The Pledge


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter One
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgments
 Contents
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Pagebreaks of the print version
 
 Cover Page
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 ii
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 To Jayden
 
 
 
 Chapter One
 
 TWO YEARS AGO
 A meat cleaver goes through Sam’s chest, killing him instantly.
 “Damn it,” he says as the bloody words GAME OVER splatter across the screen on his iPad. He unhooks his headphones and glances warily through the window in the door that leads outside to the deck and out to the forest. He stares at the darkness of the woods, and a wild thought of someone watching him invades his mind. He shivers.
 He’s sitting on a king-sized bed in a white tank top and boxers, with his legs stretched out in front of him. It’s humid, and despite the best efforts of a fan in the corner of the room on the highest speed possible, he can’t get comfortable.
 He doesn’t know why he can’t relax. The only bad things that have happened on this weekend so far have been the man who stared at him and his boyfriend at the Pancake Barn before they got here, and Max’s run-in with poison oak as they were walking back from the lake from their hike. Those can easily be explained: homophobia for the first, and Max’s thickheadedness for the second. Everything else has been idyllic: the drive, passing by towering redwoods and Douglas firs, followed by a swim in Lake Priest, which Amy made sure everyone knew was actually a reservoir. Sam knows he has nothing to worry about, but he can’t get rid of this grim feeling, no matter how much he tries to distract himself. Maybe playing horror games like Hunting Ground doesn’t help, but he loves them too much not to. He does this a lot, watching scary movies or playing creepy games until he freaks himself out to the point where he can’t sleep, picturing all the bad things that could happen to him. An ax murderer could burst through that door, or maybe this house is haunted by a demon that collects the souls of sixteen-year-old boys. Who knows?
 Shaking off the thought, Sam opens his most recent Word document, where he has been editing his latest draft of Tectonic, a queer superhero novel he has been working on for the past year. He flips out the keyboard and starts to type. He’s rewriting a big action scene, where Tectonic fights his archnemesis, the Grim Sailor, for the first time. Sam has a whole series mapped out in his head and has moments for books in the future that he already can’t wait to write. And sure, maybe it’s a little weird that he wants to follow in the same career path as his mom, but her being an author isn’t why he wants to be