One of Us Is Next(59)
Friday, March 20
“You guys need to see this,” Maeve says, pulling out her phone.
She looks positively green, although it might just be the lighting in here. We’re backstage in the Bayview High auditorium, sitting on the floor of some little side room that the drama club uses as an office. I didn’t even know it existed. A desk and chair take up half the space, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves against one wall hold props, books, and folded costumes. The walls are covered in faded Broadway posters, and everything is coated in a thin layer of dust.
“What is it?” I ask. I’m positioned between her and Knox, which is where I always end up when the three of us are together lately. Knox might not be the school joke anymore, but that doesn’t mean things are okay between him and Maeve. He only came because she insisted, with surprising force.
“A video that Luis gave me,” Maeve says. “I got it yesterday but—I had kind of an intense night with my parents. Some family stuff going on…Anyway, that’s not really the point. The point is, I didn’t watch it until a little while ago. Luis sent a bunch of videos, I think because he didn’t know what was important, and he clearly didn’t go through it all himself, because he would have said something if he had, because—”
“Maeve,” I interrupt. “Maybe you should just play the video.”
“Yes. Okay.” She unlocks her screen and opens her photos. “But just to set it up a little more—this is from Sean Murdock’s phone. It was taken the day Brandon died.”
I gasp. Knox, who’d been slouching listlessly beside me, sits bolt upright. “Wait. What?” he asks. He scrambles around me until he’s sitting next to Maeve and can stare directly at her phone. “How did Luis get it?”
“I think he borrowed Sean’s phone last night at Cooper’s game,” Maeve says.
“Oh my God, Knox,” I say, realizing what she has. “It’s the video. You were right!”
Maeve’s forehead creases as her eyes dart between us. “You guys already knew about this?” she asks. She sounds both confused and hurt.
“I don’t know what’s on it,” Knox says. “I had a memory come back of Sean recording something at the construction site but I didn’t know what it was.” He’s practically vibrating with tension as he grips Maeve’s arm. “Play it.”
She taps Play, and my pulse starts racing when an image of Brandon fills the screen, his hair tousled by the wind. He’s standing right at the edge of the construction site, looking down, and tears spring to my eyes. I almost forgot how beautiful he was. I used to spend entire class periods dreaming about those lips. “This is fucking boring,” he says, and his familiar voice sends chills down my spine. “Why couldn’t I have gotten something like yours?” Brandon continues, twisting to look at someone behind him off camera. “Or even yours.”
“What are you waiting for, pretty boy?” Sean’s voice, in a high falsetto, comes at us loud and clear. “Not scared of a little jump, are you?”
“I’m disappointed,” Brandon says, putting his hands on his hips. “There’s no glory in this. I should do a backflip or something.”
“That would be amazing,” comes a girl’s breathless voice, and my heart stutters. Jules.
“At least you get to play,” comes another voice that I recognize as Monica’s. “Who or what does a girl have to do to get a freaking Dare around here?”
“Holy shit—” Knox starts, but I shush him.
“Me,” Brandon says, and Sean cackles.
“For a guy who’s not scared, Branny, you sure are talking a lot,” he taunts. “Come on. Let’s capture you for posterity. Jump, motherfucker! Jump, jump, jump!”
Jules and Monica pick up the chant, and they’re clapping, and oh my God, this is so horrible that I actually whimper. “Does he…do you see him…” I stammer. Then Brandon bends his legs in preparation to jump, and I can’t. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my face tightly against Maeve’s shoulder. I hear the crash anyway.
“Fucking hell!” Sean’s voice comes out like a scream, high and terrified. “Bran! What the fuck just happened!” I can hear Jules and Monica screaming, too, and I cautiously raise my head to look at Maeve’s screen. The video is nothing but dirt and grass, the ground pitching below Sean as he moves. “Bran! Are you—holy shit.”
“Where is he?” Jules asks tearfully.
“He fell through the fucking roof!” Sean yells. His phone is still aimed at the ground, recording. Monica says something I can’t hear. Then there’s a couple minutes of low, urgent conversation that’s impossible to catch until Sean’s voice comes through again, loud and clear: “What the fuck are you doing here, Myers?” And then the screen goes black.
“Jesus,” Knox says weakly.
Maeve swallows hard. “You guys got the gist of that, right?” she asks. “The game didn’t end with Knox and me, after all. Brandon was doing a Dare.”
“Yeah. Got it.” I blink back tears and press my hands to my stomach. If I’d eaten lunch before watching that, I’d have thrown it up. “Oh my God. That was horrible.”
Maeve puts a gentle hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you better. I keep forgetting that you guys, um, hung out for a while.” She turns to Knox. “I think you were right. It doesn’t seem like Sean punched you to help you. But I’m still not sure why he did.”