It’s right about then that I decide I’ve had about enough. I’m hot, my stomach hurts, and I’m pretty worried about Gavin and Jeff. I wish I had let Cooper kill Doug Winer when he’d had the chance. I wish I myself had taken one of Doug’s pillows and stuffed it over his head and held on until the kid stopped struggling.

No. That’s too kind. I wish I had wrapped my own hands around that thick neck and squeezed, squeezed the life out of him the way Doug had squeezed the life out of Lindsay….

“Come on, Heather,” Steve says, beckoning impatiently with the knife. “We don’t have all night.”

“Uh, Steve,” the other guy next to me says. “Seriously, man. This is getting weird.”

“Shut up,” Steve says to his fellow Tau Phi. He grabs the glass, brings it over to me, and shoves it under my nose. “DRINK IT.”

I turn my face away. “No.”

Steve Winer gapes at me. “What?”

“No,” I say. I can feel that I have the support of the room. The Tau Phis are starting to realize their leader has lost it. They won’t let him hurt me. I’m pretty sure. “I am not going to drink it.”

“What do you mean, you aren’t going to drink it?” The shadow of a smile returns to Steve’s face. “Are you blind? I’m holding a knife to your throat.”

“So?” I shrug. “What’s the difference to me? I’m gonna get killed anyway.”

This is not what Steve wants to hear. The smile fades from his lips, and there isn’t a hint of humor in his face when he hands the glass to the guy on my right, turns around, walks over to Gavin, grabs him by the hair, yanks his head back, and raises the knife toward his exposed throat—

“Steve, man, don’t!” one of my guards yells, just as I say, “Whoa, I’ll drink it, I’ll drink it,” grab the glass, and down its contents.

“That’s it,” the guy who’d been holding the glass says. “I’m out of here. Jeff’s right, you guys are fucking crazy.”

And he begins striding from the cafeteria—along with several other Tau Phis—including all the pledges but Jeff Turner, who is still lying on the floor, still as death.

“Don’t let them go,” Steve barks at the Tau Phis who’d kicked Jeff into unconsciousness. But even they hesitate.

“Did you hear me?” Steve lets go of Gavin’s hair and stands there, staring confusedly as his frat brothers begin to leave him, one by one. “You guys. You can’t do this. You took a pledge. A pledge of total loyalty. Where are you…you can’t—”

Doug is starting to look scared. “Jesus, Steve,” he says. “Let ’em go. Just—”

Doug breaks off midsentence, though. That’s because Steve has dropped the knife, and, from somewhere deep inside his robe, he’s managed to bring out a small handgun, which he is now holding level with his brother’s chest.

“Douglas,” Steve says. “I am getting fed up with you and your whining.”

“Jesus, Steve!” Doug cries again. But this time the fear and tears in his voice cause his fellow Tau Phis to turn around to look.

Which is when I do what I know I have to. After all, no one’s paying the least bit of attention to me. Everyone’s gaze is on Steve, whose back is to me.

Which is why, as soon as I see his index finger tighten on the trigger, I dive, my arms spread wide, at the floor. Because I know something about the floor of the caf of Fischer Hall that Steve Winer will never know: it is squeaky clean. Julio may not be in charge of the floors behind the steam tables, but he’s in charge of the cafeteria floor, and he’s waxed it until it’s slick as ice. Which means I slide across it like an Olympic skater doing a belly flop, until I’ve collided with the elder Winer’s legs, which I then throw my arms around, pulling him down.

Then I reach up, seize Steve’s wrist, and sink my teeth into it, forcing him to drop the gun. Also to scream and writhe in pain and terror.

Doug seems to get over his astonishment at what I’ve just done first—perhaps because he’s the only one who didn’t have the sense to duck when Steve was waving that gun around, and so is the only person in the room still standing. He stumbles forward until his hand closes over the butt of the gun his brother has dropped. His fingers trembling, he raises the pistol and aims it—

Well, at me.

“No,” cries Steve hoarsely. “Don’t shoot, you little fuck! You might hit me!”

“I want to hit you!” Doug screams. Really. He screams it. Tears are streaming down his face. “I am so sick of you always telling me what a fuckup I am! And okay, I may be a fuckup…but at least I’m not a freak! Yeah, I killed Lindsay—but I didn’t mean to. You’re the sick fuck who thought it would be a good idea to leave her head on the stove. Who even fucking does shit like that, Steve? Who? And then you made us stab that poor janitor…and now you want us to kill this lady here…and why? To make yourself look like a badass in front of your frat buddies. Because Dad was a badass when he was a Tau Phi.”

The mouth of the gun Doug is pointing at us keeps straying from me to Steve in a very unnerving manner. Steve, beneath me, is beginning to sweat. Copiously.

“Doug,” he says. “Dougie. Please. Give me the—”

“But Dad didn’t kill people, Steve!” Doug goes on, as if he hadn’t heard. “He didn’t cut people up! He was a badass without doing shit like that! Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see that no matter what you do, you’re never going to be like Dad?”

“Fine,” Steve says. “I’m never going to be like Dad. Now put the gun down—”

“No!” Doug screams. “Because I know what’s going to happen! You’re going to turn this all around and blame it on me somehow. Like you always do! Like you’ve always done! And I’m not putting up with it anymore! Not this time!”

Which is when he points the gun in the dead center of Steve’s forehead.

And also when a calm, slightly familiar voice says from the cafeteria’s doorway, “Drop it, son.”

Doug looks up, his expression one of mingled astonishment and indignation. I turn my head as well, and am quite confused to see Reggie—yes, drug dealer Reggie—leveling a very large and shiny Glock 9mm at Doug Winer’s chest.