“I’m going to hurt you,” Finn says. “I mean really hurt you. Leave you broken in ways you can’t imagine.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, looking for an opening.

“I’ll carve you up like a fucking turkey,” he says. “And your brother, and your pathetic uncle. And your goddamned dog. I’ll hurt everyone you love.”

“You talk a lot,” I say. “Especially for a guy who has nothing and nobody waiting for him.”

Finn responds by attacking, a flurry of stabs and slashes I can barely keep up with. I block a stab at my neck and almost catch him with a thrust to his armpit, but he twists away, slashing my bicep and drawing blood. Then he’s pressing me again, forcing me backward so I almost stumble. I slash, stab, kick, gouge. He blocks or avoids all my attacks. He cuts my forearm, then my shoulder, then nearly takes out an eye. I’m bleeding and starting to panic. He’s too fast. I can’t stop him.

“Broken,” he says, his eyes shining. He sweeps my legs at the ankles and I fall, landing on my back, which knocks the wind out of my lungs. Then Finn is on me, trying to shove his knife into my neck. I cross my wrists to block his arm, but he has the weight and the leverage. The knife sinks another centimeter closer, the tip hovering above the hollow of my throat.

“I’m going to slip this into you,” Finn says, his crazed smile inches from my face. “Hard and sharp and slow, and you are going to scream, it will hurt so much. And then I’ll punch it into one of your lungs, and you’ll feel it collapse and you’ll start gasping for air like a goldfish on a floor. And then I’ll skewer your fucking heart.” The knife sinks lower, the tip almost touching me. “You’ll taste your own blood as it wells up in your throat. I’ll be the last thing you see before you die. And I’m going to enjoy—”

Opening.

I crane my neck and bite down hard on his hand, on the pad below his pinkie finger. It’s like biting into a raw chicken thigh. Finn screams and instinctively pulls back, removing his knife from my throat. I stab my own knife upward, sticking it into Finn just above his collarbone, right in the trapezius muscle. I sit up, trying to shove the blade in further, and Finn rears back and rolls off me. I stand as he gets to his feet and backs away, blood already darkening the front of his shirt.

“I told you, you talk too much,” I say, holding my knife, the blade wet with Finn’s blood.