These Deadly Games(89)
“I … I don’t know. It was impulsive. Zoey’s parents were so strict, she would have been grounded forever if they knew we snuck out. So I covered for her. I said Brady went home in the middle of the night, thinking it was only a white lie. And then once we realized … once we’d already lied…” I trailed off.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “But when you knew he was dead—when you knew what you really did—”
“We were kids. We were terrified. We didn’t know how much trouble we could get in. And he was already dead. We couldn’t help him anymore.”
He scoffed bitterly. “So you thought, hell, might as well get away with it.”
Wait—something wasn’t adding up. “I don’t get it,” I said. “The next morning, when you realized he was missing … why didn’t you say anything?”
His face reddened, and a cord in his neck bulged as he stepped forward, fists clenched. “His death wasn’t my fault,” he practically barked.
I backed away again and fumbled my footing, tripping into a china cabinet. The delicate glasses and trinkets inside rattled. “I never said it was!” As I took in Andrew’s tortured, haunted expression, I realized he blamed himself, too. He knew we’d snuck out. He could’ve kept an eye on us. He could’ve made sure his little brother made it back to Zoey’s. He could’ve told his parents the truth right away. But he didn’t. He fell asleep, and the next morning we’d confused him with our lie—so much that he’d rationalized away what he’d seen. And he’d always been so soft-spoken; in the moment, he’d probably been wary of refuting our lie. It’d have been five against one. And by the time he watched Brady tumble from that locker, it was too late.
He was as wrapped up in our secret as we were.
And the guilt had tortured him, maybe even more than it had tortured us, because they were brothers. If our positions were reversed, and it happened to Caelyn, I’d never forgive myself. I would’ve hated myself for not doing everything I could to protect her.
Which was exactly what he was doing, turning the table on me.
“D—Andrew … it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that!” he shouted. But did he? “It was yours. But then you all went on with your happy little lives like nothing happened.”
“No, we didn’t…” Or did we? Zoey and I dwelled on it, for sure, but the others had bounced back pretty quickly. To be fair, they hadn’t been Brady’s neighbor. They’d barely known him. Did that matter? A boy had lost his life over our negligence.
“Yes, you did. I followed you on Instagram for years, you know—you and Akira both followed my sock puppet account back.” He snorted. “Amateurs. And once you started streaming, I watched that, too. You all just played your stupid games, excited for your stupid tourneys, acting like everything was fine.” So that’s how he’d hatched a plan to finagle his way onto our esports team.
I nearly gasped. “Were you the one who started the rumor on Discord about teams of six at the tourney?”
He sneered, basically confirming it. “I knew you’d want a play-by-play—”
“And that’s why you chose this weekend.” I’d figured it was so we’d suspect someone like Jeremy Fischer, or someone connected to MortalDusk. Instead, it was so we’d never get to play in the tourney. So close yet so far.
“Is that really all you can think about?” he shouted, and I winced. “You know, all these months, I waited for one of you to mention Brady, even once. But none of you ever did. Not until last night. When Zoey brought it up, I thought, finally. Some acknowledgment! But then you fucking laughed it off.” He jabbed a finger at me. “You literally said it was no big deal.”
I gripped my throat, seeing now how that must have sounded. “Of course it was a big deal. I was just trying to change the topic … to keep you from finding out. You have to understand, we didn’t just keep our secret to get away with it. We were disgusted with ourselves. We thought anyone who found out would be disgusted with us, too.”
“Bullshit. You all did plenty of other cringeworthy things. Randall ragged on anything that breathed. Matty led on girl after girl, never giving a crap about any of them. Zoey cheated right under all your noses for weeks. I love how long it took you to figure that out, by the way. Akira—well, she was also complicit, but she was the best of all of you.”
“Then why did you want to kill her?”
“You killed her.”
“No—” Grief constricted my throat, making the word stick. Did he know she was dead? “I didn’t. She fell … It was an accident.”
“Just like Brady was an accident, right?” He shook his head. “You dragged Brady from our house, made him play that stupid game.”
“I never forced him—”
“And then you felt no remorse for leaving him out there. That’s why Akira had to go. So it’d hurt. So you’d finally feel an ounce of something.”
His words knocked the air out of me, like he’d punched me in the gut. “Of course I felt remorse. It … it’s tortured me. For years.”
“Not like it tortured my family. My mom never got over it. She was so depressed, asking herself over and over why he ended up in that locker. Was some pedophile chasing him? Or a bear? Had he been terrified out of his mind? She even wondered if maybe he was running away from home, to get out of going to church, even though that made no sense. One time, I did tell her the truth, just so she’d stop. But she didn’t believe me. She figured I was trying to make her think he’d died doing something fun—playing a game. She always assumed the worst. She died thinking the worst.”