Page 38 of Wicked Games

“I’m not so sure about that,” Courteney said.

Zach’s forehead wrinkled. “Why?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s a few things. Firstly, we’re all Babylon students, which makes me think the Game Master must be a fellow student. Or at least he’s being helped by a Babylon student. That makes me think we weren’t picked at random. This student selected the twelve of us for a reason. I just don’t know what it is.” Courteney paused and looked down at the floor. “Also, most of us seem to be in friend groups. There’s the four of you. Jasmine, Kiara, and Maverick are friends, and Hudson, Rhys, and Tate are friends with each other too. Then there’s me. I’m the odd one out, and I worry that makes me look suspicious. But I swear, I’m not the Game Master, and I’m not helping him either.” She swallowed thickly and looked back up at us. “I know I can’t prove it, but… I promise, it’s not me.”

April shook her head. “You’re not the odd one out. You and Zach are friends from… what is it? History class?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Zach chimed in. “Just because we don’t hang out every day doesn’t mean we aren’t friends.”

“Also,” Brooke said, raising a brow. “Tate isn’t actually friends with Hudson and Rhys. From what I’ve heard, he isn’t friends with anyone. His relationships are more… well, let’s just say they’re more transactional than others.”

“Like what Kiara was saying earlier?” I asked, tipping my head. “About the party favors?”

“Yup. People only hang out with him if he gives them stuff in return. So he doesn’t have any friends here. Also, Evan wasn’treally friends with anyone here either. So you’re not the odd one out at all, Courteney.”

Courteney breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Thanks,” she murmured. She took a deep breath and spoke up again. “There’s something else I’ve been thinking about. About the Game Master.”

“Yeah?”

“I know most of us ended up agreeing with Brooke’s theory about him being an outsider. But you know how I said I think he’s either a Babylon student or at least getting help from a Babylon student?”

Zach nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“If that’s true, I think it would make sense to have an insider in the group to report back to him. Like, stuff the mics and cameras might not pick up.”

“You could be right,” April said, nodding slowly. “One of us could be involved even if he or she isn’t the official Game Master.”

“I think so too,” I said, looking over at the window. Hudson was leaning close to Tate, eyes narrowed and head occasionally nodding. The two of them appeared to be deep in discussion, and when I looked at the group on the bed, I could see they were doing the same. I was willing to bet we were all discussing the exact same subject. After all, what else could anyone possibly want to talk about right now?

April leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Now that I’m really thinking about it, I might know who it could be,” she said. “The insider, I mean.”

“Really?”

She lifted a palm. “I don’t want to be a total bitch and point fingers like the others were doing earlier, but... well, it’s just something a little suspicious you guys should know about.”

“What is it?” I asked, leaning closer.

She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. “God, you’re all going to judge me so hard for the way I found out about this.”

“We won’t,” Brooke said. “Just say it. I hate being kept in suspense.”

“Okay, well, you know how Rhys has always acted like he’s one of us? Like, mega-rich?” April said. She glanced at me and gave me a sympathetic half-smile. “Sorry, Carey. I just mean—”

I lifted a palm. “No need to apologize. I get it.”

April went on. “He’s been lying to everyone for years. I don’t know if that necessarily means he’s helping the Game Master, or that he’s the Game Master himself, but itdoesshow that he’s capable of deception. He’s also damn good at it.”

“Wait, he’s been lying about being rich?” I asked, cocking my head.

“Yup. He’s not.”

“How do you know?”

April sighed and looked at her feet. “Here’s the part where you judge me,” she said. She gnawed at the inside of her cheek for a few seconds before continuing. “A couple of years ago, when I was a sophomore and Abby was a freshman, we both started to worry about our grades in English. We thought Dad might be going harder on us because we’re his kids, and we were especially worried about some papers we’d recently handed in. So we decided to steal his office key and check our grades. It was stupid, I know. But we just wanted to see. That’s all. We weren’t cheating, or anything like that.”

“No judgement from me,” Zach said. “If my dad was a teacher at our school, you can bet your ass he’d mark me harder than the others. It would freak me out too.”

“Well, it turned out that he keeps all the essays stored in a locked filing cabinet, and we didn’t have the key for that, so we couldn’t even look at our grades,” April said. “But Abby noticed something on his desk.”

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