These Deadly Games(82)

I pulled up Facebook. I’d always avoided stalking Brady’s family on social media, unable to swallow the thought of his family grieving somewhere out there, in pain because of me. Because I’d wanted to play a game. It was bad enough whenever I babysat the Rao kids in Brady’s old house; the walls seemed to stare accusingly at me, for killing the boy who was supposed to finish growing up within them.

Sometimes I’d find myself wondering what Brady would’ve been like when he got older. Would he have busted out of his shell? Or would he have remained a quiet, creative soul? It was torturous, knowing I’d never know, knowing it was my fault. So I distracted myself with video games, slipping into virtual worlds for hours at a time, eventually discovering MortalDusk, a fantasy realm where you could level up indefinitely, regenerate infinitely. You could never really win, but you could never really die. Nothing was permanent.

Not like what I’d done. That was as permanent as it gets.

On Facebook there was a slew of results for Andrew Cullen, but none were a match—everyone was either too old or too young. I reached for my phone to look him up on Instagram, then remembered it was lying next to Akira’s broken body. I shuddered. Had she been rescued by now? Or … recovered? I choked back a sob, refusing to let myself drown in sorrow. I had to focus.

What about their mother, Marcia Cullen? I searched—no results. But she’d had a Facebook profile at some point. I remembered Mom telling Dad she started posting on Facebook again about a year after Brady died, and she felt awkward commenting after losing touch. Maybe it was a private profile. If so, Mom might still be friends with her, though she rarely checked that hellsite after Dad left. Her laptop, still on my bed from earlier, caught my eye. I lunged for it and navigated to Facebook, and voilà—she was already logged in.

Mrs. Cullen’s profile came right up; they were still friends after all. There was no mistaking her flaming red hair in her profile picture, though her curls had been cut and blow-dried into a sleek mom-bob. She grinned at the camera, though her eyes had this mournful, faraway look. The most recent post was some silly meme—

“Oh no.” The comments were all condolences, like, Rest in Peace, Marcia and Nate. My heart clenched as I scrolled through them, piecing together what happened: a car accident about eight months ago. A few of the messages were well-wishes for Andrew—either he wasn’t in the car or had survived the crash—but none linked to another profile, since he didn’t have one.

Wow. That meant Andrew was all alone now. Did he have any grandparents? Aunts or uncles? He was about two years older than we were—that’d make him eighteen or nineteen now. He would have graduated high school last spring, so he’d be in college, if he’d gone.

I clicked on Marcia’s recent photos. Her last was with her husband, Nate, about a month before they died. His hairline had receded, and his wire-rimmed glasses had been swapped out for tortoiseshell frames. The previous picture was from Andrew’s high school graduation. His parents stood next to him in his cap and gown near bleachers where they’d clearly just had the ceremony—

What. The. Fuck.

I squinted at Andrew. Scraggly chestnut hair came to his chin, and he didn’t wear glasses, but … the sharp angle of his jaw. The slight curve of his lip. Those eyes, piercing mine through the screen. Such a strong chill coursed through me it felt like someone pumped liquid nitrogen into my bloodstream.

He looked a hell of a lot like Dylan.

No. That was impossible.

My heart jammed itself into my throat as I scrolled back through time. Marcia didn’t post frequently, and when she did, they were usually memes, but the few pictures of Andrew showed how he’d slimmed over time. Losing his baby fat had revealed prominent cheekbones and a sharp jawline. Even his nose seemed to elongate and thin out.

And those eyes …

I zoomed in as far as the browser would let me. Brown eyes. Not gray. But the contrast could be from the lighting or a filter or whatever. Their intensity, the way they crinkled in the corners, the tiny mole next to his left eye—the resemblance was more than uncanny. It was spot-on. I grabbed a fistful of my comforter, feeling like my room had flipped upside down.

No.

No.

Dylan was Dylan. Not Andrew. He was a sixteen-year-old high school junior who was snarky and clever and wanted to go to MIT and lived with his father near …

Actually, I didn’t know where they lived. We always met up at my place or Matty’s. And I’d never met his dad … He worked long hours and frequently went to book festivals in other states and abroad. At least, that’s what Dylan told us. And his mother had died in a—

“Car accident,” I breathed. My God. He did tell me that last night.

Maybe both of his parents really died in a car accident—five years after his little brother died in a different sort of freak accident—leaving him all alone.

Maybe he’d cut his lanky hair into a tousled short shag, bought preppy clothes, got those tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses—like Mr. Cullen’s. The same ones? Maybe he was a hacker—a hacker like Zoey—but kept it on the DL. Maybe he’d moved back here pretending to be two years younger, enrolled in our school, joined our team, learned about our allergies, our families, our fears, got us to trust him.

And then.

“No. Nope. Absolutely not,” I said, scrolling farther back through Mrs. Cullen’s feed, wiping my clammy forehead. I never would have let myself crush on such a charlatan. I would’ve recognized him. Some instinct would’ve kicked in, warning me off.