“That’s not fair! I’m not even wearing trousers!” As I scrambled to pick up the controller and figure out which buttons moved what on my character, a zombie thrust its hand into my guy’s stomach, pulled out his intestines, and ate them.
Flynn fell over laughing. Connor clapped his hands and giggled. Arthur reloaded the game and patiently explained how all the controls worked.
“I thought you said fighting was all about physics,” Arthur grinned.
“It is in real life. This is two dimensional and there are zombies. I don’t understand the appeal.”
After another two quick deaths, Arthur and I managed to corner the zombie queen in the dungeon. (Admittedly, it wasmostly Arthur’s doing). He went at her with his mace, but she flung some kind of acid at his eyes and blinded him, so he just ran around in circles screaming, which was not what a blind person would do in that situation, but was still damn funny. The zombie queen turned to me. I tried to throw my morning star at her, but I got flustered and ended up mashing all the buttons. Instead, I dropped a to-go cup of coffee on the ground (why was my character carrying around coffee in the middle of a zombie invasion? This game lacked internal logic.) and the zombie slipped on the puddle and fell over and impaled herself on a meathook.
YOU HAVE TRIUMPHED. The screen flashed in blood-red letters. Flynn burst out laughing.
“What the hell just happened?” I demanded.
“You won,” Arthur grinned. “You beat the zombie queen with a cup of coffee.”
Flynn was laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. “I’ve never seen the like of it. Never in my life?—”
A phone buzzed on the table. Flynn grabbed it and glanced at the screen. “Maeve, it’s yours. From Arizona?—”
I tossed the controller at Flynn and grabbed the phone, holding it up to my ear. “Hey Kelly, wait until I tell you how I just smashed this zombie…”
“Maeve, it’s not Kelly,” A male voice echoed in my ear. “This is Pastor Tim speaking.”
Pastor Tim – the guy who replaced Dad at their church and kicked me and Kelly out of our childhood home. What did he want, to ask us where we stored the garden tools?
But I didn’t say that, because it wasn’t Pastor Tim’s fault that he got the church’s house my parents no longer needed, and it especially wasn’t his fault that hearing his voice brought up memories of my parents that made my throat close. “Can I help you with something, Pastor Tim?”
“I wanted to call you because I’m not sure if anyone else has thought to. It’s been a bit of a strange night and we’re all very shaken up. Your sister is in the hospital.”
My heart stopped.
“What…what happened?”
Flynn must’ve noticed my tone change. He dropped his controller into Connor’s lap and slid down beside me, his hand on my back, warm and reassuring. He lifted one questioning eyebrow.
“I’m not sure how to say this…it was such a shock…such a shock.”
“Tell me so I can be shocked, too.”
Pastor Jim’s pause made my heart sink to my knees.
“I’m running our annual overnight camp for troubled teens, and Bob and Florence sent Kelly along because she’s been acting out a bit at home. She didn’t show up for the evening bible study, and when we went to the cabin to look for her…she was passed out on her bunk. We think she attempted to take her own life.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
MAEVE
My heart plummeted from my knees right into my feet. “She…what?”
Pastor Tim cleared her throat. “There was an empty pill bottle in her hand. I’m sorry, Maeve.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t breathe. I sucked in air, but it didn’t seem to be able to move past the lump in my throat. Kelly…swallow pills? That didn’t make any sense. That wasn’t her…
And then I remembered yesterday’s phone call. Kelly’s weird voice. The way she went on about my sex life and how she was a disappointment to our parents. The way she finished with that heartfelt goodbye, the way she said she’d finally do something to make everyone proud.
My heart was already on the floor, but the rest of my organs followed, leaving me an empty, hollow, numb husk. A husk whose sister had just tried to kill herself.
“Where is she?” I demanded. “What hospital?”
