“I couldn’t do it,” I say, dumbfounded at myself. It probably wasn’t the best strategy to finally take my stand against the Reverend while one camper is dead, and we’re trying to snoop around for Ricky’s killer. But the right time is the right time. The crushing feeling in my chest is already dissipating. Tiny specks of freedom seep into my swamp-filled mind.

I don’t have to keep some ludicrous story straight anymore, I don’t have to get drawn into the twisted reality of my mother’s conspiracy theory—I am actually, literally, for real NOT Avery Woodbine’s father. His father is some dirtbag who had sex with his underage employee and then dumped her. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life covering for a statutory rapist, even if it benefits me in the short term.

“You’re gonna get yourself dead,” Darcy whispers. She and Jack shake their heads in dismay, apparently not at all grateful I didn’t abandon them and take the Reverend’s Devil’s bargain. I realize my mistake: I blurted out “He’s an idiot kid” and the Reverend knows I found at least one of Ricky’s tapes. He knows I’m still trying to piece together Ricky’s story.

“I gave you an out. Remember that in the end.”

The Reverend wanted me to sign this hideous birth certificate, not because he wants to help Vicky and Avery but because he’s desperate to stop me from finding out the truth about what he did to Ricky. He knows we’re after him.

As Darcy and Jack stalk a few paces away to whisper, I’m left alone with Marcos. He’s not necessarily smiling, but an awed hush fills his voice: “You didn’t leave.”

Marcos forgot to add the last word of that sentence. He meant to say, “You didn’t leave me.”

I fight the familiar, fidgety nausea that comes whenever I’m this close—and this alone—with Marcos. “I’ve got more to do here,” I whisper. And it’s true. The real work begins because I’ve firebombed my path home.

Escape is rapidly becoming my only option, or Nightlight is going to be home for a while.

“Bill…sir?” Lacrishia asks, lugging over two Beginner boys—both pale to the point of being transparent. “May I take Alan and Owen to the cabins? The other Beginners too?”

“What for?” Karaoke Bill grunts, hunched over Drew’s body like a wary crow.

Lacrishia clears her throat, summoning the courage to continue: “Well, they don’t need to be seeing this.”

“What, are they too fragile?”

“You sit in on Expulsions sometimes…You’re obviously aware of the suicidal thoughts several of them live with. They don’t need to see any more of this than they already have. So, may I take them to their cabins, please, sir?”