“Look, Lilli, it just isn’t my thing,” I tried to plead. “I tried it. I’m no good.”
“Only because you haven’t played enough. I mean, it’s like a video game. How awful were we in Dragon Ops when we first started playing?”
I froze, my stomach suddenly swimming with nausea. Lilli caught my look and snapped her mouth shut, her face pinkening as she realized she’d just said the D-O words—something we were never ever supposed to do. Especially not in public. In fact, the game company’s legal team had made us and our parents sign a bazillion forms that threatened all sorts of bad legal stuff if we ever went public with our story. Even mentioning the game’s name was strictly off-limits. Never mind talking about all the crazy stuff that had happened to us there.
Stuff that had almost cost us our lives.
They’d tried to make up for it, of course. Threw a ton of money at us for our “pain and suffering” until our college funds were stuffed to the brim. I’d gotten a brand-new laptop out of the deal, too. Which at the time had seemed really awesome. But since then, well, the gag order was getting to me.
And the pain and suffering? That seemed to be just getting started.
At least for me. Lilli seemed fine. Totally back to normal. She played soccer daily, won tons of meets with her gymnastics team. Had made a bunch of new friends. Life was good for Lilli. It was like she’d moved on. No big deal.
So why was I still stuck in this nightmare? Why couldn’t I move on, too? It seemed almost every night I’d wake in a cold sweat, shaking like a leaf. Visions of killer dragons haunting my dreams. Even during the day I’d sometimes find myself completely paralyzed with fear—like today on the soccer field. My mind replaying the scenes from Dragon Ops over and over and over again. Until I wanted to scream or run or hide or puke.
I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous. That it was all just in my head, my brain trying to work through all we’d gone through in the game.
But deep down, I knew it was more than that. Derek had told us Atreus had escaped the game shortly after we’d gotten back home. Which would have been creepy enough. But then I’d gotten this weird message on my computer, scrolling down the screen. A message that, no matter what anyone said, I knew could only have come from him.
Do you want to play again?
Do you want to play again?
Yes. Atreus was out there. Somewhere. Watching, waiting. And I had no clue what he was planning next.
After the soccer game we headed to Uncle Jack’s house down the street, where we were staying for the night. Our parents had gone away to Vegas, Dad tagging along with Mom to her programmer’s conference. Mom hadn’t wanted to leave us; she was still being super overprotective after what had happened at Dragon Ops. Also, I was pretty sure she still didn’t completely trust her brother, Uncle Jack, since he was the one who had brought us there to begin with. But in the end, Dad had talked her into it, saying we all needed some time to chill. And so they went, leaving us six different phone numbers to call if anything went even remotely wrong while they were away.
“Hey, guys!” Uncle Jack greeted us as he opened his front door. “How was the game?”
“Ian did great!” Lilli said cheerfully.
“I literally caused the team to lose,” I reminded her, walking into the house and slumping down at the kitchen table. My mood had not changed on the walk home. If anything, I felt more depressed. What was wrong with me? Seeing dragons on the soccer field? If anyone had any idea of why I really missed that shot, I’d be the laughingstock of school.
“I doubt that,” Uncle Jack said, slapping me on the back. He reached into the freezer and pulled out a half gallon of cookies-and-cream ice cream—my favorite flavor—and set it on the table. “Dessert for dinner?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. “That always made me feel better after a sports game gone bad.” He chuckled. “Which… let’s just say… happened quite a bit back in the day.”
I gave a half laugh, knowing he was trying to make me feel better. Uncle Jack was awesome like that. And I knew I was his favorite relative. When I was younger, we used to spend hours playing video games together. He worked in games, so he always had beta versions of all the new ones that hadn’t even come out yet. And since his own son, Derek, didn’t care about gaming? I was the one he called to test them out.
But not anymore. I hadn’t played a video game in three months. Not since that fateful day I’d gotten the mysterious message while playing Fields of Fantasy. The message I was sure had come from him. Even now, if I closed my eyes, I could still picture that white star spinning across my screen. The terrifying words scrolling below.
Do you want to play again?
Do you want to play again?
Do you want to play again?
At first, Lilli had been freaked out, too. Especially after I told her how Atreus had escaped the game and no one knew where he went. But, in the end, she rationalized it all away. Even if he was out there, she reminded me, he couldn’t hurt us anymore. We were no longer in a game. In real life, we were safe.
Which I knew, in my head anyway, was probably true. But it didn’t make me feel any better when I turned on my computer the next day and saw
