“Russian roulette.” Diggin sounded almost apologetic. He added quickly, “You only have to pull the trigger once. Harold had to do it too.”
“But Harold didn’t do it.” Vivian spoke up. Her voice was deep and slow, and reminded Heather of warmer places. Places where it never rained.
She forced herself to meet Vivian’s eyes. “So Harold is out?”
Vivian shrugged. “Guess so.” She had one foot on the chair, knee up to her chest, and she fiddled unconcernedly with the necklace she was wearing. Heather could see her collarbones protruding from her tank top. Like baby bird bones. She had an image of Bishop kissing that spot and looked away.
So Harold was out. That left just four players.
“All right,” she said. She could hardly swallow. “All right,” she repeated. She knew she should get it over with, but her hands wouldn’t move from her sides. Nat was staring at her, horrified, as though Heather was already dead.
“Is it loaded?” someone asked.
“It’s loaded.” It was Ray who answered. “I checked.” But even he looked kind of queasy, and he wouldn’t meet Heather’s eyes.
Don’t be afraid, she told herself. But it had the opposite effect. She was rooted, paralyzed with fear. How many chambers were in a gun? What were her chances? She’d always been crap at things like that—probabilities.
She kept hearing her mom’s voice: Came home and found his brain splattered on the wall. . . .
She had no choice unless she wanted the game to end here, now. Then what would Lily do?
But what would happen to Lily if Heather blew her brains out?
She saw her hand leave her side and reach for the gun. Her hand looked pale and foreign, like some weird creature you’d find living in the ocean. Behind her, Nat gasped.
Suddenly the door flew open behind them, with such force that it banged hard against the wall. Everyone turned simultaneously, as though they were all puppets on the same string.
Dodge.
Heather felt immediately disappointed; she knew that deep down, she’d been hoping for Bishop.
“Hey,” she said. But Dodge didn’t answer. He just crossed the small space toward her, practically shoving Matt out of the way.
“It was you,” he said. His voice was low and full of spite.
Heather blinked. “What?”
“You told someone about the spiders,” he said. He glared at Natalie next. “Or you did.”
Ray snickered. Dodge ignored him.
“What are you talking about?” It had not occurred to Heather to wonder how the judges had known about Dodge’s fear of spiders. But now she did. How did they know about any of them?
“Neither of us said anything, Dodge, I promise.” That was Natalie.
Dodge stared at each of them in turn. Then, unexpectedly, he reached out and seized the gun. Several people gasped and Diggin actually ducked, like he expected Dodge to start firing.
“What are you doing?” Vivian said.
Dodge did something with the gun—opened the chamber, Heather thought, although his fingers moved so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. Then he replaced it on the table.
“I wanted to be sure it was loaded,” he announced. “Fair’s fair.” Now he wouldn’t look at Heather at all. He just crossed his arms and waited.
“Poor Dodge,” Ray said. He didn’t bother to stifle a laugh. “Afraid of itsy-bitsy spiders.”
“Your turn’s coming, Hanrahan,” Dodge said calmly. This made Ray stop laughing.
The room got quiet. Heather knew there would be no more interruptions. No more distractions. She felt as though someone had turned the lights up. It was too hot, too bright.
She took the gun. Heather heard Nat say, “Please.” Heather knew that everyone was still watching her, but she could make out no individual faces: everyone had been transformed into vague blobs, suggestions of color and angles. Even the table began to blur.
The only real thing was the gun: heavy and cold.
She fumbled a little to get her finger on the trigger. She couldn’t feel her body anymore from the waist down. Maybe this was what it was like to die: a slow numbing.
She placed the gun to her temple, felt the cool bite of metal on her skin, like a hollow mouth. This was what my father must have felt like, she thought.
She closed her eyes.
Nat screamed, “Don’t do it!” At the same time, a chair clattered to the floor and several voices called out at once.
She squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Nothing. Heather opened her eyes. Instantly, the room was a roar of sound. People were on their feet, cheering. Heather was so weak with joy and relief she found she couldn’t hold on to the gun and let it fall to the floor. Then Natalie had rocketed into Heather’s arms. “Oh, Heather, oh, Heather,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry.”
Heather was saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” but she didn’t feel the words leave her mouth. Her lips were numb, her tongue was numb, her body was quivering like it was preparing to disintegrate. When Nat released her, Heather thudded into a chair.
It was over.