“Do you know where she keeps her backpack?” Wyatt asked. “The one she brought as a go-bag, for Hunter’s game?”
He was thinking the same thing I was. “I don’t,” I said. “It’s not in the closet. Lauren?”
“She’s got some storage bins for extra clothes under her bed,” Lauren said. “You could check there.”
Hunter reached down and started pulling out the bins. They weren’t labeled, but when we opened them they were organized. One was filled with tops, another with pants, another with dresses and skirts. One was entirely for makeup, and then there was one for bags of all kinds: handbags; shoulder bags; little fancy purses in odd shapes, like cats and typewriters and piano keyboards. This was where a backpack would most likely be, but there wasn’t one.
“I think she ran,” I said. “I think she took her go-bag and decided to prove to us she was the best at survival.”
“We have to find her,” Jo said.
“Do we really?” Hunter asked. “We know what she did. Is it that important we find out why?”
Wyatt shook his head. I missed his curls. “It’s not about that anymore. We have to make sure she’s okay. It feels fine outside now, but the sun’s already going down and tonight’s supposed to get pretty cold. She may not realize how bad it will be if she’s outside.”
“You really think she’s out there?” Lauren asked. “She’s not exactly the outdoorsy type.”
She had a point. Chloe could be anywhere—none of us knew where she went when she wanted to be alone, because it seemed like she never did want to be alone. “We need to think about all the options and then split up,” I said. “Jo, what was your first thought when she said she was better at survival than we were?”
“I thought she meant it literally,” Jo said. “I know a little more about her than you people do, and I’ll just say she hasn’t had it easy. I can’t blame her for splitting when things got hard—I’ve done the same thing myself.”
“Does anyone have any ideas about where she’d go?” I wanted answers.
“If she meant survival as in actual survival, then maybe she was trying to show us what she could do,” Wyatt said. “That’s why I think she could be outside. I think we should check the woods.”
Hunter shook his head. “I’m with Lauren that she’s not all about being outside in the cold. I think she’d go somewhere she’d want to be found.”
“Sure, but who knows where that is?” Jo asked. “We’re the ones who know her best, and we can’t agree on where she might have gone.”
“She’s playing another game with us,” I said. “She wants to see which one of us can find her.” As soon as I said it I knew I was right. Chloe might have been upset, but I couldn’t imagine her getting so upset she’d pass up a chance to get one more shot at messing with us. Jo was right: everything was a game to her, even the terrible things she’d done.
“You all are so messed up,” Lauren said. “I’m going to get some people who are serious about finding her. Shut the door on your way out, okay?” I noticed she didn’t take a coat when she left; she didn’t think Chloe had gone outside either.
Now it was just the four of us, alone in Chloe’s room. “We’re not really going to treat this like a game, are we?” Wyatt asked. “If she’s missing, shouldn’t we get help? Talk to the dorm parents or something? Or the police?”
“The police won’t do anything,” Jo said. “And the dorm parents here are a joke. You know they’ve been paid off to ignore us until everyone who’s going on break has left, don’t you?”
Wyatt’s eyes widened. I loved that he lived in a world where he still thought the people in charge were good. I wanted that feeling back, and I was afraid it would never come. That’s how this had started, for me; it only made sense we’d come full circle, to a place where we needed to help ourselves because the adults weren’t going to be of much use.
“I say we go with it. Four people with four different strategies for finding Chloe, plus her Insta friends searching on their own—we’re more likely to find her that way.” I was getting into it now. “We’ll take our phones and check in every hour. Person who finds her wins, and we’ll have a real prize this time: winner gets to ask the first question.”
“How should I check in?” Wyatt asked. “No phone, remember?”
“Here, take mine,” Jo said. “I’ve got a burner in my room.”
We stared at her.
“What? You never know.” She got out her phone, pressed the screen a bunch of times, sent a few quick text messages, and then handed it to Wyatt. “I got rid of the password. Everyone’s contact info is in here, and I sent a group text that includes the burner so you all have the numbers in one place.”
