Jenica Jessen

CHAPTER 1

 

            It’s ten minutes to noon, and I can already tell someone’s going to want to kill me today. Most likely, it’ll be Kelli Aimes. She doesn’t know yet.

            “I’d stay out of it,” warns Heather, steadily working her way through a limp cafeteria salad. Across the table, some guy is peeling the pepperoni off his pizza. My sister invited me to eat lunch with her and her friends. I still don’t know why I agreed.

            “Stay out of what?” I ask, my eyes on a table across the room.

            “You know what.”

            I do know what. Sara Blake is eating alone today, or at least she was until Kelli came along with her volleyball team in tow. Now she’s shrinking back, eyes on the floor, as Kelli says something that makes all the other girls laugh unpleasantly.

            “You act like I have no clue what you’re thinking,” says Heather, poking at some dry carrots. “Leave it alone. You don’t want to end up in detention again.”

            “I’m not gonna end up in detention,” I say, turning and scanning the room. Where’s the vice principal?

            Mr. Phillips is on lunch duty today, his steel gray suit matching what’s left of his hair. He’s heading towards the cafeteria exit, on his way to go patrol the hallway. Me being me, I’ve memorized his usual route.

            The cruel giggling grows louder. “Come on, Jessie,” says Heather. “You know it’s not going to end well if Kelli’s involved.”

            “No,” I agree without moving. “I definitely don’t think it will.”

            Phillips is out of the room. I’ve got about a minute and a half before he comes back in again. I set down my sandwich.

            “I’d stay out of it,” says Heather again.

            “Seconded,” adds the guy across from us, who’s on the debate team and thinks he’s clever. “All in favor, say ‘aye’.”

            Heather raises her hand. “Aye!”

            “Objection noted,” I say, standing up and heading for Kelli. “The chair overrules.”

            I’m not exactly friends with Sara, but I do know her. She’s in my senior English class, and once we did a project on Greek mythology together. If not for her, I wouldn’t have passed.

            By now, Kelli is smirking and Sara has turned bright red—things seem to be escalating. Another minute and Sara’s going to start crying. I quicken my pace a bit.

            “Kelli!” I say when I’m close enough, with the fakest cheerfulness I can muster. “How are you?”

            The laughing stops.

            Kelli turns, irritation on her face, and then plasters on an overly friendly expression. “Oh, Jessie, I’m doing great. What about you? Don’t you have some lunch you should be eating? I’ve never known you to turn down food.”

            Translation: Keep walking. I don’t want to keep walking, so I just smile a little wider. “Don’t you have some essay you should be writing?”

            “What?”

            I glance over her shoulder at the door of the cafeteria. Phillips isn’t back yet. I have a few seconds. “Well,” I say, “I was just thinking that doing some homework would probably be a better way to boost your class rank than attacking Sara.” I shrug. “We all know you only hate her because she’s going to get into the Ivy League and you aren’t.”

            Kelli turns to me completely, and her smile is now genuine. It’s not a good one. “Oh, look who’s coming to the rescue,” she says, and the ring of girls around us giggles. “I wonder how it’s possible that all of Jessie Corbin’s friends could be complete losers. I wonder if there’s some common denominator.”

            I wait until the laughter subsides, even though the jab at Heather and Sara and even that weird debate guy makes my blood rise a little bit. The vice principal will be back any second now. “At least my friends,” I say calmly, “don’t all think I’m trying to compensate for my lack of brains.” I pretend to examine her winged eyeliner. “Or looks, for that matter.”

            Kelli raises her perfectly-drawn eyebrows, smile gone, and takes a step closer.

            “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she says politely, but her teeth are clenched tight. “Care to say it again?”

            Suddenly I realize the circle of girls has closed around me, so that I’m totally surrounded. Kelli’s hands have curled into fists, and she’s taking a stance that means trouble. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Sara—looking terrified.

            But over Kelli’s shoulder, I see something else. Now is my moment. I put on a smile.

            “At least my friends,” I say quietly, “don’t think I’m a—”

            Heather has been trying to get me to stop swearing. She says it’s obnoxious and rude. I guess I understand that, in theory, but some people are obnoxious and rude enough that you need to expand your vocabulary to describe them.

            Let’s just say it’s a good thing Heather is all the way across the room.

             “Wrong move, Corbin.” Kelli bares her teeth and rams her fist into my gut.

