“Is that a text, or are you just happy to see me?” I say, brushing off my screen. Then I glance down and catch my breath. “Ugh, are you kidding me? This again?”
“What?” Brandon asks, pulling out his own phone.
“Unknown number, and guess what it says?” I put on an affected voice. “Still missing About That? I know I am. Let’s play a new game. I can’t believe somebody would pull this crap after Principal Gupta’s warning.”
Brandon’s eyes flick over his screen. “I got the same thing. You see the link?”
“Yeah. Don’t click it! It’s probably a virus or—”
“Too late,” Brandon laughs. He squints at his phone while I take him in: over six feet tall with dirty-blond hair, blue-green eyes, and the kind of full lips a girl would kill for. He’s so pretty, he looks like he could fly off with a harp any second. And nobody knows it more than he does. “Jesus, this is a freaking book,” he complains.
“Let me see.” I grab his phone, because no way am I following that link with mine. I angle the screen away from the sun until I can see it clearly. I’m looking at a website with a bad replica of the About That logo, and a big block of text beneath it. “Pay attention, Bayview High. I’m only going to explain the rules once,” I read. “Here’s how we play Truth or Dare. I’ll send a prompt to one person only—and you can’t tell ANYONE if it’s you. Don’t spoil the element of surprise. It makes me cranky, and I’m not nearly as nice when I’m cranky. You get 24 hours to text your choice back. Pick Truth, and I’ll reveal one of your secrets. Pick Dare, and I’ll give you a challenge. Either way, we’ll have a little fun and relieve the monotony of our tedious existence.”
Brandon runs a hand through his thick, tawny hair. “Speak for yourself, loser.”
“Come on, Bayview, you know you’ve missed this.” I scowl when I finish. “Do you think this went to everyone at school? People better not say anything if they want to keep their phones.” Last fall, after Principal Gupta shut down the latest Simon copycat, she told us she was instituting a zero-tolerance policy: if she saw even a hint of another About That, she’d ban phones at school permanently. And expel anyone caught trying to bring one in.
We’ve all been model citizens since then, at least when it comes to online gossip. Nobody can imagine getting through a school day—never mind years—without their phones.
“No one cares. It’s old news,” Brandon says dismissively. He pockets his phone and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me close. “So where were we?”
I’m still holding my own phone, pressed against his chest now, and it chimes in my hand before I can answer. When I pull my head back to look at the screen, there’s another message from an unknown contact. But this time, there’s no simultaneous text tone from Brandon’s pocket.
Phoebe Lawton, you’re up first! Text back your choice: Should I reveal a Truth, or will you take a Dare?
CHAPTER THREE
Knox
Wednesday, February 19
I scan the half-off clothing rack next to me with a feeling of existential dread. I hate department stores. They’re too bright, too loud, and too crammed full of junk that nobody needs. Whenever I’m forced to spend time in one I start thinking about how consumer culture is just one long, expensive, planet-killing distraction from the fact that we’re all going to die eventually.
Then I suck down the last of my six-dollar iced coffee, because I’m nothing if not a willing participant in the charade.
“That’ll be forty-two sixty, hon,” the woman behind the counter says when it’s my turn. I’m picking up a new wallet for my mother, and I hope I got it right. Even with her detailed written instructions, it still looks like twelve other black wallets. I spent too long debating between them, and now I’m running late for work.
It probably doesn’t matter, since Eli Kleinfelter doesn’t pay me or, most days, even notice I’m there. Still, I pick up my pace after leaving the Bayview Mall, following a sidewalk behind the building until it narrows to nothing but asphalt. Then, after a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one’s watching, I approach the flimsy chain-link fence surrounding an empty construction site.
There’s supposed to be a new parking garage going into the hillside behind the mall, but the company building it went bankrupt after they’d started. A bunch of construction companies are bidding to take over, including my dad’s. Until then, the site is cutting off what used to be a path between the mall and Bayview Center. Now you have to walk all the way around the building and down a main road, which takes ten times as long.
Unless you do what I’m about to do.
I duck under a giant gap in the fence and skirt around a half-dozen orange-and-white barrels until I’m overlooking a partially constructed garage and what was supposed to become its roof. The whole thing is covered with thick plastic tarp, except for a wooden landing with a set of metal stairs along one side, leading to part of the hill that hasn’t been dug into yet.
I don’t know who at Bayview High first had the bright idea to jump the five-foot drop onto the landing, but now it’s a well-known shortcut from the mall to downtown. Which, to be clear, my dad would kill me for taking. But he’s not here and even if he were, he pays less attention to me than Eli does. So I brace myself against one of the construction barrels and look down.
There’s just one problem.
It’s not that I’m afraid of heights. It’s more that I have a preference for firm ground. When I played Peter Pan at drama camp last summer, I got so freaked out about getting flown around on a pulley that they had to lower me to barely two feet off the stage. “You’re not flying, Knox,” the production manager grumbled every time I swung past him. “You’re skimming at best.”
All right. I’m afraid of heights. But I’m trying to get over it. I stare down at the wooden planks below me. They look twenty feet away. Did someone lower the roof?
“It’s a great day for someone to die. Just not me,” I mutter like I’m Dax Reaper, the most ruthless bounty hunter in Bounty Wars. Because the only way I can make this nervous hovering even more pathetic is to quote a video game character.
I can’t do it. Not a real jump, anyway. I sit at the edge, squeeze my eyes shut, and push off so that I slither down the last few feet like a cowardly snake. I land awkwardly, wincing on impact and stumbling across the uneven wooden planks. Athletic, I am not.
I manage to regain my balance and limp toward the stairs. The lightweight metal clangs loudly with every step as I make my way down. I heave a sigh of relief once I hit solid ground and follow what’s left of the hillside path to the bottom fence. People used to climb over it until somebody broke the lock. I slip through the gate and into the tree grove at the edge of Bayview Center. The number 11 bus to downtown San Diego is idling at the depot in front of Town Hall, and I jog across the street to the still-open doors.