by Jeanne Ryan
I peek at him from the corner of my eye. “Can I ask how you afford private school?”
He seems taken aback, but then nods as if he gets the reason for my question. His shoulders slump. “Financial aid. And I deliver a lot of pizzas. Cool, huh?”
I brush his arm. “I’m sorry you didn’t win your freedom.”
“Hell, any game that gives its players guns is probably not the kind that’ll ever really let you go free.”
Sydney clears her throat. When I glance back at her, her fingers quickly sign, He’s a keeper.
Something tells me she’s right. Everything Ian’s done tonight proves he’s a great guy, right? But what if it was all for show? What if his real dare was to break my heart, like Tommy said?
My head hurts. I should call my parents, but more than anything I want to close in on myself, to reclaim a sliver of the privacy I’ve lost. The rest of the ride sinks into silence until we reach Sydney’s house.
When she gets out, I do too.
I hang my head. “I’m so, so sorry about everything.”
She sighs. “I think I get why you signed up. The important thing is you saved us. We’re all good.”
I look up. Even though I doubt Ian can hear our soft voices from inside the car, she signs, sister.
I sign the same thing back to her and wait outside until she enters her front door.
Ian wants to drive me to my house, but I tell him to take me to my car at the bowling alley. Some stubborn part of me wants to end this night the way I started it, under my own control.
Back at the bowling alley, the neon lights have been turned off. No more Purity Promisers, no more Watchers. Just an almost empty lot that holds my car and a beat-up van.
Ian’s eyes look way older than they did when we met here all those hours ago. “How about I follow you home, just to make sure you get there okay?”
“That’s really sweet, but you’re just as tired as me. Go home and call me tomorrow. Or today, I guess. Once we’ve had some sleep.”
He grins. “I don’t have your phone number.”
There’s a whole world of folks who’ve seen me terrorized and knows my bra size, but my partner doesn’t even know my number. Crazy. We exchange digits.
He leans over and kisses me softly. “The one good thing about tonight is you.”
I nod and get out of the car, wanting to believe him, but fighting the nagging doubt that he’s being so sweet because there’s some kind of post-game prize involved. Maybe someone’s filming us from that van. Ugh. If this is life in the paranoid lane, it’s exhausting, but I’m too tired take the exit ramp right now. Guess I’ll find out Ian’s true feelings in time.
When all bets are off.
twenty-one
One month later
I am not a morning person, but I’m learning to be. The calmness of dawn offers a daily promise that all things will shift back to normal. But, like Schrödinger’s Cat, the only way to find out will be to poke my head out of the box. I wait until after I’ve eaten and dressed to turn on my phone, tempted to prolong the peacefulness for a moment longer, but eager to see if anything’s changed.
One message in particular catches my eye, but it’s almost lost among the hundreds of texts and dozens of connection requests. A typical day’s accumulation. Which means life’s still crazy. For now, I’ve got the attention of a whole bunch of people.
So I’ll use it.
I broadcast my weekly message to every new phone number and ThisIsMe page I’ve collected in the past seven days. Most people will probably ignore it, but some, hopefully enough, won’t.
DEAR WORLD,
I ALMOST GOT KILLED PLAYING NERVE, JUST SO THEY COULD MAKE A PROFIT. THEY THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH ABUSING PLAYERS BECAUSE NO ONE REALLY CARES AND NO ONE CAN FIND THEM. BUT THEY’RE WRONG.
THEY CAN’T HIDE, NOT FROM ALL OF US.
SO USE WHATEVER COMPUTER SKILLS YOU HAVE, WHATEVER SKILLS YOUR FRIENDS HAVE, AND HUNT THESE BASTARDS DOWN.
I DARE YOU!
After I send the message, I put away my phone, and won’t check messages until tomorrow morning if I can manage it. My Apparel Design teacher calls me a Luddite. I call it keeping my sanity.
I pull my hair into a ponytail and head for the garage. Although I’m grounded nights and weekends from now until I’m old enough to vote, I’m allowed to go out for morning exercise three times a week. So I get into my car and drive to a local trail, where a sensible gray Volvo waits for me.
