“Wh-what are you doing?” Matthew stutters.
“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, Matthew. I’ve had my eye on you for a long time. I know what kind of boy you are.”
What kind of boy he is? What is going on in there?
“What the hell…what are you talking about?” Matthew says, his voice shaky now.
“You don’t believe in my teachings. You’ve been very clear about that.”
“So?”
“So…you like boys. You like to touch them, don’t you?”
“Uh…”
“I know you do. But, Matthew, have you ever been with a man?”
Oh my God.
“What?” Matthew shrieks.
There’s another brief pause and then a chair skids across the floor followed by some sort of a scuffle. There’s a loud thump on the door, and I leap away and press my back against the wall next to the doorframe. The door doesn’t open, but when Mr. Martin speaks again, his voice is a lot closer. It sounds like he’s blocking the door from Matthew.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it,” Mr. Martin says. “All those times you came to my office…”
“Are you crazy?” Matthew shouts. “I would never…I can’t believe this is happening. Let me out of here.”
“No.”
What do I do? There’s no one else around; everyone is down at the field cabins. I have to get Matthew out of there. I have to let my presence be known. Mr. Martin can’t do anything to Matthew if he knows I’m here.
But terror has me frozen in place. What would Mr. Martin do if he knew I overheard this? He’s clearly capable of some pretty crazy stuff…
“Let me out!” Matthew says again.
“You have two choices, Matthew. Do what I ask right now, or call your father and tell him you’ve been asked to leave the program.”
Another silence.
Just call your father, Matthew! I want to shout. Don’t go anywhere near this monster!
“Well? What’s it going to be?” Mr. Martin says, sounding pretty confident that he’s about to get exactly what he wants.
If that happens, I tell myself, I’ll do something. I’ll stop it any way I can.
I stand there, flat against the wall, waiting.
“You know, I spoke with your father before you came here. I know what you’re facing if you go home early.” Mr. Martin’s voice is eerily gentle. “I had a father like that too. But mine was worse, so much worse.”
“I can’t call my father,” Matthew mumbles resignedly.
What? No!
“What do you want from me?” he asks miserably, his voice drawing closer to Mr. Martin.
“Take your shirt off.”
Matthew sighs. “Okay.” Another pause. “Now what?”
“Come here.”
Matthew’s footsteps come closer.
“Now kiss me,” Mr. Martin says.
That’s it. I’m going in.
I step in front of the door and raise my hand to pound on it.
But then something happens. Mr. Martin cries out in pain and there’s a large crash. The door flies open, and suddenly I’m looking into Matthew’s frightened eyes. He’s shirtless, his face ghost-white. We just stare at each other in shock for a never-ending second.
There’s another moan of pain from within the office, and I look down at Matthew’s hand to see that he’s gripping a large metal stapler.
Go! I mouth silently. Get out of here!
He stares at me for a second longer, as though he’s still not quite sure what’s happening, and then takes off.
I know what I need to do. I wait outside the door for a few more moments and collect myself. Mr. Martin is groaning and muttering a garbled string of cuss words inside the office. That’s good. As long as I know he’s alive and conscious, I can take my time.
I wait until Matthew’s had plenty of time to get away, and then I take a deep breath and enter the office.
Mr. Martin is lying on the floor across a chair he must have broken when he fell. There’s a deep gash over his left eye, and blood is streaming down his face.
Matthew got him good. Well done, buddy.
“Mr. Martin!” I exclaim, feigning alarm. I rush over to him. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Lexi,” he groans. “Call for help.”
“Should I go get Barbara?”
“No! Call a doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“911.” He moans in pain again. “Call 911.”
“You need to apply pressure to your head,” I say, my first aid and CPR training from my job at Hard Rock kicking in. Matthew’s shirt is still lying on the floor. I wad it up and hand it to Mr. Martin. “Use this.” Then I grab the phone off his desk and call an ambulance.
Mr. Martin is losing a lot of blood. While we wait for the paramedics, he fades in and out of consciousness, and I have to keep shaking him and slapping him to wake him up. If he has a concussion, he can’t go to sleep. He might be the world’s worst kind of scum, but I still can’t let him die.
During a brief moment of clarity, he asks why I’m here.
I show him the note. “Brianna wanted to know if you were still planning on doing a Bible study session after lunch or if they should start setting up for something else.”
He mumbles something incoherent and drifts off again.
“Mr. Martin!” I shout in his face and pinch his arm, maybe a little harder than I need to. “No sleeping!”
Finally, the EMTs rush in.
“He was hit in the head,” I explain, “and then he fell. I’ve been trying to keep pressure on the gash and keep him from falling asleep.”
“Good work,” an EMT with big teeth says. “What happened?”
“Uh…I don’t know,” I lie. “I just found him like this.”
“Okay, we can take it from here.”
I start to leave but Mr. Martin’s voice stops me. “Brianna!”
“No, I’m Lexi.” God, he really is far gone.
“No. Get Brianna.”
“Oh. Okay,” I say and break into a sprint.
***
“I don’t understand,” Brianna says as we run back toward the main cabin together. “How did this happen?”
I stick with my lie. “I don’t know. I just got there and he was on the ground.”
“Bleeding from the head?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand,” she says again. Then she starts praying. Out loud. She’s really upset, even though I told her he was going to be fine.
The EMTs are wheeling Mr. Martin into the back of the ambulance when we get there.
“Jeremiah!” she cries and jumps into the ambulance too.
Jeremiah? Is that Mr. Martin’s first name?
Then the doors are closed, the siren is turned on, and within seconds, there’s nothing to show that the ambulance was even here except a thin cloud of dust floating over the gravel road.
I turn back to the main cabin and run up the front steps.
I need to find Matthew.