He didn’t like the smell of Cole’s house. It smelled of boiled food and musk. Cole led him into his bedroom, which smelled a whole lot worse. Socks, sweat and dirty underwear. Cole closed the door behind them. It had a poster of a naked woman in chains pinned to it.

“Thought you were abducted,” Cole said. “Thought you were dead in a ditch.” When Austin didn’t respond, Cole went over to his nightstand. When he turned, he was holding a brass key. “This the one you’re looking for?”

Austin didn’t know. “Yes,” he said.

Cole examined it. “What’s it open?”

Austin gave a clueless shrug.

Cole peered at it some more. “You tell your parents on me?”

“No.”

“You brought them to my house.”

“They’re not my parents.”

“Who are they, then?”

“Just … just some people I know.”

Cole didn’t say anything to that. He held out the key. “Go on then. Take it.”

It was a trap. Austin knew it was. He’d seen Cole Blancard do this a hundred times, mostly with bags and books. Sometimes lunches. Once a phone – an expensive one – and when the kid had hurried forward Cole had dropped it. It landed on the screen, cracked the whole thing. Each one of those times, Cole had worn an expression of pure contempt, just like the one he was wearing now.

Except right now something was different. Cole had a new trick up his sleeve.

Austin crossed the room, careful not to step on the clothes that littered the floor. “Thank you,” he said, even before he reached for the key.

To his surprise, Cole let him take it. Then he jammed the cold muzzle of a handgun into the underside of Austin’s chin and slammed him back against the wall.

Austin couldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe. Only his eyelids worked. He blinked quickly, like he was trying to rid himself of the eerie blankness on Cole’s face.

“Want me to shoot you?” Cole asked quietly. “Want me to kill you?”

Tears came to Austin’s eyes.

Cole didn’t comment on them. He didn’t care about tears. He held death in his hand.

“I could blow your head off,” Cole said. “Boom. Blow it off. Your skull would be all over the place. Your brains would be my new wallpaper. This gun has a silencer. No one would even hear.”

“P-please …”

“Would they care, even if they did hear? Everyone thinks you’re still missing. Who are the people you’re with? They the ones kidnapped you? The guy’s a dick, but the woman’s okay-looking. I might do her after I kill you.”

“Please don’t.”