Page 44 of The Mastermind

Glancing up, her eyes beam at me, and a jolt of joy fills my body for no reason.

“Making a friendship bracelet.” She braids twine and pink ribbon together.

“With these?” I make a face and glance at the dried vines, grass, gimp, yarn, ribbons, a spool of twine, buttons, and other random stuff she probably found around the house.

“Yup.” She shrugs. “Look at this.” She digs into a shoebox and takes out a necklace made of twigs, twine, and leaves.

It looks awful, but I have to admit, it’s creative. “That’s cool.”

“Would you wear it for me so I can take a picture of it? I won’t show your face.”

“Umm . . .” Grayson and the boys will never stop making fun of me.

“Please?” Her pleading eyes do something strange to my chest.

“Okay,” I mutter.

“Thanks.” Smiling, she rummages through the shoebox and pulls out a friendship bracelet made of orange and dark-blue ribbon. “For you.”

I blinked as the image of the friendship bracelet cleared in my mind. I remembered the god-awful necklace I’d worn for her, but how could I have forgotten something so precious, something she made for me?

When I went off to college, I locked a lot of stuff away, literally and figuratively, including the bracelet and its memory.

Where had I put it? Was it still in my old room? Or was it in my New York City storage unit?

I released a heavy sigh and toweled the water off my face.

That quick memory gave me a boost of energy, as if I’d reconnected with something powerful.

To be productive, I returned to the office and worked on WaterFyre Rising. The map of my video-game world was spread across the conference table. I stared at the storyboard, where the square boxes gave me a snapshot of the foundation of the world I’d built: the various obstacles, the options for gaining power, death traps, and so forth. I’d written a plot and scenarios of what could happen. Seeing this project come alive brought on a surge of pride and accomplishment.

It had been a project produced by a teenager who had a vision, a mission—a boy who was unsatisfied with his life and wanted more. This video game was that “more” for me. Now that I had the big picture in place, I could focus on the specifics: character appearance, cities and streets, weapons, and music. Like any game, details made the game feel real.

The beauty of WaterFyre Rising was that for each level, the world would differ slightly, where the players could go from the modern to the paranormal, fantasy, or even sci-fi worlds. WaterFyre Rising was a quantum world where you could travel anywhere within the massive universe.

That was my theory on possibilities. Sometimes I lived in my mind, and it wandered to many places. When I was young, those places had kept me sane and safe. WaterFyre Rising had to be different from the other games. Each of my friends created their own level, so their world reflected their desires, their vision, and their mission. Together, it would be a cohesive universe built by connected worlds.

I flipped through my portfolio of characters. Everyone feared monsters, and to have the ability—the control—to design them was like having the power to create “fear.” That had been one of the creative highlights of this process.

Reaching for a sketchbook, I doodled. I’d taken a few basic drawing classes in college to help me build my characters. I didn’t need to learn that aspect of video game production, but I wanted to. I wouldn’t call myself Picasso, not even close. I knew the basics, and from there, I’d throw my rough sketches into a 3D imaging program, which made the characters appear real and hired a professional team to tweak them for efficiency.

As I sketched the heroine, the face took on Audri’s features. She didn’t know she was one of the major characters in my game. She hadn’t played any video games with her brother or me when we were young. How would she react if she knew she had always been part of my world?

I yawned and glanced at my watch. Before my conference call with an overseas vendor, I should take a break. Leaning back in the chair, I closed my eyes.

Pushing the doors open, I enter the church. I’m not supposed to be here, but something lures me, and I can’t resist it. I know this place. A murder occurred here.

I take a few steps inside, and the doors creak closed. Wrapping my arms around myself, chills race down my body. A silhouette of a body lies on the floor, and my heart lurches to my throat. I shouldn’t be here.

I turn to run out of the church, but my feet can’t move. Silhouettes emerge around me, whispering incoherent things.

“You don’t belong here.”

No shit.

“You’ll get what you deserve.”

“Wrong place, wrong time.”

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