Panic(62)

“Neither of us said anything, Dodge, I promise.” That was Natalie.

Dodge stared at each of them in turn. Then, unexpectedly, he reached out and seized the gun. Several people gasped and Diggin actually ducked, like he expected Dodge to start firing.

“What are you doing?” Vivian said.

Dodge did something with the gun—opened the chamber, Heather thought, although his fingers moved so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. Then he replaced it on the table.

“I wanted to be sure it was loaded,” he announced. “Fair’s fair.” Now he wouldn’t look at Heather at all. He just crossed his arms and waited.

“Poor Dodge,” Ray said. He didn’t bother to stifle a laugh. “Afraid of itsy-bitsy spiders.”

“Your turn’s coming, Hanrahan,” Dodge said calmly. This made Ray stop laughing.

The room got quiet. Heather knew there would be no more interruptions. No more distractions. She felt as though someone had turned the lights up. It was too hot, too bright.

She took the gun. Heather heard Nat say, “Please.” Heather knew that everyone was still watching her, but she could make out no individual faces: everyone had been transformed into vague blobs, suggestions of color and angles. Even the table began to blur.

The only real thing was the gun: heavy and cold.

She fumbled a little to get her finger on the trigger. She couldn’t feel her body anymore from the waist down. Maybe this was what it was like to die: a slow numbing.

She placed the gun to her temple, felt the cool bite of metal on her skin, like a hollow mouth. This was what my father must have felt like, she thought.

She closed her eyes.

Nat screamed, “Don’t do it!” At the same time, a chair clattered to the floor and several voices called out at once.

She squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Nothing. Heather opened her eyes. Instantly, the room was a roar of sound. People were on their feet, cheering. Heather was so weak with joy and relief she found she couldn’t hold on to the gun and let it fall to the floor. Then Natalie had rocketed into Heather’s arms. “Oh, Heather, oh, Heather,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry.”

Heather was saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” but she didn’t feel the words leave her mouth. Her lips were numb, her tongue was numb, her body was quivering like it was preparing to disintegrate. When Nat released her, Heather thudded into a chair.

It was over.

She was alive.

Someone pressed a drink into her hand, and she sipped gratefully before noticing it was warm beer. Then Diggin was in front of her, saying, “I didn’t think you’d do it. Wow. Holy shit.” She didn’t know whether Matt congratulated her; if he did, she didn’t register it. Vivian smiled at her but said nothing.

Even Dodge came over. “Look, Heather,” he said, kneeling so they were at eye level. For a second, his eyes searched hers, and she was sure he was going to tell her something important. Instead he just said, “Keep this safe, okay?” and pressed something into her hand. She slipped it mindlessly into her pocket.

Suddenly Heather wanted to get out of there more than anything. Away from the too-close smells of beer and old cigarettes and other people’s breath; far away from Fresh Pines, where she had never intended to return in the first place. She wanted to be back at Anne’s house, in the blue room, listening to the wind sing through the trees, listening to Lily’s sleep murmurs.

It took her two attempts to get to her feet. She felt like her body had been sewn together backward.

“Let’s go, okay?” Nat said. Her breath smelled a little like beer, and normally Heather would have been annoyed that she was drinking right before they were going to drive. But she didn’t have the strength to argue, or even to care.

“That was epic,” Nat said, as soon as they were in the car. “Seriously, Heather. Everyone will be talking about it—probably for years. I do think it’s kind of unfair, though. I mean, your challenge was, like, a billion times harder than Dodge’s. You could have died.”

“Can we not talk about this?” Heather said. She unrolled her window a little, inhaling the smell of pine and climber moss. Alive.

“Sure, yeah.” Nat looked over at her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Heather said. She was thinking her way into the deepness of the woods, the soft spaces of growth and shadow. She shifted to lean her head against the window and felt something in her pocket. She remembered what Dodge had given her. She wondered whether he felt guilty about his earlier outburst.

She reached into her pocket. Just then they passed under a streetlamp, and as Heather uncurled her fingers, time seemed to stop for a second. Everything was perfectly still: Nat with both hands on the wheel, mouth open to speak; the trees outside, frozen in anticipation; Heather’s fingers half uncurled.

And the bullet, resting in the fleshy middle of her palm.





SUNDAY, AUGUST 14





heather

IT WAS ALREADY THE SECOND WEEK OF AUGUST. THE game was drawing to a close. Four players remained: Dodge, Heather, Nat, and Ray.

For the first time since the game began, people began to place bets that Heather would win, although Ray and Dodge were still evenly split for the favorite.

Heather heard that Ray passed his solo challenge: he’d broken into the county morgue in East Chatham and stayed locked up next to the corpses all night. Creepy, but not likely to kill him; Heather was still angry that her challenge had been the worst.