CHAPTER 16
SIM AND I MAKE QUESADILLAS for dinner. I can’t cook much, but I can cook quesadillas. I was only going to make them for myself, but when Sim catches me in the kitchen, she jumps in to help, and before I know it, we’re feeding the entire house. I take my food up to my room, and after I finish, I wait up there until the house starts to quiet for the night. Sim comes in around 10:00 and is in bed asleep by 10:20. I wait five more minutes before tiptoeing out of the room and down the stairs.
I’m not trying to hide where I’m going. I’d just prefer not to have prying eyes and ears on me and Maverick. It’s hard enough acting like I’m not crazy attracted to him when we’re alone. Having an audience would probably turn me into a bumbling fool. I want to come across as cool and smooth and likeable. Not klutzy and awkward and weird.
He’s already there waiting for me when I get to the game room, and thank heavens, he’s alone. But instead of waiting near the pool table, he’s sprawled casually on the couch. He takes up the entire center cushion, and his legs stretch out in front of him for miles. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s leaned his head back to rest against the cushion behind him, eyes closed. Long dark lashes rest against high cheekbones, and the smooth lines of his face are relaxed, almost peaceful.
He doesn’t open his eyes as I approach, but I take the way his fingers twitch on his legs as a sign that he’s aware of my presence as surely as I’m aware of his. It isn’t until I sit down on the edge of the cushion next to him that he straightens into a more social position. But now that he’s facing me, I almost wish he were still resting his head back so I could check him out without him noticing.
“Did you still want to play?” I point over my shoulder toward the pool table. I try to ignore the way every cell in my body is hyper-focused on him, on how close we are.
“You’re learning to play chess, right? Want to play that instead?”
He knows Sim is teaching me chess? I guess he pays more attention to me than I thought. I bite back a smile. “Sure, okay.”
Sitting across a chess board from Maverick is infinitely safer than sitting next to him on the couch.
“Do you want first move?” he offers.
I shake my head. “I’m not ready for that kind of pressure.”
He laughs and reaches for a pawn, slides it to the next square. “Thank you for the other day.”
I pretend to study the board while I wrack my brain trying to figure out what exactly he’s thanking me for. Maybe our almost conversation in the living room a few days ago? “What do you mean?” I push a pawn one space.
“When you stood up for Prodigy.” He moves his rook.
Dinner, almost a week ago. But he wasn’t there with us. “You heard about that?” I mirror his move with the rook.
“I was in the kitchen for most of it.”
He heard firsthand. “Is that why you helped me today?” Is the only reason we’re hanging out right now because I said something nice about his dead roommate? The possibility stings.
“Partly.” He jumps a knight. “What you said got me thinking.”
“Oh?” Hopefully not the part where I refused to calm down and called Hazard a jerk. I shove another pawn into the next available spot.
“You said we needed to support each other.”
I did say that. “Yeah.”
He slides another pawn out. “You seemed like you could use a little help today. And in the end, six of us are going to make it through. I’d rather win with people I like than see people like Hazard get through.”
“Who do you like?” I bite my tongue as soon as the question is out. The words made it to my mouth before my filter did. I didn’t mean to be that bold.
“Well, you of course. You seem like a pretty decent person.”
My stomach does a little flip. Yeah, I get that he just means likes me as in doesn’t dislike me, but the idea still fills me with a warm, giddy feeling. I bite back a smile and move my first pawn out another square. “So, basically… you’re helping me so that people like Hazard don’t win.”
Despite the implication that he might think I can’t make it on my own, I’ll take the help. Nothing can be hurt by accepting his help except my pride, and where had pride ever gotten me anyway? Nowhere good.
He nods and moves again. We play for several minutes in silence, long enough for me to realize he’s much better at chess than I am. Soon, he’s not just moving his pieces, he’s collecting mine right off the board.
“How’s your profile coming?” he asks, finally.
My move. “I don’t really know. Recall and I just spent the afternoon making notes about what we saw in the staged apartment. We’re going to try to put it all together into a profile tomorrow morning, I think.” I don’t mention the fact that while Recall can recount in exacting detail everything he saw in that apartment, he isn’t very good at applying human behavior to the evidence. Like the blood stain across the sheet. He struggled with how it might have happened, even though the fact that it was there because the victim crawled across the bed was clear as day to me.