“Thanks,” Wyatt said, holding the phone as if it were a used Kleenex. It had never occurred to me that it wasn’t just that he didn’t have a phone; he didn’t want one. But this was the easiest way for us to stay in touch, and he knew it.
“All right, let’s do this,” Hunter said. “It’s about three o’clock now. First check-in at four?”
We agreed, and then went our separate ways. I headed back to my room to think. If I’d thought Chloe was in real danger then maybe there would be more urgency, but I was convinced she was toying with us, playing a maddening game of hide-and-seek. I hadn’t won any of the games so far, but I was determined to win this one. To do that, I’d have to be methodical.
I sat on my bed with my journal; I’d slipped it into my bag the night before, as we were leaving the chapel and heading to the black box theater. This was the first time I’d opened it, and a piece of notebook paper fell out.
Thank you for this, but I don’t need it. Your secrets are safe. I’m sorry. XOXO, Wyatt.
After all that, he hadn’t even read it. If it weren’t for this whole Chloe situation I’d have been relieved, even happy, but now wasn’t the time. I set the note aside and went back through everything I’d written about Chloe, every detail, looking for evidence that I knew her better than anyone else. Wyatt would be searching in the woods, as he’d said, but I was sure Hunter, Jo, and I would be staying indoors, and there was a time when each of us would have been convinced we knew her best. Right now wasn’t it, though, and I didn’t know what to do.
I read over every entry that mentioned Chloe until my eyes started to hurt, so I closed them and tried to remember, hoping details I hadn’t written down would emerge. There was Game Night, of course, and the first day of school, when she and Hunter and I had started having lunch together. There was our election planning, most of which had taken place in one of the dorm lounges; there was our makeover session, but that had been in her room, although hadn’t she mentioned something about going somewhere else?
I opened my eyes and sat up straight, aligning my back with the wall. This was it; I could feel it. What had she said? I should be glad we were shooting in her room because otherwise something about temperature controls and lighting and I couldn’t remember what else. I got out my phone and pulled up Chloe’s Instagram feed. Picture after picture with all sorts of different backgrounds thanks to the magic replaceable wallpaper in her room, but also thanks to the never-ending supply of fresh flowers she seemed to have access to.
Oh. Because Chloe loved the greenhouse.
It would be the perfect place to hide in winter, because of the temperature controls. No one would be there because it was break, and only someone who paid attention would realize that’s where she set up many of her photo shoots.
Now I had a choice. I could go straight there, or I could check in with the others. Before I could decide, my phone started buzzing with texts.
Nothing yet, Jo wrote.
Ditto, from Hunter.
It took a little longer for Wyatt to reply, but that wasn’t surprising. The text message notifications had probably scared the crap out of him. I smiled just thinking about it.
I sent my own message with no hint I was making progress—if I was right, I’d have something to r
eport soon enough—and decided to go straight to the greenhouse. My heart raced with excitement. This was it, I was certain.
I knew where the greenhouse was; I’d even walked by it a bunch of times and thought about going in. But I wasn’t into plants and flowers and nature, and I was getting enough of it through Eucalyptus anyway. Besides, it was Chloe’s thing. I threw on my coat and walked across campus.
The building was long and rectangular, like a barn, but made entirely of panes of glass and with a sloped glass roof. There were doors at both ends, and I wasn’t sure which one to use. Did I want to surprise Chloe, or did I want her to know I was there as I walked in?
I picked the door closest to me and tested it out, confirming it was unlocked. As soon as I entered the greenhouse I felt a surge of heat, as if I’d entered an entirely different climate. Which, I supposed, I had. There were leafy green plants everywhere and evidence of a functioning sprinkler system, since everything looked wet. My coat quickly became unnecessary, so I took it off and slung it over my elbow as I scanned the aisles of plants to find Chloe.
