Felipe gets to his feet. Staggers over to the counter, where the cookware is soaking in the sink.
"Get back to your seat," says Mr. Leonard, starting forward.
"Fuck off, I'm getting a drink."
Felipe turns the sink on and ducks his head under it, manages just one gulp before Mr. Leonard grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him back.
Felipe wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist, glares up at Mr. Leonard, and then stalks back to the table.
Peter thinks he is probably the only one who sees Felipe slip something into his back pocket as he sits. But when he tries to get a closer look, Felipe turns away from him.
Peter doesn't ask. He doesn't have the energy.
Late afternoon. Peter is on the couch again, Felipe on the floor under the coffee table. In the corner, Arnold is curled in an armchair, while Justin, for all his staring at it, does not appear to have made any progress on his book.
It's Wednesday. They haven't found a replacement for Karen yet, so there's just Mr. Leonard in the house, and around four he ducks out for a smoke break. The boys are so accustomed to his absence by now they don't so much as glance up as he leaves.
After a minute, they hear the sound of the front door opening, the jangle of keys as Ms. Charlise returns from her afternoon errands.
Quietly, without expression, Felipe rolls out from under the table and gets to his feet.
Peter raises his head just in time to see Felipe pull a knife out of his back pocket.
In a great rush, hunger and exhaustion and hyperthermia are washed away by pure horror.
Peter leaps to his feet.
He immediately swoons, vision graying, but he shakes it away, forces himself to stay upright. He lunges, grabbing Felipe's arm before he can make it to the hallway and yanking him back.
"Felipe, no!" he hisses.
Felipe tries to fling Peter off, but Peter clings, grip made tight by desperation.
"Get the fuck off of me, Peter."
Behind them, Peter hears Arnold scurry into the corner near Ms. Charlise's office. He shakes his head, frantic.
"Please, Felipe. Don't do it, please, you can't. They'll send you away forever, you can't."
The jangle is getting closer.
"You think it fucking matters?" Felipe snarls. His eyes are sunken, red-rimmed, wild. "You think it matters where I go? I'm done for, Pedro. I was done for the second I stole that fuckin' soap. But she can't get away with this. She can't get away with it, you hear me? Now let me go."
But Peter doesn't. He grips harder and throws his weight back, trying to bring Felipe down. But he's too small, and Felipe is too determined: instead of falling over, Felipe yanks his arm out of Peter's grip.
The knife slices through Peter's palm as he goes down. He lands on his back—sees the blood but doesn't feel the pain, not yet. Adrenaline pushes him back to his feet.
Right as Felipe steps into the hallway, Peter tackles him.
Both boys go sprawling into the hallway.
The knife flies out of Felipe's hand. Skitters across the hardwood. Stops right at a pair of feet in ratty, ancient tennis shoes.
Peter and Felipe's brief struggle ends as abruptly as it began when Ms. Charlise picks up the knife. She clenches it, her knuckles white around the handle, as she looks down at them.
"So," she says.
The boys scramble to their feet. Only when Peter sees that his hand is dripping blood all over the floor does the pain arrive. Felipe sees it, too. But he can't say anything, because he's breathing too hard.
Peter shakes his head at Felipe, clenches his fist against the blood and his jaw against the pain and forces himself to meet Ms. Charlise's blackened, swollen eye.
"What is it," says Ms. Charlise, "that makes boys like you incapable of learning? What is the point of rehabilitation when you violent little imbeciles just continue to be violent little imbeciles no matter what we do?"
"How come you people never prove me wrong?"
Peter's vision goes red. How dare she speak to Felipe like that? How dare she, if she has even an inkling of what he's been through? Of what she has put him through?
The plan forms in an instant.
Uncle Ben was wrong about Peter defending himself. But Felipe was wrong too.
"It's my knife," he says.
"Pedro—!"
Peter holds his bloody fist out, showing it to Ms. Charlise, silencing Felipe.
Peter can't defend himself. He can't help himself. That much is clear. But maybe—just maybe—he can help someone else.
"It's my knife," he says again. "Felipe was trying to take it off me. If you want to punish someone, punish me."
Jumping in front of the bullet might get Peter shot—but if it saves Felipe, then that's exactly what he's going to do.