Chapter 4

At lunch, Micah leaned over to me and whispered, "Jeremiah, don't you feel like the cops are paying extra attention to you?"

I tried to sound calm. "It's probably because I'm the victim in all this."

"But think about it. The two people who died are the ones who fought with you that day." Rita joined in. "Doesn't that feel a little too coincidental?"

"Coincidental? Come on, it's obvious someone's out there getting revenge for Jeremiah," Micah muttered, keeping his voice low. "Could it be some relative or friend of yours?"

I shook my head. "No way. My family's super straight-laced. They would never do something like this. And I don't have any friends that vicious."

Even so, a deep sense of fear crept over me. If the killer kept going, would I eventually become a suspect?

The thought killed my appetite.

…

Three more days passed, and the horror made another appearance. This time, the one who died was John Moore from the class next door.

I was in math class when the news broke. My pen slipped right out of my hand.

John Moore?

I remembered him vividly. He was the one who'd talked trash at the top of his lungs in the hallway.

Right after Louis had humiliated me, I'd stumbled out of the classroom with my head down. I'd bumped into John and a couple of his buddies chatting in the hallway.

"He brought it on himself, making such a big deal over one stupid food delivery."

"Right? And now, everyone knows how broke his family is."

"Some people just love attention. He totally deserved to get dragged like that."

Every word was like a knife cutting into my heart, making an already humiliating moment even worse.

And now, John was dead.

…

After class, the rumors exploded all over school.

"They found John dead at home. His tongue was cut out."

"What? His tongue?"

"Yeah. The killer sliced it off. There was blood everywhere."

My head spun. John's tongue was cut out? The guy who'd wagged tongues and mocked me had his tongue cut out?

The symbolism was impossible to ignore.

"This is already the third incident," Micah said, his face pale. "What the hell is the killer trying to do?"

"I think it's pretty obvious," Rita said quietly. "Every single one of them was involved in that food delivery incident."

She glanced at me. "Jeremiah, are you sure you don't know what's going on?"

I shook my head, but inside, that twisted rush of satisfaction surged again.

John was dead. The guy who said I deserved what I got was dead, and he died in a way that matched his sin perfectly.

"Do you think we're in danger, too?" someone asked.

"We should be fine, right? It's not like we ever messed with Jeremiah."

"Yeah, but who knows what the killer's standards are? What if it's enough that we were there that day?"

Panic started spreading through the class, and the way people looked at me changed. Their gazes were complicated now. There was pity, fear, and something else I couldn't quite name.

I tried to act calm, but inside, I was both thrilled and terrified.

The thrill came from knowing that someone who hurt me had gotten what he deserved. The terror came from the realization that this pattern of targeted killings would eventually make the cops zero in on me.

But what scared me most was the fact that I'd started looking forward to the next death. That thought alone made my skin crawl.

…

Since John's death, I noticed the way my classmates looked at me had completely changed. Sympathy turned to fear, and concern turned into suspicion.

During periods, I overheard a few classmates whispering among themselves as I walked to the bathroom.

"Don't you think it's weird? All the people who died are…"

As their voices drifted over, a bunch of details I'd been ignoring suddenly crashed into my mind all at once. I froze and stopped dead in the hallway, stunned.