CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The memory of my night with Julian nestles inside my chest, hidden as deep as I can bury it as I cross all my fingers that Maya won’t ask me where I was.

“Where were you last night?”

Can just one thing go my way?

I was already running on borrowed time. If she’d stayed up, she would’ve pounced on me the second I came through the door. I slid into my room unseen, hiding my flushed cheeks in my pillow and trying not to dwell on what last night meant. Or didn’t mean. Because it shouldn’t have meant anything.

“Learning how to ride a bike,” I reply staying focused on my sketchbook, brushing some toast crumbs off the page. My latest idea is as scrambled as I am. I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to be. The page is a mess of scribbled lines that look like a Picasso-inspired Pikachu. Turns out my creative well is dry after all, and it’s taking a whole lot of self-restraint not to go into crisis mode.

Maya’s brow quirks, her mug of coffee stalling halfway to her lips. “Why?”

I run my hand along one of the mosquito bites on the back of my neck. “It’s a long story.”

Not a lie, I even have the battle scars to prove it. She shakes her head, finishing her coffee before pushing away from the table. “You two are weird.”

Understatement of the century.

She grabs the back of my shirt, tugging me out of my seat. I open my mouth to protest, but brushing her off so I can work won’t do me any favors.

Andy greedily eyes my abandoned slice of toast, his glass of orange juice way too close to my also abandoned sketchbook for comfort. I pull myself out of Maya’s grip, making a dash to pull my sketchbook out of harm’s way before trudging back to her room.

Once Maya locks the door, I take my usual seat at the foot of her bed. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” she announces proudly.

“That never ends well.”

She rolls her eyes, chucking a pillow at my head. “Shut up.” Once I’ve ducked, she turns back around to examine the whiteboard above her vanity, our training schedule written in pink and blue marker. “I think we need to change our approach.”

I pull my battered knees up to my chest. The aftermath of my bicycling lesson left me more sore this morning than I thought was humanly possible. It took fifteen minutes just to butter my toast. “What does that mean?”

She paces across the room, tugging one of her curls taut before wrapping it around her finger. “Has Julian told you anything?”

I shrug, ignoring the ache in my shoulders. “He’s told me lots of things.”

Thankfully she’s out of nonlethal objects to throw at me. “I mean personal things. Things he wouldn’t tell any of us.”

Neither her tone nor her question sits right with me. “Why?”

My eyes follow her warily as she continues pacing. “If we can’t find out what they’re planning, then we should think of something on our own.” She stops, letting her curl spring free. “Something that’ll stop them.”

The flicker in her eyes is familiar, as vicious as the day she proposed her original idea. But there’s something harsher to it this time, angrier. “You want to cheat?”

For a flash of a second, the fire fades away. She shakes her head, but I know her well enough to see right through the façade. “I want to get creative.” She grabs one of the markers off the whiteboard, scribbling some ideas in a corner. “Weigh their bags down with rocks or stick something in their shoes.”

“We were already being creative, Maya.”

Spying on them wasn’t easily justifiable, but we talked ourselves into it. Things were different, the stakes higher, and they never played by the rules, so why should we? Except we hadn’t broken the rules; we just found a way around them. There’s no justifying this, though. No telling ourselves that we’re better because we’re honest and fair. Not if we stoop down to their level.

I march over to the whiteboard, taking the marker out of her hand and circling the ideas she’s already written down. “This is cheating.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she replies too quickly, as if she knew this was coming. “You’re the one spending all day at Casa del Cabrón. It’s not just one asshole—it’s a house full of them. You’ve seen what they’re like. We could turn them against each other, make them fall apart before we even get to the games.”

The worst part is that she’s right. Sabotage would be so easy. It would only take the truth—telling Julian’s dad about Princeton, that he and Stella want to move with Mrs. Seo across the country—and they’d crumble. An argument that would leave them so fractured there’s no way they’d be able to stand against us, a united front. We could even go the blackmail route—force Julian to sabotage his own family in exchange for our silence. Stella and Henry are still guilty of making our lives hell, but they’re way more innocent than I thought they were two weeks ago. Their dad is our real enemy, but I can’t tell Maya that. Not when it means sharing the very same things she needs to tear them apart.

“Jesus, Maya.” I run a hand through my hair, willing my voice to stay even, but I can’t help losing control. “This is about a fucking game; we’re not destroying a family.”

“It’s not just a game!” she shouts, flushed down to her collarbone. The silence is consuming as she glares at me with what’s either disgust, disappointment, or both. “Or did you already give up on this place?”

Now, that shuts me up.

A knock at the front door is my saving grace. The idea of visitors is so foreign the sound makes both of us jump. We crack Maya’s door open enough to peek out into the living room. Dad and Isabel exchange puzzled looks, nearly leaping out of their seats when there’s a second, much louder knock. Dad grabs a baseball bat from the coat closet and approaches the front door with caution.

What’s waiting behind the door is ten times more terrifying than anything we could’ve imagined.

“Happy holidays, neighbors!” Mr. Cooke exclaims.

Dad discreetly hands off the bat to Isabel before pulling the door open the rest of the way. “Happy holidays, Paul,” he replies with a stiff smile. “Going for a hike?” Dad gestures to the hiking backpack at Mr. Cooke’s feet.

“Just got home. Shame Devin couldn’t join us, though.”

I gag. My name sounds so off-putting when he says it, like it’s a profanity.

The age-old stomach bug excuse worked to get Julian, and therefore me, out of the hike. Thank god. Figuring out how to create fake vomit for him to plant in his bathroom was a pain, but well worth the payoff. And in the end, Liam got to take my spot. Granted, he didn’t have Julian to flirt with, but I’m sure Mr. Cooke was still pleased.

“We’re hosting a little holiday party tonight. Just us and a couple of friends from Hillsdale. The kids were nagging me up and down this morning asking if I’d invite you all over.”

That’s odd. Julian never mentioned a post-hike get-together, and if he wanted us to come, why wouldn’t he just text me? Maya pokes me in the ribs, brows quirked as she waits for an answer, but I have nothing to offer her. This makes as little sense to me as it does to her.

“Oh, well, that’s nice of you to offer, but we wouldn’t want to intrude,” Dad replies, already starting to close the door.

“Nonsense!” Mr. Cooke insists, inserting himself more firmly into our doorway, one foot inside the cabin. “The kids are always complaining that our holiday parties are so stuffy, too many country club types. So I thought, what’s the harm in switching it up a bit this year? And no one livens up a party like the Báezes.” He slaps Dad on the shoulder with a hearty chuckle.

“Did he just call us poor?” Maya whispers to me.

Dad pats Mr. Cooke’s hand with enough force for us to hear the slap from the hallway. “We’ll uh…see what we can do.”

“Great. See you then!” Mr. Cooke says before taking off, completely missing the part where we didn’t agree to anything.

Maya pulls me into her room, leaning against the door with a mischievous smirk. “This is perfect.”

“You actually want to go?” I go there every day and I don’t want to go.

“Duh, of course I do.” She slaps her hand against my chest for questioning her. “You keep them distracted, and I’ll dig up the real dirt,” she explains while rummaging through the carefully curated selection of crop tops in her dresser.

My body creaks with a new kind of ache as I sink to the floor. Arguing is pointless when she has her mind set on something. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told her they don’t keep their secrets out in the open. Yet, a part of me hopes I did miss something. A clue or a hint that’ll keep her occupied enough to abandon her latest idea. There’s still a chance that we can make it out of this without hurting anyone but Mr. Cooke.

Still, I can’t shake the undeniable bad feeling surrounding this invitation. And something tells me Maya’s only going to make it worse.