PETER DIDN’T SAY a word to Jackie and Kat before he ran to the shelter of Grove Aid. The front doors hardly opened fast enough to keep him from slamming into the fiberglass. Jackie tried to go after him, but she couldn’t hold her balance well. The asphalt tilted under her feet, and she leaned forward with a scrambled stomach. Seeing Nicholas die that day—seeing that wave crash over his head—it was overwhelming.
Jay wrapped an arm around Jackie, steadying her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll find him.” Kat’s boots tapped against the asphalt as she stepped calmly toward Grove Aid. Of course Kat was unfazed. She was the only person strong enough to see what they’d seen and act as though nothing had happened.
“Is Peter okay?” Jay asked.
Jackie stepped away from her brother, finally regaining balance. Ever since Level Four at Emmeline’s tree, Jay had been the odd one out, but as Jackie faced him in the parking lot, her desire to be more like him rose higher than ever. He hadn’t been cursed to live through what they never should have lived through—what no one should have lived through. Not Isabella. And certainly not Nicholas.
Jay hadn’t been cursed by the game.
His arms fell to his sides, and he smiled softly. “Go.” Jay reached for the car door, surrendering his search for answers for the first time. In that moment, ignorance was bliss, and perhaps he was starting to understand that. “I’ll wait for you guys out here.”
Jackie smiled as thank you before running to catch up with Kat in the parking lot. As the wind tousled Jackie’s hair, she thought back to the gentle expression on Isabella’s face only moments ago. She and her friends had laughed together as they walked to the car with cold cups in their hands. For nearly two years, Isabella had written letters to the nephew of her savior, the boy who had screamed at her and blamed her for the tragedy.
Jackie reached Kat’s side. They didn’t speak to each other. They simply walked into Grove Aid as a single unit with a single mission.
Grove Aid was larger than Jackie had been expecting, but the environment was no surprise. Shelves of disorganized toiletries, yellowing discount posters peeling from the walls, and a line of cashiers by the windows who clearly lacked enthusiasm to be working here so late.
Jackie and Kat trailed along the entrances to the many aisles on a search for Peter. They found him sitting on the stained carpet of a discount candy aisle. He had his knees tucked against his chest and his back leaning on several rows of outdated Valentine’s Day chocolates.
Jackie sat to his left, Kat to his right. Peter blinked at the shelves ahead of him, not acknowledging their presence.
Before today, Jackie, Peter, and Kat had hardly known each other—if one could even say they knew each other at all—but now they’d shared one of Isabella’s experiences from two years ago. They had witnessed the death of Peter’s uncle with their own eyes. A sacrifice. A swap of one man for a twelve-year-old girl who had wandered too deep. They were connected in an unimaginable way.
Isabella should have been broken. She should have been shattered a million times smaller than Peter. She had not only heard the news, but she had seen it. Yet minutes ago Isabella had stood in the parking lot of Grove Aid, hugging Peter as though he weren’t the boy who had blamed her for her worst nightmare.
“I was really close to my uncle.”
Jackie flinched at the sudden sound of Peter’s voice.
“He was ten years younger than my dad, so they never really got along well,” he continued. “Nicholas was into meditation and horoscopes and juice cleanses—all things my dad thought was a load of shit. But you know what? He was the only one who actually talked to me about stuff that mattered.”
Kat had her legs extended out in front of her. She clicked her boots together. “Did you see him a lot?”
“Not really, no.” Peter inhaled a shaky breath. “During his six months of the year in California he was alway pretty busy with photography gigs, but once in a while he’d pick Grace and I up from school or take me to lunch. I always looked forward to it.”
Jackie wrapped her left arm around her stomach, trying to keep that sickening feeling at bay. She hadn’t even known Nicholas personally, so she could hardly comprehend how much his death had affected Peter. The man he looked up to the most, the man who took the time to genuinely understand who he was—he was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Kat said. “It must have been hard to lose him.”
“Yeah. It’s different for you though, isn’t it?” Peter shook his head, recalling the memory they’d seen at Quasso Drive. “I know you’ve been trying to cry—trying to feel something—but to be honest with you, the feelings you keep chasing you won’t want anyway. Why don’t you just accept that you’re stronger than everyone else and move on?”
“Because that’s not the kind of person I wanna be.” Kat gripped the carpet at her sides, her face burning. “Ever since Emmeline died it’s just been me and my dad, working through it together. And I love him so much, but when I imagine him gone someday, I can’t imagine myself crying.”
