Page 76 of They're Watching You

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Maren…”

“I have proof they’ve been holding PollyandJane in the catacombs. I’m hoping you’ll find it in you to forgive me, and that you’ll help me get these guys.”

She digs her fingers into the hair near her temples. Her lips twist, in disgust or thought—maybe both. “Can you show me thisproof?”

“I already emailed it to you. Will you help?”

After a painstaking minute, she asks, “What do you need me to do?”

“If everything goes to hell at the finale tonight, and Remington and I don’t make it out, spread the file. Send it to the police in the next county, the media, your parents, the entire school—as wide as you can spread it. The society has its claws in most of these avenues—we have to get it to so many people, they can’t possibly cover their tracks. If they’re backed into a corner, they’ll have to spare Polly and Jane in order to avoid murder charges.”

“So…” Jordan starts, her skin taking on a green hue as she pauses to absorb it all. “If something happens to you at tonight’s meeting, you want me to send the video to all these people.”

I start to nod, but something—a disturbing sensation slithers up my stomach and lodges somewhere at the back of my throat. “I didn’t say it was a video,” I whisper, my voice barely emerging over the lump. “I saidfile.”How did Jordan know?

“Oh,” Jordan says, the pink rushing back into her cheeks. “I guess I just assumed. Was it a photo? Something else?”

“No,” I say, clearing my throat. “It was a video.” I’m being paranoid. The society made me this way. She just assumed. How many types of proof could there be? “So you’ll do it? You’ll help?”

Jordan sighs. “I mean, I want to, but what if they come after me too?”

I grit my teeth. Why did I ever think meek little Jordan would agree to this? “They’re being tortured, Jordan.” The words come out fast and low, like a growl. “Watch the video. They’ve been held against their will for weeks. If I weren’t certain the society would retaliate, I would send the video out myself right now. But I have to show up to the game tonight. It’s the only way to buy time for Polly and Jane.”

Jordan swirls her food around with a fork. “I’ll do it,” she says, curling her fists determinedly.

I exhale so hard the corn on my plate stirs. “Thank you. I knew I could count on you.”

But suddenly, it’s the last thing I’m sure of. Because that uneasy feeling is still there, coating the back of my throat as I try to chew my potatoes.

Twenty-Nine

When I step down into the antechamber tonight, thin cloak covering my shoulders, the cold drives in hard, past my skin, past my layers of fat and muscle and tissues, past my innards. The cold, a brutal reminder of the last time I was down here, seems to penetrate my soul.

Remington follows in my wake, never more than a couple inches from me. I’m not sure how he’s become the only person I can trust in this school, but even the sharpness of my nerves and the jittery feeling in my stomach dull slightly with him here.

The torches cast a fiendish luminance around the room as the rest of the members trickle in. I spot Jordan, already situated against a wall, and she nods faintly at me. Almost the way Annabelle nodded at me on the performing arts center steps. In fact, Jordan’s hair even looks like Annabelle’s, heated into submission, uniform waves adorning her clavicles.

I hope, if I fail to beat the Gamemaster tonight, Jordan can find it in herself to be brave and expose the society. And looking at her now, a sudden straightening of the shoulders, a severe line where a nervous smile used to be, a confidence that Jordan Park didn’t have a few hours ago—I think she just might pull through.

There’s a tug on my elbow, and I turn to find Gavin, looking tired and pitiful in his rumpled cloak. “Maren, you came.”

“Of course, I came. Thanks to you, I’m stuck in this sadistic society until Remington and I free the girls.”

“Maren, please—”

“I can’t believe I ever thought we were friends.”

“We are friends!” He rubs at his bloodshot eyes. “And I thought we could be—why do you think I followed you all the way through the catacombs last night? I was trying to protect you.”

“Save it for someone you didn’t lure into this mess.”

“If you’d let me—”

Remington barrels through us, shoving Gavin aside. I toss him one last scornful look before wandering away, Remington at my side.

Annabelle is stationed at the front, as usual, surrounded by delicacies. But something about her dress—the simple fabric, the lack of show—thrusts my senses into alert mode.

She’s no longer the pinnacle of the society. Earlier in the tournament, she got to play the host and leader. But the charade is up.

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