Chapter 40 - 39 : Page Seven

Chapter 40: Chapter 39 : Page Seven

Rhett held the form up to the nearest camera.

"Page seven, section four, paragraph two. ’A player who betrays his or her designated safe partner in any round shall be eliminated.’"

He lowered the paper.

"Every one of you initialed the bottom of this page."

For a second, nobody got it. The bleachers got it before the tables did. The noise broke out in the top row and rolled all the way down onto the court.

Dylan was on his feet. "That’s not— Nobody reads page seven! That’s not a rule, that’s fine print!"

"It’s the same size as everything else on the page," Rhett said. "041. Your initials are right here."

He turned the page toward the HDV. Dom cut to it. Two letters in blue ballpoint, a little crooked, filled the whole screen.

Dylan opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

Across the table, Sierra stood up. She pushed her chair in, squared it with the table, and walked to the line of players going through. She didn’t look back once.

"Everybody who flipped STEAL," Rhett said, "stay where you are."

The volunteers came onto the court from both sides, water guns up.

Psssht. Psssht. Psssht.

It went on for a while. Under the white lights, one green tracksuit after another went red.

312 didn’t argue. He stood up and took it in the chest. 311 was already halfway to the line. He turned around, came back, pulled a towel off the back of a volunteer’s chair and dropped it over 312’s head. Then he left.

At table fourteen, the girl who’d been crying stopped. She’d stolen, her partner had shared, so he was the one going through. She came around the table and hugged him anyway. The water gun caught her mid-hug, and he got half of it.

Table nine, two STEALs, both out. They’d laughed when they flipped. They laughed harder now. One of them gave the security camera a thumbs-up. "Worth it."

Dylan was last.

The volunteer at his table raised the gun, stopped, and looked over at Rhett. Rhett nodded.

Psssht.

The volunteer didn’t stop at one. She held the trigger down and emptied the whole tank into him. Chest, face, hair. She didn’t miss a spot.

Somebody in the bleachers started it, and three hundred people picked it up, stamping on the boards. PAGE SEVEN! PAGE SEVEN!

Dylan wiped his face, and his hand came away red. He tried to get up. His foot hit the puddle by the table and he went down, chair and all, flat on the hardwood. The STEAL card slid off the table and landed face up next to his head.

The HDV was pointed right at him. Dom didn’t cut away.

"I was gonna split it!" Dylan yelled from the floor. "I was gonna give her half!"

The booing buried him.

The chat was moving faster than it had all day.

HALF?? she was getting ALL of it you clown

"i was gonna split it" — every guy who never split anything

HE SLIPPED ON HIS OWN BETRAYAL

justice for 218

The volunteers were handing out towels to everybody who was out. When they got to Dylan, the box was empty.

He picked himself up and headed for the door. Nobody moved out of his way, and nobody looked at him. He dripped red the whole way, and on the side of the bleachers by the door, people turned around one after another. By the time he reached the exit, all he could see was a wall of backs.

Sierra was looking at the scoreboard.

Twenty-nine players were left standing on the sideline.

Table nine had cost them both seats, so it didn’t come out to thirty. Nobody cared. In the corner of the stream, the picture cut to the practice field outside. The sky was almost gone. The man in the Sony polo stood on the boom lift platform in the last of the light, scooped thirty-one stacks out of the aluminum case and dumped them all in at once. Money landed on money, and the box swung on its line for a good while.

Seventy-two thousand.

The chat had lost it a while ago.

WHO READS PAGE SEVEN

i signed up and went back to check. ITS THERE. ITS ACTUALLY THERE

71% OF US CALLED IT

the towel guy. im not crying youre crying

Claire took a screenshot of the poll. "Seventy-one percent," she said. "We should’ve charged for that poll."

Rhett raised the mic again.

"For the record, page seven wasn’t my idea."

Behind the scorer’s table, Dom’s hands stopped on the switcher.

"Dom. Raise your hand."

Dom slowly put one hand up. Somebody in the bleachers started clapping, and the whole gym followed. His ears went red from the bottom to the tips. His other hand stayed on the switcher, and he didn’t miss a single cut.

When the clapping died down, Rhett walked a few steps toward the twenty-nine.

"Before round four, you vote."

He tipped his chin toward the box they couldn’t see.

"Seventy-two thousand dollars. If more than half of you want to stop, the game ends right here and the money gets split even. Two thousand four hundred eighty-two each. You walk out with it tonight."

"To stop, I need fifteen hands."

The sideline came apart all at once.

A junior on the left went first. "Twenty-five hundred bucks. That’s a year of textbooks. We all go home rich. Rich-ish."

"RICH-ISH!" somebody yelled from the bleachers.

"Or one of us goes home with a hundred grand." That was Derek. He’d won the coin over Jenna. "I didn’t come here for two grand."

In a corner of the gym, Kevin put his face in his hands again.

Somebody was crying. Somebody was doing math out loud. Somebody kept tugging on the sleeve next to them. Two girls got into it, one saying her mom was watching the stream, the other saying then your mom wants to see you win. By the end of it they were both laughing.

Sierra didn’t say a word. She stood at the very end of the line with her hands in her tracksuit pockets.

"That’s a minute," Rhett said. "If you want to stop, raise your hand."

The hands went up one at a time.

The chat started counting for them.

7

9

11

At eleven, it stopped.

Out of the twenty-nine, only Owen’s hand was still hanging in the air, halfway up. He looked at the white lights in the ceiling, then at his own hand.

"Owen?" Rhett said.

"Mm."

He put his hand all the way up.

Nobody in the bleachers booed him. Everybody knew what the insurance on his mom’s car cost. Mac had yelled it into a lav mic not twenty minutes ago.

Twelve.

There weren’t any more.

"Twelve to seventeen," Rhett said. "The game goes on."

The bleachers came to their feet.

At some point Kevin had made his way over from the corner to stand next to Rhett. He’d been counting too. His lips barely moved.

"Five of mine are still in. They all voted to keep going," he said. "Take them out and it’s twelve to twelve."

"A tie doesn’t stop anything."

"So we didn’t even need—"

"Save it," Rhett said. "Blooper reel."

He raised the mic again.

"Twenty-nine left. Round four. Tug of war."

Somebody pushed the gym doors open, and the sideline looked out. The practice field had gone completely dark. All that was left was the faint outline of the box at the top of the boom lift.

Somebody in the bleachers shouted it. "It’s DARK out there!"

Dom turned to look at Rhett.

Rhett wasn’t looking at the practice field. He was looking past it, at the parking lot.

There wasn’t an empty space in it.