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Power surged through me. Like when I’d charged up Darius’s car, white and hot, I felt it crackle and Darius and Razor fell at the same time.

“No no no no?—”

I got to my knees and crawled over to Darius. “Are you okay?”

He seemed stunned. “That fucking hurt,” he whispered roughly.

Oh my God, had I hurt him? “I didn’t mean to shock you,” I said, my voice rising in panicked apology.

“Not you—the goddamned dog.” He pushed himself up to sitting and I could see a wet slash down the side of his leg. He grit his teeth together and pulled his knee up to his chin.

“Oh-my-God-we-have-to-clean-that-are-you-gonna-need-stitches?” I didn’t have anything to press on it with—what couldI get bloodstained and my mom not care? I looked to him for answers and saw him staring bleakly behind me. I turned slowly, horror-movie-style, and saw what he was looking at—Razor, lying stiffly on his side.

“Oh no—” My hands went to my mouth.

“Don’t scream.” Darius warned.

“Only on the inside,” I whispered. “What the fuck, Darius—what the actual fuck? Did I do that?”

“You do need practice.” He took his shirt off and winced as he lashed it tightly around his bleeding calf as I watched him. “Boy Scouts.”

“Sure. Why not.” I crawled to a stand and dusted myself off. “What do we do?”

He grunted softly as he stood, then pointed at the dog. “You grab those paws, I’ll get these ones.”

“And?”

“We’ll put him in the street. He did get out—it’ll make it look like he got hit by a car.”

It was a good plan, even if it was disgusting. “Sounds like you’ve covered up murders before,” I said darkly.

“There’s a reason my parents exiled me to Kansas. I can smear some of my blood on him, if you want to make it look more realistic.”

“I hope that’s a joke,” I said, as I grabbed my assigned paws.

“Kind of,” he said, grabbing his.

Together we hefted Razor down the street and somehow no other neighbors came out or cars came driving by.

“Disgusting,” I muttered, looking at Razor there, not sure if I was talking about the dirt covering my hands, what we’d done, or just plain old me.

“Practical. But yes, also gross.” Darius was lean in the moonlight, the wiry muscles on his arms and chest easy to see. “This isn’t how I thought my night was going to go.”

“Welcome to knowing me.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Jessica. And if you hadn’t done that, I don’t think I’d be able to walk right now.” He stepped closer. “Thanks for saving me.”

My heart raced and my throat got tight. In other non-dog-murdering circumstances parts of me knew what they would do with parts of him, given half-the-chance. “You’re—you’re welcome,” I managed to stammer out.

He waited for another half a moment, during which I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to do, but was desperately hoping he’d do something, and then he took a step back and unlocked his car. “See you tomorrow. At ten.”

I nodded and waved weakly as he drove away in the opposite direction of Razor’s corpse, then I slunk back to my bedroom. Allie’s light was still off, thank God—I hitched myself into my window, closed it and closed the blinds.

And for what felt like the first time in five years, the neighbor’s motion sensitive porch light turned off.

CHAPTER 31

Iwoke to the feeling of my bed moving. “Allie,” I muttered, putting out an arm to stop her from joining me, it was hot enough already?—