But it grows loud.
Louder.
Louder still.
Like someone has put a radio on blast, but all it plays are children’s tunes. Wordless, melodic. Impossible to escape or ignore.
Then something crashes in the room next to mine—Carter’s room—and the music abruptly dies on an off-key tone.
I run. Exactly like how I used to run, back when I still could. I push myself past Ever and Finn, and I run to get to Carter’s room, to make sure he’s there, he’s okay, he’s—
I slam into Carter’s room. In it, I spot the broken music box before I see anything else. It’s one of the small ones that Ever brought to the cabin to mimic the ones in the game, and it’s been smashed to countless pieces against the door. It’s impossible to enter the room without crunching the splinters of wood. I kick it all away as hard as I can and I try to orient myself.
There are candles here too. Also around the bed.
The covers of the bed are rumpled, and Carter’s suitcase lies propped open against one of the walls. I still can’t believe his parents made him drag a suitcase up a mountain, even if it doesn’t necessarily surprise me.
“Carter? Come on, C, answer me.”
“Maddy, I don’t think—” Ever stands in the doorway and their voice trails off. “I don’t think—”
I turn to see what they’re staring at. I follow their gaze.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
I take a step closer to the bed. It’s not that it hasn’t been made.
There’s someone inside it.
I whimper and reach out to someone, anyone for support. Finn steps in and his shoulder bumps against mine.
In the darkness I can’t see if the bed is moving. If someone’s breathing.
“We’ll have to pull back the covers,” Finn says quietly, and all the fear and anger that laced his voice earlier is gone. There’s just defeat, because we can all imagine what we’ll find inside—nothing good.
I nod. “Together?”
“Yeah.”
Ever walks around the bed and makes to uncover the bed from that side. They catch my eyes and nod. No point in delaying the inevitable, right? I nod too. Keep moving. Stop thinking. We pull the cover back and—
I scream.
Carter’s body lies in the middle of the bed. His eyes are wide and empty. His mouth is set in a silent scream, and the mattress is red with blood. He’s splayed out like Councilwoman Yester, like someone took a scene from our game and recreated it, arcane circle around him and all.
I’m going to be sick. On the other side of the bed, Ever has turned away too, and their body language is a chaos of horror. They sway. They keep themself standing only because they can lean on the bedside table.
And Finn keeps repeating the same word over and over again: “No. No. Nonononononono.”
Unlike the victims in the game, Carter is real. He is our friend. He was our friend? He should still be here. He shouldn’t have come inside. If only I’d been less of a mess, if only I’d kept my wits about me, if only…if only…if only.
On the other side of the bed, Ever sinks to the floor, and Finn immediately rushes to them, still muttering the same word.
I can’t keep staring at Carter. I should close his eyes? But I don’t want to reach out to him. I don’t want my memory of him to be…this. I want to remember his gentle hands and the way he supported me. I don’t want to touch him. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to touch him.
I want to kill the person who did this. Who did this to him, and to the memory of our game. This weekend was supposed to honor it, and our friendship, and now…
Carter’s left hand rests on his chest. Four of the fingers are curled around a small wooden carving of a rat, almost as though he’s cradling it.
His ring finger is gone.
Unlike the victims in our game, the circle around Carter isn’t drawn with magic. It’s drawn with coins all around him. A piece of paper is quite literally pinned to his chest, sunk into his flesh, and I won’t touch that either. I can’t.
“What does it say?” Ever’s voice sounds strangled. They have their arms wrapped tight around their chest.
It’s only one word:
Thief.
“Just like Liva—just like Liva’s room.” Finn produces a piece of paper in the same handwriting, the same bloodred words. Liar.
It takes everything I have not to scream again or toss all the coins from the mattress onto the floor.
“We have to get out.” My voice sounds different, hollow, cold. It sounds like it doesn’t belong to me. It feels like it doesn’t belong to me. When no one moves immediately, I all but snarl at them, “Go. Now.”
Someone—or something—is playing a twisted game with us. And they’re inside this cabin. “We’ve got to run.”
But a dull thud comes from living room down below.
And the all-too-clear sound of a lock.
Seventeen
Finn
“We have to move.” I reach out a hand to Ever and nearly tip my crutch over.
Ever reacts almost instantly, grabbing it and steadying me without hesitation. It’s the simplest movement, and it’s a low bar, but outside of this group, most people don’t meet it. Here, when my crutches fall out of reach, everyone will immediately stoop to pick them up. They grab whatever needs holding. They make sure to walk alongside me in such a way that they don’t kick my crutches out from under me—and no one else gets the chance to do so either.
We’ve changed and grown, and I’ve pushed them away, and they’re still here.
We’re all scared and frustrated, but they all still have my back.
Now, I feel emptier.