Jackie had never held so much hatred for Capsule before. The game was here to torment Peter and Kat, to force them to relive the lowest points of their lives. To remind them of everything they’d lost.
“This game is sick. And not the good kind.” Kat looked over at Peter and Jackie, that same anger reflecting off her eyes. The one thing all three of them could relate to at that moment was how much they despised Capsule. “These memories keep sending us to the past. And when we’re not dealing with that we’re searching for the next level, constantly stressing over how much time we have left. When do we get our chance to be Isabella?”
As abstract as Kat’s question was, Jackie understood her perfectly. When do we get our chance to be Isabella? The fourteen-year-old girl had seen the worst, yet she’d somehow learned to move on. She lived for this moment. Nicholas had changed her, but his death didn’t define her. It would have been nice to stop stressing over the past and worrying about the future. It seemed the trio had been living this way even before the game had begun.
Peter, unable to accept the heroic death of his uncle.
Kat, torn apart by her inability to grieve.
And me—Jackie turned in the direction of the parking lot, where Jay sat in the driver’s seat of his Honda, alone—failing to move on from my jealousy.
Peter retrieved Jackie’s phone from his pocket and handed it back to her. “Kat’s right. This game is a trap.”
Jackie opened Capsule to reveal the countdown page. The game wanted her to obsess over the numbers. The game wanted to control their worries, their fears, their emotions. The three were ruled by the game. Ruled by the clock. Ruled by nothing but a balance of regret and dread.
“I don’t get it.” Jackie shut her phone off. “We do what the app says, win the game, and everything goes back to normal. The way today was supposed to be.”
The way today was supposed to be, Jackie repeated to herself. If Capsule hadn’t appeared on her phone, where would she be right now?
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Peter ran his hands along his polo, trying to straighten out the fabric, but he gave up after a few recurring wrinkles. “After everything that’s happened, Capsule plans to wipe our memories at the next location. But if we restart the day and don’t remember any of this, doesn’t that make it all pointless?”
“I guess it depends on how you look at it.” Kat shrugged. “You could say that about life too.”
The three sat in the gloomy Grove Aid that night, the distant lights from the windows across the street taunting them. Right now, at this very moment, high school students were having a fun time together at the spring dance. They were living.
Jackie set her hand against the floor to push herself back to her feet and winced from the pressure on her wound. “I think we deserve a break.”
Peter frowned at Jackie, leaving her uncomfortable at first, but she realized he was simply sorting through his thoughts. He eventually stood and faced her with a smile. “You’re right. We do.”
“This game wants to have complete control over us.” Kat stood next, joining their line. “Let’s take one moment for ourselves. Just one moment where we aren’t trapped in the game.”
They left Grove Aid at 8:29 and stood in front of the sliding doors, swatting away the moths circling through the air as they laid their eyes on the school building across the other side of the busy road. To most students, Grovestown High was simply a place to host another silly school dance. A place where they could have a little fun for the night. But to Jackie, Peter, and Kat, Grovestown High was their escape. Their safe place. The present moment in a world plagued by the haunting past and terminal future.
Peter stepped forward, standing in the center of the parking space Isabella had been in minutes ago. It was the first time Jackie noticed how dirty his shoes had become. Earlier this afternoon they’d been pearly white, but now they were covered in dirt. They were muddy. Messy. And maybe—just for tonight—he was okay with that.
“I’ve been wondering.” Jackie stepped off the curb and joined him on the asphalt. “That one entry, the one you labeled anonymous. Who was it for?”
The sky darkened, its orange and pink hues morphing into a deep red.
“I wrote it for me.” Peter’s light chuckle faded into a frown. “Who am I kidding? It was all for me.”
The moon hovered in the bloody sky, a source of comfort among a sea of pain. Before today, Peter hadn’t seen the death of his uncle. He had simply heard the news, and that news destroyed him. That news had led him spiraling down a path of self-hatred. A spiral that had brought him back to school his sophomore year as a changed boy. A boy who now ran Moral Moon.
Jackie thought back to all of the horrible things people had said about him. Brookwood High assumed that just because he ran a nasty blog they could say anything they wanted to without being the bad guy.
Because it’s okay to bully a bully, and it’s okay to murder a murderer.
Right?