These Deadly Games(53)

Suddenly, my phone buzzed on my bed, the sound nearly sending me into cardiac arrest. No. I’d turned it off. It couldn’t have buzzed.

I swiveled in my chair and gawked at my phone like it came from another planet. That was the only explanation. Once, Mom lost her phone while it was off, so calling it wouldn’t do any good. As she tore the house apart, I googled how to remotely power on a phone, but nope, it was impossible. You had to physically press the power button to supply power to the phone’s chip.

I hadn’t pressed the power button. I’d been clear across the room.

So, aliens.

Oh, God. I was going delirious. Think logically. There had to be another way. To turn off my phone, I’d held down the power button and toggled the Power Off slider on the screen. An0nym0us1 could have overridden that toggle to turn down the screen’s brightness instead of controlling the power.

I’d never turned off my phone to begin with.

Swallowing hard, I inched to my bed and flipped the phone over. A message from An0nym0us1 was waiting.

The more of me there is, the less you see. What am I?



Before I could puzzle it out or consider the subtext of the riddle, my room plunged into darkness.





CHAPTER 22


I gasped and stared at the light fixture hanging from the ceiling as though it might offer some explanation. Did we lose power? No—the tiny light on my laptop’s power cord was still lit. The light switch next to the door was already in the on position, but I flicked it anyway, back and forth. Nothing happened.

The riddle. You saw less in the dark. The answer was darkness. Dread spread through my chest.

The lights turned on again.

I leaped away from the light switch like a ghost was hovering there.

But, no, it wasn’t a ghost. There was one other way to control the lights. When Dad was obsessed with home renovation, he’d replaced all our light bulbs with smart ones so we could use an app to control them, dim them, and switch to fun colors. Zoey had asked her parents for one after I got mine, and we’d created a code to communicate via our lights—purple meant game night, blue meant have to study, green meant come over ASAP, pink meant love you, and so on. The novelty wore off fast, since we could text each other—

The lights turned red.

“Jesus.” I backed against the wall, goose bumps coating my skin like a rash as my room glowed like an old-school darkroom. This was unreal. I glanced out the window at Zoey’s. Was she doing this? Was she watching me now, laughing her sadistic ass off? The thought made my blood boil, and I navigated to the lights app, switching them back to normal.

That’s when I noticed the slew of notification icons atop the screen. Oh, God. Word about Matty’s death had clearly spread like wildfire—tons of classmates had sent me sympathy messages across several social apps. No. He couldn’t be dead—not really. I was so used to our avatars dying and regenerating in MortalDusk, over and over again, it was almost like part of me expected Matty to come over tomorrow like nothing had happened—

The lights turned red again.

My chest compressed, and I scrambled onto my bed and hugged my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms to hide from both the onslaught of red light and the messages. Looking would only make everything more real. Nothing about today could be real. Matty couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. An0nym0us1 couldn’t have this much control over my life, down to my freaking lights. This couldn’t be happening. I rocked back and forth, back and forth.

Eventually, I calmed down, and curiosity got the best of me. I wiped my face, took a deep breath, and looked at my notifications. The most recent message caught my eye. From Dylan, about an hour ago.

Hi.



That’s all he said. What were the chances he’d be asleep by now?

The low-battery warning flashed, but I ignored it and replied. Hi.

Three dots.

You awake?



I shot back: Obviously.

Then he sent the wink emoji sticking its tongue out.

I stared for a long moment. It was clearly in response to my auto-snark, but it seemed out of touch, somehow. Would I ever be able to send a wink emoji, or joy emoji, or anything expressing anything other than pure terror?

My life had become an endless scream emoji.

Can I come over?



My eyebrows shot up. Any other night, I’d have considered this an interesting development. He’d texted me. He wanted to see me. Not Zoey. Though for all I knew, he had pinged Zoey and either gotten shut down or couldn’t reach her.

I sent back, Now?

Obviously.



I couldn’t help it—something fluttered deep in my belly. Mom was asleep. We could sneak into the basement to chat. Would An0nym0us1 be pissed, though? It technically wouldn’t break any rules. And maybe they’d stop messing with me if Dylan were here. I longed for some semblance of safety, even if only for a little while. Sure. Text me when you get here.

OK.



My stomach roiled with nerves. In the weeks since Lucia’s party, I’d replayed Dylan and Zoey’s stupid kiss in my mind—the moment Zoey landed the winning beer pong shot, snaked her arms around his neck, and brought her lips to his—so many times I wanted to plunge a screwdriver through my skull.

My brain liked to torture me like that. Why wouldn’t it replay the hilarious stuff instead? Like, for example, the moment Dylan yanked himself back so suddenly Zoey tumbled against the table and knocked over several cups, making beer slosh down her butt.