One of Us Is Next(41)
After the last bell, I head for an Into the Woods rehearsal, hoping for one last chance to talk with him. I make my way slowly down the aisle of the auditorium, simultaneously scanning the small crowd and counting how many lights are blazing above the stage. If it’s an even number, Knox will forgive me today. Ten, eleven, twelve…thirteen.
Damn it. Doubly unlucky.
Knox is nowhere in sight, and it doesn’t look as though rehearsal has started yet. There are only two people onstage, and when I get closer I see that one of them is Mrs. Kaplan, the drama teacher, and the other is a sullen-looking Eddie Blalock.
“But I don’t know the part,” Eddie says. He’s a sophomore, small and thin with dark hair that he gels into stiff points.
“You’re the understudy.” Mrs. Kaplan plants her hands on her hips. “You were supposed to have been learning the role of Jack for the past two months.”
“Yeah, but.” Eddie scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t.”
Mrs. Kaplan heaves a bone-weary sigh. “You had one job, Eddie.”
Lucy Chen is perched on the edge of a chair in the front row, leaning forward with both her arms and legs crossed. She looks like an angry human pretzel.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She presses her lips together so tightly that they almost disappear. “Knox quit,” she says, her eyes fixed on Eddie like a bird of prey. “In related news, Eddie sucks.” I inhale a shocked breath, and Lucy seems to register who she’s speaking to for the first time. “So, thanks a lot for ruining the play and everything.”
My temper flares. I’ll blame myself all day long, but I draw the line at Lucy doing the same. “This isn’t my fault. It’s that horrible game—”
“Do you mean the horrible game that I said we should report two weeks ago?” Lucy lifts her chin. “If anyone had listened to me, it probably would’ve been shut down by now and none of this would have happened.”
God, I hate when Lucy’s right. “Maybe we should tell someone now,” I say, my eyes straying to Mrs. Kaplan.
“Oh no you don’t,” Lucy snaps. “She has enough to worry about. Besides, everyone knows how to win this game by now. Just take the Dare. You’d have to be out of your mind to do anything else.”
Phoebe’s words in the hallway come back to me then. Whoever’s behind Truth or Dare must be on a massive power trip. And the thing is, we’re giving them that power. “Or we could all jointly block this creep’s number and stop playing altogether,” I say. Then I pull out my phone so, finally, I can do exactly that.
* * *
—
“Mija, you’ve been here through dinnertime and haven’t eaten a thing. Are you all right?”
I look up from my laptop at Mr. Santos’s voice, startled when I see a baseball cap jammed over his unruly curls. He only wears that when he’s leaving Café Contigo for the night, and he’s usually the last one here. Then I realize how empty the restaurant is.
“I’m fine. Just not hungry.” I was too anxious to sit at a dinner table with my parents tonight, so I told them I was meeting Knox here. That was a big fat lie, unfortunately. I can’t even get him to text me back. And I’m way too stressed to eat. I’ve just been staring blankly at the history paper I’m supposed to be writing for…hours, apparently.
Mr. Santos makes a tsk noise. “I don’t believe that. I think we just haven’t found the right food to tempt you. Maybe you need a good old-fashioned Colombian recipe. What’s your favorite?” He shudders a little. “Please don’t say salchipapas.”
I manage a laugh. Bronwyn refused to eat hot dogs when we were kids, so we’ve never had the traditional Colombian dish of them cut up and mixed with French fries. “Definitely not. We’re more of an ajiaco family.”
“Excellent choice. I’ll make it for you.”
“Mr. Santos, no!” I lunge for his sleeve as he turns for the kitchen. “I mean, that’s so nice of you, but ajiaco takes hours. And you’re closing.”
“I’ll make a fast-food version, Argentinean-style. It’ll take fifteen minutes.”
Oh God. I can’t believe I’m such a sad puppy that this impossibly kind man thinks he has to work overtime to make me dinner. At least I’m in long sleeves so he can’t see that I’m covered in bruises, too. “I’m honestly fine, Mr. Santos. It’s really not—”
“I’ll make it,” calls a voice behind us. Luis is leaning against the half-open kitchen door, a grease-spattered gray T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. It’s ridiculous how good it looks on him. “Go home, Pa. I’ll close up.” He crosses halfway to the dining room and holds up his right hand. I’m not sure what he’s doing until Mr. Santos reaches into his pocket and tosses Luis a set of keys.
“Works for me,” Mr. Santos says, and turns back to me with a gentle smile. “Don’t look so guilty, mija. He needs the practice.”
He waves amiably and shuffles out the door. I let him disappear around the corner of the building before I stand and stuff my laptop into my bag with an apologetic look at Luis. “Listen, just go home. If he asks, I’ll tell him you fed me. I’m not even hungry.” My empty stomach chooses that exact moment to rumble loudly. Luis raises his eyebrows as I fold my arms tightly over my rib cage. My stomach growls again anyway. “At all.”