            It hurts, of course. I’ve had worse, but I’m not about to let on. So I cry out, grab at my stomach, and drop to my knees behind one of the tables.

            “Kelli,” says one of her friends warningly, and I know that she’s seen what I’ve seen, and she’s trying to bail. But Kelli’s too angry to stop. Her foot moves and I realize she’s going to kick me.

            I manage to pull back just in time and she misses, but I drop all the way to the floor anyway and let out a yell. From a distance you’d think she’d connected. She looks at me, confusion flitting across her face, and then there’s a bellow that sounds like the end of the world.

            “MISS AIMES!”

            Phillips is the type of guy who still calls all of the students “Mister” and “Miss”, no matter how many years into the 21st century we are. He walked back into the cafeteria all of nine seconds ago and he’s already up in arms. And in that moment I see the understanding dawn on Kelli—that I saw him coming, that I’ve set her up.

            Rage twists her features, but Phillips is storming up the aisle, now yelling something about the code of conduct, and there’s nothing she can do. I clutch my stomach, groaning—but just before the VP reaches us, I peek up at Kelli and give her a genuine smile, and mine is not very nice either.

            I win.

            ---

            Three hours later I walk out of the school, squinting in the afternoon light. The final bell rang minutes ago, and the front of the building is buzzing with buses and cars and honors students hauling books and band kids hauling instrument cases and freshmen who still look lost after a month of classes. To my left is a pack of jocks, with a smattering of blonde dye jobs in the middle—I recognize a few members of Kelli’s clique. They stop talking as I pass, eyeing me menacingly.

            I ignore them. Normally I drive to school, but today Dad is picking me up, so I scan the crush of vehicles jockeying for a place at the curb. There it is, right in front of a large blue truck—a silver sedan with a dented hood and a handful of mismatched bumper stickers.

            Dad is driving, and Heather is riding shotgun. I’m fine with that. I don’t like shotgun. The seat closest to me is full of luggage, so I cross behind the car to get to the other side. The owner of the truck behind us revs his engine threateningly as I pass. I roll my eyes. Probably some punk in his dad’s pickup.

            My cell buzzes as I open the car door—it’s a text from a number I don’t recognize. Do you let the VP fight all your battles for you?

            I put the phone away. Word of the incident seems to be spreading pretty quickly.

            I have bigger problems to worry about, though. Like the fact that I promised Dad I’d stop getting into fights. If he finds out what happened today I’ll probably end up grounded.

            I scrutinize the front seat as I get in—Dad seems relaxed, and Heather’s chatting about something that happened in first period. She hasn’t told him yet.

            Then she catches my eye in the mirror. Uh-oh.

            “Hey Jess,” says Dad cheerfully. He’s still wearing his work clothes, and his glasses are perched high on his nose. “How was school?”

            “Good,” I say, reaching for my seatbelt. I would put my backpack down, but there’s no room. All the junk that normally clutters the backseat has been moved to the floor to make room for Dad’s suitcases. He’s headed to a family reunion in Minnesota. We’re going straight to the airport to drop him off.

            “Good?” Heather raises her eyebrows. “Wow, that’s specific. Care to elaborate?”

            I shoot her a meaningful look in the mirror, but she’s not fazed. It’s pretty obvious she’s my little sister—she has the same nose as I do, the same smattering of freckles, the same sand brown hair. Except unlike my hair, hers is carefully straightened and artfully layered, brushing the shoulders of her dusky pink blouse.

            I combed my hair this morning. And threw on some jeans and the closest t-shirt to hand, like I do every day. Today it’s a navy one that reads Insert Smart Remark Here.

            Which I do.

            “The school didn’t burn down and nobody got sent to the hospital,” I say. “I think that counts as good.”

            “I think the hospital’s too low a bar,” says Heather. “What about the nurse’s office?”

            Okay, I did end up in the nurse’s office, while Kelli got chewed out by the principal. But I’m not about to admit it. I force a laugh instead, giving her a death glare.

            “So do you guys have anything fun planned for tonight?” Dad asks. “It’s Friday, after all.”

            My sister opens her mouth again, and at this point I’m ready to slap my hand over it to get her to shut up. But to my surprise, she doesn’t bring up either the fight or my potential grounding. “I was going over to Alex’s house tonight,” she says. “Jessie was going to drive me.”

