Read Every Last Word for Free Online Page A

arguing or second-guessing.
    First there’s a click, and then the door swings toward me and I see a pair of eyes in the narrow opening. “Who are you?” a girl’s voice whispers.
    I glance over at Caroline, but she just gives me this
Say something!
look, so I return to the girl in the doorway.
    “I’m Samantha.” I hold my hand up. “I mean, Sam.” Why not, I figure, as long as I’m making introductions and all. “I was hoping I could come
in.”
    She looks past me, over my shoulder, and Caroline whispers, “She’s with me.”
    The girl makes a face but pushes the door open anyway, giving us enough room to step inside. Then she scans the janitor’s closet, like she’s checking to be sure the two of us are
alone, and I hear the dead bolt snap closed again.
    I don’t even have time to take in the surroundings because now there’s a guy standing in front of me. He’s tall and thin, with broad shoulders and a headful of sandy blond
hair. He looks a little bit familiar, and I’m still trying to place him when he narrows his eyes at me and says, “What are you doing here?”
    I look at Caroline for help again, but she runs her finger across her lips like she’s zipping them shut, and I kind of want to punch her right now.
    “I’m Sam—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
    “I know who you are, Samantha.” I study his face again. He knows my name. I don’t know his.
    “I’m sorry.” I’m not really sure why I’m apologizing, but it seems like the right thing to do. I step backward toward the door, feeling for a knob, but there
isn’t one.
    The girl who let me in hands him a thick braided cord and he slips it over his head. A gold key bounces against his chest.
    “How did you find this room?”
    “My friend…” I say, gesturing toward Caroline. He glances over at her and she nods at him. He quickly returns his attention to me.
    “Your friend what?”
    Caroline’s made it pretty clear that she isn’t going to do anything to help me at this point, but that doesn’t mean her words can’t get me the rest of the way into the
room. “I heard that this place might change my life, and, well…I guess my life could use some serious changing, so I thought…” I trail off, watching him, waiting for his
face to relax, but it doesn’t.
    He stares at me for what feels like a full minute. I stare back, refusing to give in. Caroline must be getting worried, because she wraps both hands around my arm and pulls herself in closer,
showing him she’s on my side. He crosses his arms and never takes his eyes off me.
    “Fine,” he says. “You can stay today, this one time, but that’s it. After this, you have to forget all about this place, got it? One time, Samantha.”
    “Got it,” I say. Then I add, “And it’s Sam.”
    His forehead creases. “Fine. But it’s not like this makes us friends or anything.”
    Friends? My friends don’t call me Sam. “Why would I think we’re friends? I don’t even know you.”
    He smiles, revealing a dimple on the left side of his mouth. “No,” he says, as if it’s funny. “Of course you don’t know me.” He walks away, shaking his head,
leaving Caroline and me standing alone at the back of the room.
    “What the hell was that?” I ask her. My voice is even more wobbly than it was a few minutes ago.
    She gives me a supportive nudge with her elbow. “Don’t worry about it. You did great.”
    Now that he’s no longer blocking my view, I can see where I am. The room is long and narrow and, like the janitor’s closet, painted entirely in black. But the ceilings are twice as
high, and even though it’s dark, it’s not claustrophobic at all. At the front of the room, I see a low riser that appears to be a makeshift stage. Smack in the center, there’s a
wooden stool.
    I count five other people in the room. They’re sitting on small couches and oversize chairs facing the stage and set at a slight angle, each one covered in different material—blue