Variant

“What?” I asked, unable to hide my own grin.

Jane stepped up to me again, her face an inch away. I could almost feel her lips on mine, but instead of kissing me she spoke.

“You don’t still want to leave, do you?”

I smiled. “Well, not tonight.”

Her eyes narrowed and she moved back slightly. Her arms hung around my shoulders. “You’re still planning on it, though.”

“Of course,” I said, confused. “We’ll go together, you and me.”

“But . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked up at the stars.

“I can’t stay here.”

Her hands fell to her sides. “But this is good,” she said. “Can’t you see that? We can be happy here.”

“If we stay here we’ll die.”

“If we stay here then we’ll have more of this,” she insisted with desperate eyes. “We can be together. We can be happy.”

I took a breath, wishing we could rewind the conversation and go back to where we were a minute before.

“I’m not saying that we have to escape tomorrow.”

She clutched my arms, her face again close to mine. “Then let’s just not talk about it. Let’s wait. Let’s just be like this, you and me. Think about it.”

“Think about it?” I said, my voice raised. “No, you think about it. What do you think is going to happen a year from now, or two years from now? This is some weird prison—it’s not a resort. No one grows old here.”

Her eyes flashed as she stepped away from me and folded her arms. “Don’t tell me what this school is like. I know it better than you do.”

I yelled, “Then what do you think is going to happen?”

Jane spun away from me, facing the cold rough stone of the school’s walls.

I could feel adrenaline pumping in my veins, and I tried to calm down. I didn’t want to act like this, not tonight. But Jane, of all people, should have realized that the school was a death trap. Every day we stayed was a day closer to detention or worse.

I reached out with one hand and touched her shoulder.

She shrugged me away. “Don’t.”

“Jane . . .”

I could tell she was crying now. It didn’t have to end like this. But maybe it was better if it did. Mason’s words rang through my head. If you’re going to get killed next week crossing the wall, stay away from Jane.

I touched her shoulder again. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t shake me off this time.

Her hand reached up and touched mine. She was ice cold. She turned toward me.

Suddenly her eyes went wide, looking over my shoulder. Her mouth opened in a scream, but it was knocked out of her—something hit me in the back and I smashed forward into Jane, knocking her into the wall.

I stumbled and turned just in time to see Dylan swinging a pipe. I wanted to duck but turned my back to the blow to shield Jane. Pain rocketed through my body, and I collapsed to the ground. I could hear Jane screaming above me, and then she let out a yelp, and I felt her fall next to me.

My lungs weren’t working. I desperately sucked at the air.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” a female voice shrieked. I turned my head just enough to see it was Laura, standing behind Dylan. He was holding the pipe like a bat.

I couldn’t breathe.

I turned to look at Jane. She was dazed but awake, lying against the wall. Her neck and chest were splattered with blood.

“You, Benson,” Laura spat, “think that you’re the big man because you don’t care about the rules. Do you think that Lily would have tried to escape if you hadn’t been goading her on?”

I didn’t even care about arguing. I just wanted to protect Jane. I forced my aching lungs to breathe the word “stop.”

“Stop?” Dylan mocked. “I shouldn’t have stopped last time. I should have finished you off at the wall.” He raised the pipe and there was nothing I could do. He swung it down like an axe, smashing my raised arm and pounding down into Jane’s leg. She groaned, low and soft.

I could barely move, but they were going to kill us, and I couldn’t let them. He took a step back, preparing the heavy pipe again. I started to stand and got up on one knee before Dylan’s swing caught me in the stomach. I reached for something, my fingers dragging across Jane’s bleeding leg, but I couldn’t stay up.

I plummeted down into the deep window well.

Blackness was gathering all around me. Above me, silhouetted against the sky, I saw Dylan raise the pipe and hack it down onto Jane.

I watched him do it again. And again.

Chapter Fifteen

I woke.

Silence. Pitch-black.

I tried to move, and sharp, terrifying pains pierced my body.

There was a patch of gray sky above me. As I stared, I could see specks of light. Stars.

The almost-rectangular sky was interrupted by a small black spot. I tried to focus on it, tried to see it.

It was a hand. A hand reaching over the edge of the well. No—hanging over the edge.

Jane.

I pushed myself up, trembling with pain. I remembered what had happened. Laura’s grotesque screaming. Dylan’s swinging pipe. Jane’s silence.

I reached for her hand, and the stretch made me gasp. My ribs were on fire. Tears ran down my face as I touched her fingers with mine. They were cold. She didn’t move.

“Jane!” I shouted, desperately looking around me for some way to climb out. I put my foot on the corrugated metal, and it slipped off.

“Jane!” I yelled again. My voice was hoarse and dry. “Jane, wake up!”

I stretched for the top and discovered that the fingers on my left hand wouldn’t grip. They wouldn’t even respond. I crumpled back down to the bottom of the window well, scorching pain wracking my entire left side.

“Jane! You’ve got to wake up!” I moved to the far end of the well and then tried to run and leap for the top, but the sudden movement seemed to cripple me. I couldn’t force my body to jump.

“Come on, Jane,” I said, spinning in a circle, looking for anything I could find. The ground was thick with dry leaves. I kicked through them.

My foot caught on something and I dug it up—a short two-by-four.

“I’m coming, Jane,” I said through the tears. I jabbed one end of the board into the dirt and leaned it against the side of the well. “I’m coming. Don’t worry.” I stepped up onto the high end, and my head was over the side.

Jane was motionless. She was dead.

I grabbed at the grass with my good hand and scrambled up onto the lawn, panting for air and fighting the pain.

I moved to Jane, brushing her hair from her face. She was bleeding.

No, the blood was dry.

“Jane!” I yelled. “No!” I grabbed her neck, pressing with my fingers, searching for a pulse. There was nothing.

I was crying now. I knelt over her, my face bent down to her lips, trying to feel a breath against my cheek. Nothing.

Blood was everywhere—face, neck, arms, legs.

Gripping my useless left hand with my right, I pressed down onto her chest, over and over. I bent over her lifeless face and breathed into her mouth.

Nothing.

What could I do? Where could I go? We had no 911. No ambulance.