            What? When did I agree to that? That’s at least twenty minutes out of the way, and she knows I hate being her chauffeur whenever…

            Then it clicks.

            I guess she wins this round, because I swallow my protests and agree. “That’s right,” I say. “I’m taking her out there before I make plans with my friends.”

            “Make sure you guys stay out of trouble while I’m gone,” Dad warns. Heather, who’s gotten what she wanted, keeps her mouth shut. “I’ve asked Mrs. Carlton to be your emergency contact—you know how the reception is at Grandma’s house. I probably won’t be able to call until tomorrow night…”

            He’s repeated these instructions about twenty times already; the drive to the airport from his office seems to take forever as he proceeds to give us repetition number twenty-one. I tune out and start checking my phone.

            Kelli must be egging her friends on, since I’ve got more than a dozen new texts. The first one consists entirely of swear words, only one of which is even spelled correctly. I delete them all, then block the numbers they were sent from. That seems to solve the problem. My phone doesn’t buzz again before we get to the airport.

            “…And can you please try to keep up on the dishes?” Dad finishes, pulling up to the curb at the departures entrance. “One of these days that pile in the sink is going to become sentient and take over the kitchen.”

            I roll my eyes. “We’ll call you if that happens.”

            We all clamber out, and I take the keys from him while Heather gets the luggage from the backseat. Around us dozens of other people are pulling up and unloading; the glass doors of the airport gleam in the sunlight. Dad straightens his shirt. “You’ll be okay, right?”

             “We’ll be fine.” Heather hands over his suitcase.

            “I know you will.” With his free arm, he grabs my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “Love you,” he says, doing the same to Heather before pulling back and heading for the entrance.

            “Have a good trip,” I call, and he waves before disappearing inside the airport.

            For a moment we stand there, as more cars pull up to the curb and a jet engine roars on the other side of the building. My sister and I look at each other.

            “Let’s roll,” she says with a grin.

            I cross around the front of the car, closer to the incoming traffic, digging the keys and my phone out of my pocket. It’s just after four, no new texts. And now I have to drive Heather…

            “So I guess I’m taking you to Alice’s house.” Alyssa? Allie? I never can remember her name. “I’ll just drop you—”

            “Jessie! LOOK OUT!”

            Heather’s voice is full of panic, which snaps my mind into the present. Almost in slow motion, I turn and look up.

            I’m just in time to see a gigantic truck bearing down on me. The driver is going much, much, much faster than he should be, screaming through the drop-off zone—and he’s too far to the side, headed right towards me and closing fast.

            If I don’t move in the next two seconds, I’m roadkill.

            To my left is our own car, blocking off my escape. Forward and to the right put me straight into the path of the oncoming vehicle. Backwards would only delay the inevitable. Adrenaline blasts thought me.

            There’s one way out.

            Before my brain can even finish the thought, I’m moving, instinctively, throwing myself back and upwards. I land on the hood of our car and roll, yanking my legs out of the way, not a second too soon because a wall of blue metal whooshes past and a side view mirror clips my shin.

            Given the speed the vehicle is moving at, that still gives me a pretty good whack. I’m off balance and can’t control my roll, so I tumble over, across the front of the hood, and land hard on the pavement in front of our car. The truck screams past, not even bothering to slow down.

            “Watch where you’re going, you stupid—”

            I add a few things Heather wouldn’t approve of, although I don’t think she’s even listening. She’s standing there, door half open, hands over her mouth and eyes wide. “Oh my gosh,” she gasps finally. “Are you okay?”

            I stand up and check. There’ll be a lovely bruise on my shin and I’m a little sore from hitting the ground, but other than that I don’t think I’m hurt. I dust gravel bits off my t-shirt. “I’m fine. It’s okay.”

            “That jerk,” she says after a moment.

            “You’re telling me,” I mutter, glaring at the tailgate as it recedes into the distant traffic. Idiot reckless driver almost killed me.

            He’s long gone by now, though, and I’m alive and in one piece. So after another beat, I open the door and climb inside.             “We’re going to Alexa’s house, right?”

            Heather hesitates a moment before getting in. “Yeah.”

            “Then let’s go.”

            ---

            Heather and I don’t talk much on the way back. I don’t mind. I’m trying to focus on the road.

