11
Ana
Life goes on.
Ana was hiding out behind the corner of the building. She’d found a shady spot on the sidewalk and was sitting, knees hugged to her chest, on the edge of the curb. A weed sprouted through cracks in the pavement, optimistically fighting for dominance over the man-made concrete; a small white flower on top danced happily in the breeze.
Life goes on.
The reception area door banged shut and footsteps clumped towards her hiding spot. Raya plopped herself down next to Ana, puffing a little from the exertion. Raya always sounded out of breath, like someone five times her age. She rooted around in her pocket, pulling out a Zippo lighter with the letters RM etched into it.
Raya’s recent efforts to cut back on smoking had unlocked a new nervous habit. She flipped the lighter open and thumbed the flame to life before slamming it shut again. Fidgeting, over and over, on repeat.
Ana watched for a while in silence.Open,shut,flick,flick. Raya’sblack thumbnail working the silver lighter vigorously. There was something soothing about it. Something reassuringly predictable.
“Raya, I’m sorry I ran out like that. I panicked. I’m fine now. I promise.”
“Come on, Ana. You don’t have to apologize. This whole situation is messed up.”
“I know. But still. I need to do better.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Ana shook her head. How could she explain? How could she tell Raya that she was the only one who hadn’t been manipulated into coming here? That somehow Bates knew she would come? That he knew her?
Raya pulled out her phone and propped it up on her knee in front of them both.9:50 a.m.
“Eight minutes to go.”
“I wonder why it’s 9:58 a.m.,” Ana said, changing the subject. “It’s so specific. It must mean something. Everything here is so carefully set up, so thought out.”
Raya shrugged.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, Bates is clearly off his nuts. Perhaps it’s just a bunch of random crazy shit. Some strange idea in the warped brain of a freaky psychopath.”
Ana shook her head. None of this was random. She was thinking back to a year ago; 9:58 a.m. didn’t mean anything to her. It was just a regular morning at school. It wasn’t until the evening that everything had changed. She knew exactly where she would have been at 9:58 p.m. The hospital. The green-walled hallway. Waiting.
No. She shook her head again, harder. She couldn’t think about that now.
“What about the messages?” she said. “How are we getting messages when there’s no Wi-Fi or cell service? I thought maybe Bluetooth, but it has a pretty short range, and it would need the same app on each device.” Ana scratched her cheek thoughtfully. Raya just listened, without trying to keep up. “What app would we have in common? The big ones—Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram? I mean, they’d be almost impossible to hack, right? No, it would have to be something more basic. But what? What would we all have in common?”
“Oh, wait. That’s easy! I can answer that one.” Raya sat up. “Nada. Nothing. Zilch. I can promise you, hand on heart, that the only thing I have in common with Jade Clark is that we go to the same freaking school—unfortunately.”
Ana laughed outright.
“Raya, you’re brilliant.”
“I am?”
“Yes! That’s it. The school app. It has to be.” Holding up her phone, Ana flicked through the screens until she saw it—the lettersSFHSin green letters on a yellow background over the faint outline of a wolf’s head. The St. Francis High student portal used the same font as the messages.Bates was using the school app to send them messages.“Of course! It makes perfect sense. Bates must have figured out how to hack into it!”
“Jesus, are you sure? He’s starting to sound less like a psycho and more like a freaking criminal mastermind.”
Raya had a point. If Ana’s theory was right, Bates must have serious tech skills or be rich and motivated enough to hire someone who did. Whoever was behind this had built a meticulously-crafted trap, and they had walked right into the middle of their web. But who? Who could possibly hate them enough to set all this up and lure them here? Who could know about her, about all of them?
Ana felt a dark stirring of anxiety. She put her phone down and wrapped her arms around her knees. Things just kept getting worse.
Raya must have picked up on Ana’s mood. She nudged her gently with her shoulder.
