Page 65 of The Death Row Club
He doesn’t stop at the loose floorboard. The footsteps continue until they’re right on top of me. Then something starts scratching and clawing at the wood. It’s not until a thin shaft of light falls across me that I realize what he’s doing. He’s not nailing me in.
He’s digging me out.
The floorboard above me comes loose. I manage to roll onto my back. He’s standing at the edge of the gap, looking down at me—a screwdriver gripped in one hand. “Well,” he says. “This is unexpected.”
I squint into the brightness.
“Yeah, well, I’m resourceful, motherfucker.”
He lets out a sharp laugh, then starts working on the next floorboard. He doesn’t stop until three of them have been pried up and stacked in a neat pile off to the side. Only then does he reach into the open gap, and even though I dread it, I grab hold of his hand and let him pull me out. My T-shirt’s ripped, my jeans coated in mud. He replaces the boards, then steps back and takes a good look at me.
“You’re a mess.”
“Thanks, I’ll make sure to wash up in the—” I make a big show of looking around the shack. “Huh. Well, I guess I could always spit on myself.”
He tsks.Fine, I want to say.Just open the door, and I’ll walk my gross self out of your life.
That’s when I realize the doorisopen.
I don’t even think about it. I sprint as fast as I can toward the woods. I have no strategy, no maneuvers; I don’t even have any shoes, which is probably why he’s able to snatch me before I can even cross the threshold. I scratch at him, screeching every curse word I know into the wide-open space beyond the shack. The shoulder of my T-shirt, already torn from my time in the crawl space, lets go completely.
He drags me back across the floor and pins me against the wall. We’re both heaving by now—our chests jerking up and down, our breaths tangling together.
He glances down at my now-exposed shoulder.
His grip tightens.
I know what he’s looking at: the scars my dad’s left there over the years. Gashes and burns that make me look like the surface of a middle-school desk. JOE ARNOSTI WAS HERE.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
I am suddenly so fucking tired. I knock his hand away, and, much to my surprise, he releases me. “Does it matter? It’s not like you won’t do worse by the time we’re done.”
He says nothing.
Instead, he retrieves the screwdriver and heads for the door. He pauses in the frame, blotting out the light with his broad shoulders, and turns to me.
“Who was it?”
I try to pull the fabric back up to cover my shoulder, but it’s no use. Finally, I say:
“My dad.”
“I thought he was going to come rescue you.”
A wind blows through the trees. Pine needles, sharp like jagged teeth, flutter to the ground.
“I said he was going to come. I never said it was to rescue me.”
27NICOLA
CONNOR KILLED THEM.
That’s all I can think as I hurdle up the stairs. I need to find Greer, tell her about the evidence I discovered, but when I reach the landing, I’m surprised to find the door to my room open. Didn’t we close it when we went downstairs for breakfast? Careful not to make any noise, I edge closer, peer around the frame.
Greer’s standing next to my bed.
“Oh, thank god,” I exhale, stepping into the room. “I was looking for you. I need to show you—”
