Even If We Break

by Marieke Nijkamp

  And with that, we were off. Well, we stumbled our way through figuring out the system. The rules for magic and the rules for skill points. The rules for dice rolls and the rules for puzzles. We all started out with the same basic class, Ever explained, and we would diversify from there, letting the story guide us as we wanted to, instead of deciding everything up front. We started out as students, much like we were ourselves, though Stardust High would never ever consider classes in blood magic.

  And we fell into our roles. I found myself near Maddy, who played a girl with a piracy background. I found myself figuring out Feather’s heritage, and it was a wonderful experience of building a new persona and exploring parts of myself I was only partially comfortable with.

  Ever checked in every so often to get a feel for the level of role play we all wanted. And before we could properly get into the case at hand, the hour and a half we had for the introduction were over, and we all had to go our separate ways. But none of us moved. We were all enthralled—or in the magisterium’s words: bespelled—and we didn’t want to go anywhere.

  Our first WyvernCon was about three months after that first meeting, and we’d been playing together weekly for almost the entire time. You learn a lot about people when you solve murders together every week.

  That is to say, we learned a lot about one another’s characters.

  WyvernCon was the first time the six of us took a road trip—and it was still the six of us then. Zac was there, throwing money at everything Ever couldn’t afford, possibly only to piss them off. It was more complicated to be together and not only because of that. Inside our school theater, all we had to be was our characters. Sure, we brought our lives with us. Our bad days and our worries, our good days and our joys. But we met for the game, and everything else was secondary.

  But WyvernCon was the first time we made a concentrated effort to hang out as friends too.

  It was the first of many things.

  The first time Liva made us costumes—and the first time she won the original design costume contest. Once she started designing, she started smiling again. She fell head over heels in love with creating, and underneath her carefully polished exterior, she was suddenly back to being the girl I’d been friends with.

  The first time Ever and I met Damien (and the thousandth time I felt certain I was meant to be a game dev).

  It was the first time I ever saw Ever lose their cool at anyone, when Zac laughed at an artist’s zine in the artist alley—after which Zac all but ran out on us.

  The first time we walked around the con until our legs were jelly, our wallets empty, our hearts full. It meant the rest of the group had to accustom themselves to my speed. Liva also spent money like she didn’t even notice it, Carter tried to match her, and Ever spent nothing and tried not to let the others catch on.

  One moment stood out brightest of all of the memories we made: when we met another gaming group—a party of four, GM’d by two girls, who led them through a cyberpunk dystopia—who sat next to us in an empty corner of the con floor, going through their loot.

  Once we each realized the other group was a gaming group too, the introductions followed easily and bragging about our respective adventures was obviously the next step. They told us about hacking into a multinational company and going off-grid. We told them about going undercover in the magisterium and sniffing out spies.

  I was tired and in pain, so I sat back against the wall and Ever sat next to me, and we watched it all unfold. Ever leaned into me a bit. “I’ve always thought this the test of a good game. Whether it withstands the stories told about it.”

  Liva and Carter were caught up in a heated argument with the healer of the other group. Maddy sat with one of the GMs, exchanging notes on the overlap between games and sports. And without thinking about it, I reached for Ever’s hand. “It does.”

  Neither of us could stop smiling, not then nor on the long journey home.

  We were a family. We should’ve been a family. But families look out for one another, and there was so much we didn’t notice.

  * * *

  I shouldn’t have come back here.

  Maddy drags us onto the landing, where she holds up a hand, and listens. There’s another dull thud. And another.

  “Was that the door?” Ever asks.

  She nods. “I think so.”

  “Do they lock at a set time?”

  Maddy swallows hard. “Maybe? I don’t know. I hate those locks.”

  Ever shakes their head. “It’d be too much of a coincidence too.”

  “Someone’s inside.” My voice trips and breaks, but for once, I don’t mind the high tones.

  We all take a step closer together. Huddle. Protect one another. But Ever shakes their head. “That doesn’t make sense. It sounds like someone’s pounding on the door, which they wouldn’t do if they were inside, right?”

  When they say that, Maddy moves forward as if she’s been stung. “We have to get to the front door, now. I propped it open, just in case. I didn’t like the idea that it could close behind us. Liva and I got locked in here once when her security system tripped up, and after the stuff with the fireplace, I didn’t want to risk it.”

  “So that’s a good thing, right?” Ever asks.

  “It is, but the door will keep trying to close, and it will destroy the sword. So we have to get out before it does.”

  If the one door that leads outside closes—or if someone’s between us and it—how do we get out?

  I take the lead down the stairs as fast as I can manage. I’d honestly rather fall and break something than stay and get locked in. It’s all a matter of priorities.

  Then, the click of a lock—of multiple locks—once more.

  Maddy pushes past me. “Those are the windows. Whoever tripped the fireplace must be doing this too. I don’t know how. I don’t particularly care to know how. But I’m not waiting here to figure out what else they’ve got up their sleeves.”

  Ever catches up with me, offering me a hand and a chance to lean on them.

