"Scarlett, you don't need to do this," Daniel said, his voice calm despite the gun pointed at his chest. He shifted sightly keeping me behind him.
"Think about what you're saying. Murder? You will spend the rest of your life in prison."
"Only if they catch me." Scarlett's smile was eerily serene. "And they won't. Now, here's what is going to happen. Brooklyn and the predatory professor, going to disappear together. A failed forbidden romance. Murder-suicide. So tragic."
"No one's going to believe that," Addison said, her voice shaking.
"Won't they?" Scarlett turned the gun at her friend. "I have all the evidence. Photos of them together. Witnesses who'd seen them sneaking around. And when the police discover their corpses, along with Professor Anderson's suicide note admitting to the entire sordid business..." She shrugged. "Case closed."
"You've everything planned," Daniel said, taking a small step back slightly shoving me toward the rear exit. "Except one thing."
"What's that?"
"You're not smart enough to do this."
Scarlett's face contorted with rage. "Grab them!" she yelled at the football players.
Everything happened at once.
And Daniel pushed me hard up against the back door. "Run!"
The three guys lunged forward. Daniel caught the first one with a vicious elbow to his face, causing him to stagger back. Addison chucked her phone at Scarlett, which smacked her on the shoulder not hard, but it made her flinch.
"GO!" Daniel shouted again.
I ran, my feet pounding against the wooden floors. I heard crashes and grunts behind me, the noise of a fight unfolding. I heard the cries of every instinct in my body to turn around, that I should stay and help him, but I knew staying would only make things worse.
I pushed through the back door and out into the cold night air, my lungs burning. Where could I go? Campus police? They wouldn't believe me when Scarlett's evidence was so convincing. My dorm? Too obvious.
Footsteps thundered behind me.
I look behind me, the football damn player was chasing after me with a look of grim determination on his face. He was big, fast and closing in.
I head across the quad, running back and forth between buildings, my mind was racing fast as my feet. The old gymnasium, it had always been open to students. Multiple exits. Places to hide.
I swung open the gym doors and immediately regretted. The place was dark, empty and echoing. But I had no choice. I ducked and ran behind the bleachers, covering my mouth with my hand to quiet my breathing.
Heavy footsteps entered the gym.
"I know you're in there, Brooklyn," the guy shouted. His voice echoed. "Scarlett just wants to talk. No one has to get hurt."
Liar. They were going to murder us.
I crouched and slunk behind the bleachers, toward the exit at the far end. My cell phone was still in the library, and I couldn't call for help. I was completely alone.
A hand grabbed my ankle.
I screamed, kicking hard. My foot found something soft his face? and his grip loosened. I scrambled away, darting out from behind the bleachers and sprinting toward the exit.
I was almost there when he tackled me from behind.
We crashed down hard, my head cracking against the polished floor. Stars exploded across my vision. His weight on top of me, one hand reaching for his phone.
"Got her," he grunted into the speaker. "Gym. North side."
No. No, no, no.
I bucked against him, desperate, and my hand found something a basketball somebody had left on the ground. I grabbed it, and with all my power I swung it.
It connected with his head a hallow thunk. He grunted, and I felt his weight shift slightly.
I rolled out from underneath him and ran, without looking back, head throbbing, vision blurry. I made it outside as two more figures rounded the corner, Chloe and another football player.
I changed my direction, running as fast as I could to the one place where I felt safe: faculty housing. Daniel's apartment. Maybe he'd made it out. Maybe he'd gone there.
I ran until I thought my lungs screamed, until my legs felt like jelly, until I got to the brick building and buzzed his apartment number over and over.
"Please be there, please be there, please."
The door buzzed open.
I practically tripped inside, climbing the stairs two at a time to the third floor. Daniel's door was cracked open. I lunged in and slammed it behind me.
"Daniel?" I yelled, my voice cracking.
"In here."
Relief flooded through me. He was in the bathroom washing his knuckles of blood. His shirt was ripped, a cut over his brow oozing blood, but he was alive.
"Thank God," I exhaled, throwing my arms around him.
He hugged me back tightly, his body trembling all over. "I thought he'd caught you. I thought."
"I got away. Barely." I pulled back to look at him. "What happened?"
"Took down two of them, but the third got a few hits in. Scarlett and Chloe took off when they couldn't keep things under their control. I took Addison's phone, she dropped it and I left." He showed me the phone. The recording is still on here. It's our only evidence."
"We need to go to the police. Now. Before Scarlett can spin this."
"And tell them what? That a student pulled out a gun on us? We have no proof. Just a recording that could be chalked up to a joke or fake." Daniel's jaw clenched. "Without the gun, without witnesses, it's her word against ours. And she has all that made-up evidence against us."
"So what do we do?"
"We disappear. Tonight. Just like I suggested before." He snatched a bag from his closet and began loading it with clothes. "We get in the car, drive to the state line, we find a lawyer, figure out how to battle this from another city."
