Chapter 91

After several minutesof sobbing in the locker room, I manage to collect myself. Being in the locker room late at night makes me miss Mason almost desperately. If I told him about my dad, he'd understand. He'd understand everything. He isn't nearly as much of a jerk as I always made him out to be.

I wander around the floor, just trying to clear my head, half-heartedly looking for Mason. I use the bathroom by the anatomy labs, and I can't help but notice that huge crack in the sink that's been there all year. I don't understand why nobody fixes it. I wonder what kind of blunt impact must have created that fissure.

Eventually, I find myself at the vending machines. During school hours, the vending machines usually have a line in front of them, but now, they're completely deserted. I stare at the different candies and cookies suspended in the machine, but I don't have much appetite. I remember how Mason offered me vending-machine Oreo cookies the first time we talked in the library. That feels like a million years ago now.

I decide on some peanut butter cups, and as I'm getting ready to drop my change in the machine, I hear footsteps coming from behind me. For a moment, I get my hopes up that maybe it's Mason, but when I turn around, Rachel is hurrying toward me. Rachel's lipstick is smeared, and it isn't hard to guess what she's just been doing.

So much for the big breakup.

I'm not going to judge her, though. All right, I'm going to try not to judge her. Or at least, I'll try to try.

Any contempt I have for Rachel fades, though, when I realize that the red on Rachel's face isn't lipstick—it's blood. Fresh blood, not the old clotted kind that we find in the cadaver. And it's all over her shirt as well.

"Oh my God," I gasp.

Rachel is crying. She's wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, spreading more blood onto her face. Holy crap, where did all that blood come from?

"Sasha," Rachel says in a low voice, "something terrible has happened."

Yeah, no kidding.

"What happened?" I ask, sounding a lot calmer than I feel.

"Mason Howard…" Rachel's eyes well up with a new batch of tears. "He… he shot Dr. Conlon!"

Oh God…

"Dr. Conlon and I were…" She lowers her eyes. "We were… you know, sort of seeing each other. I know it's wrong, but… it just sort of happened. And… and I was in his office when Mason came in and…"

Rachel collapses against the wall, sobbing hysterically. And that's when I get a second jolt of shock. She wasn't just sleeping with him—she actually liked him.

"Is he… dead?" I ask.

Rachel nods slowly.

Oh no.

"We need to get help," I say.

Nobody can ever know what I've done.