  I hesitate but stick to my crutches. Ever’s the only one I would trust not to let me fall, but without being able to see much beyond our direct periphery, I’d rather trust my own instincts. “What do you think Thief means?” I ask them.

  “What does Liar mean?” Ever counters. “I don’t know if it’s a message or a way to mess with us. I don’t know if it matters.”

  I look past them at Maddy, who made it down the stairs and is now nothing more than a darker shadow against an abyss of shadows. The stairs seem to wind around her, making her into the eye of the storm. Still, she waits until we join her. She could run to get the door, but leaving our line of sight doesn’t seem like a sensible idea anymore either. “Mad? Do you know?”

  She winces and doesn’t answer. “All I know is we need to get out. Come on.”

  Eighteen

  Maddy

  Here’s the thing. I never quite know if I’m responding the “right” way to anything happening around me. Should I be more scared? Should I be angrier? Should fear immobilize me? What happens around me and how my brain responds to it are two entirely different things, and I can’t tell all the time how they’re connecting.

  But the grief is raw and angry and freezing cold.

  Do I know what Thief means?

  Does it matter?

  Finn and Ever are whirlwinds of emotion right now. Intense, overwhelming, and inescapable. I hate it. I don’t have a healthy way to deal with them. I don’t know how to. And with Ever and Finn as broken as I am, their feelings are all the more inescapable. I’m cold.

  Focused. Breaking.

  Carter would’ve been fine if he hadn’t gone in to help me.

  We’re getting out, that’s what we’re doing. Everything else is secondary.

  We have to stay close to one another.


  I should’ve kept Carter close. I should’ve stopped him.

  But somehow that makes it worse too.

  We’re all breaking, and I really want to dull the pain. All I want to do is to make it stop.

  The pain from my knee sneaks its way up my leg and into my resolve. I’ve walked these stairs a few too many times today. I walked up a mountain today. I can hardly remember it.

  And Finn’s question keeps nagging at me.

  “You know what the notes mean, don’t you?” he says, persistent.

  I bite my lip. “Not now, please.”

  “Is this something Carter did?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening! We have to keep going. Now is not the time for this. If the door has closed, we’ll be locked in.”

  The same pounding noise keeps coming from the direction of the door. It’s weirdly visible, a dimly lit outline where a sliver of moonlight falls into the cabin. It’s the next level stage of a video game, or the hints you get when you play in more accessible modes.

  I beeline toward it—and immediately crash my knee into a chair that I could’ve sworn wasn’t there when we walked in. The pain is sharp and angry. “Frack.” I can feel myself start to lose control of my breathing, and it’s like I live on the edge of panic now—or the edge of anger.

  There’s a black hole inside my chest, and everything gets slowly pulled into it.

  Carter’s determination when he went back in to get my painkillers.

  The first time Liva invited me here, and the blue room she decorated specially for me.

  The laughter that somehow got lost between all of us.

  Our joy. Our adventures. Feeling like we could save the world.

  Everything tears at me, and I don’t know how to respond to any of it anymore.

  “Maddy? Are you okay?” Ever reaches out a hand to me, and I allow it. For a second. But instead of making me feel better, I want to take the chair and hurl it through the room. I want to take Ever and scream at them, not because of anything they did, but because of everything I did.

  “I know it hurts,” Ever says softly. “I wish I could fix it.”

  That’s all I need to pull away again. They don’t need to fix me. No one needs to fix anything. I need to find a way to dull the pain, but we have to keep moving. A little more careful now, because though the cabin isn’t that big, it’s a veritable obstacle course. Finn takes his crutches and holds them out in front of him, to make sure nothing else blocks our path.

  The door keeps trying to close, as if someone rigged the automated locks. The Styrofoam sword between door and frame has been crushed to half its breadth, and if this goes on for much longer, there’ll be nothing left of it.

  The light from the outside becomes a little brighter, and the closer we come, the faster we move. I can all but hear the music change in the background. We’re nearly out of here, and I don’t know what’s waiting for us outside, but it can’t be worse than being stuck in a haunted cabin on a lonely mountain in the dead of the night.

  If only it were that easy.

  Finn is the first of us to reach the door. With his crutches, on even ground, he’s faster than any of us. Now, he has to make do with being careful, but he leads the way, and I fall back because with every step, my knee is more insistent about reminding me it can’t bear my weight. It’s like a voice in the back of my mind, constantly telling me I can’t stand straight, I’m not stable, I’m falling, I’m falling, I’m falling.

  And somehow, Ever refuses to let me fall back alone, instead, matching me in stride.

  But perhaps it’s because we all have that singular focus—get to the door, get out of the cabin—that Finn doesn’t see what’s right in front of the door.

  When the moonlight filters out and catches on Finn’s crutches, they almost seem to gleam, especially on those spots where the color is scratched away and the metallic aluminum is visible.

  But that’s not the only thing that picks up the light.

  Once he’s reached the door, Finn stands in the middle of another arcane circle that definitely wasn’t there when we all came back in. It’s the same as the ones we used in game: a ward to protect buildings and doors from being entered.

