These Deadly Games(26)

“Wow.” He chuckled. “And I thought I was being paranoid.”

I crossed my arms, feeling myself get defensive, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Well, that’d be some coincidence otherwise, no? Oh, so you just happen to be taking that test next week. Right.”

His brow crinkled. “Good point. But who would do that?”

I’d been asking myself that all afternoon. Who would hate Dylan enough to get him suspended? Who would hate me enough to kidnap my sister?

There was only one person in our school I could think of … but that was ridiculous. She’d never.

“What is it?” Dylan prodded, seeing my expression.

“No … it’s nothing.”

“Tell me. Who are you thinking?”

I blew air between my lips and, throwing caution to the wind, I whispered a name.





CHAPTER 11


Lucia Ramirez hated our guts, and it was totally my fault.

In our frenzy to recruit a sixth player for our esports team, we’d held tryouts the first week of school. Only two people signed up, including Lucia. She was more of a floater than a loner, flitting from clique to clique depending on her mood. We were never exactly friends—she seemed to care more about getting into Harvard than anything—but she was pleasant enough, sort of like hydrangeas brightening a room without drawing your eye. Just like Brady, I’d thought with a shudder.

Still, her interest in joining our geek squad baffled me, especially when she fluttered into the computer lab, balayaged hickory-brown waves shimmering under the fluorescent lights, wearing this chic floral dress, a stark contrast to my Zelda Triforce T-shirt and the pink pajama pants Zoey wore to school, zero fucks given.

But then Lucia made googly eyes at Randall the whole time Matty interviewed her, and suddenly it all made sense.

When Randall reciprocated with a lopsided grin, Akira threw irked looks at Zoey and me, and Zoey glared at Lucia like she was already silently plotting her takedown. Something in my chest went cold. We couldn’t recruit Lucia. I didn’t trust her not to tear our group apart as much as I didn’t trust us not to rip her to shreds. I couldn’t let either of those things happen.

As it turned out, she couldn’t last more than two minutes in her MortalDusk tryout rounds without getting burned to a crisp or vaporized—at least not until Randall started landing beside her, playing bodyguard. Even then, she was hopeless. But after her last round, Randall said, “Nice job that time.” Nice job, what, lasting five whole minutes?

“Yeah, sick shooting,” said Matty. More like shit shooting. “Thanks for trying out.” He couldn’t be serious.

Zoey scrunched her nose like there was a turd on her desk, and Akira looked positively murderous. That cold thing in my chest snaked through my veins. I had to stop this—to save us all from clawing at each other’s throats. I had to make sure Lucia didn’t even want to join us.

A hopeful smile stretched across Lucia’s face. “When will I find out?”

“Find out what?” I said.

“If I made the team?”

Matty started answering, but my pfft cut him off. “Do you honestly think we’d let you onto the team after that? You were absolutely pathetic. My seventy-year-old grandma could play better than you just did.”

Lucia’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes watered as she searched each person, hoping someone would jump to her defense. But nobody did. As she fled into the hall, I knew I’d made a mistake.

Randall gaped at me. “What the hell was that?” My cheeks flamed.

“A sick burn is what it was,” said Matty, though he looked conflicted.

“She was horrible,” said Akira.

Zoey glared at the boys. “And you two were lapping it up.”

“We were being nice, boo,” said Randall.

“What, to hurt her later when we don’t pick her?” said Zoey. “Better to be up-front.” I gave her a grateful look, and she nodded. But I was so mortified, I barely paid attention to Dylan’s tryouts. I’d been so afraid we’d do to Lucia what we did to Brady that I’d done exactly what I was protecting her from, humiliating her in front of everyone.

And I must’ve really hurt her, because she tried to get revenge. And if she tried once … maybe she’d try again.



* * *



“Lucia.” Dylan considered this as he polished off his brownie. “Because I made the team, and she didn’t?”

“That, or everything that went down after.” I wiped a hand down my face. But she couldn’t be An0nym0us1—she was in class when I got that first video message. Although … she did follow me into the bathroom. That was kind of weird.

“But I barely had anything to do with that,” said Dylan.

Little did he know, I was the primary target here. I bit my lip and glanced in my phone’s direction. It was too dangerous to speculate aloud like this.

Dylan mistook me averting my gaze. “Ugh, you’re just humoring me, aren’t you?”

Oh no. He thought I thought he was guilty. He looked so distraught, I reached out and clasped his hand. “No, I’m not—”

“Hey.” Matty stood in the doorway between the kitchen and foyer, eyes trained on our hands.