I practically run to him. “Just don’t move so fast, please?” I breathe the words into his chest, and he holds me too tight. Pain is radiating through me, and I’m worried—for Liva, for all of us. I have no way to focus the overwhelming chaos in my mind. I wish I could sit on these steps and stim and forget.
“Are you okay?”
There are layers to that question, but the answer to all of them is the same. “It hurts, C.”
He pulls back, but at the same time, he reaches out to me and his fingers curl around my hand. He’s steady and present, and though I can feel him shaking, he’s what I need to keep moving.
Liva was like that too. And then the accident happened, and while I was recovering, Liva spent more and more time at her father’s company. She had less time for the two of us. And when we hung out, I always needed an hour or so to get my friend back—because the girl who showed up was always the rich snob her parents wanted her to be.
And that hour kept getting longer. Eventually, she simply didn’t come by anymore unless it was for a costume or something game-related. I tried to tell Liva about the pills once. I tried to tell her what the doctor prescribed wasn’t enough. I hoped she might be able to help me, at least before Carter stepped in. She didn’t seem to understand.
That night, my sister Sav said Liva and I both wanted the other to be someone different. I didn’t know what she meant, but maybe I should’ve tried harder.
I know Liva has been going through stuff too, with the pressure she’s had from her dad. If we find her—when we find her—I’m going to do my part to be a better friend. I hope she will too.
Carter and I stumble into the all-too-quiet yard, and Carter drags me toward a spot on the side of the cabin where Liva’s room is. There is no path on this side of the cabin, only an overgrown clearing.
The only way I can think to stim is by balling my free hand into a fist and methodically pounding my hip. Something rhythmic. Something to keep me focused. I feel like I’m falling.
It feels like we’ve fallen into an upside-down world where none of the normal rules apply. Like I spent years studying a rule book to understand how the world works, and how people work, and how we can do magic between those two—and then we start the game with a completely different system.
I don’t know how to deal with this.
I can’t keep up. I’m scared, I think. I’m overwhelmed.
The world is so much and this pain stabs so deep.
Carter breathes hard, next to me. He squeezes my hand. He isn’t necessarily calm, but he is calming me, at least. “I’m going to call for Liva again. Don’t be scared.”
“How can I not be?”
He winces, his expression falling somewhere between a grimace and a frown. He nods in acknowledgment.
Then he shouts, “Liva!”
We both listen for a reply.
His voice echoes against the cabin walls, bounces through the trees. And it’s only met with silence. No birdsong, no coyotes, no rustling of the wind through the leaves.
Silence.
“Liva!”
Carter’s voice sounds hollow.
I disentangle myself from him and kneel on the grass, raking my fingers through it. They come back wet.
In the faint glow of the cabin lights, I can see there’s blood on the ground, and quite a lot of it. Dark, wet crimson stains on darker grass. Stickiness on my fingers.
My stomach twists.
“Here!” Carter kneels next to a blood spot and picks at something in the grass.
I squint. “What is it?”
“Looks to be some piece of cloth.” Carter hesitates. “A swath of torn costume.”
Oh.
I want to take a step back, but another piece of cloth catches my eye. Gold threading. Not a lot, but enough to make out Liva’s handiwork—because I would recognize it anywhere.
I bite my lip and reach out, not quite touching it. “What is happening, C?”
Carter rocks to his feet. “I wish I knew. I really wish I did. But all I know is that we need to find Liva. She has to be here somewhere.”
I’m still staring at the torn bit of costume. I saw her wear this only an hour or so ago, when she…when she… “She died in the game,” I whisper.
“We don’t know that she’s dead,” Carter responds harshly. “Maybe she’s wounded. Maybe someone took her. Maybe she fell, and she tried to crawl away from the window.”
But that seems like a ridiculous conclusion given the amount of blood and the torn clothes. The bedroom window isn’t high up enough to kill, and if she were wounded, surely she would’ve called for help. She would’ve called out to us.
“Liva!” My voice shatters. I can feel it in my throat.
There’s only a deep, desperate silence here.
Maybe it’s because of that silence, but I’m convinced someone’s watching us. I feel the eyes all around me.
I want to be invisible. I want to be anywhere but here, because I know, I know—this game, these friends may not have broken yet, but they will. Everything always breaks.
It’s getting harder to breathe.
There are too many shadows between us and the city. Someone is watching us. Someone is waiting, prowling like an animal waiting to pounce on its prey. And we only have one another to stand between us and whatever is out there.
The night closes in on me, slowly, while Carter continues to look for clues. Presumably Ever and Finn are doing the same. They don’t notice it. They don’t see what’s about to happen.
But I do. I felt the same way right before my injury and in the empty nights after. In the loneliness when my team stopped coming to visit and my friends didn’t know how to talk to me. I was lost.
And we are lost now.
We’re here,
