“The game remains between iterations.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The Magician nodded. “I’m sure.”
“So, what do we do now?” Chloe asked.
“I’ll see if I can find out more about the current state of things surrounding the game,” the Magician said, “and you keep looking into everything connected to Scarpio and his phone.”
As the Magician was speaking, I thought I saw something through the window behind him—a gray pulsing form, swirling around in the clouds.
I shook my head and looked down at the floor. Not now.
“I have a friend who works at WorGames,” Baron said. “I could ask her if she knows anything about Scarpio or whatever.”
“That’s good,” the Magician said. “Anybody else with friends over there?”
“No,” Chloe said.
“K?” the Magician asked.
I shook my head again, then looked over at the wall behind Chloe. The strange shadows had changed direction and were now swirling toward her. I took a step closer, trying to position myself between Chloe and the creeping darkness moving across the wall. She looked at me and shook her head, confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. The shadows were suddenly gone.
“I might know a couple of people at WorGames,” the Magician said. “I’ll make some calls.” He stood up and handed back Scarpio’s phone.
Baron said he needed to go home, and Chloe was working until five. I told everyone I was going back to my place to see if I could dig up anything new on Tabitha Henry and the Jeff Goldblum attack video, but I really just wanted to sleep.
I was suddenly exhausted.
* * *
—
A green Dodge minivan sped through a busy intersection, windows down, music blasting. I recognized the song. I think it was Band of Horses, something from an album I used to listen to all the time, but I couldn’t pull the name.
A tall dark-haired woman with a miniature greyhound smiled at me as she stepped off the curb and started walking across the street, her little dog’s legs a furious blur as it hurried to keep pace.
I smiled at the dog and stepped off the curb a second later.
I could hear the Band of Horses song fading as the minivan moved away. The way the music echoed high among the skyscrapers in the distance reminded me of a soundtrack from the edge of a dream.
Suddenly, I felt a hand grab the collar of my jacket and yank me back. A split second later, a white Volvo station wagon sped through the amber light.
That car had come so close to hitting me that whoever was driving didn’t have time to honk.
I looked across the street.
The light hadn’t changed, and the woman with the greyhound hadn’t actually stepped off the curb.
She was the one who’d pulled me back onto the sidewalk and away from the oncoming station wagon.
“Thank you,” I said—and although my “thank you” was definitely genuine, it felt and sounded distant in my head, as if I were speaking through some kind of reverse megaphone from someplace far away. My voice was also clearly missing the requisite “holy shit I almost died” sense of urgency.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Her dog looked up at me, maybe wondering the same thing.
“I was thinking about something else,” I said, which wasn’t true. I couldn’t actually remember thinking about anything at all.
“You stepped in front of that car,” she said.
Did she think I just tried to kill myself?
I shook my head and forced a smile. “I was just distracted.”
“Maybe you should call someone?” she said, still slightly concerned, but clearly ready to move on with her day.
Saving my life—or, at the very least, saving me from a significant number of broken bones—would be an interesting story she’d repeat a few times throughout the day, probably adding a little extra drama each time she told it, but I could tell she was looking forward to the experience being over, especially if it turned out I actually was suicidal and was gearing up to try again.
“I’m good, thank you. Thanks so much,” I said, waving her away with a smile.
Thanks so much. I sounded like an asshole.
When the woman and her dog were safely across the street, I took a closer look at my surroundings.
Where the hell was I?
The world in front of my eyes appeared foreign, like a word I’d momentarily forgotten how to spell. I looked up at the closest street sign. I was standing on Nineteenth Avenue, directly across the street from a restaurant called The Kingfish Cafe.