I can’t tell him. How can I tell anyone what I’ve done?
“Ada?”
“I… I think I might have killed Mr. Lowell.” The words come out in a jumbled rush. “I think he might be dead.”
“What?”
I wipe tears from my eyes, smearing blood on my face. I’m only making this worse. “I didn’t tell anyone what you told me—I swear. But I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to tell him to leave you alone.”
“Ada…”
“He wouldn’t let me out of the little room.” My voice breaks. “So I had to…”
We both look down at the knife, glistening with Mr. Lowell’s blood. He’s definitely dead. I stabbed him with the knife right where Dad told me to—and I twisted it. I watched the color drain out of his face as he sank to the floor.
Oh God.
“I need to talk to Dad,” I blurt out.
Nico’s eyes widen with panic. “You can’t tell Dad. You can’t tell any grown-ups. You will be in such big trouble.”
“Dad won’t let anything bad happen to me…”
“It’s not up to him. You know what happens to kids who do bad things, right?” He chews on his lower lip. “They take you away from your parents. You have to go to this kid jail called juvenile tension. My friend said his brother had to go after he stole something. And that’s just for stealing. Youkilledsomeone.”
I start to cry. He’s right. I can’t just tell people I killed Mr. Lowell and expect not to get punished at all, even if he was the one doing something wrong.
“So what should I do?” I ask.
“Did anyone see you there?”
I shake my head no.
“Then nobody will know it was you, right?”
I look down at the knife in my hand and realize that he’s right. I can wash the blood off the knife and stuff it in the back of a drawer. I can wash the blood off the shirt and hide it in my closet. Nobody will know.
Nothing bad will happen.
PART IV
SEVENTY-FOUR
MILLIE
My daughter killed a man.
My eleven-year-old daughter stabbed a man, and now he’s dead. And after I hear the whole story, I wish she hadn’t killed him, so I could do it with my bare hands.
Because I would have really made him suffer.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She’s crying so hard, it’s difficult for her to talk. “I didn’t want to do it. I just had to get out of that room.”
I’m not angry at her. She doesn’t owe me any apology. I feelsickat the thought of what was happening right under my nose. I was the one who sent Nico over there to do chores. In my defense, it seemed harmless at the time—a good way for him to take responsibility for breaking their window. I could never have imagined…
“This is not your fault, Ada.” I wrap my arms around her skinny body. “You did what you had to do. I… I would’ve done the same.”
That is an understatement.