Ian’s next to it doing quad stretches, dressed in athletic shorts and a T-shirt that show off tan, toned arms and legs. I’m getting a little buff myself from our regular workouts, and have decided that biceps make a lovely fashion accessory. When I reach Ian, we kiss for a long moment and then take our spots on a curb to tiptoe into calf stretches.
“We may have a hit,” I say, referring to the message on my phone earlier.
“On him or her?”
“Gayle, who’s real name is Jordan, if the facial recognition software is right.”
He smiles. “Yay, Tommy.”
After apologizing profusely, Tommy’s earned his way back into a wary friendship with me, and has been a big help in spearheading my fight against NERVE. I truly believe he had no idea things would go to the extremes they did. And it’s not like he was the only one who acted against character and better judgment that night.
Ian and I move to a tree next to the trail and lean against it for some more leg stretches before we take off running, settling into an easy pace. On the first week after the game, our morning jogs had been bombarded with Watchers, videoing us for their after-games and weird system of credits. Tommy even located a GPS tracker stuck to my car’s bumper.
The police haven’t helped much. Insufficient evidence, they say. The other players insist that the guns were plastic and the drinks were juice. I’m sure they’ve received some type of payoff for their cooperation. And the creepy investor, who had crashed the Purity Promisers’ event, isn’t saying anything either.
But we’re fighting back. And I’ve heard from a ton of folks who want to help, including a Watcher who captured video footage that included a brief snippet of our hosts in the grand prize round. It’s a video of a video, so the image is grainy, but Tommy did what he could to clean it up enough for facial recognition software to compare it against millions of other images on the Internet. Of course, Guy and Gayle were probably paid to entertain like the rest of us. But if there’s any way they can provide a lead to who the big money-makers are behind the game, it’s a lead worth pursuing.
Ian and I jog past a cluster of honeysuckle that scents the trail with the promise of summer. I breathe deeply but jump back when a skinny guy springs out from the next tree, pointing a camera.
Ian slams to a stop in front of him. “Dude! You don’t have to ambush us. If you’d have asked to take our picture, we would’ve let you.”
And it’s true, since we’ve learned an interesting rule about fame. Those who seem desperate for it are the people that others least want to see. So Ian and I make a point of posing for pictures when asked. The more we put ourselves out there, the less popular we hope to become.
But this guy didn’t ask. So he’ll get a consequence. Ian and I pull out our phones and start filming our Watcher.
He puts his hands in front of his face. “What’chya doing that for?”
Ian smiles. “It’s for a new site called LOOK WHO’S STALKING. Smile.”
The guy runs away, cussing. That worked better than usual. My own footage is probably shaky and blurry, since I’m still stuck with a piece of crap camera. But there are worse things than dealing with lousy video equipment.
A mile into the trail, we stop at a long wooden bench. Ian takes me onto his lap and pulls me into a kiss that’s warm and yummy, but I can’t help scanning the trees around us, wondering if we’re truly alone.
We’ve tried finding more privacy on our morning get-togethers, but both Ian’s house and mine are out
of the question. And even when we’ve parked in the most remote of locations, we’ve been interrupted by nut-jobs clinking their cameras against the windows. I can understand why that other player, Abigail, escaped to the backcountry of Virginia for a week. As much as I want to shut down NERVE, a tiny part of me hopes they’ll play the next round as scheduled this Saturday, if only to shift the focus to another set of players. It’s a terrible wish, I know.
When a pair of joggers passes us, we rise up to resume our run. The day promises to be clear and sunny. Maybe Syd and I can go out at lunchtime with some kids from the photography club to work on her headshots. And I’m using my free nights to work on my portfolio. To hell with NERVE; we’re making our own dreams come true.
All too soon, the workout’s over. Ian and I part with a long, slow kiss before I get into my car. As I drive off, I notice that the car smells like a diner, like someone’s been eating bacon in it. Did something come in through the vents? I quickly peek to make sure that no one’s hiding on the backseat. It’s empty, but I still feel a tiny quiver in my shoulders. Will this shaky feeling ever go away?
