Alone in my house again, I sank onto the couch and buried my head in my hands, my fingers pressed into my eyes so hard that red spots formed behind my eyelids. I refused to let the tears fall. Tod was wrong. So what if I didn’t need Nash anymore? Wanting him was enough.

But as I lay awake that night, listening to Alec snore in the recliner he was now handcuffed to, doubt ate at me, one vicious bite at a time.

What if Tod was right? What if wanting Nash wasn’t enough?

BY MONDAY MORNING, exhaustion had become my state of normalcy. Even with Alec well secured, none of us had gotten much sleep for fear that Avari would possess my dad and tear up the house looking for keys to the cuffs Tod had commandeered from the local police station’s supply room. For our safety, neither Alec nor I knew where my dad had hidden the keys.

But beyond all that, I was afraid that if I let myself sleep deeply enough to actually get any rest, Avari would find me again in my dreams. And lying awake only gave me more time to obsess over dead teachers, vengeful hellions, and a boyfriend who may or may not be better off with a walking Nightmare than with me.

Thanks to another largely sleepless night, I pulled into the school parking lot just five minutes before the final bell and had to park near the back, both my scattered thoughts and flagging energy focused on finding Emma, so I could ask for advice about Nash. I was halfway to the building when a scream ripped through the parking lot, and all random snatches of conversation ended in startled silence. Heads turned toward the human but obviously agonized wail, now accompanied by other enraged shouts, and the sickening thunk of some blunt instrument into solid flesh.

I shouldn’t have gone; I didn’t really want to know. But horror and curiosity are overpowering lures on their own, and together, they’re virtually irresistible. So I found myself in the thin flow of bodies streaming toward sounds of anger and pain, fully aware that there was probably nothing I could do to stop whatever was happening.

When the crowd stopped moving, I elbowed my way to the front, then sucked in a sharp breath when what I saw sank in.

In the main aisle, Trace Dennison, one of the basketball team starters, clutched a golf club in both hands, huge feet spread for balance, cheeks flushed in obvious outrage. He pulled the club up over his head, and the crowd around me gasped.

“No, man, wait!” Derek Rogers, the captain of the basketball team, leaned against a dusty blue four-door car, clutching his left arm to the big E on the front of his green-and-white letter jacket. His face was ashen beneath a smooth, dark complexion, his jaw clenched in pain, and he held his right arm over his head in defense against the golf club ready to swing at him again.

“Whoa, Trace!” Two of the other team members stepped out of the crowd, palms up in identical defensive gestures, intense, cautious gazes trained on Trace. “What are you doing? Put the club down!” the first player said, nervously running one hand through a head full ofsoft brown waves.

Trace didn’t even seem to hear him.

The second player—Michael something?—moved in boldly, while around me, the entire crowd seemed to stop breathing. “Dennison, do not make me kick your ass. Put that thing down before I shove it someplace graphic.”

Trace never even turned. Instead, he gripped the golf club—a putter?—like a baseball bat, and as we watched, frozen in horror and anticipation, he swung overhead again, grunting with effort and with what sounded like primal rage.

Michael lunged for the club and missed. Derek shouted. Onlookers sucked in sharp breaths. And over all that, I heard the muted thud of impact and the crunch of breaking bone.

Derek’s shouts became high-pitched screams, and his right arm fell to his side, useless.

Tears blurred my vision, but shock held me in place. I didn’t know what to do. No one seemed to know what to do, except Michael, who looked determined to put this insanity to an end, despite the obvious danger to himself.

“You’re crazy!” Derek shouted between pain-filled gasps, edging down the length of the car and away from the club as Trace lifted it again.

“Trace…” Michael said, hands outstretched now, and Trace whirled on him, club held high. The crowd shuffled backward as one, but Michael didn’t seem to notice. “What’s the problem, man? What’s this about?”

“He’s my problem,” Trace said through clenched teeth, glancing over at Derek, who’d clenched his jaw shut—probably to keep from screaming—clutching both ruined arms to his chest. “Seventeen point average and an MVP nomination doesn’t mean you walk on water. If he wasn’t such a ball hog, maybe people’d realize there’s more than one man on the court!”

A ripple was working its way through the rapidly growing crowd—a single capped head sticking up above most of the others. Coach Rundell and both security guards stepped into the clearing as Trace started to turn back to Derek, already pulling the club high again, ready for another swing. Michael must have seen them, because he moved closer to Derek, dragging Trace’s gaze with him, distracting him from the newly arrived authorities.

Coach Rundell wrapped one meaty hand around the neck of the club and neatly plucked it from Trace’s grip, jerking him backward in the process.

When Trace turned, his face scarlet with rage, the security guards each grabbed one of his arms.

“Call an ambulance,” Rundell growled, after one look at Derek’s misshapen right arm, obvious even beneath his thick jacket sleeve. The younger of the two guards pulled a portable radio from his belt and spoke into it, passing along the coach’s orders to the attendance secretary as they hauled a belligerent Trace Dennison toward the building. But by then, at least a dozen students were already dialing 9-1-1 directly.