Panic(61)

She felt a rush of hatred for him. How had she ever believed she was in love with him? He was a dolt, just like Nat said. At the same time, an image of Bishop rose up in her mind: Bishop in his stupid sweatpants and flip-flops, grinning at her; sharing an iced coffee, sharing the same straw, mindless of backwash and the fact that Heather always chewed her straws to bits; lying side by side on the hood of his car, surrounded by crushed cans, which Bishop said would make the aliens more likely to abduct them. Saying, Please, please, take me away from here, alien friends! And laughing.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Heather said.

Matt looked startled, as though he’d expected her to thank him. “I’m telling you now because you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to go through with it. Look, I know you, Heather. And this isn’t you.”

She felt like she’d been socked in the stomach. “You think this is about you? About what happened?”

Matt sighed. She could tell he thought she was being difficult. “I’m just saying you don’t have to prove anything.”

A vibration went through Heather—tiny electrical pulses of anger. “Fuck off, Matt,” she said. By now, the people in the room were no longer pretending not to be listening. But she didn’t care.

“Heather—” He reached for her arm as she started to move past him.

She shook him off. “This was never about you.” That wasn’t, she realized, 100 percent true. She had entered—at least, she thought she had—out of a sense of desperation, a sense that her life was over when he dumped her. But she was playing for herself now, for herself and Lily; she was playing because she had made it this far; she was playing because if she won, it would be the first and only time she had ever won something in her life. “And you don’t know me. You never did.”

She was hoping he would leave, now that he had come to say what he had to say, but he didn’t. He crossed his arms and leaned against the bathroom door, or the sheet of graffiti-printed plywood where the bathroom door should have been—the plumbing lines hadn’t been connected. Just for a second, she saw Matt Hepley and Ray Hanrahan exchange a glance. Almost imperceptibly, Matt gestured to him. Like, I did what I could.

She felt a twin surge of disgust and triumph. So now Ray was enlisting Matt’s help to get Heather to drop out. It was probably Ray who’d sent her that text in June telling her to quit Panic. He obviously thought she was a real threat.

And that made her feel powerful.

“What is this?” she said, gesturing with her chin to the gun. Her voice was overloud, and she was aware that everyone was watching her—Matt, Ray, Nat, Vivian, and all the rest of them. It was like a painting; and at the center, framed in light, was the gun.

“Russian roulette.” Diggin sounded almost apologetic. He added quickly, “You only have to pull the trigger once. Harold had to do it too.”

“But Harold didn’t do it.” Vivian spoke up. Her voice was deep and slow, and reminded Heather of warmer places. Places where it never rained.

She forced herself to meet Vivian’s eyes. “So Harold is out?”

Vivian shrugged. “Guess so.” She had one foot on the chair, knee up to her chest, and she fiddled unconcernedly with the necklace she was wearing. Heather could see her collarbones protruding from her tank top. Like baby bird bones. She had an image of Bishop kissing that spot and looked away.

So Harold was out. That left just four players.

“All right,” she said. She could hardly swallow. “All right,” she repeated. She knew she should get it over with, but her hands wouldn’t move from her sides. Nat was staring at her, horrified, as though Heather was already dead.

“Is it loaded?” someone asked.

“It’s loaded.” It was Ray who answered. “I checked.” But even he looked kind of queasy, and he wouldn’t meet Heather’s eyes.

Don’t be afraid, she told herself. But it had the opposite effect. She was rooted, paralyzed with fear. How many chambers were in a gun? What were her chances? She’d always been crap at things like that—probabilities.

She kept hearing her mom’s voice: Came home and found his brain splattered on the wall. . . .

She had no choice unless she wanted the game to end here, now. Then what would Lily do?

But what would happen to Lily if Heather blew her brains out?

She saw her hand leave her side and reach for the gun. Her hand looked pale and foreign, like some weird creature you’d find living in the ocean. Behind her, Nat gasped.

Suddenly the door flew open behind them, with such force that it banged hard against the wall. Everyone turned simultaneously, as though they were all puppets on the same string.

Dodge.

Heather felt immediately disappointed; she knew that deep down, she’d been hoping for Bishop.

“Hey,” she said. But Dodge didn’t answer. He just crossed the small space toward her, practically shoving Matt out of the way.

“It was you,” he said. His voice was low and full of spite.

Heather blinked. “What?”

“You told someone about the spiders,” he said. He glared at Natalie next. “Or you did.”

Ray snickered. Dodge ignored him.

“What are you talking about?” It had not occurred to Heather to wonder how the judges had known about Dodge’s fear of spiders. But now she did. How did they know about any of them?