“No,” Anavi blurted. “It’s just . . . that’s not what I . . . Why do you believe me? About the rest.”
“Oh.” I had fallen into my old habit of barreling ahead and leaving whoever I was talking to behind by accident. I backtracked. “You mean about them messing with your head? This isn’t my first school. It’s not even my tenth. I’ve been a lot of places, and I’ve seen a lot of things. I can tell when things are . . . off. I also know that sometimes the explanations aren’t the obvious ones or ones that even seem possible.”
“But . . . ” Anavi hesitated.
“Go on. I’m on your side.”
“But I’m becoming more convinced that I am . . . losing my sanity.” Anavi looked away, into the corner. There was nowhere else to look if she didn’t want to meet my eyes.
Reaching into my messenger bag, I found a notebook and pen. I inched my tray back to make room to take notes.
“You’re not,” I said. “I won’t let you. How long have you been playing Worlds?”
Anavi looked at me then, which was progress. And she didn’t balk at the notebook, though she raised her eyebrows at it. “I’ve only been playing since I aged out of the bee. I had all that time to fill. No more flashcards and word lists and sessions with my coach. Studying for school doesn’t take as long. My neighbor, Will, was into it, and he taught me how to play.”
More progress.
“Tell me when it started. Them acting like this toward you. Were they always so mean?”
“In the game?” Anavi asked.
I thought back to what Devin had told me. “I heard that they’re cannibals in it.”
“I disagree,” Anavi said. “They were, they used to be. They used to turn on each other. I’ve been in there while they were fighting amongst the team, hurling each other into four-story monsters or into alien-probe traps.”
Alien-probe traps? “Yikes.”
Anavi went on. “But then they turned more . . . socio, serial. A couple of months ago.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sociopaths, serial killers.”
You don’t say. “Psychos. I got that part. What does it mean in the game?”
“It means they stopped griefing each other and started in on others. They began acting as a unit, no in-fighting. They weren’t cannibals anymore, not within the group. They were socios, serials, psychos . . . that means they go after other players together, no mercy. Rampaging.”
“Those other players included you?”
Anavi leaned forward. “No, not at first. My friend Will . . . He used to be my friend. My neighbor. They went after him. I should have helped him. But I was afraid they would come after me. The definition of absurdity, isn’t it?”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s one of them now. I could try to describe him, but . . . ”
“But they all dress alike, and so I wouldn’t know who you meant,” I said.
“Yes. He has been assimilated.”
In addition to her fear, she sounded like she was carrying a load of guilt around. I tapped my pen on the table. “You think this is revenge. That Will’s having them target you because you didn’t help him out. Is that why Butler thought one of them had a crush on you?”
“No, that’s just because I’m a girl. Isn’t that what adults always think when you complain about treatment by boys?” She considered the other question before she answered. “I did wonder at first, if the crush was part of it. But now I don’t think so. He’s just one of them. He’s not orchestrating anything. He used to be able to recite chapter and verse about soccer, every score, always streaming it when we weren’t in the game. He had an obsession with this UK team. The last time I went over to his house, he had taken down all his posters and I tried to make conversation about them, be normal, but he said he didn’t care about it anymore. That he had more important things to do. He wasn’t acting like himself.”
“And neither were you, this morning in class.”
“Correct,” she said. “They didn’t just mess up Will in the game. Before he started hanging out with them all the time, in the game and real life, he failed several tests. He couldn’t generate the right responses.”
“Again, like you this morning.”
Her nod was more like a wince.
“Sorry,” I said. The last thing I wanted was to make her feel worse about all this.
“If I forfeit my scholarship . . . My parents are going to slaughter me.”
“No, they’re not.” I clicked my pen closed. “You’re not losing anything.”
Anavi’s eyes met mine. She didn’t look convinced. “What if they force me to assimilate, like they did Will? I don’t want to be one of them.”