Panic(40)

And all of them angry: you could feel it in the air, a physical force among them.

Suddenly Heather realized that this, too, was a result of the game. That it was part of it.

Only Dodge seemed unaware of the tension. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked Bishop. Bishop shook his head.

Heather broke in. “I’m out. I said I was out and I meant it. The game should have ended—”

“The game never ends,” Dodge said. Nat turned away from him and for a moment, just a moment, he looked uncertain. Heather was relieved. Dodge had changed this summer. He wasn’t the slope-shouldered weirdo, the outsider, who had sat for three years in silence. It was as though the game was feeding him somehow—like he was growing on it. “You heard about Zev?” He exhaled a straight stream of smoke. “That was me.”

Nat had turned back to him. “You?”

“Me, and Ray Hanrahan.”

There was a moment of silence.

Heather finally managed to speak. “What?”

“We did it.” Dodge took a final drag and ground out the cigarette butt underneath the heel of his cowboy boot.

“That’s against the rules,” Heather said. “The judges set the challenges.”

Dodge shook his head. “It’s Panic,” he said. “There are no rules.”

“Why?” Bishop tugged at his left ear. He was furious and trying not to show it; that was his tell.

“To send a message to the judges. The players, too. The game will go on, one way or another. It has to.”

“You don’t have the right,” Bishop said.

Dodge shrugged. “What’s right?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“What about the cops? And the fire? What about Bill?”

No one said anything. Heather realized she was shaking.

“I’m done,” she said. She spun around and nearly collided with a rust-spotted furnace, which, along with an overturned bike, marked the beginning of the narrow path that wound through the landscape of litter and junk to the house, and around to the front yard. Bishop called out to her, but she ignored him.

She found Lily crouching in a bit of yard uncluttered by junk, marking the bare grass with bright-blue spray paint she had unearthed somewhere.

“Lily.” Heather spoke sharply.

Lily dropped the paint and stood up, looking guilty.

“We’re going,” Heather said.

Lily’s frown reappeared, as did the small pucker between her eyebrows. Immediately, she seemed to shrink and age. Heather thought of the night Lily had whispered, “Are you going to die?” and felt a fist of guilt hit her hard in the stomach. She didn’t know whether she was doing the right thing. She felt like nothing she did was right.

But what had happened to Bill Kelly was wrong. And pretending it hadn’t happened was wrong too. That, she knew.

“What’s the matter with you?” Lily said, sticking out her lower lip.

“Nothing.” Heather seized her wrist. “Come on.”

“I didn’t get to say hi to Bishop,” Lily whined.

“Next time,” Heather said. She practically dragged Lily to the car. She couldn’t hear Nat or Bishop or Dodge anymore; she wondered whether they were talking about her. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She drove in silence, gripping the wheel as though it was in danger of slipping suddenly from her hands.





WEDNESDAY, JULY 20





heather

THE WEATHER TURNED FOUL, COLD AND WET, AND THE ground turned to sludge. For two days, Heather heard nothing from Nat. She refused to be the one to call first. She texted back and forth with Bishop but avoided seeing him, which meant that to go to work she had to bus it to the 7-Eleven and walk three quarters of a mile in the driving rain, arriving wet and miserable just to stand for more hours in the rain, chucking the chickens soggy feed and hauling equipment into the sheds so it wouldn’t rust.

Only the tigers seemed more miserable than she was; she wondered, as they huddled underneath a canopy of maple trees, watching her work, whether they dreamed of other places as much as she did. Africa, burnt grasses, a vast round sun. For the first time it struck her as selfish that Anne kept them here, in this craptastic climate of blistering heat, followed by rain, followed by snow and sleet and ice.

There were rumors that the police had turned up evidence of arson at the Graybill house. For a whole day, Heather waited in agony, certain that the evidence had to do with her duffel bag, positive that the police would haul her off to jail. What would happen to her, if she were accused of murder? She was eighteen. That meant she would go to real jail, not juvie.

But when several more days passed and no one came looking for her, she relaxed again. She hadn’t been the one to light the stupid match. Really, when you thought about it, this was all Matt Hepley’s fault. He should be arrested. And Delaney, too.

About Panic, there was not a single whisper. Dodge’s move had, apparently, failed to rouse the judges to action. Heather wondered whether he would try again, then reminded herself it was no longer her business.

Still, it rained: this was mid-July in upstate New York, lush and green and wet as a rain forest.

Krista got sick from the humidity and the wet in the air, saying it made her lungs feel clotty. Heather refrained from pointing out that her lungs might feel better if she stopped smoking a pack of menthol cigarettes a day. Krista called in sick to work and instead lay on the couch in a daze of cold medicine, like something dead and bloated dragged up by the ocean.