Of course she wasn’t going to make it easy. I passed by plants that looked like cacti but were labeled as succulents; Wyatt would probably know the difference. There were little trees with tiny lemons on them, and some with little oranges, too. But where were the flowers? I had a feeling if I found the flowers, I’d find Chloe.
I made my way through the rows and rows of plants until I saw there was a whole section at the far end that was blocked off, almost as if the rows were the stripes on the American flag and the blocked-off section was the rectangle containing the stars. There were glass panels enclosing the space, making it into its own room, with a glass door separating the room from the rest of the greenhouse. That’s where the flowers were, with their own microclimate, in clusters rather than rows. And in the corner of that section I saw a thick white winter coat strewn on the floor like a blanket, with Chloe asleep on top of it.
I’d won my first game.
Greenhouse, I texted the group. ASAP.
17.
By the time everyone arrived it was dark, and Chloe was still asleep. I almost felt bad at the thought of waking her up for an ambush, but then I thought about what she’d done to us and I got over it quick. The greenhouse fans had turned themselves on, loud enough that I could barely hear everyone making their way through the rows of plants, and with the fans had come the greenhouse’s nighttime lighting system, faint as it was.
“Amina?” Wyatt called out.
“Over here.” I was sitting on the ground just outside the flower room, but I got up when I saw them coming. “She’s in there. Out cold.”
They peered through the windows at Chloe, conked out on her own coat, oblivious to the sound of the fans. She must have been exhausted. I almost felt bad for her. Almost.
Then, as if she could feel our presence, she began to stir.
“How do you want to play this, boss?” Jo asked.
It wasn’t the time to bask in the fact that I’d finally won a game. “Let’s all go over together. We can give her a minute to wake up, though.”
Jo, Hunter, and Wyatt sat down next to me and we watched as Chloe woke up with a stretch and a yawn. Even in the minimal light I could see that Jo hadn’t been kidding about Chloe being upset the night before; her face was puffy and streaked with makeup she hadn’t taken off, displaced by tears. Her gloriously highlighted hair was tangled and knotted, and while she’d managed to change out of her disco-ball dress, she’d opted for a sweatshirt and yoga pants rather than her usual cute pajamas. She looked more human than I’d ever seen her, and I again wavered in my anger.
But I wasn’t the only one who needed answers. “Let’s do this,” Hunter said, and we all stood up and went into the flower room together.
Chloe seemed to take a minute to realize she wasn’t alone. “What—what’s going on? What are you all doing here?” She rubbed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her knees, as if making herself as small as possible.
As we walked closer I saw we’d been right about her taking her go-bag; it was sitting next to her coat, and she’d used it as a pillow. But she had more stuff there—she’d set up a plastic set of drawers, full of who knew what, though I suspected it was gear for her Instagram photo shoots. She’d probably convinced some staff person to let her store her things there. “We came for you,” I said.
For a moment a hopeful expression crossed her face, and I saw how moved she was by the idea that we’d searched for her, that we were worried, that we perhaps weren’t as angry as Jo had seemed. Then she realized I’d meant something very different, and her face collapsed. Tears rolled out of her eyes, making new mascara tracks on her face. She dropped her head to her knees and shook it back and forth, and we stood in silence and watched her. I wasn’t sure how to feel. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen Chloe cry before; it was that I couldn’t even picture her crying as a possibility, and yet here we were, watching it happen. She looked so small all curled up like that, like a little kid.
Then she picked up her head. Her face had hardened into a mask. “You’ve got me,” she said. “Let me have it.”
With that, my sympathy was gone. Brave, foolish Chloe, thinking we’d just do some yelling and then this would be over. “That’s not how this is going to work,” I said. “You’re going to tell us everything.”
“What does that even mean?” She reached up and twisted her ratty hair into a knot that stayed up all by itself. Ugh, Chloe could even make looking terrible look good.
