Only this wasn't a nightmare. I was awake. I knew I was awake, because I would never have dreamed of my friends CeeCee and Adam sauntering by while I was confronting this monster from my past, and going, "Hey, Suze," like it was . . . well, like it was simply the first day back at school after summer vacation.

"You mean the part where you tried to kill me?" I croaked, when CeeCee and Adam were out of earshot. This time, I know he heard my voice shake. I know because he looked perturbed - though maybe it was because of the accusation. In any case, he reached up and dragged one of those largish tanned hands through his curly hair.

"I never tried to kill you, Suze," he said, sounding a little hurt.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. My heart was in my throat, but I laughed anyway. "Oh," I said. "Right."

"I mean it, Suze," he said. "It wasn't like that. I'm just . . . I'm just not very good at losing, you see."

I stared at him. No matter what he told himself, he had tried to kill me. But worse, he'd done his best to eliminate Jesse, in a completely underhanded manner. And now he was trying to pass the whole thing off as bad sportsmanship?

"I don't get it," I said, shaking my head. "What did you lose? You didn't lose anything."

"Didn't I, Suze?" His gaze bore into mine. His voice was the one I'd been hearing over and over in my dreams - laughing at me as I struggled to find my way out of a dark, mist-filled hallway at either end of which was a precipice dropping off into a black void of utter nothingness, over which, right before I woke up, I teetered dangerously. It was a voice filled with hidden meaning. . . .

Only I had no idea what that meaning could be, or what he was implying. All I knew was that this guy terrified me.