There will be the buzz and then the doors will open. Not for long. I’ll have to bolt between the guards and hope they are too surprised to grab me.

It takes longer than I expect, though, for the guards to get the doors open for Kendall. Their key cards don’t work until the third try. Waiting, my lips get icy in the flow from the fountain. Finally, I hear the buzz. And then the doors are open, and Kendall goes through.

It is my moment. Go. Go. Go.

I lunge after Kendall into the brightness of the hall. I brace for some kind of pain: a baton cracked against my knee, my face smashed against a wall. A hand on the back of my neck, pulling at my hair.

But there is this moment, this sudden gap in time. Then somehow I am through the doors. I am in that hall. And there is Kendall, already some distance ahead.

There’s a loud shout behind me. One of the guards finally. “Wha—Hey!”

But the door clicks shut before they can grab it.

“What are you doing here?” I shout after Kendall as I start down the hall. “What is this?”

He does not speed up, but he doesn’t slow down either. Instead, he just walks on in his nicely tailored suit and his hard leather shoes—pound, pound, pound. And, yet, somehow he is still so far away.

“Hey!” I shout again, and I sound so angry. Because I am. I am filled with rage. Kendall might not have killed Cassie, but he played a part in her death. “Who are you?”

But still Kendall ignores me. He will not do that. I will not let him, not this time.

The door finally opens behind me. I can hear fast footsteps behind me as I start to run.

I need to reach him before they reach me. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears as I sprint until I’m finally close enough to lunge for him. Fingers outstretched. And I want to do more than stop him. I want to scratch him, to tear into his skin. But instead I am suddenly too close. My face bangs against his shoulder and then we are somehow falling forward. On purpose, that’s what I think. We are falling not because I knocked Kendall over, but because he wants it that way.

When my knee hits the floor, the pain is a jolt of electricity. Kendall somehow lifts me effortlessly off him as he spins around then holds me hard by the forearms and jerks my head close.

“Get out now,” he whispers in my ear as he shoves something into my hand.

A piece of paper, cardboard, something folded and sharp and square. And then I feel how Kendall feels: desperate and regretful. Sorry. This is his way of making amends.