            Not that I’m doing a particularly great job. As I drive, I see that truck behind my eyes—screaming towards me, coming up way too fast.

            Another second and I would have been dead. Didn’t he see me? Wasn’t he paying attention? Why didn’t he slow down or swerve?

            Was he trying to hit me?

            I adjust my grip on the wheel. Why would he want to hit me? Who on earth have I managed to tick off that badly?

            Kelli? I know she’s furious—she’s probably spent the afternoon in the throes of a full-fledged meltdown—but this seems way beyond anything she’d try.

            She’s got a lot of friends, and I do remember seeing a blue truck in the parking lot at the school. But there are a lot of trucks out there, and a lot of them are blue. And if it was the same truck, how could the driver have possibly known I was going to the airport?

            It could have been a different truck. It could have been a coincidence. It could have been an accident.

            And I could have been flattened. I swear at the guy under my breath. I’m still here, but that was almost bad. It was almost really bad.

            You can now add pickup trucks to the list of things I absolutely can’t stand—along with fertilizer, baby mobiles, hospitals, dogs, and raisins. Raisins are disgusting.

            “I’m glad you’re okay,” says Heather after a while.

            I glance up at the sky. “Me too.”

            “You didn’t…” She swallows. “You didn’t see who it was, did you?”

            “No.”

            Heather is quiet for a few seconds. “I almost wonder,” she says finally, “if it could have been… Kelli. Or one of her friends. I saw a truck like that in the school parking lot today.”

            I shake my head. “She’d never go that far.”

            “From what I’ve heard,” says Heather, “she’s pretty upset about what happened. The suspension would have gone on her academic record. And her reputation is ruined—the teachers all thought she was a star student. She’s never been in this kind of trouble before.”

            I think for a moment and then shake my head. “Nah. Kelli’s a petty bully, not a murderer.”

            Heather shrugs. “I dunno. People do unexpected stuff when they’re desperate.” She glances over at me, half smiling. “Remember that shed?”

            Of course I do. She’s referring to an incident that happened five or six years ago, the summer after the accident. Heather, Dad and I were all outside, working in the garden. Trying to, at least. Dad, who had been doing battle with a particularly difficult weed, finally sent me to the shed out back to find him a shovel.

            This was something of a perilous undertaking. The day was warm and it was even hotter inside the shed, which hadn’t been cleaned out in several years because I think my family has an allergy to organization. To get to the shovel, I had to work my way past a broken snow blower, buckets we hadn’t used in a decade, a tangle of old garden hoses—and a few large bags of unused fertilizer sitting next to the door.

            Well. Did you know that if fertilizer is left alone too long in a warm spot, it can spontaneously combust?

            At the time I didn’t, but that fact suddenly became extremely relevant.

            I remember hearing a crackling noise, then smelling smoke, and then turning around and seeing the wall—and the only door—engulfed in flames. I was eleven years old and completely trapped.

            I started panicking, so I don’t remember much of what happened next, just flashes: looking for something to grab, my hand landing on a dull axe, the thin shed wall splintering, and then standing on the lawn covered in soot and wood chips while Dad called 911. I’d made my own door.

            I guess that’s Heather’s point—I can do unexpected stuff when I’m desperate—but mostly I remember that by then, we were all pretty much done with near-death experiences. The next year we moved. The new house didn’t have a garden. Or a shed.

            Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any place we can move to where I’ll be able to avoid blue trucks.

 

​

CHAPTER 2

 

            I drop Heather off at Alexis’s house and head home. We live in a quiet area with a lot of oldish houses; there’s an empty one on the end of the street that Heather and I always used to joke was haunted. Mostly because we wanted to make the neighborhood seem less dull.

            It’s just after five by the time I get back; still an hour of daylight left. I park on the street because it’s nice out and I hate trying to fit in our tiny garage. The garbage can sits out on the road, empty. I should probably drag it in—it’s been there since the trash was picked up this morning.

            Dad’s absence means I’m feeling a bizarre streak of responsibility, so I wheel the can to the side of the house. Mature and accountable adulthood, here I come. The gap between our house and the neighbor’s fence is narrow, but I manage to squeeze through, bumping against the open side door as I straighten out the can.

            Why is the door open?

            I pause, staring at it. It leads directly into the house, through a small mudroom into the kitchen. But the mudroom doesn’t get used much, and we almost never open that door.

