So who’s the monster now?

A couple of hours later, I give up on homework. I can’t concentrate. My mind keeps going back to the aliens, the lobby, the weapons. Tyrone. Richelle.

Jackson.

I’m so mad at Luka for being stubborn. He doesn’t have to betray any secrets. I could stick to general questions and he could stick to one-word answers. I grab my phone, ready to tell him exactly that, when it hits me.

I don’t need Luka.

He won’t talk to me? Fine.

Richelle Kirkman from Philadelphia just might.

I log on and enter her name in the search engine. Richelle will talk to me. I know she will. Even if there’s some sort of edict against talking to anyone outside what Luka refers to as the game, Richelle isn’t an outsider. She’s as much part of it as I am. And if even the insiders aren’t supposed to discuss it, I’ll keep my questions generic. There must be something she’ll be willing to divulge.

My connection is slow, the little circle spinning and spinning. Come on. Come on.

Nothing. Three minutes’ worth of nothing.

“Dad,” I yell. “Dad, can you reset the modem? The connection’s slow.”

No answer. I run downstairs to Dad’s home office. He’s not there. I can hear him outside, running the mower over our too-long grass. Good, the neighbors were starting to give me pointed looks every time I left the house. I reset the modem. The row of lights flickers back on one by one.

Success. I do a little victory dance and pump my fist in the air.

I tear back up the stairs. I have a plan. A solution. I’ll get the answers I need. I am in control.

In that second it dawns on me that this is the most excited I’ve been about anything in ages. Gingerly, I feel around for the gray fog, sort of like a tongue poking at a sore tooth. It’s there, at the edge of my thoughts, but it’s hazy and weak rather than thick as pea soup.

A search for Richelle’s name pops up a bunch of results. A real estate agent. A funeral home. The third is a link to the census bureau. Strike one. Strike two. Strike three. But I’m not out because the fourth is a social network site. I click it and grin when her picture pops up. I did it. I found her. I’m back in control. I jump up and do another victory dance as I study the page—

I stop mid-dance and sink into the chair.

The page that popped up is wrong. My breath rushes out and I can’t get it back. I’m gasping, dizzy, my hand flying up, my fingers splaying over the screen.

I shake my head, but it doesn’t change anything.

On the left, there’s a picture of Richelle looking pretty much the way I saw her on Friday, wearing her cheer uniform, a smile on her face. Her hair’s different, tied back in a ponytail. But the sparkle in her eyes is the same.

Across the top of the page is a series of smaller pictures: one of Richelle with the squad, one in street clothes with friends, one with a couple that I assume are her parents, one with a small white dog. There’s no doubt I found the right person, but the words above the pictures are wrong: Richelle Kirkman’s Memorial Page.

I scan down, frantic.

In celebration of Richelle’s life . . .

Miss you, Rich. xox

Thinking about Richelle while I study for finals . . .

There’s post after post from her friends and family and even people who say they never met her but knew someone who knew someone who knew her.

And there’s a post with a brief article from the local paper, outlining the circumstances of her death. I scan it, then go back and read it in more detail. She fell to her death trying to save a little boy who’d climbed out on her neighbor’s roof. She managed to save him but not herself. I stare at it. Read it again. Two things jump out at me: the fact that Richelle was on a roof when she was scared of heights and the date of her death.

“No.” I don’t understand. According to this page, Richelle died more than seven months ago. “No,” I say again, louder. It’s not possible that she’s been dead all that time. It’s not possible that she’s dead at all. We were healed. Luka and I . . . we came back healed. That’s what’s supposed to happen when we get pulled back from the mission. Luka and Richelle said so.

But Richelle’s dead. Has been for seven months.

This can’t be right.

I open a new tab and search the word respawn. To generate or give rise to an entity or player after its death or destruction in the game.

Luka and I regenerated; we came back with nothing more than a couple of scrapes. And Luka said he’s been part of the game for over a year, getting pulled again and again. He’d been hurt and healed again and again. I was hurt and healed. We got hit by the truck; we respawned in the lobby. We were shot by the Drau; we respawned in real life. But every gash and break and scrape disappeared when we came back.

It isn’t a game. It’s a nightmare.

I close that tab and return to Richelle’s page. It makes no sense. Richelle can’t have been dead for— I look at the page and check the dates again.

How can she have been dead for seven months when I just saw her Friday? I talked to her. Laughed with her.

My recollections writhe and twist. The bracelet’s your con. The color’s your health. Don’t let it turn red.

Red.

Images flash through my thoughts like a strobe light: The truck’s bumper, stained with cherry-juice smears. Blood on the ground. Blood on Luka’s broken arm. Blood staining my jeans dark crimson.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold it together as I remember Luka’s look of horror when my con turned orange. And right before we got pulled back, Richelle’s screen was red. I saw it. We all saw it. They knew what it meant, but I didn’t. Oh God, I didn’t know.