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Now,we come full circle, back to that damned gun pointed at my face.

Mason is much more frightening as a shooter than Kurt was. Part of it is how disheveled he looks, his face covered in a half beard, his dark hair greasy and uncombed, his clothes wrinkled and stained. Yet his hand holding the revolver is unwavering and steady, whereas Kurt was shaking like a leaf. Mason looks like a guy who knows how to handle a gun and knows exactly what he’s doing. And he seems so angry.

He’s demanding answers about the cadaver he’s been dissecting this year, but I don’t know what he expects me to tell him. For privacy reasons, I can’t divulge any information about the cadavers. I do know that the man on Table 13 is a former police officer who died at age seventy-three from a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot in his lungs. I could tell Mason this information, but from the look on his face, I doubt he’d believe me.

No matter what I do, he’s going to fire that gun.

Most people who get shot in the head don’t survive. In that sense, I really am lucky. Surviving two gunshot wounds to the head doesn’t seem within the realm of possibility. I am done here. And this time, there’s only one thought running through my head:

I can’t let him kill Rachel too.

“I’m really sorry,” I hear myself say out loud.

I’m not saying it to Mason. I’m saying it to Rachel, partially for having taken advantage of her when she was my student. And partially for getting myself killed when I know she loves me.

Rachel keeps tugging on the leg of my pants, and I can tell she’s worried. She wants to come out. That would be an incredibly bad idea, but it’s very hard to transmit that sentiment to her without giving away to Mason that someone is hiding under my desk. It’s a very delicate situation. I keep pointing to the ground, signaling to her to stay hidden until this maniac is gone.

I’ve got to save Rachel if it’s the last thing I do. And it most likely will be.

Rachel, stay down!