            Even if there had been anyone home in the past eight hours to open it.

            Maybe Dad opened it before work this morning while he was packing. Maybe it was really hot inside. And he didn’t want to turn on the AC for some reason.

            Or maybe, Heather forgot to pack a lunch, walked home to make herself some mac and cheese, burned it, and opened the door to let out the smoke because the window randomly wouldn’t open.

            Yeah, no.

            There’s another explanation, of course, one that jumped to my mind almost immediately, but part of me refuses to accept it. I’m being dramatic. There has to be a more innocent explanation, right?

            Wrong, argues the other part of me. Somebody has broken in.

            That would be just my luck. I hesitate for a moment and then give up on thinking about it and walk through the door. I’d rather find out what’s up than keep guessing.

            Inside, the light is off. Which is no surprise; nobody’s been home. The mudroom is as cramped as ever, full of all the junk we keep saying we’re going to clean out eventually but never do—old Christmas decorations and moving boxes and two sad forgotten folding chairs. But there’s something else on the floor that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

            It’s just a small black duffel bag with a shoulder strap, and it would be totally innocuous. Except that I don’t actually own a small black duffel bag with a shoulder strap, and neither does Heather, and neither does Dad. This didn’t come from our house. It doesn’t belong here.

            After a moment I bend over and unzip it. Inside is an assortment of objects: a set of black clothes, a crowbar, a flashlight, and no fewer than three handguns.

            I rock back on my heels, heartbeat spiking. Somebody has broken in. And whoever it is, they mean trouble.

            The weapons look odd. I mean, I don’t have a ton of experience with guns, but I have at least seen movies. I pull one out of the bag, taking a closer look in the half-light of the mudroom. It’s shaped like a small pistol, black and perfectly smooth. No ridges, no markings, no screws. No moving parts as far as I can tell, except for the trigger and a small dial on the back above the handgrip. It has numbers, one to five.

            Curious, I wrap my palm around the grip. As soon as my finger touches the trigger, a strip of red light flares along the barrel, and the weapon thrums with energy. I wait a moment, not sure what to expect—but nothing else happens.

            Until, that is, I decide to experiment. I raise the gun, point it at a blank spot on the wall, and pull the trigger. There’s a high pitched whine and then a cracking noise, and a bolt of red light explodes out of the end of the barrel. I jump and drop the weapon. The beam slams into the wall, which glows for a moment before the energy dissipates. No mark.

            For a moment I sit there, stunned. What just happened?

            The chunk of my brain in charge of explaining stuff provides an immediate answer—I’ve watched enough science fiction movies to know a laser gun when I see one.

            Except, of course, that kind of stuff doesn’t actually exist in real life.

            When confronted with this fact, the chunk of my brain in charge of explaining stuff throws up its hands in disgust and leaves me to fend for myself. What the crap just happened?

            And more importantly, who the crap has broken into my house?

            There’s a sudden sound from the vicinity of the living room, and that snaps me right out of my daze. I connect the dots and my heart rate goes up a few more notches. I didn’t make that noise, and there’s nothing else that could have… except the intruder. Whoever it is, they’re still here.

            And they most definitely just heard the gun go off.

            I straighten, mind racing. I have two exits. Two options—I could head into the kitchen, deeper into the house, closer to the intruder. Or I could run out the door and back to the car. That’s probably the safer option.

            But if I do that, I’m not going to get any answers, and I have to know what’s going on.

            I pause a minute to pick up the gun again and then head into the kitchen, where crumbs are scattered around the toaster and the fridge is humming softly. If they heard the noise, they might be on their way to investigate. Which means they’ll be heading for the mudroom. Which means we’re about to cross paths any second.

            As soon as this thought occurs to me, I duck behind the island in the middle of the kitchen. I don’t want to confront them just yet—not if I can help it. I don’t know if they’re armed. I don’t know anything else either, as a matter of fact, but I figure I’ll handle one unknown at a time.

            The linoleum floor is cool even through my jeans. I brace myself against the cupboards, listening hard.

            There—footsteps. Coming this way.

            Everything sounds a lot louder in an empty house. I hear the steps coming down the hallway and into the kitchen, getting hollower as they leave the carpet. I hold my breath, adrenaline coursing through my veins, as the person crosses behind me, walking on the other side of the island maybe six feet away. I swear I can feel the floor creaking beneath me as they pass.

