Mr. Lowell made fun of him for wetting his pants. He said he was going to tell all Nico’s friends about it, and my brother had to beg him not to.

After that, the visits continued. Even when Mrs. Lowell found out about it, and she made Mr. Lowell tell Mom that they didn’t want him coming anymore, he told Nico privately that he still needed to keep coming.

“And then I told him no,” Nico whispers through the darkness of my bedroom. “I said that I couldn’t come anymore. That I didn’t like it, and I was bored of playing in the room. And also, I… I was scared. Except he told me that I didn’t have a choice.”

Mr. Lowell told Nico that if he didn’t keep coming, he was going to sue our family for not just the broken toy and the broken window but also all the damage Nico had done to the other toys while playing in the room. He said that we would be homeless and that our parents would hate him. That worked for a little while, but then when Nico said that he was going to tell them anyway, Mr. Lowell used a different approach.

“He said that if I told anyone about the room,” Nico says, “that he would kill my whole family. He said he would kill Dad first, then Mom, then you.”

And now he’s crying. I climb out of my bed and lie next to him on the sleeping bag. I put my arms around him. The weirdest thing is I am not crying. Practically everything makes me cry, but I’m not crying now.

I’m angry.

“Nico,” I say, “Mr. Lowell could never hurt our dad. Our dad is a lot bigger than he is.”

“He told me he could do it. He said he’s done it before.”

I don’t think it’s true. Mr. Lowell is no match for our dad. Nobody is. Mr. Lowell is just a big bully.

“We have to tell Mom and Dad about this,” I say.

“No!” Nico sobs. “Ada, you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone! You swore!”

“But this is really serious.”

“If you tell anyone,” he says, “I will never, ever trust you again for the rest of my life.”

His dark eyes are shiny in the moonlight. He looks like he means it. But Nico is only nine years old. Even if I tell, someday he’s going to realize I did the right thing.

Right?

“You promised you wouldn’t tell!” he reminds me. “You better not break that promise, Ada.”

“Okay,” I finally say. “I won’t tell them. I won’t tell anyone.”

Nico lets me wrap my arms around him, and eventually, he stops crying and then his breathing evens out. He’s asleep. But I’m still wide awake.

I’m going to keep my promise to my brother. I won’t tell anyone about the secret he told me.

Except Mr. Lowell needs to know that Nico is never going over to his house ever again.

SEVENTY-TWO

Step 6: Stand Up For Your Little Brother

I haven’t been over to the Lowells’ house since that dinner we had with them when we first moved here. Their house is a lot bigger and nicer than ours, although I honestly feel like ours is too big. I wait to go over until Mr. Lowell’s Mercedes arrives and disappears into their garage, so I know he’s home.

I don’t know what I’m going to say. But he needs to know I am aware of what he is doing to my brother and that if it ever happens again, I will be telling our parents. And I am not scared of him.

Once he hears what I have to say, he won’t bother Nico ever again, and I’ll never have to tell Mom and Dad. Except just as I’m leaving the house, I decide at the last minute to grab the pocketknife that Dad gave me. It’s not like I’m going to use it, but I just feel more comfortable when I have it. I put it in the pocket of my jeans, and then I cover it with my T-shirt so it’s not visible.

Now I feel better.

I take the shortcut, cutting across our backyard to theirs. Dad is in their backyard, doing some work on their bushes. He’s got some of his equipment going, and it’s really loud. And when I say loud, I mean that I have to cover my ears. It sounds exactly like a saw going through metal, even though that’s not what’s happening. It’s so loud that he doesn’t even hear me walking to the back door. I almost wave to get his attention, but then I realize if he sees me, he’ll ask me what I’m doing, so it’s actually better he doesn’t know I’m here.

I knock on the back door, but it’s so loud back here that he can’t hear me. I think about going around the front, but then I try the back door and it’s not even locked. So I let myself inside.

I definitely saw Mr. Lowell’s car go into the garage, but the house is weirdly silent. I don’t hear any footsteps or noises coming from upstairs. It sounds like nobody is even home. “Hello?” I call out.

No answer.

I don’t know where he went, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is here. Maybe he left again while I was putting on my sneakers. Or maybe he’s in the shower or something. I guess I’ll leave and come back later.

But then as I’m walking through the house, I pass by the stairwell. There is a bookcase leaning against the wall, exactly where the door to the secret room is in our house. It’s just how Nico described it. If I move this bookcase, will I find the secret room?

Now that the idea is in my head, I have to see this room.

The bookcase isn’t that heavy, because it doesn’t have many books in it. I lean all my weight against it, pushing as hard as I can. Once it starts moving, I can push it the rest of the way easily. And sure enough, behind it is the outline of a narrow door.

This one was concealed by the bookcase instead of having been covered with wallpaper. Like the one in our own house, it looks like it pushes open, although there is a hole for a key. That keyhole makes me nervous. I remember the way Nico talked about trying to get out of the room, but he couldn’t because the door wouldn’t open.

It hits me that if Mr. Lowell had locked him in the room and covered it with the bookcase, nobody would have known he was there. After all, Mom and Dad thought he stopped coming here to do chores. Only Nico and Mr. Lowell knew the truth.

I stare at the outline of the door. I’m not a curious sort of person. I don’t need to know what’s behind every door. That’s more Nico’s style. The room exists—that’s all I need to know. Right?

But then again, what is the harm in one little peek?

Slowly, I push open the door to the room.

SEVENTY-THREE

It’s not what I expected.

The room under our staircase was just an empty space. But this one is filled with… with stuff.

I can see why Nico was attracted to it. It’s like every toy he has ever played with or wanted in his life is in this room. Transformers, trucks, model cars, action figures. Most of them look like they have been played with recently. And the room is brighter than the one below our stairwell, lit with actual lights that require a light switch. Nico mentioned Mr. Lowell kept a camera mounted on the ceiling, but I scan the corners up above and don’t see one—maybe he took it down. But the strangest part of the room is what is in the far corner.

It’s a bed.

A small bed, meant for a child maybe even a little younger than Nico, but about that age. It has a white bedframe and a thin mattress with no boxspring. It’s more like a cot. It’s covered with a quilt, and each of the patches on the quilt has a different kind of insect sewn into the fabric.

Even though I know I shouldn’t, I walk over to the bed. I run my fingers along the quilt, which feels stiff, like it hasn’t been used in a long time. I guess when Nico was here, he played on the floor. I pull back the quilt and…

Oh my God.

There’s a dark brown stain all over the white sheets. It’s darkest right in the center, but there are splatters of it all over the sheets. I don’t know if Nico ever pulled back these sheets and saw what I am seeing. If he did, maybe that’s why he took Mr. Lowell’s threat so seriously.

“Ada?”