“Oh no,” he says. “That was very real. And that story…I think we should turn to Marlene, shouldn’t we?”

Chapter 52

Marlene

October 17

3:55 a.m.

When I close my eyes, I can still see him, blood seeping out of his head onto the ground.

I can still hear the life leave him in a puff of breath.

But for now, all of that fades away.

Because Emerson knows.

And he was never supposed to know.

Chapter 53

Avery

October 17

3:55 a.m.

I don’t understand. It can’t be Marlene. It can’t.

“Yes, I figured it out,” Emerson says, sighing as if this is all incredibly boring. “It helped that you told Javi. I heard you admitting it, right before you left him there by the cliffside. A good plan, too, to frame Mr. McCullough for it. I’ll give you some credit there. But your problem was trying to take my idea and make it yours.”