I could almost feel hopefulness in the word. It sounded like Hayden.
SamGoldsmith: Sure.
I couldn’t help but sound skeptical. I was never very good at lying to him.
ArchmageGed: Do you need someone to talk to? Is that it?
SamGoldsmith: Kind of. I’ve been listening to the playlist and I’m trying to figure things out, but I need help.
That was the truth, for sure.
ArchmageGed: I’m afraid there’s not much I can do, not from here.
SamGoldsmith: Where’s “here”?
This was getting interesting.
ArchmageGed: Are you trying to start a conversation about the afterlife? I don’t think that’s a good idea.
If this was Hayden, he was as maddening as ever.
SamGoldsmith: Can’t you tell me something? Anything? Who’s Athena? What happened to Jason and Trevor? Tell me I’m not crazy.
ArchmageGed: I can’t tell you that. You were always batshit.
I almost started laughing, but I was too frustrated.
SamGoldsmith: Come on, give me something.
ArchmageGed: What is it that you really need to know that you don’t know already, that matters? Jason and Trevor are assholes who got what they deserve. Athena was a secret I kept from you, and I know that makes you mad, but wasn’t I allowed to have secrets?
Not from me, I wanted to write.
SamGoldsmith: Just tell me. Who hurt Jason and Trevor? Was it you? Was it me?
ArchmageGed: Like I said, does it really matter?
Was he kidding? Did he not see how much it mattered?
SamGoldsmith: It does to me. I could be in real trouble here.
ArchmageGed: You’ll be fine.
I wondered if he was just telling me what I wanted to hear.
ArchmageGed: You have Astrid now, right?
How did he know that?
SamGoldsmith: I think so. I hope so. But I still have so many questions. Anything you want to tell me? Secrets you want to share?
ArchmageGed: You’re mad I didn’t tell you about her before. I understand.
Of course he did. He always understood. I shivered a little, even though it wasn’t cold.
ArchmageGed: I wanted you to meet her someday. I knew you’d be good for each other.
SamGoldsmith: Were we supposed to share her or something?
I wasn’t completely convinced that she was Athena; there were so many things about it that didn’t make sense. But right now it was the only option I had. And I hadn’t even begun to deal with the idea of me and Hayden being into the same girl.
The cursor blinked. Was he not going to explain?
SamGoldsmith: Hello?
The cursor blinked again. I heard thunder outside my window, and then the crack and flash of a bolt of lightning. It started to rain, slowly at first, then in loud, pounding drops that clattered on the roof so hard I wondered if it might be hailing, too. After what felt like at least fifteen minutes I looked at the clock, only to once again be surprised to find how many hours had passed.
Finally, the Archmage started typing again.
ArchmageGed: The answers are all in the playlist. Time for act three.
And then he was gone.
I’D HAD ENOUGH OF ARCHMAGEGED and his cryptic bullshit. Between him showing up and me goading him into showing up I was never going to sleep again. And if I stayed as fuzzy as I had been, who knew what would happen? “Time for act three”?
That had to mean Ryan was next.
I didn’t know what to do. The more I learned, the more I hated him. He’d been a terrible brother to Hayden, and it turned out he’d been a terrible boyfriend to Astrid, too. Why should I care if something bad happened to him?
But I wasn’t a big fan of Jason or Trevor, either, and I still felt sick inside thinking about what had happened to them. Sure, they deserved it, to a point, but not like that. Part of the reason I hated to think that I might be responsible was because things hadn’t gone down the way I would have wanted them to. I didn’t like all these secrets; I wanted things out in the open. I wanted the world to know that all three of those guys were bad people; having bad things happen to them wasn’t the same with making them, and everyone else, deal with who they really were.
I realized, then, that I didn’t want something mysterious and bad to happen to Ryan. I wanted him to have to deal with who he was and how that made him responsible. Which meant I had to stop whatever was supposed to happen next.
But first I had to figure out what that was.
I fell asleep listening to the playlist, hoping some clue was buried in the lyrics, but I wasn’t getting it. More songs about sadness, about love, about death . . . I didn’t know what to do except try and figure out where some of them had come from. That meant I had to find out, once and for all, whether Athena was really Astrid. And I knew where I had to start.
I texted Astrid to see if she could meet me after school; I knew we didn’t share a lunch period that day. And then I picked the most soothing song on the playlist and got some much-needed sleep.
I spent the day at school alternating between trying to figure out what exactly to say to her and how to avoid the stares and whispers of the other students, who obviously had all heard the rumors about Jason and Trevor. Every time I heard footsteps behind me in the halls I flinched, sure that the police had finally decided to question me. It was only a matter of time.
The plan was to meet up at the mall. I went there straight from school; I had last period off, and I wanted some time to hang out at the ITC. I hadn’t been there since the day of Hayden’s funeral, and I was used to going there all the time. I hoped the manager wouldn’t ask me about Hayden again, but I could handle it. Besides, the new American Vampire was out, and I’d been making a point of reading it in the store when I could get away with it so I wouldn’t have to buy the hardcovers. Stephen King had written the first one, and he was one of my favorite writers—I’d read all his early stuff, even the novellas he wrote under a fake name, and I’d spent hours as a kid trying to light fires with my mind, looking at cars and dogs trying to figure out which ones might be secretly evil. I’d tried for years to get Hayden to read them, but there was the whole dyslexia thing, which I should have been more sensitive about. Just another thing to regret.
The comics and graphic novels were in the back of the store, so I walked quickly through the aisles, past the sci-fi and gaming sections, to avoid the manager. There weren’t many people around, which hopefully meant I could read in peace. I thought I caught a glimpse of that short-haired girl who hung out with Eric, Jess, but when I turned around she was gone. Must have been imagining it—it was so rare to see girls here.
The fourth volume had just come out, and I gratefully settled into reading about Skinner Sweet, the first of the American vampire bloodline. The series was awesome because it combined all the goriness of the vampire legend with stories about the Wild West and other eras in American history. I’d never been much of a history buff, but it was way more fun learning about it when you thought about vampires being involved.
I was so engrossed in the story that I almost flung the book across the room when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. Crap. The manager was going to kick me out. I got ready to plead with him to just let me finish this issue, and turned around.
There was no one there.
But then I heard Astrid laugh. “I can’t believe that worked on you again!” She was on my other side.
“What a pleasant surprise,” I said. And it was. I couldn’t help but be happy to see her, no matter what other things I was worried about.