One of Us Is Next (6 page)

What’s going to happen now?

Knox

Saturday, February 22

I’m about to kill my sister.

“Sorry, Kiersten, but you’re in my way.” With a flick of my thumb on the controller, Kiersten’s
Bounty Wars
avatar crumples to the ground, blood gushing from her neck. My sister blinks, fruitlessly presses a few buttons, and turns to me with an incredulous scowl.

“Did you just
slit my throat
?” She glares at the television screen as Dax Reaper steps over her lifeless body. “I thought we were working together!” Our geriatric golden retriever, Fritz, who’d been half-asleep at Kiersten’s feet, lifts his head and lets out a wheezy snort.

“We were,” I say, taking one hand off my controller to scratch between Fritz’s ears. “But you outlived your usefulness.”

Dax agrees with me on-screen. “It’s a good day for someone to die,” he growls, sheathing his knife and flexing his muscles. “Just not me.”

Kiersten makes a face. “This game is vile. And I’m starving.” She’s sitting next to me on our basement sofa and shifts closer to nudge my knee with hers. Kiersten lives an hour away and doesn’t usually spend her Saturdays with us, but her girlfriend is teaching in Japan for six weeks and she’s at loose ends. “Come on, pause your ridiculously buff alter ego and get some lunch with me.”

“You mean my doppelgänger,” I say. “The resemblance is uncanny.” I put down my controller and flex one arm, then instantly wish I hadn’t. What’s the opposite of
ridiculously buff
? Pathetically spindly? Kiersten and I look the most alike of any of our siblings, down to our spiky short hair, but she has much better muscle tone from rowing crew on the weekends. Usually, I try not to call attention to that fact.

Kiersten ignores my sorry excuse for a joke. “What are you in the mood to eat?” She holds up her hand before I can speak. “Please don’t say fast food. I’m ancient, remember? I need a glass of wine and some vegetables.” Kiersten is thirty, the oldest of my four sisters. They were all born one right after the other, and then my parents thought they were done until I showed up a decade later. My sisters treated me like a living doll for years, carrying me around so much that I didn’t bother learning to walk until I was almost two.

“Wing Zone,” I say instantly. It’s a Bayview institution, famous for its extra-hot wings and a giant inflatable chicken on the roof. Now that Bayview’s getting trendy, new people are starting to grumble that the chicken is tacky and “doesn’t fit the town aesthetic.” Direct quote from a letter to the editor in last week’s
Bayview Blade.
So the Wing Zone owners are doubling down; on Valentine’s Day, they strung a garland of blinking red neon hearts around its neck that still hasn’t come off. That’s some professional-level petty, and I’m all for it.

“Wing Zone?” Kiersten frowns as we head for the basement stairs, Fritz padding behind us. “Didn’t I just specifically request vegetables?”

“They have celery sticks.”

“Those don’t count. They’re ninety-nine percent water.”

“And coleslaw.”

“One hundred percent mayonnaise.”

“The lemon-pepper wings have…citrus?”

“Here’s a life lesson for you, Knox. Fake fruit flavoring is not, and never will be, a vegetable.” Kiersten looks back at me as she opens the basement door, and I give her the kind of hopeful, ingratiating smile that works on absolutely nobody except my sisters. “Ugh, fine,” she groans. “But you owe me.”

“Sure,” I say. She’s never going to collect, though. That’s the upside of having sisters who think they’re your mom.

Our basement opens into the kitchen, and when we get upstairs my dad’s sitting at the table, hunched over some paperwork. He looks a lot more like Dax Reaper than I do. Now that he owns his own company Dad doesn’t necessarily
have
to do hands-on construction work, but he still does, which makes him the most in-shape guy in his fifties I know. He glances up, and his eyes flick past me—the boring kid who still lives at home—and twinkle at Kiersten.

“Didn’t know you were still here,” he says. Fritz, who’s always liked my alpha male father better than anybody, leans adoringly against his chair.

She sighs. “Knox roped me into video game hell.”

Dad frowns, because he thinks video games are a waste of time. As opposed to actual sportsball games, which he’d love for me to play. But he just waves the folder he’s holding at me and says, “I’ll leave this for you to take to work on Monday.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“Letter of intent. We’re gonna hire a couple of the D’Agostino exonerees,” he says. “I got a packet in the mail the other day from Until Proven.”

