In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(89)

As Mint rose, the fire rose also, as if a cobra, entranced. It was so hot I could feel it on my skin, even across the distance. And it was growing bigger, engulfing the old couches to form a wall between me and my friends. Between me and the door.

Leaving me and Mint on the other side. Alone, together.

He turned to me, dropped the lighter, and smiled.

I scrambled backwards, toward the cool air of the broken window, but Mint closed the distance between us too fast, seizing my leg with his free hand. I was too terrified to scream as he yanked me across the floor, my hands scraping the ground but finding no purchase.

Then I was underneath him, looking up at his face. Even crazed, even in disarray, he was still so beautiful. The best mask in the world. The boy who had everything, who no one would suspect. I breathed faster, coughing as I sucked in smoke. When had Mint become this other person—senior year? Junior? Had this been inside him all along, this dark potential? Should I have known freshman year, the day we sat on his bed, knees touching, and he’d told me what he’d done to his father, how good it had made him feel? Or even further back than that, the day he’d snapped over the drawing on the float?

He had shown me slivers of who he was. And instead of recoiling, I’d leaned toward him. Because he was Mint. The prince of Duquette.

I choked again, and all the while Mint was leaning over me, sinking closer. Why wasn’t I fighting? What power did he have over me, what spell had he cast that kept me, even now, in his thrall?

“Why?” I managed to ask, pushing the word out past the ache in my throat.

Mint ignored me, eyes flicking over my neck, my lips, my cheekbones. “You know, my father tried to kill himself. The week of Sweetheart. I never told anyone until now.”

Danger, get away. I tried to roll, but he caught me by the throat, his large hand squeezing painfully. I thrashed, gasping, my arms and legs slick with sweat from the fire, but Mint held me fast.

“He failed everyone, so he took the coward’s way out. But I’m not like him. I fix my mistakes.” Instead of shocking me, Mint’s words rang with a painful familiarity. And I realized: our fathers were alike. They’d walked similar paths, and all this time, Mint and I had hidden it from each other. My whispered words from over a decade ago floated back: I think I hate my father, too. Maybe we were the same. Mint and Jessica: two sides of the same coin.

Mint squeezed my neck, and I felt my windpipe constrict. Red flooded my vision, the whole world narrowing to a single, desperate need: air.

He leaned in, pressing his lips to my ear like a lover, like he’d done a thousand times before. “You’re a terrible person,” he whispered. “I want you to die knowing that.”

Then he plunged the jagged glass into my side.

Pain. It was an electric shock, a strike of lightning, the burning heat of thousands of nerves dying. I wrenched against his hand, the world closing in—the thickening smoke, his unrelenting grip, the pain—the pain—worse than I’d ever known.

He pulled back to stab me again and I saw it, like déjà vu: I was going to die like Heather. She’d taken my place ten years ago, giving me a decade-long reprieve, but now fate was back to claim me.

Suddenly Mint toppled sideways, his hand freeing my throat, the jagged glass flying out of his grip. Coop and Frankie were on him, their shirts and pants smoking, their skin a bright, scary red. They’d pushed through the wall of flames. Coop wrapped his arms around Mint’s shoulders, twisting him away, and I lurched backwards, screaming when the movement ripped open my side.

I pressed my hand over the wound and made myself keep moving, even though I couldn’t tear my eyes from where Mint wrestled Frankie and Coop, the three of them tumbling over the broken glass.

I gulped air that was mostly smoke, ignoring the pain in my throat. The room was in flames. I could only see the top of Caro’s head over the fiery wall of couches, and I couldn’t see Courtney at all. Where was Eric? We needed to leave, now.

Sharp movement snapped my attention back to the fight. Mint tried to shove Coop, but Frankie wrestled him to the ground, pinning his arms, both their chests heaving, sweat rolling from their temples. The look on Mint’s red face was monstrous. “Get off me!” he screamed, kicking his legs, but Frankie held on.

Mint changed tacks. “Frankie,” he begged, “you’re my best friend. Let me go—we can talk.”

Frankie’s face was an open book, his struggle—pain and confusion, love and regret—written across it plainly. Nearly two decades he’d worshipped Mint, been steadfastly devoted. But now he closed his eyes and shook his head, gripping Mint tighter.

Flames crept to my shoe; I yanked my foot back, clutching again at the pain in my side. Coop’s head jerked in my direction.

“We have to get out of here,” I yelled. “This place is going to burn down.”

Coop looked down at Mint, then back at me, nodding. He turned to Frankie. “Pull him up, then let’s run. But don’t let go, okay?”

Frankie nodded, and together, they yanked Mint to his feet and pushed him forward.

I stood, eyes stinging, blood warm and sticky against my fingers, and followed, trying to track them through the smoke. Over their shoulders, I could finally see Caro, still grunting and tugging Courtney’s body toward the door. She was so close.

In front of me, Mint jerked. And I knew instantly what he was thinking: no matter what happened to us, Caro and Courtney, at least, would escape. Caro would tell everyone what happened here, what Mint had confessed. He was a goner.