Chapter 6 Ana
Ana
“It can’t be right. I mean, what freaking circle? There’s no circle here. And what’s The Balloon Game? I’ve never heard of that. It must be a mistake. Right?” Raya looked around.
All seven students were gathered around the fire now. Only Benny was absent; he hadn’t emerged from his room since he’d gotten the key.
Ana shivered, despite the heat from the flames.
“Why the fuck do you think it’s a mistake?
” Ellis blurted out. He was squatting close to the fire, fidgeting with a quarter, rolling it across his knuckles, one way and then back again.
“There’s no one else here. Our bus has been destroyed.
We’re in the middle of nowhere. This message is clearly not a mistake. ”
As Ellis said it, Ana knew he was right. Nothing about this was accidental. They were being played—some strange, twisted game.
You are all guilty.
Guilty. The word burned through Ana. Had someone found out what she’d done? How could they? There were only two people who knew what really happened a year ago.
Danny couldn’t have told anyone. He never woke up after the fire.
The other person wouldn’t tell anyone—not without betraying patient confidentiality.
In a moment of stupid weakness, a few weeks after the fire, Ana tried to talk to Mr. Dankman during one of their mandatory therapy sessions, only to have him diagnose her with ‘survivor’s guilt’ and send her home with a prescription for Zoloft and the unhelpful suggestion that she get some sleep.
Even though she had a pretty low opinion of Dankman’s skills as a therapist, she couldn’t see him intentionally revealing her confession.
Though, to be fair, he might have said something by mistake.
Maybe to another patient or student, or one of the teachers? There was no way of knowing.
Or maybe someone had found out another way?
Had someone seen her? Had someone else been there a year ago?
The thought made Ana feel physically sick.
She looked around at the others. If she was actually guilty, then what did that mean about the rest of them?
Were they all guilty too? What secrets were they hiding?
Seven survivors on this trip. Was it possible that a year ago, each of them had done something? Something bad enough to die for?
The shadows from the firelight were dancing across their faces, making their expressions morph and contort, rendering them unrecognizable.
How well did she even know them? Any of them?
What were they capable of? What had they done?
Ellis, Jade, Jax, Caden… She looked around at the ring of faces. Raya. Alex.
No.
She shook her head, as though the thoughts might fall away.
She was playing into the trap, allowing herself to think that way.
Whoever sent the message was manipulating them, wanting them to doubt each other, to feel afraid.
She had to be stronger than that. She had to do better, think clearer.
Whatever this was, it was just getting started and she was going to need her wits about her.
“It’s gotta be a joke, right?” Jade asked. Her voice sounded small and childlike. She was pushed up against Jax, his arm around her.
“Yeah, for sure. It’s a prank. It’s gotta be a YouTube thing.” Jax was nodding vigorously to himself, as though that would make it true. “Loads of content creators post stuff like this all the time. Last one to leave the circle wins a suitcase of money. We’re probably being filmed right now.”
“I found a microphone in my bathroom,” Ana said quickly. “And there are hidden cameras all over this place.” As soon as the message arrived, she’d ditched Raya’s theory that the small black dots were a relic from the past. From now on, she would assume that they were being watched at all times.
“Oh my god, me too!” Jade added. “I found a mic over the mirror—it totally creeped me out.”
“There were cameras in the reception area,” Alex said. “I saw, like, maybe…three?”
“See?” Jax said, vindicated. “Someone’s trying to record this from every angle. We’re totally being filmed. It’s a prank.”
“Just because there are cameras doesn’t mean we’re being filmed. It means we’re being watched,” Ellis said. “Do you honestly think anyone would be stupid enough to take a group of school-fire survivors and publicly torture them for fun? You’d get canceled if you tried to pull that kind of shit.”
Jax scrunched up his face in thought as he tried to follow Ellis’s reasoning.
“Maybe it’s some kind of secret government experiment?
” Raya piped up. “I bet there’s, like, some hallucinogenic shit in the air that’s messing with our heads.
Or some bored motel employee who’s been hitting up their home-grown weed and decided to play a twisted mind game on a busload of heteronormative rich kids.
” Raya laughed. She seemed to be enjoying herself far too much.
“For fuck’s sake, Raya,” Ellis cut in. “You need to quit smoking and grow up. Weed? Jesus Christ.”
“Dude, you need to cut down on the steroids,” Raya retorted, her tone instantly hardening. She could flip on a dime, from laid-back to warrior queen. Ana got it. Raya had learned to protect herself; it hadn’t been easy being the only openly trans kid in the whole high school.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Ellis growled.
“Roid rage getting to you?”
“No. You are getting to me,” Ellis snapped back. There was no humor in his tone. He was angry and getting angrier by the second.
“Maybe we need to focus on what we do know, not what we don’t, okay?” Ana cut in, moving between Raya and Ellis. “I think I know what the Balloon Game is. They played it on the debate team.”
As part of her scholarship deal, Ana had been roped into joining the hugely unpopular debate team, aka social death in an orange-and-gray striped polo shirt.
Other than Maia Walsh, the team captain, Ana had been the only girl on the team, alongside a group of nerdy boys and a handful of slackers who were forced to participate as punishment for various infringements. Karl Hunt was one of them.
“So, what is it? That carnival game where you throw darts at balloons? Is someone going to throw darts at us now?” Ellis’s tone was sarcastic. He kicked at a piece of burning wood.
“No, it’s a morality game. You imagine you’re on a hot-air balloon and there’s a leak. The balloon is sinking, and you’ll all die unless you throw someone overboard. Each round, you have to debate who deserves to live and who doesn’t. Then you vote. Each round, another person dies.”
She stopped, suddenly aware of what she had just said. The real-life implication of her words was not lost on them.
“So, you’re saying the motel is the balloon? We’re all trapped here, and some psycho wants us to vote who leaves the motel every hour? They want us to choose who dies?” Raya said, her tone incredulous.
Ana nodded. This was insane.
“Wait! It’s Survivor!” Jax declared loudly. “Holy cow, we’re playing Survivor! Who will leave the island? I told you! It’s a game. It’s all a game. I’m so into this. Where’s Jeff? Show me the money! I’m totally gonna win this one.” Jax was shouting now.
“Seriously, Jax—you’re so right. It’s Survivor. Desert Survivor. Oh my god, it is a game.” Jade clasped her hands in delight, immaculate nails clattering against each other. “Got to say it, babe, I was a little worried, you know?”
Ana watched in disbelief. How had they joined the dots and come up with Survivor? Someone had set up the structure for them to self-destruct. They had provided the rules for murder.
“Look, whether it’s a game or not, we know that someone went to a lot of effort to set this up.
We know that we were all chosen to come here for a reason—all seven of us.
” She hesitated before saying the next part; she didn’t want to throw Benny under his bus, but anything was better than standing around listening to conspiracy theories all night long.
Besides, the one thing they needed more than anything else right now was information.
“The other thing we know for a fact is that only one person here has no connection to St. Francis High. That might be a good place to start looking for some answers. I think it’s time we talked to Benny.”