A bell rings in the background, and it’s then that I realize where he is. My breath hitches at the rumbling of school buses starting up. He’s outside school. He’s near Annalisa.

“I can’t wait to meet her,” he continues. “School’s getting out now, and I’ve heard she’s a good friend of yours.”

I was not prepared for this. Nothing could’ve prepared me for this. No one is supposed to get hurt for me.

“Leave her alone!” I exclaim, the desperation in my voice clear as day. “Meet me and leave her alone. This is between us and about finishing what we started.”

“Abandon any ideas about whatever silly plan you had when you created a social media account and posted your phone number, a phone number I already had because of Andrew, mind you. Meet me alone. No cops—and I’ll know if there are cops—or I hurt Annalisa. Or maybe I hurt your other friends. Aiden, his brothers, the other boys you hang around with . . .”

Even the way he says their names make me sick. The way he talks about my friends like he would relish their pain, would hurt them just to hurt me—this is my worst fear come to fruition, all because of Andrew. All because I pissed him off enough to make him dig into me, to have him doubt who I was, to go searching for the truth and uncover a secret that gives him the one thing he wants to accomplish most: payback on me through Tony.

I’ve always known that no one was going to get hurt for me. I may feel out of control, but I can control who gets caught in the cross fire, and it won’t be Annalisa or Aiden or Mom or anyone else. My resolve is set. Any worries I had before are melting away with the realization that I always knew it would come to this. Just me and Tony.

“Where?”

“There’s an abandoned factory off forty-two. Know the place?”

I search my mind and an image of the place he’s talking about pops up. It’s chained up, so there’s no going inside, but it’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by trees.

“Yes,” I state.

“You have thirty minutes to get there. You don’t show and I’ll visit one of your friends.”

He hangs up before I can say anything else, and I clutch my phone in my hand so hard it hurts.

“Fuck!” My yell is answered by silence, and I rack my brain for something, anything to come to me.

I stare at my phone’s screen, the time glowing up at me innocently. It’s 2:30. Tony said school just let out, but that’s the time King ends. Commack Silver High gets let out early.

And Annalisa’s still a student there.

Yes! I feel like pumping my fists in victory. Annalisa’s nowhere near Tony, at least for the time being. For the first time ever, I’m grateful that Kaitlyn got her expelled.