These Deadly Games(31)

An0nym0us1. They’d hacked my phone. They’d blocked me from making the call, hadn’t they? My stomach dropped like I was falling off a cliff. Did they tamper with the brownies somehow? They’d sent me to the park. They’d gotten me out of the house.

And the brownies didn’t burn.

Holy hell. Had they been inside my house?

Just then, Matty tumbled from the chair to the ground. “Matty!” I raced to his side. Getting Dylan suspended was one thing, but would An0nym0us1 make me kill someone?

They had kidnapped Caelyn. Now they were holding her hostage, taunting me with threats of sinking a knife into her flesh …

“Yeah, anaphylactic shock, exactly,” Randall said to the 911 operator. “And he doesn’t have his EpiPen.”

Akira knelt on Matty’s other side. “It’s okay, everything’s going to be okay.” But to me she said, “What do we do?”

I couldn’t let this happen. “Turn him on his side!” I said, remembering Mom’s training. Akira helped me roll him onto his side. Mom had seen so much preventable stuff at the hospital, and since I babysat all the time, she’d taught me basic first aid and CPR. She was also paranoid that one day we’d discover an allergy we never knew about, so she kept—

“EpiPens.” I scrambled to my feet. “My mom keeps emergency EpiPens upstairs.”

“Go!” Randall cried, his eyes bugged and panicked.

As I flew up the stairs, I hoped our EpiPens were still good. There were two per case, but didn’t they expire every year or something? Mom was so frazzled lately, she depended on us to remind her of these sorts of things—like when Caelyn’s inhaler cartridges ran low.

I reached the upstairs bathroom and swung open the medicine cabinet. The orange case was always in the bottom right-hand corner for easy access.

But there was nothing there.

Letting out a frustrated growl, I groped at the empty space, like the case had fallen into some hidden panel or something, then dug through the drawers. Had An0nym0us1 tampered with the brownies, knowing about Matty’s allergy, then searched the bathrooms for anything that might save him?

The mere thought was creepy as hell.

But there was no way that’s what happened. No way. I was just being paranoid. The EpiPens must’ve expired, just as I suspected, and Mom threw them out, meaning to replace them soon.

By the time I raced back downstairs, Matty was convulsing as his lungs strained to suck in air, and his eyes were closed.

“Do you have them?” Randall said.

“No, I couldn’t find them,” I said, and he cursed. “Did he pass out?”

“Yeah,” said Dylan. Akira was still kneeling next to Matty, keeping him on his side.

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Zoey cried.

“They’re coming—” Randall started.

But suddenly, Matty went quiet. And still.

“What happened?” asked Zoey. “Is he breathing again?”

I fell to his side and held my hand under his nose, hoping to feel a rush of air on my fingers. But there was nothing. Nothing. “He’s not breathing.”

“He’s not breathing!” Randall repeated into the phone. After listening for a moment, he asked, “Does anyone know CPR—”

But I was already on it. I rolled Matty onto his back again and pressed an ear to his chest, listening for a heartbeat. Mom had mentioned that anaphylaxis caused some people to have heart attacks. But I couldn’t hear anything but Zoey’s sobs.

I held back sobs of my own. “No. This was too fast. This happened too fast.” I began chest compressions, clasping my hands and pushing hard and fast in the center of Matty’s rib cage, tears streaming down my cheeks as I counted to … what was it supposed to be? Thirty? I frantically wiped my face with the back of my hand so I wouldn’t get tears all over Matty. I couldn’t lose it. I had to keep it together.

Matty’s mouth was already open, lips pink and swollen. I pinched his nose, pressed my lips to his, and blew in. His lips were somehow dry after all that hacking, and still warm. But his chest remained flat. I wasn’t doing it right. I tilted his head back and lifted his chin, placed my lips more firmly over his, and blew.

But nothing happened.

His chest should have risen as his lungs filled. Was his airway completely closed? Or was I doing this wrong? I choked back a sob as I started another round of compressions. If air wasn’t reaching his lungs, his brain would be deprived of oxygen. There could be brain damage, if his heart hadn’t already given out.

Dylan knelt next to me. “How can I help? What can I do?”

I shook my head and tried blowing air into Matty’s lungs again. Still nothing. I let out a strangled cry, and everything went blurry like in a nightmare, where everything had warped, fuzzy edges. This couldn’t be happening.

“Oh my God,” said Akira as Zoey clung to her, sobbing. There was a muffled voice coming from Randall’s phone— someone was clearly asking for an update—but he was too shocked to speak.

Dylan pressed his fingers against Matty’s neck and said something, his words distorting in my mind as sirens wailed in the distance. The ambulance was coming. Help was coming.

But was it too late?





5 Years Ago