Great, except he didn’t get it in the mail. I brought it home and put it on his desk. With a
note.
Which, I guess, he never even noticed.

Kiersten beams. “Fantastic, Dad! Way to set an example for local businesses.”

My father and Kiersten are a strangely amicable pair. He’s this conservative, macho, old-school guy who somehow gets along better with my bleeding-heart lesbian sister than he does with anyone else. Maybe because they’re both athletic, take-charge, self-starter types. “Well, it’s worked out well so far,” Dad says, pushing the folder to one corner of the table. “Nate’s a good worker. And you know, he got A’s in both the classes we covered last semester. Kid’s a lot brighter than he gets credit for.”

I mean, he gets plenty of credit in this house. But okay.

“It’s so great that you’re doing that for him,” Kiersten says, and the genuine warmth in her tone makes me feel like a prick. I don’t have anything against Nate, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s the son my father
wishes
he had. I grab my sweatshirt from the chair where I dropped it earlier, pulling it on as Kiersten adds, “Want to come to lunch, Dad? We’re getting wings.” She only grimaces a little on the last word.

“No thanks. I need to get back to work and finish up our proposal for the mall parking garage. It’s been sitting empty for much too long and frankly, it’s both an eyesore and a hazard.” He frowns and turns back to me. “One of my guys said he heard a rumor that kids have been cutting through the site. You seen anything like that, Knox?”

“What? No. Definitely not!” I practically yell it, way too loudly and emphatically. God, my father makes me nervous. His frown deepens, and Kiersten tugs on my arm.

“All right, we’re off. See you later!” We’re through the front door and halfway down the driveway before she speaks again. “Work on your poker face, Knox,” she mutters, pulling a set of keys out of her bag and aiming them at her silver Civic. “And stop taking shortcuts through abandoned construction sites.”

It’s a sunny but cool Saturday. I pull the hood of my sweatshirt up as I slide into the passenger seat. “It was just a couple times.”

“Still,” Kiersten says, climbing in beside me. “It’s my duty as your significantly older sibling to remind you how Not Safe that is. Consider yourself warned.” She turns the motor, and we both wince as music blasts through the car at top volume. I always forget how loudly Kiersten plays her radio when she drives alone. “Sorry,” she says, turning it down. She glances into the rearview mirror and starts to back out of our driveway. “So, I barely got to talk to you during that creepy bounty hunter game. It’s still bullshit that you killed me, by the way. Not over it. But what’s new with you? How’s the job, how’s the play, how’s school?”

“It’s all good. Well, pretty good.”

She taps the blinker and prepares to turn out of our road. “Why only pretty good?”

I’m not sure where to start. But I don’t have to, because Kiersten’s phone rings. “Hang on,” she says, her foot still on the brake as she roots through her bag. “It’s Katie,” she says, handing me the phone. “Put her on speaker, would you?” I do, and Kiersten calls, “Hey, Katie. I’m in the car with Knox. What’s up?”

My second-oldest sister’s voice, tinny from the speaker, starts ranting about something that’s pink but was supposed to be peach. Or maybe it’s the other way around. “Katie, stop,” Kiersten says, inching onto the main road that will take us to Bayview Center. “I can’t even understand you. Is this about…flowers? Okay, Bridezilla, let’s take it down a few notches.”

I tune them out, unlocking my own phone with a prickle of anticipation. Like everybody else at Bayview High this weekend, I’ve been waiting for a text from Unknown. But there’s been nothing. I’m guessing whoever their target was decided to take the Dare, and now I don’t know what to expect. It’s new territory. Simon never bothered with that kind of gamesmanship.

Is it wrong that I’m kind of…I don’t know,
interested
? I shouldn’t be, after what happened to Phoebe. Not to mention last year’s months-long shit show. But there’s a video game quality to all this that has me weirdly hooked. Like, I could just block texts from Unknown and be done with it, but I don’t. Hardly anyone at Bayview High has, as far as I can tell. What did Lucy Chen call us at lunch the other day?
A high-risk population.
Conditioned to respond to the right kind of prompt like overstimulated lab rats.

Or lemmings. That was Simon’s preferred term.

A text from Maeve pops up while I’m scrolling.
Hey, a bunch of us are getting together Friday when Bronwyn’s in town. You in?

Maybe,
I reply.
Is it spring break?

