CHAPTER 21

AS PROMISED, THE NEW ROOM assignments are posted on the wall at the top of the stairs. Mine hasn’t changed; I’m still with Sim. My relief is solid, tangible. Sim is remarkably easy to room with. I’m glad I won’t be losing her. Although, from the looks of the list, my fear of being switched to a new roomie was unfounded. They seem to have just thrown Team Matrix into beds left empty by eliminated Team Sever recruits. And one murdered one: Cipher is rooming with Maverick in Prodigy’s old bed.

It doesn’t escape my attention that Prodigy wasn’t even here a week—he’s been gone longer than he was here—and I still think of that second bed in Maverick’s room as Prodigy’s bed. But if they had to fill Prodigy’s bed, I’m just glad it wasn’t Ghost. Do they know? I peek up at the camera overlooking the landing and silently hope the instructors don’t know I’m caught in some weird romantic triangle straight out of a teen movie. But, luckily, Ghost is bunking with Houdini. Hopefully, that will make it easier for me to find time alone with him to talk later.

For now, I bide my time. Sim and Houdini pair up to feed us all a hearty meal, laughing and in general looking pretty cozy together in the kitchen. Very domestic. I suspect there’s a budding romance there, but Sim hasn’t volunteered any information. And I’m not the prying type. Especially with someone whose real name I don’t even know. She’s a pretty cool roommate, but that doesn’t change the fact that who Sim really is… is a complete mystery to me. Just as I probably am to her.

Most of former Team Matrix joins us in the dining room for dinner, with the exception of Anomaly. I guess she’s not much of a people person. We pull in extra chairs from the game room, and Redux even ends up in an armchair borrowed from the living room. And here we are, one big happy team. Except, I’m halfway down the table and Maverick is at one end and Ghost at the other. And neither one will look at me. There are at least two other people between me and them, but this is like an awkward allegory of my feelings, for what my life has become.

The dinner conversation exists in a weird place too. Those of us who pray do so silently, and after that, the mood is somewhere between funeral somber and blind-date awkward. I tune out for most of it. Instead of participating, I watch my fellow diners. Of the original Sever thirteen, only eight of us remain: Legacy, Maverick, Houdini, Ammo, Bug, Hazard, Sim, and me. And one of us is a psychopathic killer, bent on passing The Program at any cost. I start a mental list using what I know.

I know it’s not me, unless I’ve suddenly sprouted a completely new personality—and thereby a new mental illness—in the last three weeks. And given the fact that I’m not missing any time or waking up in weird places with no memory of how I got there, Dissociative Identity Disorder seems like a pretty far-fetched theory. So, I think I can safely scratch myself off the list of suspects.

I like to think if my roommate were a killer, I’d be able to figure it out. Sim certainly doesn’t seem like the type. But… I am a pretty heavy sleeper, and she did know about the cameras—and possibly how to avoid them. I’ll leave her on the list but move her to the bottom.

Then there’s Maverick. My mind blanks at the suggestion that it could be him. I can’t reconcile the guy who kissed me like he worshipped me, the guy who was so broken up over the loss of his young roommate, with someone who would murder that very same roommate and another innocent girl. I move quickly onto the next person. Houdini is kind of a butt, but I’m not sure he’s the killing type. He’s more misguided bro than murderous nut. Legacy, maybe, but she seems more the type to confront her problems head on. Plus, in order to take out the competition, you have to admit to yourself there actually is competition, and I’m pretty sure she’s convinced she’s the best recruit here.

Bug, Hazard, Ammo, though… they’re great big question marks. I’ve spent very little time with any of them; I don’t really know how they feel about being here, what they think about the competition. If they have deadly inclinations. If I had to pick a favorite, though, it would probably be Hazard. The guy’s borderline sociopathic, best I can tell.

I decide to keep a close eye on him in particular.

As soon as dinner ends, I head up to my room and dig out my drawing supplies, but it’s not art on my mind. Sim will be downstairs with Houdini for quite a while, if the last several nights are any indication, and I intend to take advantage of the time alone in our room to organize my information, ideas, and theories.

I settle cross-legged in the middle of my mattress and open to a blank page in my sketch book. Here, I start by making a list of the remaining recruits. Then I cross off any original Team Matrix members. Mirage would have been easy pickings for someone on either team, but only Team Sever would have had the opportunity to get to Prodigy, since the houses are locked overnight. I don’t bother adding my own name to the list, or Sim or Maverick. I like to think that if my own roommate were a killer, I would know. At the very least, I would probably have woken up if she’d been sneaking out of the room in the middle of the night. And Maverick… I suppose he had opportunity to kill Mirage that night in the woods, but unless he missed his calling in Hollywood, he took Prodigy’s death way too hard to have been the one who murdered him.

My final list is Ammo, Bug, Houdini, Hazard, and Legacy. I hover my pencil over Ammo for a long minute. Prodigy was small, but Ammo made him look like a giant. I can’t envision any way she would have been able to heft his weight to make it look like he hanged himself. I leave her on the list but put a question mark next to her name.

I set the list down in front of me and stare at it, as if the answers are hidden somewhere on the page, written in invisible ink.

I’m still staring at the page when Sim comes in a few minutes later. I make a belated attempt to hide my list from her, then give up. It’s not like it matters; she knows exactly what I know: someone’s killing off the competition. And it’s not like her name is on the list anyway.

“Whatcha doin?” She sounds only half-interested in my answer, but I give it anyway.

“Making a suspect list.”

