Page 64 of The Wrong Play

I was halfway back to my Jeep when the screech of tires ripped through the night.

A familiar black car came skidding to a halt in front of me. The driver’s door flew open, and Matty practically launched himself out.

“What the actual fuck, dude,” he shouted, his eyes wide and crazy, arms flailing like he was trying to swat bees.

“Oh hey, what are you doing here?” I asked, trying to play it cool like I hadn’t just almost died over the last however many hours.

“What am I doing here?” He gaped at me even more, his eyes bugging out. I kind of wanted to reach out and push them back in just in case they were in danger of popping out.

“Your last words to me were basically, ‘Hope I don’t die,’ and then you disappeared. I texted you fifteen times, Jace Thatcher. Do you know what happens when you tell someone, ‘I hope I don’t die,’ and then you go radio silent for hours? I had two options, call the cops and ruin this whole Sphinx thing or find your dumbass myself. Guess which one I picked?”

I blinked at him. The fifteen times was serious. I was known for responding back within seconds—because it was rude to keep people waiting. My blinking slowly turned into a grin.

“You tracked me,” I declared triumphantly. Because tracking was caring. Everyone knew that.

His face turned a weird gray color, and his eyes were still bugging out. “Yep, I tracked you,” he answered quickly.

Huh, that was a little…suspicious.

“Whatcha hiding there, Matty-boy?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of me and feeling much better about the fact that I’d almost died trying to join a bunch of people who wore Halloween masks for fun.

“I’m not hiding anything,” he said.

“You look suspicious,” I countered.

“How does someonelooksuspicious?” he huffed…still looking suspicious.

“Did you have any trouble figuring out the tracking app?” I asked innocently.

His face paled even further, and he literally gulped.

“Matty…you know I’ll find out eventually, so you should just fess up now—so I don’t have to waste my precious new lease on life on finding out what you’re hiding from me.”

“So, youdidalmost die!” He looked around like Yellow Teeth was about to pop out from behind a bush—or a piece of trash, since there weren’t a whole lot of bushes around here.

“Answer the question,” I pressed, opening up his passenger door so I could find some snacks. Almost dying made me hungry.

“That’s been there for like three months,” he commented when I found some crackers and ripped open the package, biting into the cheesy goodness like a shark.

“Pretty sure these preservatives were built to last.” I groaned as the artificial flavoring hit my tongue. Sure, one could say they were a little stale. But there’d been a few moments there where I thought I’d never have food again.

“Okay, proceed,” I said with a full mouth. Matty looked a little grossed out by the crumbs spraying out of my mouth, butthen he must have remembered what he was hiding from me, and his face resumed that blank, grayish pallor he had going.

“So, obviously, the app was intended for people with doctorates in technology,” he began.

“Or someone that possesses basic phone capabilities,” I inserted helpfully.

He scowled at me. “When the fifteen texts went unanswered, I may have freaked out. And then I may have had to get help.”

“You didn’t!“ I gasped in horror as I realized where he was going with this.

“I had to do it. You could have been dead,” he snapped, waving his hands around all crazy like again.

“I went to Darla’s house and…”

This was too good. I was glad I hadn’t died. Just for this moment.

Darla was our next door neighbor, and the kind of person you tried to avoid making direct eye contact with because you justknewshe had a collection of teeth that didn’t belong to her.

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