Stranded

wouldn’t find anything that would tell them what had happened. No one would believe what had happened. In the light of day, Noah wasn’t even sure he believed what had happened.
    When he told them that Ethan was dead, his mother had gasped but Detective Lopez and his father looked at him like he was either lying or delirious. Now they talked around him like he wasn’t there. People came and went, in and out of the hospital room.
    The doctor was the only one who had spoken to Noah without looking at him as though he were crazy. When he came to examine Noah he had been kind and gentle with him, and Noah wanted to tell him about the voices in his head. Did the doctor have anything he could give him? Any medication that would help. Maybe Noah should have complained. Maybe then the doctor wouldn’t have dismissed him from the hospital.
    Detective Lopez told Noah he was lucky. That for now he was sending him home with his parents instead of holding him in a jail cell. Noah wanted to tell the detective that he would be safer in a jail cell. That he didn’t want to go home with his parents. He needed to tell them that the madman had taken his driver’s license. That he knew his home address—his parents’ home address.
    But how could Noah explain when he had promised the killer he wouldn’t tell anything about what had happened?
    “What would they all think?”
Noah could still hear the madman’s voice.
“What would your parents say if they knew you begged me to kill your friend first?”
    Noah glanced around the room, making sure no one else could hear the voice, too. That’s how convincing it was inside his head. But no one else seemed to notice. Not his father or Detective Lopez as they talked in hushed tones right outside the door. Not the nurse or his mother as they went over his dismissal papers.
    Yet that voice sounded so real. And so did Ethan’s screams.
    Don’t think about it. Stop thinking about any of it. Just stop it!
    This time when he looked up, the others were all staring at him and Noah realized immediately that he had spoken some of the words out loud, again. He was still sitting on the corner of the bed but he turned his back to them and continued putting on his shirt as if he were okay, as if he hadn’t just shouted strange things.
    He concentrated, instead, on how good the shirt smelled. Fresh out of his mother’s dryer, it felt soft against his battered skin. Next he tried to pull his socks on. His ankle wasn’t broken—thank goodness. The swelling had gone down but his entire foot was black and blue.
    “Take off your shoes,” he heard the madman say. This time hekept his head down and fought the instinct, the urgency of his eyes wanting to dart around.
    “What are you willing to do?”
The voice wouldn’t shut off.
“What are you willing to do to survive?”
    Noah bit his lip and tried to ignore the voice. He worked the sock up over his ankle, wincing from the pain. This was nothing, he told himself. Then he saw blood drip down. He saw the bright red fall onto the white bedsheet and panic fluttered inside his stomach. A second drop joined it before he realized it was his own. He was biting his lip so hard he had made it bleed.
    There was a commotion in the hallway and Noah turned. A uniformed officer had joined Detective Lopez. They were looking at something, trying to keep it away from Noah’s father.
    Then suddenly he heard his father say, “Oh my dear God!”
    And Noah felt the panic surge from his stomach to his heart and lungs. He didn’t want to know what had shocked his father. But he saw Detective Lopez look at him and even from the doorway Noah could sense the detective’s repulsion and his anger.
    He saw Detective Lopez grab the item out of the officer’s hand. It was something inside a plastic ziplock bag. He marched into the room to stand in front of Noah.
    “They found this inside your friend’s trunk,” Detective Lopez said. “All neat and tucked into a plastic bag. What kind of sick game are you playing?”
    He held the plastic bag up for Noah and everyone else in the room to see.
    Noah heard his father tell his mother, “Don’t look at it.” Then he instructed Noah, “Don’t answer that, Noah. Detective Lopez, my son will not be answering any more questions without his attorney present.”
    Noah stared at the blood-stained sheet of paper that filled theplastic bag. The numbers written on it looked like a phone number. There was only one other thing