These Deadly Games(56)

He narrowed his eyes, yanked the thermos from my grip, and sniffed. “You packed my thermos, you little shit.” I flinched like he’d slapped me. He’d never called me anything like that before. Once we traded thermoses, he took a swig from the soured one. Then another. Then another. I watched, confused, so naive it took me a hot minute to realize the problem wasn’t sour milk. He’d spiked his hot chocolate with booze. For a morning hike. Then he drove us home, buzzed.

After that, I didn’t mind Mom’s tea so much.

“So, how are you?” Dylan asked as I reached for a mug on a high shelf on my bookcase. It was the clay one Caelyn made for me in art class, bedazzled with rhinestones she’d glued on.

“Oh, you know.” My voice wavered from the recent threat of tears. “Worst I’ve ever been.” I wiped the inside of the mug with a tissue. “You?”

“Pretty close.”

“What could possibly top today?” Dylan’s face hardened at some memory, and my face went hot. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s fine.” He poured hot chocolate into our mugs. “But … well, today wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dead body.”

I shuddered. Matty wasn’t already dead when the paramedics took him away, was he? They’d said they detected a heartbeat. But I envisioned his gray pallor and purple lips, and my stomach lurched.

Dylan handed me Caelyn’s mug, watching me closely, waiting for a reaction that never came. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to pry or dredge up bad memories for him when everything was already so miserable.

“Welp,” he finally said, raising his plastic mug. “Cheers—the most morbid cheers ever.”

“Is there a depressing version of cheers? Like boo or ugh or something?”

“I dunno. Let’s go with boo.”

We booed and tapped mugs, and I took a tiny sip. The liquid was lukewarm, yet smooth and rich as it slid down my throat. I tried ignoring the unsettled feeling creeping up my spine like a spider—it must’ve been from the lingering memory of Dad. Or the image of Matty’s possibly dead face.

“Damn,” I said, setting down my mug, “I can’t believe just this morning, everything was fine.”

A strange look crossed Dylan’s face. “It only takes an instant for life to turn completely upside down.” Was he thinking of his worst day? I wondered what happened.

“I think about those instants a lot.” I sat at my desk as he leaned against it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like … maybe big events cause a rift in reality, and it splits into alternate dimensions.”

He raised his brows. “You believe in multiverses?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s kinda hard to imagine infinite versions of ourselves running around. But I like to think that at some point this morning, our timeline split in two, and somewhere out there, everything’s fine, and Matty’s still alive, and none of this ever happened.”

He laughed bitterly. “What a strange thing to find reassuring.” Even after everything today, his tone was as biting as always.

“I’m sorry, but did you come here at—lemme check my notes—two in the morning to be an asshole?”

His eyes widened. “No! I—sorry. I couldn’t sleep. I was wor ried about you…” His expression softened, and I felt myself blush again. “It just makes me jealous of our other selves, that’s all. It’s not fair that they get to live in that timeline and we don’t.”

“Oh.” Maybe his snark was a coping mechanism. I shouldn’t have leaped down his throat. We were both on edge.

“Did I ever tell you how my mom died?” Dylan asked.

“No.” She must’ve been the dead body he’d seen.

“Car accident. She was driving drunk, as cliché as that is. She swerved into the wrong lane, and—” He snapped his fingers. “It only took an instant. The exact wrong instant.”

My heart lodged in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Of course it’d pain him to think of an alternate dimension where he got to keep his mother. How long ago did this happen? Was he in the car? Did he see her die? What happened to whoever was in the other car? But my questions clung to the tip of my tongue. I’d always avoided discussing death at all costs—I didn’t know which questions to ask, or which were too much, too morbid. “I’m so sorry,” was all I could manage.

“It’s fine. It was a long time ago.” He started toward my bed, maybe to sit there, but stepped on my notebook. He picked it up, spotting my list of names. “What’s this? A list of suspects?” His eyebrows shot up at the last name. “Why’s Zoey on here?”

My stomach dropped, and I slammed my palm on my phone’s mic. No. We couldn’t talk about this. It was too dangerous. I couldn’t bear to lose him. I couldn’t bear to be the one to do it. Plus, if Zoey was An0nym0us1, the last thing I needed was for her to know I was onto her.

Dylan looked at me like I’d lost all my marbles.

I checked the screen, but it remained dark. The battery must’ve drained. It was safe to talk. I just had to be careful not to mention Caelyn or anything that would trigger Dylan to call the cops. “Sorry. Thought I saw a bug.” I snatched the notebook and set it on my desk, facedown. “And, uh … that’s nothing.”