  It’s the same as the one that killed Lente.

  “Finn!” Ever and my voices mingle together. This is a warning. Whoever made it isn’t done playing yet and knows our game inside out.

  Finn turns his head toward us, but he’s already moving to the door. It happens in slow motion. He drops one of his crutches to rest against his chest, the way he always does when he needs a free hand to hold or pick up something.

  He reaches for the door while he turns and asks, “What’s the matter?”

  Ever manages to squeak out something that sounds like, “Stop!” and I’m silent altogether. It would’ve been too late anyway.

  It occurs to me then that if someone went through all the effort to put furniture in our way and paint a magical ward around the door, they could’ve easily gotten rid of the fake sword that kept the door propped open. Unless they wanted us to reach for it.

  Finn’s hand touches the doorknob, and there’s a flash. Something that sounds like the crackling of magic—or electricity.

  He falls in slow motion too. Time slows as if, like Carter once described, the threads of time were prickly pear taffy pulled tight. Finn screams and flings away from the door, like some invisible force has picked him up and tossed him. He tilts backward. He loses his balance and stumbles and falls.

  When he hits the floor with a crash, everything speeds up again.

  Behind me, Ever yells or screams—and maybe I do the same because I hear an echo of voices. “Finn!”

  Ever rushes toward him, and it’s all I can do to hold them back. “Wait!”

  Finn lies turned away from us, so tense his back arches and his legs crumple. He’s pulled his arms close to his chest, and he moans.

  “What?” Ever pulls themself away from me, but I cling to them.

  “He was shocked, right? We have to make sure he’s not touching any kind of electricity anymore. It would only make things worse.” There’s an irrational part of me that also wants to clear the magic ward before we step closer to Finn, though I know it can’t have been actual magic.

  Ever pulls me closer to Finn but seems to listen to what I say, because they check to see if Finn isn’t touching the door anymore. It has to be the door. Surely you can’t electrify a wall or the windows.

  Once they’re sure, they drop to their knees and cradle Finn close. “Finn, relax. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  I reach for Finn’s arm, the one he used to touch the doorknob, and it’s still spasming slightly. A large fiery mark has appeared on his hand, like a burn mark. It’s like what happened to Carter with the knob on the cabinet, but a thousand times worse. I try to get a sense of the wound, but he jerks away when I reach for it, leaving my hands empty.

  “Finn.” Ever’s voice is more insistent. “Focus on me. Listen to me. We’re going to help you. We’re going to take care of you. Grab my hand and hold on tight, we’re not going to let go of you.”

  Finn’s frantic eyes focus on Ever, and with his good arm, he reaches for their hand. He squeezes so tight that it’s clear Ever’s uncomfortable, but it does calm him a little. “It hurts. Ever, what happened? It hurts. Oh gods, it hurts so much.”

  His breathing is labored, and he tries to get up, but Ever pushes him down again.

  “Shhh, give it a moment.”

  Finn shakes his head and keeps shaking his head. “We were on our way out. We need to get out. We can’t stay here and you can’t stay here for me.”

  Ever’s smile is as fake as the sword stopping the door. “We’re all together. It’s fine. We’ll have one another’s back and we’ll figure out a way out as soon as you’re on your feet.�
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  “That seems dangerous.” Finn apparently tries to smile, but it comes out crooked and almost like a frown. “This is not how you would build a dungeon, in any case.”

  Ever visibly, physically winces at that. “I wouldn’t build a dungeon like this, ever.”

  “I know.” Finn waves with his injured hand and bites back a string of curses. It’s nothing more than mumbling.

  I reach for the hand regardless and try to still him. The red looks rawer now, as though it’s still burning.

  “We have to find a way to cool him,” I whisper.

  At that, Ever turns to me and their eyes flash. Everything in their body screams worry and anger, almost mirroring Finn’s own tension. I take a step back, because I don’t know how else to deal with it.

  They hiss, “I know you’re trying to help, but it would be far more helpful if you could try some empathy and consideration. Finn is hurt, and not everything can be fixed.”

  I don’t point out the obvious to them: that they suggested wanting to fix things not that long ago. That this is the smallest something that can be fixed, or at least made somewhat better. I don’t point out how unnecessary and hurtful that empathy comment is, and they should know better than that, even if they’re angry.

  Ever sighs and rubs their hand over their face. It’s all twisted up in frustration. “I’m sorry, that was not cool. I didn’t mean—”

  I push to my feet again. I wince at the pain. I keep my head down. I don’t look at either Ever or Finn—although Ever immediately calls out to me—just at my own feet. I walk to where I know the kitchen is, without too many mishaps. I walk into another chair and nearly collide with a table. Something scratches underneath my feet, and I rebalance myself at the very last instant, before I twist my ankle on broken pieces of Styrofoam.

  I keep walking. Because we should all stay together, but we also need to find a way to cool that burn and calm down Finn. We need a wet cloth or gauze, or at this point, a good, large knife. And the last time I checked, I’m still the only one who knows this cabin like the back of her hand.