“We all need the fucking money,” the other Ava says, but it’s without venom.
“Look, maybe they did mislead us. Maybe it’s a meaner game than we thought it was. But what’s the alternative? You think Linda brought us in here to, what, murder us two by two?” It sounds ridiculous when Ava says it. It is ridiculous. Jaden is right. He has to be right. This is another twist in the game. Ava frowns, struck with a sudden thought. “You were all here at camp before we were.”
Brandon tilts his head, confused. The other Ava understands immediately. “You think we did this to freak you out. I wish. God, that’d be a great strategy.” She takes a few steps toward the darkness pressing in around them. “Could have been Christian or Ian, making a play.”
“Or Mack.” Ava shrugs defensively when the other Ava cuts a narrowed look at her. “Look, all I’m saying is, what she’s been through, she’s probably kind of messed up.”
“No one is looking,” LeGrand says, his voice soft, his watery eyes drifting somewhere along the ground. She thinks his eyes are a weak sort of blue, but in the orange light, none of them have color. Not even the sticky pool in the middle. Maybe it’s not darkest red turning to black. Maybe it’s purple, or blue, or—
Yeah. Maybe someone melted a whole cooler full of blood-scented Popsicles. Sure. Ava shakes her head, knowing what she’s seeing and smelling but still wanting to deny it, because how could it be that?
“What do you mean?” Brandon asks LeGrand.
“Out there.” LeGrand shrugs, his sloped shoulders making him look smaller than he is. “No one is looking for us.”
“Just because you weren’t found doesn’t mean no one is looking,” Ava says. “You probably got lucky; they had already gotten two people out for the day. That’s the pattern, right? Two a day. So if the two have already been found, you’re safe.”
“We’re still missing three.” The other Ava sits on a cot and hangs her head, rubbing the back of her neck.
Ava sits gingerly next to her, keeping vigil to see who the night returns to them. Wishing with sudden sharp longing that Jaden had gotten out today.
* * *
—
Beautiful Ava’s made a mistake. She can’t see Jaden behind them, peering out from the bathroom, eyes narrowing as he decides exactly who he’s going to trick into getting out the next day.
Brandon is scared. He’s not having fun anymore, not at all. He doesn’t even care about the money. If it wasn’t for his friends, he’d leave right now. But he doesn’t want to ditch his friends.
LeGrand is resigned. They’re being punished, hell is real and they’re in it, they’re going to die or they’re not. It doesn’t really matter, because, really, he’s been in a color-bleached, hopeless hell ever since he was banished.
And Ava stares into the darkness, darkness in her mind and her heart, smelling phantom smoke and charred flesh as she waits to see who comes back.
DAY FIVE
The spotlight is on now. Someone is calling her back, waiting for her.
Mack sits, knees up, arms around them. Her cart—bucket—whatever they call the part of a Ferris wheel that people climb into to circle in defiance of gravity—sways gently in the night breeze, and she could almost fall asleep. Curl up in the bottom with the dirt and debris and sleep forever.
Atrius’s arrows led her here, and they kept going, but she didn’t. She thinks he solved the maze. Whether that meant he got out, or got in, she doesn’t know. He’s gone.
She rubs the heavy silver of one of Rosiee’s rings, slipped onto her finger so she wouldn’t lose it. Gone.
Mack’s hungry, and she’s thirsty, and she’s tired. She doesn’t want to go back to camp, doesn’t want to see who’s not there, doesn’t want to think about what that might mean. It’s a game, yes. A game. A game run by people, and she understands perfectly well how monstrous people can be.
But she needs to know whether Ava is still here. Even if Mack chose to leave her. She has to know.
Mack climbs down and walks to the camp.
Ava is sitting on a cot, her face hollow, beautiful Ava sitting next to her. Brandon is cleaning up the table, which, judging from the mess, got knocked over. LeGrand is on another cot. There’s a dark pool in the middle of the cement that seems to exert a reverse magnetism. Everyone is pushed out away from it.
Mack doesn’t like what her heart does when she sees Ava. Or Brandon and LeGrand, to a lesser extent. Because she’s glad—god, she’s so glad—that they’re here. Which means it will hurt when they aren’t. And she can’t help them, can’t protect them, can’t do anything to keep them here.
Someone takes her roughly by the arm and drags her into the light. Jaden holds her hand up triumphantly. “You want to know who pulled all this shit to scare us? Maybe the person wearing Rosiee’s jewelry as a trophy!”
Mack stares at Ava. Ava hasn’t gotten up. She looks at Mack like Mack is a ghost, like Mack already died and doesn’t know it yet.
“Found it,” Mack says. “And her boot. And some blood.”
“Liar.” Jaden drops her hand in disgust. “Should have known a freak like you would fight dirty. Listen, if you have your old man’s genes and decide to get busy with a knife, kill them first.” Jaden ignores Brandon’s outraged cry and stomps off to a far cot. “Are you coming?” he snaps.
Beautiful Ava stands slowly. She offers Mack the smallest of smiles. “Glad you didn’t get out.” Then she follows Jaden.
“Where did you find it?” Ava asks.
Mack slowly unburdens herself of the silver, which feels heavier than it should. She carefully lays the pieces on the newly righted table. A ring etched with a scrolling pattern. A cuff bracelet with a snake wrapping around it. The heart pendant, the point of the heart so finely made it’s sharp, she keeps around her neck and under her shirt. “Carousel.”
Ava leans, staring at her boots, rubbing her hands over her neck and her buzzed head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She says it over and over, a chant.
“We could walk out,” Brandon says.
LeGrand and Mack make eye contact. They both know they can’t. It’s not over yet, so they can’t leave. It’s that simple. Mack sets down her bag and carefully sorts through the unspoiled supplies Brandon put back on the table, taking enough for three more days. The sense of safety here, of light against the night and rest against long, draining days, is gone. The camp is exposed now, the park pressing hungrily against it, all the fluttering eyes in the darkness drawn to them.
LeGrand joins her, filling his bag.
“Are you guys packing to leave?” Brandon asks, hopeful. Doubtless if they quit, he’ll feel better about it, too. But Mack can’t offer him that.
She shakes her head. “Not coming back to camp.”
Ava stands, eyes wide, hands trembling as though she’s in withdrawal from something. She clenches them into fists. “Either it’s a game or it’s not, it’s real or it’s not, either way, yeah. Yeah. Shouldn’t be where they expect us to be, ever.”