“Check this out.” Trace rummages in one of the cupboards and when he faces us, he’s holding a generous bottle of whiskey. “The rumors are true. I knew they kept good shit in here.”

“Alcohol?” Harrison asks, and like that, I can tell he’s never drank anything, let alone been drunk before. “Holy shit.”

“What’s that doing in here?” Rhys asks.

Trace sets the bottle on the table in front of the couches and flicks a tag wrapped around its neck. “Read that. There was an ice-cream cake in the fridge, but it melted.”

Grace peers at the tag. “Enjoy your retirement, Vick. We wish we were you.”

Vick Bergstein. Our graying world history teacher.

“Think he’s enjoying his retirement?” Trace asks, and I laugh before I can stop myself. He soaks it up. “I know, right? He’s probably dead. And then I got thinking about the teachers here that I wished were dead, like over and over—like Mrs. Good—and it’s funny because now they probably are dead and it’s like—like that’s what I—”

His eyes go wide, almost like he’s thinking to himself I wanted this. I wanted them dead and now it’s happened because I wanted it.

“They weren’t all bad, though,” Grace says. “I liked Mr. Ford. And Mrs. Lafferty. Mrs. Tipton was kick-ass. I bet she survived. Some of them were great at what they did…”

My head is full of faces, faculty members, and I wonder where they are now and if it’s a given, like Trace said, that they’re all dead. I wonder if I ever wished them dead—if something as simple as that would be the reason I’m here and they’re not. But then I think they must’ve wished us dead at some point. They must have. What teacher wouldn’t?

Trace stares at the bottle. “So do we open this because we’re still alive or do we open it when we’re sure we’re going to die?”

“We’re not going to die,” Cary says.

“Didn’t you say the same thing to my parents before you sent them in that alley?”

“Give it a rest, Trace.”

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings, murderer?”

“They offered to go down that alley first,” I say, because for some dumb reason I think that will help. But then everyone stares at me and I wish I could put the words back in my mouth. Trace looks like I’ve gutted him.

“No one asked you, Sloane,” Grace says. “And Cary told them it was clear.”

“But they offered to do it.” My voice gets small. “Cary didn’t force them.”

“You know what? I’m fucking tired of all of you,” Trace declares abruptly, but his voice cracks and I think he’s going to cry because he leaves the room with his head down.

Because of me.

How to salvage a moment: Rhys suggests we move whatever we can from the teachers’ lounge to the auditorium to make it more livable. No one talks as we fight the couches down the stairs and position them in the corner of the room. We find a lone lunch table we missed for the barricade under the stage, set it up, and steal chairs from the main offices for it. Grace uses the fake bouquets as centerpieces. I feel so sick watching her. I have to make things right. I walk over to her. She fiddles with the flowers. I stand there and try to think of what to say while she ignores me.