            As soon as they enter the mudroom, I pull myself upright, step over the patch of floor that always squeaks, and head for the living room.

            Here’s where the general state of things goes from rather concerning to downright freaky. I stop in the doorway, staring at the room—tan couch against the wall, oak bookcase next to it, two potted plants and a lot less clutter than the rest of the house. It looks normal enough, except for the rope hanging from the ceiling. There’s a chair standing under it, dragged in from the kitchen, a piece of paper sitting on the seat.

            The rope hanging from the ceiling is looped at one end. Knotted in a way that’s impossible to mistake. A noose.

            Seriously? I shake my head a bit, trying to figure this out. Did this guy really just break into my house so he could kill himself? That makes no sense.

            I come a little closer, wary. A pencil has been discarded on the floor, one of the bright green ones Heather bought me for my half birthday. There’s writing on the piece of paper lying on the seat. I pick it up.

            What I find here also doesn’t make much sense, but it does freak the heck out of me.

            The first thing I notice is that it’s in my handwriting. Except it isn’t. It’s like my handwriting, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s how it would look if someone was doing their best to imitate it.

            The handwriting, though, isn’t nearly as creepy as what the note says. Dear Dad and Heather, it begins. I’m sorry it had to be this way. I love you, but I just can’t go on. I think this is best for everybody. Love, Jessie.

            An electric shock goes through me, and I drop the paper. It’s a suicide note. It’s a suicide note, in my handwriting, written with my pencil, underneath a noose in my living room, with my name on it. I step backwards and take a deep breath, trying to get myself under control. I can’t panic. I can’t panic, because…

            There’s a noise in the kitchen, and my head whips around. I can’t panic because there’s a stranger in my house. Who, investigating the mudroom, probably noticed the unzipped bag and missing gun, suddenly heavy in my hand. Who is most likely heading back this way.

            The living room only has one exit, out into the hallway, and they’re going to be coming through it any moment now. I’m trapped. And I have about three seconds to come up with a plan.

            Luckily, I know this house a lot better than the stranger does. There’s a blind spot along the wall where the bookshelf blocks the view from the door. Heather used to love to jump out of it, trying to scare me. I duck into the blind spot and grip the strange handgun tightly.

            The footsteps approach, pausing for a moment at the doorway. Probably checking to see if I’m in here. Satisfied that I’m not, the intruder—a man, maybe forty or fifty years old—moves past my hiding spot and starts to climb up onto the chair, reaching for the rope. I stare at his back, heart pounding.

            If he turns around, or glances over his shoulder, or looks out the corner of his eye, he’ll see me. I decide on the spot I’m not going to wait for that to happen. After the briefest moment of hesitation, I step forward and raise my gun. “Don’t move.”

            He doesn’t, stopping where he is. For a long moment, both of us are motionless. I stare at the back of his head, trying to figure out where to go from here—but before I get that far, he begins to laugh.

            I blink, confused, as the laughter grows louder. It isn’t quite amused, but it isn’t quite anything else either. He raises his hands, steps back from the chair, and turns around. “You know, you told me once that you were almost impossible to kill,” he says conversationally. “And you know what an idiot I was? I didn’t believe you.”

            He’s a few inches taller than me, vaguely muscular, with brown-red hair and a thin face. Probably in his mid-forties. He wears black pants, black boots, a black leather jacket—but it’s cut oddly, in a style I don’t recognize, lots of zippers and diagonal seams. On one hand, he has a weird-looking glove, although I’m not even sure “glove” is the correct term since it’s fingerless and has something that looks like a keypad sewn into the palm. He hasn’t shaved in a few days. His eyes are a hard gray. And I’ve never seen him before.

            Which is probably why, out of everything that could possibly concern me about that statement, I pick the first bit to respond to. “Okay, except I’m fairly certain that I’ve never told you anything in my life,” I say. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

            He’s looking at me, staring hard, and I see something in his gaze that confuses me even more—hate. Why does he hate me? Does he even know me? “You’re slow, aren’t you?” he asks mockingly.

            I feel a pulse of anger and tighten my grip on the gun. “What are you doing here?” I demand again.

            “For crying out loud, there’s a stranger in your house, a noose in your living room, and a suicide note with your name on it. Do you want me to spell it out?”

