And the plan had to work. I had to make sure it worked. Not just for Anavi’s sake, but to protect Devin too.
*
I rattled through my morning classes like a runaway subway train, the same worries rumbling through my mind again and again. And again.
First Anavi, and now Devin? I needed to know if he was faking it or not.
No matter what Devin said last night about it not being my fault, he would never have gotten involved, never have become a target in the first place, if it wasn’t for me.
You don’t know that. That was what SmallvilleGuy would say, and he might be right. Devin was smart, into tech, a skilled Worlds player, and in the Warheads’ comp sci class. Just like Anavi. Maybe he would have become a target for them anyway.
But, even so, I sped things along. And I’d allowed him to volunteer to take this risk.
It’s my fault, one way or another. I can’t fail.
I waited outside the cafeteria before lunch to catch Devin. If I could, I wanted to go into the next few hours comforted by the knowledge that he was faking, that they hadn’t managed to steal into his mind. To steal his mind.
When I spotted him, he wasn’t alone, but with Anavi and another boy who was one of them. This was the best shot I’d get to talk to him.
“Devin, got a sec?” I asked.
All three angled their heads to regard me at the same moment, and the stranger’s face split into a slow, mocking grin. Anavi’s did too.
But Devin’s reaction was delayed. He shook his head before smirking.
“Devin?” I asked.
He took a step toward me. Anavi and the boy were frowning, and I saw a few more Warheads coming toward us from up the hall. The trio and I were also blocking the entrance the cafeteria, but I stayed put and ignored the grumbles of the students around us.
“Devin, you good?” I asked softly.
He blinked, and for a single moment, he was there with me. It was the difference between someone looking past you and someone seeing you. “I can’t fight,” he said. “Too strong. You can’t help.” But he added a wink. That gave me hope that he was still fooling them.
For his ears only, I said, “Oh, I’m definitely helping. Hang on.”
The other Warheads reached us, a small army in black that was more intimidating than Devin’s inhuman troops in the game.
“Don’t worry,” I said, raising my voice. “He’s all yours.”
“Maybe you are . . .”
“. . . wising up.”
“He is ours.”
“You’re just lucky we don’t want you.”
“You are persistent at bothering us,” Anavi said, but there was something in her tone that almost sounded like it could be regret.
The telltale push against my mind began, but Devin tossed a dark “Learn to fear us” at me and turned to the cafeteria doors. The others snicker-laughed, but they followed him.
I had to assume he was still sticking with the plan.
I migrated through the cafeteria to the back corner, and Anavi’s old table. A shy boy with floppy hair had taken my spot, so I sat at the end closest to the sprawling main floor—where I could keep an eye on the Warheads until it was time to leave. While I was sending a text to the taxi service, the chair beside mine scraped back and Maddy joined me.
If I was going to be a master of stealth, I’d have to get way better at hiding out in the open.
“Devin’s creeping me out,” Maddy said. “He is acting, right?”
“I think so,” I said.
We watched the Warheads’ table. Each member of the group, Devin included, had on a holoset and made the same barely visible movements of their heads or shoulders, the same occasional slight murmurs from their lips.
“Don’t worry,” I said, and I didn’t know if I was trying to convince Maddy or myself. “Everything will be back to normal soon. The plan will work.” Not that I believed in normal, strictly speaking. And I’d be a whole lot more confident if SmallvilleGuy wasn’t going to be MIA.
“So . . .” Maddy lifted her hand to brush back a crimson strand of hair from her cheek, ducking her chin. “About what you asked me before?”
“Before?” I tried my best to focus on Maddy, but the Warheads were powering down and removing their holosets. Their hands rose to pluck them off, and they placed the earpieces in front of themselves along the table.
Their eyelids fluttered, then closed. Devin’s shut last.
Maddy was focused on the surface of our table, not seeing any of the holoset drama play out.
She said, “You know, when you asked about the bands, my shirts . . . why none of them were on the playlist?”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
I looked back across the room. The Warheads had gone completely silent, a table-wide point of stillness in the bustling cafeteria. Like they were engaging in some bizarre exercise in lunch-table meditation.
“I make them,” Maddy said. “The shirts. I make up the band names. They’re bands I wish I could be in.”