“Come on, Princess, the game is over. You’ve been awful to us, and we’ve been good friends to you, so it’s time to explain why.” Jo shivered in her leather jacket, though it was plenty warm in the greenhouse.
“You’re cold,” Chloe said. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”
“Or you could just start talking, and the sooner you finish the sooner we can get out of here.” I wasn’t about to let her change the scene to suit herself, and I didn’t want us to lose momentum.
“Fine, whatever,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
Everyone looked at me. I wished I’d done a better job preparing, or any job at all. “We want all of it. You sent Wyatt those books and signed him up for those emails; you set up the interviews that would screw Hunter over after convincing him to run for student council; you sent around those pictures of you; you tried to break me and Wyatt up; and you tried to humiliate Jo in front of, like, the whole school. We’ve done nothing but be your friends, so why would you do all that to us?” By the time I finished talking I had to choke back a sob, which was enraging—I’d wanted to be calm and methodical, and angry if I had to be. I hadn’t wanted to get weepy.
Chloe sighed. “You make it sound so terrible. It’s not like I did any of you any real damage.”
Was she kidding? “It was more than terrible,” I said. “I don’t know how you define damage, but you can’t possibly think anything you did was okay.”
“I didn’t say that.” She was quiet for a minute. “Okay, you really want all of it? I’ll tell you, but you have to promise you’ll really listen.”
“That’s all any of us want,” Hunter said.
“Then you’re going to have to sit down, because I’m not about to have you standing over me and glaring.” Chloe was starting to sound like herself now. And while I didn’t like the idea of her dictating the terms of this conversation, I also wasn’t about to stand the whole time if she was going to launch into a long story.
Everyone again looked at me, acknowledging I was in charge. I liked it. I gave a little nod, and we sat down.
Once we were settled in, Chloe began. “I wasn’t in the greatest place when I got here. I know that’s true of lots of people here, so I’m not saying it as an excuse. I’m just explaining. I know I told you all how my dad’s been out of work, but I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to be dirt-poor in western Pennsylvania, with four siblings all younger than you,
with parents who don’t care about you but expect you to be like a parent to all the kids.
“I’m not book-smart like you people. No one at school was looking out for me or telling me I was special, that I could get out of there. I had to figure everything out myself. When the site started making money I had to hide it, and I’m here at Gardner on my own dime. I had to beg the school to let me in, even though my family has way less money than most of the scholarship kids. I got myself out of a bad situation and I’m never going back. So yeah, I kind of had a chip on my shoulder when I got here. Everyone was either rich or special, and I was neither.” She paused and bit her fingernail. I’d never seen her do that before.
I also hadn’t considered the prospect of there being more than two categories of students at Gardner. I’d had such a simplistic mindset about it. About so many things. “Keep going,” I said.
“Okay.” She sat on her hands, as if that were the only way to stop biting her nails. Maybe it was. “I knew I had to change my attitude if I was going to survive here. I could either find ways to make myself feel better, or I could make friends. I knew making friends was the better plan, obviously, but I hope you’re starting to see why that might not have been so easy for me. I had a bunch of friends back home, but only after the site blew up. When I was broke and wearing dirty Salvation Army clothes they were awful to me, and they somehow thought I would forget. I wasn’t about to let that happen here. For once, I was going to have the upper hand. I was going to make the rules. And I would have some fun in the process, get a little of my own back.”
“I’m not following,” Wyatt said.
I wasn’t sure I was either, but I had a sneaking suspicion I was about to get there.
“Let me get through this, okay?” Chloe said. “I’ll make it make sense as best as I can, I promise.”
Wyatt nodded.
“So yeah, that first night, Game Night, I was checking everyone out to see what I could learn, to think about what I wanted to do. I decided I’d find me a rich screwup and a scholarship kid and have a little fun with them. When I saw Amina and Hunter at lunch that week it was like fate, you know? Like I’d been sent my own set of toys to play with.”
How to Pack for the End of the World Page 22