Page 149 of X's and O's

“This has gotta be a joke,” I muttered, trying to make sense of any of it.

Dickson’s gaze caught mine.

I held it.

We both moved at the same time. Both of us coming at the knife from opposite sides of the room, both of us lunging desperately for the weapon.

I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with it. Iwasn’t a killer. But I sure as hell didn’t want Dickson having it.

He was half a second quicker than I was, snatching it up, his thick fingers wrapped around the hilt, the dagger end pointed in my direction.

Toby let out an ear-piercing shriek that had the gang outside slamming their fists against the walls in delight.

Meanwhile, the threatening poem played over and over, promising there was no escape.

Only death.

I immediately stumbled backward, realizing I’d lost the race and now we were probably screwed.

“Please don’t,” I murmured to Dickson, never taking my eye off the steel in his hand. “Please. Hurting me isn’t going to hurt Levi. We’re just pen pals. Nothing more.”

To my surprise, he didn’t come at me. He screwed up his face in confusion. “He told me to meet him here.”

I blinked. “What?”

Dickson pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it at me. It landed just a few inches from my feet, and I kept my eye on him as I bent to quickly collect it.

But Dickson didn’t use the more vulnerable position to come at me. It honestly seemed like he wanted me to read the note and that he was just as confused by this whole thing as I was.

The note was another poem.

One eerily similar in tone to the one I’d received, but this one told Dickson to meet Levi here to “settle a score.”

“You have piss-poor taste in prisoners,” Toby muttered at me. “You should have stuck to the apps.”

I spread the note out on the table, then raised my eyesto meet Dickson’s. “Levi didn’t write this.” I glanced at Toby. “And he didn’t write the one I got either.”

Toby’s mouth twisted into a grim line. “You couldn’t have worked that out before we were being held at knifepoint while some creepy-as-fuck recorded message forecasts our doom?”

Apparently not.

That’s what one got for hoping for a fairy-tale ending, apparently. It was stupid, but I’d wanted it so much.

“This is fucked up.” Dickson paced, his heavy footsteps mingling with the recording. Though he kept to his side of the room, his gaze continually darted toward me and Toby, like one of us was a threat he might need to take care of at any moment.

Which was ludicrous when he was the ex-con with a knife.

He shook his head. “Listen, I only came here to talk to Levi. I didn’t come here to kill no one.”

“Well, that’s reassuring, Mr. Knife Man,” Toby muttered.

I shot him a look, silently telling him to be quiet.

Dickson’s pacing only increased in intensity, his steps becoming jerkier, his rambling more incoherent. “I only just got out. I don’t want to go back inside. They can’t make me. I won’t do it.”

Toby shot me a nervous glance, but I didn’t have it in me to reassure him we were okay. One, because I was too scared to turn away from Dickson rapidly falling apart under the pressure of the recorded message that just kept playing on a loop. And two, because I didn’t know if I could truthfully promise Toby it was all going to be fine.

I kept my face as calm as possible and spoke toDickson like he was a startled horse. Not that I’d ever been anywhere near a horse, but I’d read enough small-town romances that I knew how the cowboys sweet talked their animals.