going, but I still move carefully through the darkness. There are two strategies in Snap! The first is to move, to glide across the play area like a shadow, snapping every person you come across. The second—the patient player’s tactic—is to find a spot, hunker down, and pick people off as they come by. And that’s what I plan to do: wait until she gets frustrated and starts hunting.
My eyes slowly adjust to the night, and I begin to see Mallory everywhere. A bush looks like her hair on my right, and I swear her elbow is showing behind a tree twenty feet in front of me. But Snap! turns every branch breaking, every chirping insect into Mallory about to attack. I crouch down, looking across the field. Nothing is moving, so I go—probably too fast.
I don’t see the dip in the grass and nearly fall right into it. I stagger into a crouch, breathing hard and scanning the field for any sign of Mallory. My entire body shakes with anticipation as I try not to move.
When I was a kid, I’d hide behind trees and jump over streams. Running from, toward, invisible enemies, the kind my dad always talked about. I never thought about dying or how it would feel to be pinned down as bullets cut the air above me. Lately I haven’t been able to think about anything else. And as I crouch here, watching an ant crawl across a blade of grass, I work to slow my breathing.
Footsteps like cannon fire come across the quiet field, and everything else disappears. To my right, a shadow moves, matching the footsteps. She sounds like a bull moving through the field, which surprises me enough that I almost stand up and ask her if everything’s okay. Instead, I wait until she’s standing ten feet in front of me and whisper, “Snap!”
Will turns around and yells. I do, too, which makes me wonder where Mallory is—if she’ll come running.
“What the hell are you doing?” Will asks. And then, almost immediately: “Where’s Mallory?”
“Me? What are you doing out here?”
“Where’s Mallory?”
I scan the field as casually as I can. “She’s not here.”
“But you know where she is.”
“Man, c’mon. I dropped her off at her house and haven’t seen her since.”
Will studies me, but the lies now fall easily from my mouth. He looks angry and hurt. “I know you were up at the quarry,” he says.
I try to make my voice even. “We went up there with Wayne and Sinclair. We talked about you, actually. And then your friend Steve started acting like an asshole.”
Will nods, looks around the field. “Well, that seems about right.”
“If you want my opinion, give her some space. For tonight at least.” He starts to object, but I talk over him. “You can’t keep calling her. I mean, you know what she’s like.”
He sighs and says, “She’s making me crazy. All I want to do is talk to her.”
“So you thought you’d come search for her in an empty field?”
He looks confused. “What?”
“You’re in the middle of a field at midnight.”
He thinks about this for a second and says, “So are you.”
I hesitate, long enough to make it seem like I don’t know why I’m lying down in a field in the middle of the night. I go with the old standby.
“I’m leaving for the army in the morning and wanted to be alone.”
He eyes me and says, “I get that. Still, it’s kind of weird.”
Something moves in the distance, and my entire body becomes a knot. I suddenly have visions of Mallory walking up, having it out with Will right in front of me. I don’t know if I want them to make up or not—at least right now. Because then it really would be over.
I say, “So . . . why are you out here?”
Will reaches toward his back pocket. “I lost my wallet when the car got stuck. I just realized.”
He pauses, and I look at the ground, feeling bad for a moment. I kick at a rock and say, “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think you guys would be stupid enough to follow me into the field.”
“Jeremy is pissed. They had to tow the car out.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. So does Will.
“I don’t know what he was thinking.” And then something switches on his face, like he realizes we shouldn’t be having such a casual conversation. “If you point me in the right direction, I’ll see if I can find it. You