No, she’s just here for the weekend. Ashton’s bachelorette party. Also, we’re seeing Into the Woods.
She adds the grimacing emoji, and I send three of them back. I’m already sick of that play, and we’re still weeks away from performing it. My singing range is microscopic, but I ended up with a lead role anyway because I’m one of the only guys in drama club. Now my throat hurts constantly from all the straining, plus rehearsals are messing with my Until Proven work schedule.

It’s weird, and kind of uncomfortable, to realize you might’ve started outgrowing a thing that used to almost be your whole life. Especially if you’re not sure what else to do with yourself. It’s not like I’m tearing it up at school, or work. My biggest contribution at Until Proven so far is seconding Sandeep’s suggestions for the conference room names. But I like it there. I’d intern more hours if I had the time.

We’re in downtown Bayview before Katie finally hangs up. Kiersten shoots me an apologetic glance as she pulls into a parking lot across the street from Wing Zone. “Sorry we got interrupted by a quote, floral emergency, unquote. Which is not a thing. Who’ve you been texting while I was ignoring you?”

“Maeve,” I say. The battery on my phone is almost dead, so I shut it off and put it back into my pocket.

“Ah, Maeve.” Kiersten sighs nostalgically. “The one that got away.” She pulls into a spot and cuts the engine. “From me, I mean. I was shipping you two hard. I had your couple name picked out and everything. Did I ever tell you that? It was Knaeve.” I groan as I open my door. “But you seem fine.
Are
you fine? Do you want to talk about it?”

She always asks that, and I never accept. “Of course I’m fine. We broke up a long time ago.”

We exit the car and head for an opening in the parking lot gate. “I know, I know,” Kiersten says. “I just don’t understand
why.
You guys were perfect for each other!”

It’s times like these that, as great as my sisters are, I kind of wish I had an older brother. Or a close guy friend who liked girls. Maeve and I weren’t perfect, but that’s not a conversation I know how to open up with Kiersten. I don’t know how to open it up with anyone. “We’re better as friends,” I say.

“Well, I think it’s great that…Huh.” Kiersten stops so suddenly that I almost bump into her. “What’s with the crowd? Is it always this busy on a Saturday?”

We’re within sight of the restaurant, and she’s right—the sidewalk is packed. “No, never,” I say, and a guy in front of me turns at my voice. For a second, I don’t recognize him, because I’ve never seen him outside of school. But there’s no mistaking Matthias Schroeder, even out of context. He looks like a scarecrow: tall and thin with baggy clothes, wispy blond hair, and strangely dark eyes. I find myself peering at them too closely, wondering if they’re real or contact lenses. “Hi, Knox,” he says tonelessly. “It’s the chicken.”

“Huh?” I ask. Is he speaking in code? Am I supposed to reply
The crow flies at midnight
or something? Kiersten waits expectantly, like I’m about to introduce her, but I don’t know what to say.
This is Matthias. He got suspended for copycatting Simon Kelleher last fall. We’ve never spoken before. Awkward, right?

Matthias points upward with one long, pale finger. I follow his gaze to Wing Zone’s roof, and then I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner. The inflatable chicken’s red heart necklace is finally gone—and so is its head. Well, it’s probably still there, but somebody’s stuck what looks like the head of the Bayview Wildcat mascot costume onto its neck. Now the whole thing has turned into some kind of freaky oversized cat-chicken, and I can’t look away. I snort but choke back a full-on laugh when I catch Kiersten’s exasperated expression.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she mutters. “Why would someone do that?”

“Yuppie revenge?” I ask, but then immediately reject the idea. The kind of people who complain about an inflatable chicken lowering their real estate values aren’t going to be any happier about this.

“You don’t get it?” Matthias asks. He looks hard at me, and God, that kid is weird. I can practically hear Maeve saying
He’s just lonely,
which might be true, but it’s
also
true that he’s weird. Sometimes things are related, is my point.

My stomach growls. It knows we’re in close proximity to wings and it’s not happy about the delay. “Get what?” I ask impatiently.

“Always take the Dare, right?” Matthias says. He gives me this stiff little salute and turns on his heel, slipping through the crowd.

Kiersten looks mystified. “What’s his deal?”

“Beats me,” I say distractedly, pulling out my phone to turn it back on. There are two texts waiting from Unknown:

DARE: Put the Bayview Wildcat mascot’s head onto the Wing Zone chicken.

STATUS: Achieved by Sean Murdock. Congratulations, Sean. Nice work.