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We’re almost to my car when my fingertips close around a small slip of paper in the pocket.
I skid to a stop and pull it out, my heart plummeting as I read and reread the name written on it. No. No, no, no. With my thumb, I trace the ink of the letters, trying to get them to make sense.
Rowan Roth.
12:05 a.m.
NEIL HAS MY name.
Neil has my name.
Neil hasn’t killed anyone, which means he’s had my name since the beginning of the game.
“Rowan?” he’s saying. Not “Artoo.” Because we’re not friends. We’re not whatever we almost became on that bench. “I keep wondering if Cooper was involved in the founding of Seattle somehow, or something else in Seattle history, maybe. I found this article about Frank B. Cooper, this guy who oversaw the building of new schools in Seattle neighborhoods. Could it be leading us to the first school in Seattle, or is that too circuitous? What do you think?”
My heart is pounding and oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I cannot think about Frank B. Cooper or Seattle schools right now. I rock back and forth on my heels, tugging at the straps of my backpack, my face on fire.
It is all of a sudden so obvious: when he acted fidgety after I saved him, how he didn’t pursue Carolyn Gao. He did this just so he could best me one last time. He played me, letting me into his house and his room, telling me his secrets and listening to mine. Just to rub it in when he kills me, even after we allied ourselves.
I can’t believe I was about to tell him that I had feelings for him.
I close my fist around the slip of paper. Slowly, I turn to face him, unclenching my hand, revealing my name.
We hover in that space for a few seconds, frozen.
The color drains from his face. “Oh. Shit,” he mutters. “I can explain that.”
“I’d really love to hear it.”
He rubs at his eyes, jostling his glasses. “I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t mean for you to find out.”
“Obviously,” I choke out. “Have you had me the whole time?”
With a miserable nod, he says, “Since Cinerama. Yeah. I should have told you. I just thought—I thought you wouldn’t trust me if you knew.”
Irony of ironies.
“So what was your plan? Keep it secret until the end, then surprise me because I already trusted you? Soften me up, get me to let my guard down?” I shake my head. More than anything, it’s about the loss of trust, not the grand prize. “You know it’s not about the money for me anymore. Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Well, congratufuckinglations. You got me. So go ahead. Kill me.”
I hold out my arm for him, indicating he should swipe the blue armband.
“That’s not what I—”
“Just do it, okay?” I grit out. We both stare at it. Lightly, I nudge his shoulder, but he doesn’t budge, like he is made of metal instead of skin and bones. “Stop talking to your shoes! At least look me in the eye.”
When he finally wrenches his eyes up to mine, my stomach drops. He looks more pained than he has all night.
“Rowan,” he says, voice quaking, clearly trying so hard to sound gentle. He swallows hard. “Okay. You’re right. I wasn’t going to wait until the end at first. When we were in the record store, I had a moment where I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to do it.’ But I couldn’t. I don’t know. We were getting along, and it was—forgive me—nice. It was nice. I liked spending time with you.”
“You say that like it’s such a shock,” I say, though I can’t deny how good it feels to hear it. “Like it’s so impossible to have enjoyed my company.”
He crosses his arms. “We both know your self-esteem isn’t that low. I’m sorry I wanted to spend more time with you. I’m sorry I wanted to keep you in the game—which, I might point out, was exactly what you did for me at Pike Place—so we could go up against each other at the end and so you could ultimately beat me, since that’s apparently the only thing that matters to you.”
“It isn’t.” It hasn’t been for hours.
