“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

We’ve never argued before, let alone physically fought, but it feels inevitable now.

Lucas takes a step forward so our noses are almost touching. I see the face I know so well. At camp we woke up like this every morning in the tent, almost lying on each other’s mats.

“Linnea deserves better than someone who’ll abandon her.”

Lucas’s eyebrows shoot up. “Since when do you care about Linnea?”

I turn around. “I just don’t want Claus to win.”

“You said just now that it isn’t a game.” Lucas takes me by the shoulder and turns me back to face him. “Why are you so keen to save Linnea?”

Another image from last year flashes through my mind. What if this all ends the same as it did then?

“Just get yourself ready.”

The door opens and Kate appears. She’s wearing a little floaty black dress. It comes to just above her knees and flares out at the bottom.

It makes her look older, but at the same time really vulnerable. Her bare arms are crossed over her body.

“Can someone help me with the zipper?” She looks at me. “I can’t quite reach it.”

I nod. When Kate turns around, I take hold of the silver zipper. I want to tell her I’m sorry, that I never meant to hurt her. That I’ll make sure everything turns out okay this time, that she won’t lose another friend.

But the words stick in my throat.

I look at the birthmarks all over her back. Kate hates them, but she thought they were great. One big beauty spot, that’s what she called it, and since then Kate has hated them a bit less.

I do up the zipper.

“There you go,” I say.

“Thanks.” Kate turns around. “I actually brought this along for tomorrow. To celebrate my birthday. Not for…”

She glances at Lucas.

“Are you going to get ready?”

Thankfully Lucas doesn’t protest again, but buttons up the shirt. “We need to take a weapon.”

Kate shakes her head. “What are you planning to do? Stab Claus?”

“Of course not, but we’d be mad to go in there unarmed.” Lucas looks at me for backup. “Right?”

I think about Claus. At the end of the hallway, he looked smaller than I’d imagined.

He was even a bit nerdy, in those glasses of his.

“No, we’re not doing that,” I say. “He’ll search us. If we take any weapons, he’ll go wild.”

A church bell rings. I count the number of chimes.

Eleven.

“We stick together,” says Kate, looking at me, then Lucas, and back at me again. “Whatever happens, we stick together.”

Linnea

I can hardly get any air with this trash bag over my head. Every time I breathe, I suck it into my mouth. My top lip is wet.