I stare at the headline, my heart sinking into my stomach. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

I try to click on the headline. Nothing happens. Why does the Internet have to be so bad out here? The picture next to the headline is filling in practically pixel by pixel. The beginning of a bald skull materializes on the screen.

It can’t be Marcus Hunt. It can’t.

And then the picture fills in a bit more. Just enough so that I can see his eyes.

Oh God. It’s him. It’s Hunt. He was found dead—possibly today. I tap on the article again, but the screen has completely frozen. I’m not going to get to read this story. I don’t know when this happened or how, but somehow, Marcus Hunt has been murdered.

This is breaking news. Which means they must have just found him recently. Was he killed overnight? I have no idea.

But I do know that this morning, my car keys were in a different place than I left them when I came home yesterday. And I also know that after everything that happened at Raker Penitentiary, Shane must despise Marcus Hunt with a burning passion.

My head is spinning. I jump out of the chair, pacing around the room as if it might give me some clue about what went on last night. But of course, the room is completely silent. No clues. Just a lot of dust.

I freeze when I get to the foot of the stairs. I rest my hand briefly on the banister. Like everything else, it’s dusty.

This is exactly where I was standing when Tim tried to strangle me. I had just come down the stairs, running out of Chelsea’s room because, for some crazy reason, I got it in my head that she might have stabbed Brandon and Kayla. Little did I know, she would be dead herself soon after, and my decision to leave the room cost my best friend her life.

I close my eyes, trying not to think about that night, but that only seems to make it worse. The more I try not to think about it, the more vivid it all seems. In the last few years, the memories had almost faded. But now that I’m standing in this farmhouse again, it seems like it all happened yesterday.

I ran out of Shane’s bedroom. I raced down the stairs as quickly as I could, then I tripped. And then quick as a flash, Tim was on top of me, tightening that necklace around my neck as the smell of sandalwood filled my nostrils. Then there was a crack of thunder, masking another sound I couldn’t quite make out.

I can almost feel the weight of his body crushing me. The air being cut off from my lungs. And I try to scream:

Shane, no!