“You could never disappoint me. You know that,” I told her, my voice steady. “You’re the best person I know.”

“You’re the best person,” she corrected, a wobbly smile breaking through her tears. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

It took a long time for her breathing to slow and even out.

Sleep claimed her eventually.

I left her room quietly, shutting the door behind me before retreating into mine. My hands shook as I grabbed a textbook, flipping it open at random. I needed numbers. I needed order.

I needed a goddamn distraction.

“A transverse traveling wave moves along a string at a speed of v. If the tension is increased by a factor of four, what is the new wave speed?” My pencil scratched against the page as I worked through the equation. Wave speed is proportional to the square root of tension over mass per unit length. Increase tension by a factor of four, and the wave speed doubles. Simple.

I wrote the answer down.

Underlined it.

Stared at it.

Then I saw Beverly again—her red-rimmed eyes, the way her voice had cracked, the way her shoulders had curled inward like she was trying to disappear.

My pencil snapped in two.

I pressed my fingers into my temples, then dragged them down over my eyes, rubbing hard enough to see sparks.

My mind betrayed me. For the first time in years, it wandered beyond logic, beyond numbers, beyond equations.

I let myself feel the rage, let it fill every inch of me, until there was no room for anything else.

A human skull, on average, can withstand about 520 pounds of force before fracturing…

How much force could I generate with my fists? My legs?

If I drove my knuckles into Mason’s jaw at the right angle, could I break it?

If he thought he could walk away unscathed, then he had no understanding of physics, of consequence.

For every force exerted, there was an equal and opposite force.

Mason had no idea what he had done.

He had no idea what was coming for him.

11

BLAKE, 1997

16 years old

I needed a bat.

Something solid, something that could turn my thoughts into action. Something I could use to wipe that smug look off Mason’s face. The thought of it almost made me feel better.

Almost.

I paced around Jamal’s living room, my fists itching for something to hit. His parents were in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled like a meal I didn’t deserve at that moment—not with the plans I had for Mason, which would turn me into a monster.

Jamal lounged on the couch, clicking the remote, acting like I wasn’t unraveling in front of him.

“I need a bat,” I said, my voice low. “And a balaclava.”

“A bat and a what-now?” he muttered, clicking the remote like his life depended on it. “You mean baklava? The dessert?”