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Cody’s hand went to the enormous sequined horn strapped to his head.

“Then you have to wear this!”

Ruth rummaged by the minifridge and then walked back toward the couch, careful to keep the drink from spilling on the carpet.

“Not so fast,” she said, handing Mickey’s cup back, replenished. “She didn’t say she wouldn’t do the dare; she just said she didn’t want anyone to watch.”

“That’s bullshit,” Cody whined. He looked like a child, and not only because he was wearing a child’s unicorn costume. It felt to Mickey like his adult persona could last only so long; two hours and it was almost rubbed clean off. “This thing is getting itchy.”

“You should’ve thought about that before refusing your dare,” Josh said. “But I have to agree with Cody on this one; if no one can watch, there’s no way to prove she did it. There needs to be a witness.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously, I would go with her.”

Mickey watched the conversation about her future nudity bounce around the room and found that she didn’t mind. She leaned back and took a sip.

“That works for me,” Sean said. “Do that.”

“That is a lame dare,” Cody huffed.

“Well, I didn’t finish,” Ruth said, her words lingering like fingertips in the dark. “She has to go skinny-dipping where Sarah died.”





PEYOTE





CALAMITY GANON WAS TRYING to protect me.

I know that it isn’t the most gallant version of friendship, tricking a coworker you hate into accompanying you to certain doom in order to spare another. At least not to the average above-ground person. But in my millennia of existence, I haven’t mattered to anyone. I don’t mean I had no memories of being someone’s favorite, of being the best thing that ever happened to another. I mean never in my life have I ever thought, even for a second, that my presence made a difference to anyone but me. Even the loneliest of the living take for granted the thousands of tiny moments when another person sees them and, in one way or another, adjusts their course. They may not feel loved, but they at least know what it is to be considered, however briefly, however logistically, by the people moving around them.

In short, all I have ever known—this version of me, at least—is Hell, and what Cal did for me was human.

And, as it would for a human, all the rage in me swelled and burst and rose again as something else.

“Cal, just hold on a second,” I said, following her down the hall, which had once presumably been the color of lemons but was now the color of neglected teeth. The whole place stank of that very transition: fruit to rot. I waved my hand, and the clock on the wall went silent.

“No,” Cal said, waving her own hand and setting life back on track.

I waved again.

“Just talk to me for a second, and I swear I will go.”

“Ugh, what the fuck, Pey?” she shouted, slamming her fist against a wall.

“Just think about this for a second,” I said. “Just think it through.”

“Think it through?” Cal spun around, her eyes landing like an airborne predator. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I just—”

“No. Shut up,” she said, holding her tablet flashlight up to the nameplate by each door. The frames were brass, but the names were typed on paper, ready to be exchanged. “Do you think I’ve made this decision on a whim, based on my cycle? I know what I’m taking on, Pey. That’s why I didn’t want you here. But here you are anyway.”

I nodded and opened my mouth, but she went on.

“The only thing I’ve thought about since I was ten years old was finding my dad. We got separated, and he told me to meet him at the Farm—he promised—but he wasn’t there. Not because he got arrested or killed or in some kind of memory-wiping accident, but simply because he didn’t show up. Do you have any idea what that feels like? When your whole world decides you’re just not worth the extra gas of turning the car around? When you learn your life is a lie from strangers who pity you, but not enough to keep you?”

“Listen, he sounds terrible,” I said. “But if you find and keep that key, you’ll forfeit the deal, and they will send you back Downstairs. You’ve already worked your way up from the Downstairs once, Cal. Even you can’t survive another round. They will break you; they will make you drink the water. They will make you forget all of this. Just like me, you will forget who you are. And for what? Some story your dad told you? You have to know that’s all it is. He was a liar.”

Cal shook her head, but I went on.

“You’re so close—we’re so close. We can get out, start over. He ruined your life once, but you’ve got to let it go. You’re not the only person in Hell with a mean dad.”

My voice shook as I spoke, and I realized I hadn’t said a truer word in longer than my body could remember. Sincerity was like a foreign antibody. Or perhaps it was a vaccine. I could feel it coursing through my veins, making me sick as it made me better.

“There is no ‘out,’ Pey. Not with some magic key, not with ritualistic scars, not even with your supersecret loophole. Even if you do somehow cheat the system, you’ll never be out, not for long. This is who you are. This is where you wind up.”