When I get home, Mom and Dad greet me with relieved smiles, the way they do every time I go running. I know it’s taken all of their willpower to trust me even this tiny bit, so I’m going to do what I can to earn it. One unexpected result of coming clean to them about what happened with NERVE is that they got a chance to see just how badly I want to live. I think they finally believe that what happened in the garage was an accident. Maybe if I’m really lucky, they’ll make an exception to my prison sentence so I can attend a Habitat for Humanity event with Ian next month.
Mom points to the hallway. “Did you order something? That was sitting outside when I went out to water the plants.”
As if I have the money for anything but saving for college. I check the table near the front door, where a package rests. It’s way too early in the morning for a delivery, isn’t it? Maybe it was out there since yesterday. The return address is printed with the gold-embossed name of a high-end department store in New York. The postmark is also from New York, so chances are good it isn’t a bomb. There goes my overactive paranoia again.
I open the box to find an inner box amidst a sea of biodegradable packing material. Inside, there’s a velvet bag with a designer logo that I recognize from hours of staring at it online. With shaky hands, I pull a pair of flamingo-colored shoes from the bag. The shoes that NERVE dangled in front of me for my dare in the coffee shop. That’s strange. They’d made it clear that I lost all of my winnings when I escaped from the grand prize dares. Is this some kind of mistake?
I find a little silver envelope tucked into one of the shoes. Inside is a note that causes me to kneel slowly onto the cold floor.
I’ll never get tired of watching you, and can’t wait to see you play again.
I stare at the shoes, which become uglier by the second. Well, some woman in a shelter is going to be walking around in style really soon. I get up to drop the shoes into Mom’s “donation” box. As I pass through the living room, I’m startled by a familiar sound. It’s my phone, summoning me. But not with my generic, chiming ring tone.
Instead it calls with the chanting of a spoiled child.
CURTAIN
Acknowledgments
I’ve had loads of help and encouragement to make this book happen. My heartfelt thanks to my family and friends, both near and far, who’ve cheered me on these many years as I’ve pursued this dream of novel-writing. Your support and excitement fueled me through many challenging days.
To my editor at Dial, Heather Alexander, whose guidance helped push this story farther and sharper than I thought possible. Also to Andrew Harwell, whose vision for Nerve influenced this book long after he left the project.
Many thanks to my agent extraordinaire, Ammi-Joan Paquette, whose keen eye and savvy input helped me whip this manuscript into shape, and whose cheerleading never wavers. Every writer should be so lucky.
A heap of thanks to my many critique partners, who’ve seen this story morph from its rough beginnings into something publishable. To my local writers group, who are ready to hash out ideas at a moment’s notice, and have been with me for five manuscripts (and counting!): Annika de Groot, Lee Harris, Christine Putnam and Lesley Reece. To my online critiquers who challenged me to find a better beginning for this story, which is how I ended up placing Vee in a theater: Kelly Dyksterhouse, Kristi Helvig (who also beta-read), Joanne Linden, Mary Louise Sanchez, and Niki Schoenfeldt.
To my sisters and niece who jumped in to read and provide input when I got angsty: Mary Ryan, Rachel Ryan and Madeline Anderson (whose surgically attached phone gave me the idea for a story where phones play such an integral role). To my brother-from-another-mother, Tim Beauchamp, whom I can call 24/7 to get input on whatever technical details are stumping me. In this book, it was gun usage. Any errors about firearms that may’ve ended up in the manuscript are my doing, not his.
One of my biggest champions from my very first manuscript was my dear friend Lisa Berglund, who KNEW I’d be published someday. The only cloud in the blue skies of that finally happening is that she isn’t here to celebrate with me. If there’s a book club in heaven, I’m sure she’s leading it.
Finally, thanks to my husband and kids, who’ve supported me through countless evenings where “Mom’s gotta go to the coffee shop and write.” They encourage me so much and are active participants in my writing, from drawing pictures of how they think a scene should look to debating story ideas. I love them beyond words. And by my calculations, owe about 1,509 home-cooked meals.
