Byron pushed away from me like it was costing him, while I frowned.

I knew he wanted me, and I’d made it 100% obvious that I wanted him—but he still pulled his phone out and started talking without looking at the screen. “I swear to God, if this is—” he threatened whoever was on the other end of the line, and then stopped. He paced away as he listened.

No way.

I followed after him.

The first guy I’d been interested in in ages was not walking away from me unless his freaking grandmother had died.

So I was standing right behind him when he pulled the phone from his ear, and I saw “Dex” on the screen of his phone before he pocketed it again.

The same guy Byron had introduced me to back at that Italian restaurant—the one with the hazy yellow INFORMANT over his head….

“I’m so sorry, Elle, but I’ve got to go,” Byron said as he turned.

I crossed my arms and stared him down.

“Do you really?” I asked him, trying to keep a quaver out of my voice. I was pissed off—but also I was sad. Maybe it was shallow, but I just wanted to be the important girl for once in my life.

Instead of just the matchmaker, I wanted to be the girl who got matched.

He seemed to sense that and caught me, wrapping his arms around me to press me to his chest. “It’ll just be a little bit. I’ll drop you off, do this thing, and then come back.”

“Byron, that won’t be a date then, it’ll just be a booty call. I do have some pride, you know,” I said, even though the longer he held me, the faster it was melting.

I watched him do some internal calculation, and come up with an answer.

“If I take you with me, do you promise to stay in the car and not ask any questions?” His brown eyes searched mine carefully. I nodded. “Okay,” he breathed, then caught my hand and started pulling us out toward the parking lot.

**

The Haunted Barn was in the boonies, and so was wherever we were going. We sped farther and farther from town, past fields of crops and farmhouses in desolate locations. Only half of them looked lived in under the moonlight; the rest were decrepit, and being out here at night was quickly more frightening than anything in the barn had been.

Byron stayed silent on the drive over, then parked a little away from a particular house—it looked haunted, too, but there was a light on in one of the upper windows. He turned toward me. “You stay right here, okay?”

I opened my mouth to ask a question…then remembered I’d promised not to. I nodded again, even though his words chafed.

“Good,” he said, surely noticing. “I’ll be right back.”

He got out of the car, and I watched him walk into the house.

I kept my face plastered against the deeply tinted window.

God, please, if I do get laid tonight, may it be worth this.

**

I didn’t look at my phone as I counted seconds—and then I heard the sounds of tires crunching up and saw a flash of light from headlights coming around the bend.

Was Byron meeting someone here? If he was, why couldn’t he just tell me?

I had a bad taste in my mouth from Dex’s possible INFORMANT-ing…should I have said something to Byron?

But—how could I?

Oh, hi there, normal man who I want to date. I read words over people’s heads. Hold-on-a-second! Please don’t walk away—wait—stop running!

Men, presumably from this second vehicle, ran into the building. They were so fast and so close together, I only got the chance to read one of their words: EXECUTIONER.

All of the air left my body.

My choices were to either sit in the car and do nothing, knowing that Byron was going to get hurt…or to do something, anything, to stop that from happening.

I got out of the car without thinking, leaving the door hanging open, and ran for the house.

**

Good sense caught up with me when I made it into the farmhouse’s living room—because I could already hear a fight going on upstairs and I could tell it wasn’t one of those pretty fights, like you saw on TV, with all the grunts and choreography.

No, I could hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh, like I was front row at a boxing match, and I bit my lips not to scream. Which was good, because then there was a gunshot.

I slammed my hands over my mouth—was I too late? Another gunshot made me full-body jump. And then there was the echoing ring of a third. I wanted to shout and cry, and I should’ve been fucking calling the cops, but I was too stunned.

It was like my entire reality had taken a sharp right-hand turn and just left me behind.

Someone was coming toward the top of the stairs. I dove behind a rats’ nest of a couch, almost throwing myself to the floor, as someone raced past—and I saw them look back, just as I read their word, both of us hearing another gun shot from above.

DESPERATE.

And as I saw him, he saw me.

He raced back and grabbed me, and I shrieked, fighting as he hauled me outside towards Byron’s car.

“You don’t have to do this! I know you feel cornered, but you’re not! Let me go!” I dug in my heels and twisted, trying to break free.

“Shut it,” he said, shaking me like a dog with a bone, which made me shriek again. “You’re not with us, so you’re with him—and he’s not going to let anything happen to a pretty girl like you.”

“You’re hurting me!” I yelled at him, because he was—and the weight of a gun in his hand clattered against my ribcage. “Stop! Please! Stop!”

I surprised the man by turning towards him, ready to try to reason with him to make him let me go—and then I heard Byron call my name from my left.

“ELLE!” he shouted, and I looked at him, having no idea where it was that he’d come from. I saw him pointing a gun at us, heard it fire, and had an eternal moment to contemplate everything—all the choices I’d made, all the decisions that had led me up to this very point—until real life pounced again, and there was a warm, wet, splatter across my face. DESPERATE’s arms went slack, and he fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Byron ran up to me quickly. “Elle?” he asked.

My ears were ringing.

My face was wet.

“Elle, look at me,” Byron said, catching my chin in his hand. “You’re all right. Just keep looking at me.” He spit on the cuff of the hoodie he was wearing and rubbed it roughly against my cheek.

He was wiping blood.

Off of me.

It wasn’t mine.

“You’re going to be okay, Sunshine. I promise. Okay? Okay. Let’s get you out of that.” He unzipped my hoodie, carefully turning it inside out as he took it off of me, undressing me like I was a doll while I stood there, swaying as much as I had when he’d kissed me earlier in the night, which was now roughly a million years ago. “You’re okay.”

I didn’t feel okay. I tilted my head down, mostly trying to see if my body was still there. I didn’t feel real.

“No, Sunshine. Don’t look down, okay?” he said again, pulling my chin up and making me look at him.

Where I couldn’t help but read his word.

KILLER.

I’d been right.

I’d always been right.

All along.

“Byron?” I whispered.

“I’m here, Elle.”

I blinked, trying to focus on his eyes and not his word. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, reaching behind me to gently rub my lower back. “That’s normal.”