            I know, of course. There’s only one possible explanation, even though it doesn’t explain very much at all. “I’m here to kill you,” he says simply.

            “Why?” I demand. “Who are you?”

            He smirks a little. “My name,” he says, “is Steven Thorne, although it’s not like it matters since you’re going to be dead in a few minutes anyway. Feel free to start pondering your last words.”

            A small part of me, the honest part, wants to drop the laser gun and run screaming from the room. The rest of me instantly dislikes his attitude—and then it swears that if it’s the last thing I do, I’m never, ever going to let this man see my fear.

            So I take a small step forward. “I’m pretty sure that of the two of us, I’m the one who gets to be making threats here.”

            “Why?” he asks, unfazed. “Because you’re holding the gun? If you want to threaten me, Corbin, you might want to do it with a weapon set slightly higher than ‘Impede’.”

            I glance down at the pistol and notice the little numbered dial again. It’s set to one, and I use my thumb to crank it all the way up to five. “Kill,” he says, almost approvingly.

            “You know,” I point out, “if I’m holding a gun on you, you might not want to tell me how to use it.”

            He actually grins at me, and I realize the thing that scares me most is that he isn’t scared one bit. “Normally good advice,” he replies. “But right now, I think I’ll run the risk. Because today, for once…”

            His hand twitches, the fingers in the glove curling in towards his palm. I have just enough time to notice the movement before he presses a button on that tiny keypad—and then things happen very, very fast.

            If possible, they get even weirder.

            Steven Thorne’s entire figure blurs, smearing together like a preschooler’s finger painting. Suddenly a person-shaped streak is moving across the room towards me—too fast to run from, too fast to dodge, too fast to really even react to. It isn’t until he snaps back into focus two feet away from me that I even jump in shock, and then he’s reached out and twisted the handgun out of my grip before I can even think about pulling the trigger.

            “…For once, I’m in control,” he finishes.

            What was that?

            I stagger back, mind racing. I’m certain that I did just see it happen, that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me—but when I try to make sense of it, the chunk of my brain in charge of explaining stuff shorts out and shuts down entirely.

            And I don’t have time to worry about it, because he’s advancing on me, hatred in his eyes, and I realize that for the second time today, I’m dead if I don’t move.

            I scramble backwards, trying to come up with a plan. The door is to my back, and I start to turn—

            And then things blur again, and suddenly the guy whips around me. When he drops back into focus he’s between me and the exit. “Going somewhere?”

            I stumble to the side, towards the bookcase, hoping for a weapon or a distraction or anything that might help me. There isn’t much, unless I want to try and strangle him with the curtains. Another few steps and even that won’t be an option—I’ll be pinned against the bookcase.

            Suddenly an idea occurs to me and I trip.

            He actually laughs as I fall backwards, grabbing at the shelves for support, scrabbling at the book spines. “Not so tough now, are you?” he asks, raising the gun he took from me. “No sarcastic remark?”

            His gloating gives me just enough time to get my hands on a hardback dictionary. The smirk leaves his face as I jerk upright and hurl it at his head.

            Steven Thorne is fast, I won’t deny that. He raises his free arm to protect his head and the book glances off his forearm—probably leaving a monster bruise, but at least his face is intact. Before he can do more than grunt, though, I’ve launched an even bigger book directly at his nose. He blocks this one with the palm of his hand, and the book slams right into the center of his glove.

            There’s a soft whine, and a single spark jumps from the glove, and suddenly everything stops dead.

            The book falls heavily to the floor. Thorne remains there, motionless, eyes wide and staring at the place where the book was flying from. He looks like a statue, his arm still raised.

            After a long moment, I get up, waiting for him to move or start smirking or try to kill me again. But he doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t even blink. The house is silent.

            I glance at the book, lying half-open on the floor—Roget’s Thesaurus. Probably the least glamorous weapon in the world, but whatever I did… it worked.

            I stare at him a moment. What did I do?

            Suddenly, though, I realize I’d better not hang around to find out. Because there’s the tiniest movement—his eyes are shifting, gliding slowly from the empty space in front of him to his upraised hand. There’s a small readout on the palm—when I lean in I can tell it says Decelerate. His hand is twisting towards his face, and his eyes move over the word. And slowly, ever so slowly, a look of rage begins to creep into them.

            That’s my cue to go. I yank the gun from his other hand, dig out my car keys, and run.