That gets her attention. She raises an eyebrow and shifts ever so slightly in my direction but doesn’t say anything at first.

I feel the need to fill the silence with what I’m sure she’s already figured out. “I’m running through the list of people who had opportunity to kill both Prodigy and Mirage.”

“What have you come up with?” She takes a half step forward, tentative, like she’s scared to see what I’ve written down. Is she worried she’s on it?

I push the page in her direction, and she lists toward it, leaning in but not stepping forward. “You’re not on it.”

She visibly sags, tension leaving her shoulders in one solid exhale. Then she reaches for the page, runs her finger down the list of names. Until she gets to one. Houdini. When she looks back up at me, it’s with wide eyes. Her expression is stricken with something uncomfortably like betrayal.

“Houdini wouldn’t do this.” She sounds so certain, and I realize the betrayal in her gaze isn’t because he might have done something so horrible as kill our fellow recruits. It’s because I think he could have.

“He could have. He had opportunity.” My voice is strong, assured, even though inside I’m wavering in my judgment of him.

“No. He definitely couldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that,” I challenge.

“I know that with the same certainty that you know I couldn’t have done it.”

I flinch. Maybe she’s right. I don’t really know for sure it wasn’t her, but she’s my roommate, and I think I know her well enough that I have given her the benefit of the doubt. But I can’t do the same for him, not simply based on her feelings for him.

“But I don’t know it, and this is my list.” I snatch it back from her so fast, the page tears a bit at the bottom. Sim winces and tucks the tip of her index finger into her mouth. When she removes it, a tiny crimson bead swells on the creamy skin. I’ve given her a papercut.

“Nice, Infinity. Real nice.” She storms into the bathroom, and a moment later, the shower turns on.

She doesn’t speak to me when she comes out twenty minutes later, won’t even look at me. I try to talk to her, to explain my reasoning, but Sim doesn’t acknowledge my presence the entire time she’s getting ready for bed, and when she climbs into bed, it’s with her face to the wall and her back to me. They should have code named her Silence for her mastery of the silent treatment. She’s a pro.

#

I spend the better part of the weekend watching Hazard, and even more time trying to corner Ghost with enough privacy to have a conversation about the things I said to him on Friday. One is easier than the other, and by Sunday afternoon, I’m relatively sure of two things: Hazard might be too oblivious to successfully murder someone and cover it up, and Ghost might be planning to avoid me forever. I’ve tried several times to get him into conversation and failed every time.

If I want to talk to him, I’m going to have to force it. With that in mind, I catch him in the kitchen, making himself a late lunch. “Hey, can we talk?” At first, he doesn’t look up or even acknowledge me. Maybe he’s planning to ignore me entirely. “Please?”

He sighs heavily and puts down the knife he was using to smear peanut butter onto his sandwich. “If you’ve come to lecture me again, save your breath. I already feel like dirt for what I said to Prodigy. But I never made any secret of why I was here. You knew I was willing to work outside the box to dominate. And the kid didn’t kill himself because of me, so… what else is there to talk about?” His golden-brown eyes are weighted with heavy emotion, and his voice cracks at the end.

He’s more hurt than angry, I realize. I can work with that. “I came to apologize.”

Something in his expression cracks and his vulnerability shows through. “Why?” His tone is considerably less accusatory.

“Because I feel bad. I made an assumption; I jumped to conclusions, and I shouldn’t have.” And I like you. I leave that last part out. It’s true, I like him, but I like Maverick, too, and I don’t need the mess that would come from him knowing how I feel. “Can you forgive me?”

He leaves the counter and approaches me, only stopping when there’s barely a few inches between us. “That depends.”

“On?” My lungs are tight, holding on to every last bit of air.

“Can you forgive me?” His eyes search mine.

“For what?” My question is a breath in the small space between us. Is he going to kiss me again? Do I want him to? Everything has changed since Thursday. A million years have passed. We aren’t the same two people. The memory of Maverick’s kiss overshadows the looming promise of Ghost’s lips on mine. Ultimately, I’d rather be kissing Maverick.

“For what I said to Prodigy.”

I already have.

“Dude, get a room!” Houdini drifts into the room with a basketball under one arm.

I’m not sure where he found sports equipment, but given how well this place is stocked, I’m not surprised. He pulls a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and leans against the counter to watch us while he drinks. Why is he always walking up on us when we’re in such close proximity? It’s like he has radar for it or something.

“Says the guy who follows Sim around like a puppy, drool and all.” Ghost takes a step back from me but is still closer than two people who weren’t just about to kiss would stand.

I take an extra step away from him for good measure, and not a moment too soon. Maverick, Redux, and Legacy follow Houdini’s trail into the room, but stop when they see him watching us. They’re layered in workout gear and sweat, probably from playing basketball with Houdini.

“You two look guilty as hell,” Redux announces, and Maverick’s face turns to stone. I stifle the urge to cringe.

“That’s because they are guilty as hell.” Houdini snorts. “Or at least guilty as sin.” He closes with a wink at me.

Maverick turns on his heel and walks out.

“Man, do you ever hear the words that come out of your mouth and immediately think, ‘Oops?’” Legacy looks out the doorway in the direction Maverick went, but she’s talking to Houdini.

“Nah, I pretty much forget what I say as soon as I’ve said it.” He chugs what’s left of his bottle of water and heads out of the kitchen with a shrug.

I’ve had enough discomfort for one day. I leave the kitchen as quickly as I can while effecting a casual air. I think I’m going to eat dinner in my room tonight. Maybe I’ll just stay up there forever.