Today Tonight Tomorrow(31)

McNair nods, tugging at a loose thread on his backpack.

“But from what I could tell,” I continue, “they were going to have someone kill her just to take your name.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t get to hear. That was when you interrupted me.”

“And—you don’t know who has you, either?”

“I do not. As I said, that was when you interrupted me. Keep up,” I say. “They’re all going to be out to get us. And they don’t care about sacrificing themselves for the cause, either. It’s clearly not about the money for them.”

A brief silence falls over us. McNair’s brow is furrowed, as though trying to make sense of Savannah’s plan.

I don’t know how to explain to him that the longer I stay in the game, the longer I remain in high school, the longer I don’t have to face the reality that I didn’t turn into the person my fourteen-year-old self wanted to be. On Monday morning, I want to walk right back into homeroom with Mrs. Kozlowski, debate with McNair during AP Government, joke with Mara and Kirby at lunch. I’m not ready for the world beyond Westview yet.

Or maybe I don’t need to explain. Maybe he feels exactly the same way.

“Well… shit,” he says finally, and despite everything, it almost makes me laugh. It’s such a resigned thing to say, and McNair has never been resigned about anything, not as long as I’ve known him. “What do we do?”

It’s weird he asks this. Not just because he uses “we” as though we’re a unit, but because it’s exactly what I’ve been wondering: How are we going to deal with it?

I summon all my strength to utter this next sentence. Given every time we’ve been tied together throughout high school, maybe my suggestion is fitting. I’ve been going over it in my head since I heard them talking, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only solution. My jaw is tight, my throat rough as the words climb up it, fighting every urge for self-preservation.

“I think we should team up.”





HOWL STANDINGS

TOP 5



Neil McNair: 3

Rowan Roth: 3

Brady Becker: 2

Savannah Bell: 2

Mara Pompetti: 2



PLAYERS REMAINING: 38

MOST RUTHLESS KILL: Alexis Torres Aiden Gallagher, by way of breaking up with him





3:07 p.m.


MCNAIR IS QUIET for a few seconds. He’s been clutching his backpack in his lap, and he lets it drop down into the space near his feet. At first I’m convinced he’s going to tell me I’m being ridiculous, that teaming up is absurd. He frowns, then flattens his mouth into a straight line, then frowns again. It’s like he’s carefully weighing the options, the pros and cons marching along his face, messing with his features.

“I really hoped there’d be another way,” I say. “But if we both want to win, which I think we do, then…” I let him fill in the blank.

It’s not an easy suggestion to make. When we’ve worked together in the past, it’s usually been forced. In student council, on group projects, we were working toward the same general goals with completely different plans of attack. The White Man in Peril incident on infinite repeat. Savannah’s plot made it clear this is bigger than a rivalry, bigger than number ten on my list.

“What exactly would it entail, teaming up?” he asks, ever logical.

In the soft afternoon light, his freckles seem almost lit from within. He never looks like this beneath Westview’s eco-friendly LED lights. His eyelashes are glowing amber, and the effect is so startling that I have to look away.

“Help each other with the clues. Have each other’s backs.” It hits me that I have no idea who McNair’s target is, and that makes me uneasy. “Wait, who do you have?”

“Oh—Carolyn Gao.” Drama club president. She was incredible in last year’s production of Little Shop of Horrors. “And I know you don’t have me, but—”

“Madison Winters.”

He nods. “So if we do this, if we team up, what happens at the end? I assume this means we’d be finishing the scavenger hunt at the same time, right?”

“Once we get the last clue, it’s an all-out war. Whoever makes it back to the gym first wins. One-two, the way it always is.” We team up now, and I destroy him later. That’s the gist of it.

I refrain from mentioning Delilah Park’s signing. That’s more than four hours from now. If we haven’t irritated each other to death by then, I’ll make up an excuse to slip away.

He pulls at another loose thread on his backpack, where the FREE PUPPIES! pin clings to fraying nylon. “I’m just wondering… what’s in all of this for you? If you want to win this badly, it can’t just be to beat me.”

“That’s… a good part of it,” I admit. It wouldn’t cancel out valedictorian, but I just know it would feel amazing to win our very last competition. I don’t want to be stuck in time, second best. “And I’d love the money for school.” Then I fire the question back at him.

“School,” he agrees, a little too quickly. “New York is expensive.”

“Right,” I say, unable to avoid feeling like he’s only partially telling the truth.