“Aspect thinks it was staged to implicate the lover.” He moves his queen, then pulls a folded paper from his pocket and sets it on the table next to the chessboard.
I move mine. For no real reason except that he’s moved his. “Isn’t he the obvious choice, though?” I take the paper and peek under the folds. It’s a profile, or most of one. It’s not quite finished, but there’s enough info there to give me a good start on mine.
“Sometimes the obvious choice isn’t the right choice.” His tone is filled with meaning, and I lift my gaze from the game to make eye contact. His eyes are bright and warm, and, for a brief moment, I think he might be trying to insinuate something entirely more intimate than how I should profile the offender in our mock murder. “Checkmate.”
“Huh?”
He indicates the board with a look, and I follow. He’s trapped my king. Checkmate indeed.
“Anyway, I’m going to get to bed.” He stands and makes short work of replacing the pieces on the board. “Think about what I said. It might be beneficial to help each other out occasionally.” Then he leaves the room.
He didn’t outright ask me to work together like Ghost did, but I have the distinct impression that’s what he’s hoping for. Can I ally with both of them? Can I work with Maverick and still be true to my alliance with Ghost? And if I can’t, which one will I choose?
#
The morning starts just like any other, and I follow my housemates into the training room resigned to another day of busting my butt to maintain my place in a program I’m still not even sure I want to be in.
Our group is the first one there, so we have a front-row seat when Team Matrix files in. Or most of them anyway. Their group is noticeably smaller than previous mornings, and they all wear matching wide-eyed expressions of barely contained panic. Matrix’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips speak volumes. She’s livid. Her muscles are rigid with anger as she moves to converse quietly with the other instructors at the front of the room. They bend heads over a shared tablet and speak in heated but hushed tones, their words too soft to hold up across the space between them and us. All I can make out are garbled syllables and a lot of irritation.
When they step apart, it’s so that Matrix, Sever, and Ruger can storm from the room with purpose. Wraith turns to us, and I feel myself wilt under the weight of her scowl. “Line up, recruits. Time to run. Last five recruits back to the house lose twenty points on the board.”
As if someone has fired a starting pistol, we all scramble toward the door and effect a jagged single-file line. I’m too close to the back for comfort and made even more nervous about my position when Ghost turns from his spot at the front to send me a look of sympathy.
Wraith leads us out of the house and onto the road before yelling, “Get moving, recruits.”
And we take off.
Powered by the threat of losing points, I manage to hold my own through the run. Legacy laps me at the one-third mark and a steady line of recruits trickles by in the minutes that follow, but when I round the half-way point and start the return journey, I catch sight of Maverick not too far ahead. Walking. He passed me on his way back to the houses long enough ago that he shouldn’t still be this close to the mid-way point. I push harder and jog up next to him.
As soon as I come alongside him, he lunges into a solid jog as well.
“Losing steam?” I ask with a hint of a tease in my voice. Of the two of us, he isn’t the one who would be in need of a break after just a few miles.
He slants a quizzical look in my direction. “Something like that.”
We don’t talk the whole way back, but Maverick keeps perfect pace with me, urging me on just with his presence beside me. Luckily for both of us, we’re not in the final five and neither of us loses murder board points. Would Maverick have stayed back with me even if I was one of the laggards? Would he have risked losing points just to keep me moving forward? Something tells me yes, but I don’t unpack the little thrill of emotion that zings through me at the idea. I feel a twinge of guilt at the knowledge that he keeps helping me, but I have yet to return the favor. As it stands, I have very little to offer him in return.
When we file back into the training room, the missing three members of Team Matrix are there in the middle of the room—Aspect, Anomaly, and Mirage—looking haggard and shell-shocked. Their black clothes are dusty and snagged with dry twigs in places.
The moment my gaze lands on them, my stomach sinks like a stone. I know exactly what happened. They tried to escape. And failed.
My brain races back to our first day in The Program, and Ruger’s words echo in my ears like a bad omen. You all stay, or none of you stay.
Are we all going to wash out of The Program because these three fools decided to make a run for it?
But as we all take our single-file places along the back wall, none of the instructors says anything. When we’re all finally settled, Wraith taps the tablet in her hands and the murder board rankings shuffle. Everyone moves up. Except the attempted runaways. They drop to the very bottom, their scores at least ten points lower than anyone else on the board.
I breathe out in relief. We aren’t all washing out.