"That's what she wants, Daniel. If we run, we look guilty."
"If we stay, we're dead!" He stopped packing, despair in his eyes. "Brooklyn, she had a gun. An actual gun. This isn't blackmail anymore. This is not about ruining our reputation. She's willing to kill us."
My phone which was miraculously still in my pocket buzzed. An unknown number texted me.
I opened it, and my blood went cold.
It was a picture of my dad and stepmother, asleep at home in their bedroom. The photo had been taken from the inside of their home. Tonight.
Unknown: Run and they die. Meet me at the old warehouse on Riverside Drive. Alone. Both of you. One hour. Or your families get to join the fun.
"Oh my God." My hands trembled so much I very nearly dropped my phone. "She's at my parent's house. She's threatening to kill them."
Daniel's face went white as he read it. "This is a trap. Obviously a trap."
"I don't care! She's in their house, Daniel!" Tears streamed down my face. "We have to go. We have to."
Another text came through. This time, a photograph of another woman.
Unknown: Tick tock. 58 minutes now. Don't test me.
Daniel looked at the picture, something in his face breaking. "She's insane. Completely insane."
"We have to go. We have no choice."
"It's a trap," he repeated, but already he was rifling through the drawstring bag, extracting his car keys. "She'll murder us as soon as we walk in.
"So we don't then go in unarmed." I opened his kitchen cabinet drawers and found the largest knife I could. It was not much against a gun, but it was one second. "And we don't go in stupid. We scout the location first. Look for exits. Make a plan."
Daniel snatched up another knife, his face transforming into something hard and determined. "If we're going to do this let's make sure that we do it intelligent. Everything we've said we take pictures on Addison's phone. We get Scarlett's confession. And if we're going down, we're taking her with us."
Forty-five minutes later, we were outside the empty warehouse, rain beginning to chill. The house was menacing and evil, all of the windows broken, every inch defaced with spray-paint.
"Last chance to run," Daniel whispered.
"Not without my parents. Not without your mom." I squeezed his hand. "Together?"
"Together."
We kicked in the rusted door and strode into the blackness.
The warehouse was huge and dark, old machines cast shadows everywhere. The sound of our steps bounced on to the concrete beneath us.
"Hello?" I called out. "Scarlett? We're here!"
Lights blazed on, blinding us. Uncle Tom Uncle Tom uncletom@rocketmail. I shook my head forcefully and, when it cleared again, Scarlett was standing on a catwalk above us with the gun still in her hand. Chloe, holding a tablet, stood at her side.
"Just in the nick of time," Scarlett said, beaming. "I knew you'd come. Love makes people so predictable."
"Where are our families?" Daniel demanded.
"Safe. For now." She nodded to the tablet Chloe was holding. "Live feeds to both houses. And my men are on cue, ready to go! One text from me, and. Silent scum!" holding up his free hand as though it were a gun and making another mad dash. "Bang."
"What do you want?" I said, the steadier I could make my voice.
"Want? I want you to live in pain, the way I lived in pain." The smile was gone from Scarlett's face and in its place was cold hatred. "I want you to feel what it's like to lose everything. Your loved ones, your futures, your lives. Everything."
"We'll do whatever you want," Daniel said. "Just let them go."
"Oh, I know you will. See, here's the game." Scarlett aimed the gun at me. Brooklyn, you're going to call the police and tell them that Professor Anderson has been stalking you, threatening you, blackmailing you into sex. That he kidnapped you and brought you here tonight."
"What? No."
"Yes. Or I'm texting my friends and your parents just die. Your choice." She threw a phone down at me. "Make the call."
I grabbed the phone, my mind racing. If I did that, Daniel would go to prison for crimes he didn't commit." But if I didn't, it would be death.
Daniel grabbed my hand. "Don't. Don't sacrifice yourself for me."
"She has to!" Scarlett screamed. "Or everyone dies! Make the call, Brooklyn! NOW!"
My finger hovered over the panic button.
Then, out of the shadows behind Scarlett, came a voice:
"I don't think so."
Jayce stepped into the light, the skin around one eye swollen from Daniel's punch but his gaze steady. And he had his own gun, which was aimed directly at Scarlett's forehead.
"Game over, Scarlett. Drop the weapon."
Scarlett wheeled, her expression twisted with perplexity and fury. "Jayce? What are you, you should be with me! We're in this together!"
"Were we?" His voice was cold. "Because I just heard you admit to wanting to kill my girlfriend. Heard you threaten innocent people. And you know what I realized? You're completely insane."
"I did this for us!" she shrieked. "For our love!"
"You don't love me. You're obsessed. There's a difference." He cocked the gun. "Now drop it. This ends tonight."
Scarlett's hand shook, the gun dipping between me and Jayce. Her eyes were everywhere, wild and trapped and desperate.
"If I can't have you," she said in a broken voice that bordered on unhinged, "then nobody will."
She raised the gun and shot Jayce.