Page 36 of Kiss Slay Replay

My first thought is Archimedes. I’ll need a cat sitter if I go to Tokyo. He won’t mind. He’ll likely prefer the sitter to me.

If I die tonight, who will take care of him? Who will know that he’s all alone in my apartment?

This gets me. My tears flow hot and free.

“Hey. Hey.” Danny with his awkward laugh. “It’s okay if you don’t like sushi.”

“I don’t,” I tell him. “I told you I wasn’t cool.”

“I like how you are.”

“Will you still take me to Tokyo?”

There’s a knock at the cabin door.

He holds me tighter.

“Will you still take me?” I ask again. I shut my eyes, and I try to picture the two of us on a plane, queuing up the same movie at the same time so we can watch it together. I try to conjure the image of me falling asleep on his shoulder, under the same blanket. But I can’t. All I can see are the backs of my eyelids. Darkness. Nothing.

Knock.

Knock.

Knockknockknockknockknockknock.

A moment of quiet, just as violent in its own way. Just as brutal.

Then—

Glass cracking.

Glass shattering.

I open my eyes to a gloved hand pulling back the burlap curtain.

Danny drags me away from the broken window, farther into the cabin.

The Eyeball Man climbs inside. His footsteps are heavy as he comes toward us, boots crunching on shards of glass, clunking on whining floorboards. He holds his hammer up high. He flips it around, slides it back into his utility belt, and pulls out the bowie knife instead. It’s covered in blood.

Danny charges forward, trying to outrun, or to outmaneuver. He keeps his promise; he doesn’t leave me. He tries to bring me with him, but my hand slips from his grasp, and he loses his footing.

The Eyeball Man is prepared. He lifts his knee as Danny falls, and it collides with Danny’s skull.

He’s out when he hits the floor. His limbs twitch.

I’m alone. Death is staring at me with all its eyes, and I’m alone.

Fight, flight, or freeze. Die fighting, die running, or die still.

I’m not at peace with what’s about to happen. I’m not ready. I’m so scared it’s spilling down my leg. I’m so scared. I’m so fucking scared and so fucking sad.

My life doesn’t flash before my eyes, only all the reasons why I must not deserve it.

The massive, masked figure, the faceless villain who is no one so he gets to be everyone, everything—my reckoning, my heartache, my fear, my punishment, my end, my bleak, bleak fate—takes two assertive strides toward me. His gloved hand finds my neck again. He sets the tip of his blade between my eyes. He applies pressure.

“Look,” he says. “Looooookkk at me.”

It doesn’t hurt. Blood flows down my nose, over my lips, into my mouth, down my chin.