It’s nine in the morning, yet I feel like it’s the middle of the night. I’m so tired, but I don’t dare close my eyes.

Sierra has left me alone so far. I think she’s waiting for me to come to her. To let it be my choice. But not yet. I’m too exhausted. I lay my head down on the table and soak in the cool feel of the wood surface.

My phone rings and every muscle in my body clenches in fear when I see it’s Linden.

“Hi,” I say, just loud enough for me to hear. I’m not even sure it was loud enough for him to hear.

“Hi, Charlotte.”

The phone is silent for several long seconds until we both talk at the same time. “Listen, Linden—”

“I wondered if—”

We both laugh and it’s like nails on a chalkboard, making everything worse. “Go ahead,” I say, if nothing else, to end the faux laughter.

“I’m being released at noon and my parents left to go shower and get some stuff for me. They won’t be back for an hour or two.”

I know what’s coming and I want to cry. I hoped I could get away with pretending things were normal between us for at least another day.

“I hoped maybe you could come see me before I go home.”

“Hey,” I say, poking my head into his hospital room. He looks completely normal—he’s wearing a T-shirt that’s too big for him, probably his dad’s, and he managed to get his jeans back. He’s sitting on the bed, half reclined, and he looks like he could be at his house. On his own bed.

My face flushes red at that thought and I hide it by turning and pushing the door closed behind me. I face him again, but keep my back against the door, not ready to take another step forward. Not yet.

Linden smiles and I blink in surprise. It’s not his usual winning smile; he looks sad. I expected anger, accusation, dismissal even. But sadness? I’m not sure what to make of that.

“Come here,” he says, and pats a spot on the bed beside him.

“Linden, I have to—”

“Please,” he interrupts. “Me first. Before you thank me for something I don’t deserve.”

As far as I’m concerned, he deserves everything.

“I was getting up the guts to talk to you about this when we went on our walk yesterday and everything . . . went wrong.”

Understatement of the century.

He shifts on the bed, sits up a bit more. “Yesterday, when they showed that Smith guy who killed everyone, I freaked out a little, because I recognized him. I think it was the beginning of December, I was walking down an aisle in the hardware store when he stopped me and handed me a quarter. He said I had dropped it. I didn’t think much of it except that he was weird and insisted that I take the quarter I was pretty sure I hadn’t dropped. And his hair—I remembered his gray hair because he didn’t look old enough for his hair to be so gray.”…

I nod tentatively, remembering having the same first impression of him. Vaguely I remember that it was brown in the scene of him with young Sierra. I wonder if whatever she did to him that day turned it gray. I swallow hard and force my attention back to Linden.

“Honestly I wouldn’t have thought about it again except that every morning, for reasons I didn’t understand—or question at the time—I put that quarter in my pocket. Carried it around all day.” He laces his fingers together, clenches them, pulls them apart. “And that’s when I started talking to you at school.”

I’m confused, not following his logic.

“Charlotte, I haven’t told anyone this, but I . . . Bethany and I were going out. We hadn’t said anything yet—it was only for about two weeks and we were kind of enjoying our little secret.” He looks sheepishly down at his lap, clearly embarrassed. “But since we’re being truthful, I’d liked her for ages. Like, years.”

I nod; I know exactly how that feels.

“We were together the night she died.”

I suck in a quick breath of surprise.

“Sort of,” Linden clarifies. “We were together and then I just . . . I left her. I didn’t know why. But I did. When I found out she was dead, it was like somebody ripped a hole in my chest and took out my heart. But after I started hanging out with you, the pain was more bearable. There were times I wouldn’t think about Bethany for an hour or two. And then it was a whole day. I was numb,” he finishes and looks up at me guiltily. “But I only felt that way when I was with you and so I kept calling. And texting. I didn’t mean to be an asshole—I really did think I was falling for you. But it wasn’t even that exactly, it was more like—I don’t know how to explain it.”

“A compulsion?” I suggest, the devastating truth pouring down on me like a ton of rocks.

Did you think he really liked you, Charlotte? Did you believe?

“Yeah,” he says with a nod. “Exactly. And after I saw a picture of Smith, I started to put it together. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think somehow he was controlling me”—he meets my eyes and the intensity I see there frightens me all over again—“the same way he controlled you with that knife.”

To get her out of Linden’s way. My mouth is so dry my throat hurts and I can’t speak. I sit there frozen with fear, the ache of reality hitting me in the stomach.

“I didn’t know you had anything to do with it, of course. I just thought it was me. And maybe that’s how he got some of his other victims. But when you pulled out the knife, I could tell it wasn’t you. When your aunt talked to him directly, I knew, I knew that he was controlling you too. Looking back, that must have been why I left Bethany that night. He made me.”