I wish I could tell him I’m sorry to have drawn him into my insane life.

“Go on, call her,” Samjeeza says.

I nod, then walk toward him to take the phone, one step and then another. I try to block the sorrow as I suddenly reach that invisible radius around him, this bubble made of pain. Tears burn my eyes. I blink them back. Keep walking. Stand right in front of him and look him in the eye.

Samjeeza puts the phone in my hand.

I press the number two. It rings for a long time, so long I think it’s going to go to voice mail, but then I hear Mom’s voice.

“Clara?” I know by the sound of her voice that she knows something’s wrong.

“Mom . . .” For a moment I can’t make my throat work to form the words, the words that will bring her here to Samjeeza and who knows what kind of fate. “Samjeeza’s here.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

I feel Samjeeza’s eyes on me, his presence in my head poking around, not pushing me, exactly, but trying to read me or listen in or something. “He’s standing right here.” Silence on the other end. Then she asks, “Where are you?”

“I don’t know.” I glance around, disoriented. I can’t remember where we are, and all I see are dark fields, telephone poles stretching out into the distance.

“Coltman Road,” Tucker says under his breath.

I tell her. “I crashed the car,” I say, because some stupid part of my brain needs to confess just how much I’ve screwed up.

“Clara, listen to me now,” she whispers. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You know I can’t come to you.”

I did know that. Still, shock reverberates through me. I know she’s too weak to fly, too weak to even walk upstairs without getting winded, but in my heart, some tiny part of me believed she would come anyway, in spite of everything.

“What does she say?” asks Samjeeza, stepping close to me, his mouth almost against my ear. He’s excited. He thinks she’s going to rescue me, like last time. The idea pleases him so much, seeing my mother again, looking at her face, hearing her voice. He is practically dancing around with anticipation. He has a plan now, something that will redeem him with the others, a plan that will keep my mother with him forever. In hell.

Only she’s not coming.

I think now is the part where we’re officiall y screwed.

“What does she say?” Samjeeza asks again, his mind pressing down on mine, trying to find the information himself. I push back against him and find it surprisingly easy this time to keep him out of my thoughts. I’m stronger, mentally, than last time. I can force him out. Which is good, considering that now I have to lie.

“She’s on her way.”

“Be brave, my darling,” Mom says to me then. “Remember what I said about fighting him with your heart and your mind. You’re stronger than you think. I love you.”

“Okay.” I hang up the phone. Samjeeza holds out his hand, and I try to contain my trembling as I put the phone back into it.

“Now we wait,” he says. He nods like a nervous schoolboy, smiles. “I’ve never been very good at waiting.”

Panic rises like a fluttering bird in my chest, but I squash it back down.

Stall for time, I think. Figure out a way to get him away from Tucker and Wendy so you can bring the glory.

“We need to call an ambulance for my friend.” I gesture to Wendy, laid out at Tucker’s feet like a rag doll in a black velvet dress. My dress. My responsibility.

Samjeeza glances down at my phone, closes his fingers around it possessively. “I don’t think so.”

I swallow. “She’s hurt. She needs help. It won’t matter to you, anyway. We—or you and me and Mom, I mean—could be gone long before the paramedics arrive.”

“Please,” Tucker asks, and there’s no mistaking the genuine plea in his voice. “She’s my sister. She could be dying. Please, sir.”

Maybe it’s the “sir” that gets him. The sorrow around me pulses, and in it I feel a glimmer of something human, compassion maybe. Something conflicted. He glances down at my phone again, opens it. His eyes scan over the buttons, but he doesn’t seem to know which one to push.

He doesn’t know how to use a cell phone, I realize.

“I’ll do it,” I tell him. “You can watch me. I’ll only dial 9-1-1. If I do anything else, you can crush me or whatever it is that you do.”

He smiles. “But if I crush you I won’t get what I came here for, will I? How about this?

You call, and if you try any funny business, I’ll crush him.” He cocks his head to indicate Tucker. A cold ripple of fear washes over me. “Okay,” I whisper.

“Make it quick,” he says.

He hands me the phone. I dial, hold it to my ear with a shaky hand.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” a woman answers.

“There’s been—” I clear my throat and start again. “There’s been a car accident on Coltman Road. Please send an ambulance.”

She asks for my name. I can’t tell her that, because then, when the paramedics arrive, they’ll expect to find me here, and I won’t be here. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ll be too dead to care by then. “I, uh— I’m—” I stammer.

Samjeeza holds out his hand. I’ve done what I said I would do. I called. I give the phone back to him. The operator’s still talking, asking questions, wanting to know the extent of the injuries.

“Hello,” Samjeeza says, his voice solemn, but there’s something else in his eyes.

“Hello?” I hear the lady say faintly. “Who is this?”

“I’ve just come upon the scene. Terrible, terrible accident. I’m afraid the girl’s unconscious now. And a young man. They look like they’re dressed for a dance. Please hurry.

They’re both badly injured.”

He closes the phone.

Both badly injured.

“But my mom—”

“She isn’t coming,” he says, his eyes so knowing. He sounds truly disappointed. “I’ll just have to be satisfied with you.”

He starts to turn toward Tucker.

I look into Tucker’s face, his stormy blue eyes comprehending what Samjeeza means to do. Accepting it. Bracing for it.

Time grinds to a halt.

I have to bring the glory. This is the moment I’ve been practicing all year for. Now.