These Deadly Games(93)

Andrew grunted in pain, but said, “I think it’s working.” He still looked perplexed—and there was something else. Regret, maybe? Or was that wishful thinking on my part? I wondered whether, if I’d opened up about Brady back in my room last night, Andrew would’ve cut the game short. If he knew how Brady’s death truly tortured me, I might have become less of a flippant villain in his mind. Instead, I’d kept the secret bottled up, so worried he’d judge me. When really, he’d been judging me all along.

“I should’ve told you the truth last night, about Brady—” I started.

“I honestly don’t think it would have changed anything,” he said, like he’d somehow followed my train of thought. “You don’t know what years of plotting revenge does to a person.” In that moment, he didn’t look afraid, or in pain. He just looked exhausted. And pale. So pale. I could almost empathize with his pain. Almost. What he’d been through—what he’d lost—didn’t excuse torturing a thirteen-year-old girl. It didn’t excuse murdering people.

I tried tying a second knot to hold the first in place, but couldn’t manage it without the first knot loosening. “Shoot, I really need a stick or something.” There must’ve been something I could use in the kitchen. “Be right back.”

I dashed into the kitchen. There was a jug next to the stove filled with wooden spoons, spatulas, and a whisk. I grabbed the sturdiest wooden spoon and raced back into the foyer.

Andrew was holding the lighter.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I wanted to clobber myself over the head. How could I be so foolish?

“It’s time for one last game,” Andrew said quietly.

“No. Please—”

“It’s an easy one. Just a one-hundred-meter dash. Run. Run as fast as you can.” He rested his thumb on the spark wheel. “You have one minute.”

My jaw went slack. He was giving up. He didn’t want to get caught. He didn’t want to go to jail. So he was just ending it. Maybe he thought he was going to die anyway. “But where’s my sister? Where’s Caelyn?”

His expression hardened. “Just go home, Crystal. Fifty-nine, fifty-eight—”

“No. Don’t do this. Don’t end it like this.”

“Stop trying to save me. It’s over. Don’t let me take you with me. Fifty-five, fifty-four.”

My breath caught in my throat, and I looked at him one last time. His skin was sallow, his expression determined, yet utterly defeated.

And I ran. I ran because I didn’t want to die, because I knew Caelyn wasn’t in the house, because I didn’t know how to save Andrew anyway, or if I even should. I ran like the earth had split open, and the ground behind me was falling into an infinite expanse.

I didn’t even reach the end of the driveway before the house exploded.





CHAPTER 39


I gripped my ears and ducked as an ear-shattering boom shook the ground, far enough not to be thrown from the blast but close enough to feel heat on my back. How much searing pain had Andrew just felt? Or had he died instantly? He’d be lucky, if so. Holy hell.

I was about to straighten when something huge crashed feet away from me. I cried out and covered my head, and after several moments without any other enormous objects dropping from the sky, I peeked at whatever it was, my breath ragged and uneven. The front door. Yikes.

Standing on wobbly legs, I took in the scene. The flames had already shrunk back inside the rubble, and thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the decimated house. Part of the outer frame remained intact, but most looked like it’d caved in, and pieces of siding and roof littered the lawn. I’d been lucky none of it hit me.

There was no way anyone could’ve survived that. Andrew must be dead.

Part of me wanted to cry out in anguish—the part still struggling to reconcile how Dylan and Andrew were the same person. Another part wanted to fall to my knees in relief. But I still didn’t have my sister back. Where the hell could she be? Was Caelyn still in danger of bleeding out? Andrew had lost so much blood from a similar gash in his forearm, and fast.

I spotted his Jeep parked in the detached garage, which the explosion hadn’t reached. I hadn’t bothered looking inside earlier.

The doors were unlocked. Caelyn wasn’t inside. That’d be too easy, right? Not that anything about the past twenty-four hours had been easy. Andrew’s backpack was still in the passenger seat. I unzipped it. His main laptop and phone were likely destroyed in the blaze, but his school Chromebook was here. He’d sent me those first messages as An0nym0us1 while in Mr. Richardson’s class. Maybe this laptop contained some clue as to Caelyn’s whereabouts.

I opened it with trembling fingers. The screen brightened, and an empty password field greeted me. Naturally.

I could hand the laptop over to the police, but God knew how long it would take them to crack the password. I had to find Caelyn now.

It was time to do what I should have done at the start of this twisted game.

It was time to ask my teammate for help.



* * *



Zoey sputtered and gasped as I untied the scarf binding her mouth. “Holy shit. You’re covered in blood.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not mine,” I said distractedly as I worked on the knot binding her right wrist to the chair.