These Deadly Games(100)

Zoey clasped her mouth as tears spilled down her cheeks, letting my apology hang in the air between us like a balloon that could pop any second. Finally, she gave a great sniff and bent over to fish something from her backpack.

Her laptop.

She opened it, trembling, and clicked around for a moment.

Then she spun it to face me.

It was a video of Caelyn. Tied and bound to a chair. Yelling for me to help her. The first video Dylan had sent me as An0nym0us1. I gasped—seeing it was still shocking as ever.

“Deepfake,” Zoey explained, her voice shaking. “There were a bunch of videos and pictures like this on Dyl—Andrew’s—Chromebook. All fake, all using deepfake technology. There are a bunch of apps that let you do stuff like this now; he basically just superimposed Caelyn’s face onto videos of himself, pretending to be tied to a chair, saying those things.” I knew it. Five years ago, we’d made him doubt his reality. He got revenge by making me believe a false reality. “And honestly,” Zoey went on, “anyone could get her photos from her Instagram. He must’ve done the editing on his other laptop, but he was sloppy—one of the stock videos he used was on this one. Maybe he dragged the file in with the others by mistake, I dunno.”

“On his Chromebook?” I prodded.

She visibly swallowed. “The—ah—the USB I plugged into his Chromebook wasn’t just to crack the password. It…” She let out a shaky breath. “It extracted and deleted any document files behind the scenes. There weren’t many besides these, so it was fast. By the time you finished telling everyone what happened … it was done. It’s just … I didn’t trust you. After you tied me up like that, I thought it was the other way around, that you were trying to frame Dylan. I thought you made up that whackadoodle story about him being Andrew and put something incriminating on his laptop. So I wanted to get it off there. But once I saw all this”—she motioned to the screen—“I knew. I knew you were telling the truth…” She trailed off, watching me closely. “Why don’t you look surprised right now?”

I raised the corner of my mouth. “Because I already know all this.”

Her eyes went wide. “What?”

“I knew what you did.” I’d spotted her tell—the way she’d clamp her lips, biting back the truth. I knew when she was lying.

“But … if you knew … why didn’t you tell the police? Why didn’t you confront me?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” I thumbed toward the mirror to my left. “That’s a one-way mirror. I’m wearing a wire. Wave at Chief Sanchez.” I waved at the mirror.

Her jaw dropped, horrified. “But I thought … Sanchez said secret recordings weren’t permissible…”

“In the target’s home.” I gestured vaguely. “Public space is fair game.”

“You … you played me. You—”

“No! I helped you.” I laughed and clasped her hand again. In her shock, she didn’t pull away. “I told Sanchez what I suspected; that you took the files using that USB drive. I told him you probably thought I was trying to set Andrew up or something. But I don’t want to press charges or anything, and I got him to agree that if you confessed to taking the evidence from Andrew’s laptop—if you admitted what you did and handed it all over, you wouldn’t get in trouble. This isn’t a game. I’m done playing games.”

Sure, Zoey should probably get in trouble for withholding evidence she’d been sitting on for days now, keeping me locked away, making me grapple with my grief alone. But I wanted to free us both—not just from imprisonment, but from the guilt, grief, and fear that drove each of us to make such terrible mistakes.

And I wanted to free us from each other. The main thing binding us all these years was a game and a lie. We’d clung together on such a shaky foundation, no wonder all it took to demolish us was a shitty dude with a grudge. If we’d confided in each other, trusted each other, been there for each other, none of this would have happened. But holding a grudge would only fester more misery and resentment. So forgiveness was my best hope at setting us free.

I hoped Akira and Randall would forgive me. But even if they didn’t, I knew Andrew had forced my hand. I hadn’t wanted to hurt them or Matty, just like I hadn’t wanted to hurt Brady all those years ago. This time, there’d be no secrets to claw at my heart. This time, I’d forgive myself. And while I’d never stop missing Matty, and I’d need years of therapy to grapple with the trauma, my conscience was clear. I did what I did to save my sister, even if she’d never really been in danger. Andrew had planted the idea that I was paranoid, making me doubt myself, manipulating my reality, and that wasn’t my fault.

All that mattered to me now was being with Caelyn and Mom. Dad offered to send more money each month now that he had a steady income, so Mom could pay the mortgage after all, but she’d likely put the house on the market soon anyway. But it didn’t matter where we lived as long as we were together. I saw that now, even if Caelyn would still be fussy about it. I shook my head, thinking of what Caelyn said earlier this morning when she visited with Mom. “I can’t believe you did all that, and it was just a prank.” She snorted. “Shoulda just laughed it off.” Little twerp.