And the change in rankings is the only acknowledgement that anyone tried to make a break for it. Aspect, Anomaly, and Mirage are suitably shamefaced, heads lowered, shoulders slumped, and I take their discomposure to mean the instructors have already said everything in private.
“All right, recruits. It’s time for today’s assessment. Hopefully, some of you do well enough to offset your current scores.” Wraith looks pointedly at each of the runners before returning her attention to the tablet she’s holding.
As teams are called out of the room to give their reports to Wraith, Ruger, and Matrix, with Sever standing guard over the rest of us, I mull over everything I know. I have zero confidence in the profile Recall and I put together, but I take Maverick’s word for it and profile the offender as a white male, mid-forties. A professional: doctor, lawyer, or the like. Married. Above average IQ. Organized. Not a crime of passion.
“It looks like a heated argument took place, likely between the victim and her fiancé. The evidence suggests things got out of hand and turned physical, and he killed her,” I tell the instructors when Recall and I stand alone before them in the living room. But that doesn’t sit right. Maverick’s words from last night come back to me: sometimes the obvious choice isn’t the right choice. And then my mind flashes back to Recall checking out the framed photos. “But I don’t think that’s what happened.”
To his credit, Recall doesn’t look at all shocked by my sudden deviation from our agreed upon profile.
“Why do you think that?” Ruger asks.
I have to think for a minute, but finally, I put my finger on what felt off about the scene. “The pictures in the living room were untouched except for one. The picture of the fiancé was cracked, like someone hit it. It doesn’t make sense that the killer would feel anger over his own photo.” As I picture the apartment in my mind, more details start to fall into place, and I continue, “The bedroom looks like the victim fought back tooth and nail. Every mirrored drawer front on the dresser was cracked in the center and even the tall mirror itself was broken. And then there was the chair under the window.”
I have their full attention. All three instructors sit straight in their seats watching me intently. I take a deep breath. “Statistically speaking, even when people are trying to achieve chaos, manufactured chaos still has some semblance of order. It’s just how the human brain works. The fact that each and every drawer was broken, and not just broken, but cracked at the center, and the chair was cut open very close to the middle of the cushion, makes it likely that this was staged. And not just by you guys recreating the scene, but the original scene as well.”
“So, who do you think did it?” Wraith asks.
“I don’t think we should be looking at the victim’s network.” All eyes are on me, watching, waiting for more, and I shift a little, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. I’ve never been the center-of-attention type. But I press forward. “It’s more likely the killer was trying to hurt the fiancé and the victim was just collateral damage. I think the plan was to hurt him by killing her and framing him for her death. It would be worth exploring any enemies or anyone with a grudge against him, particularly past romantic partners.”
Wraith smiles, and Matrix looks down at her tablet thoughtfully. Ruger is unreadable. “Thank you, recruits. Please return to the training room”
Recall and I make the short trek back to the training room in silence. I consider opening up a line of conversation, but he seems content to simply look at the walls, the floor, his feet, as we walk, so I stay silent. When we get to the training room, it’s just as quiet as my walk with Recall. No one is speaking, or even looking at one another, and Sever stands guard at the front of the room providing all the visual intimidation I need to follow suit.
I find an open spot along the far wall and sit down to wait in the obviously forced silence.
Forty-five minutes later, all remaining teams have presented their profiles, and the instructors return to the room to tell us what really happened. Turns out, it wasn’t a crazy ex-girlfriend, but rather a jealous neighbor whose advances the fiancé had spurned. I was close, close enough to come in fifth again this week, right above Recall, who is above Cipher.
Legacy is in the top spot. Whichever parent of hers who was in the program must have made sure she was well-versed in profiling. Right below Legacy is her partner, Mirage. Then Maverick and Ghost. Just like last week, I scan down the list until I get to Sim. Seventeen. My heart drops to my feet. She’s dangerously close to the line. One number lower and she would be going home right now. But she’s not. I send up a small prayer of thanks that she’s still above the line, and add in a request that she improve before the next assessment so she isn’t cut.
Tonight, it’s Shadow, Ammo, and Augur. I want to question why the runaways aren’t being sent home. Hadn’t they said on the first day that anyone trying to escape would automatically be cut, that we would all wash out? But there they are, here they all still are, standing in line like naughty children waiting for punishment. But as much as I want to be bitter toward them, I can’t. Because at least this week, everyone is alive, and all I feel is relief.