we could make more money. And now she’s gone, and she’s left me here to take all the blame, like it wasn’t her idea to sell Apex in the first place!”
She was done with the conversation and pivoted back toward her dorm. Zaza kept walking alongside but lowered his voice.
“Okay,” he said. “I get it. I don’t think that distinction’s gonna matter to the school, but I get it. Can you at least promise me you won’t tell Yangborne about it until Emma gets back? And you can figure out what’s going on?”
She reached the entrance to her dorm and froze.
“Please, Neesha. At least promise me that?”
Neesha stared past him, her stomach backing up. She let her backpack drop to the ground.
“What are you . . .” Zaza turned with her to face the door. “Oh.”
Scrawled at eye level with a red marker, in childlike handwriting, was a simple message:
she’s going 2 die.
emma donahue investigation.
edward velasquez—year 4.
transcription by MONKEY voice-to-text software.
YANIS (Administration) _ Okay. Last one of the day. I’m excited to get to talk to you because it sounds like you had quite the night. State your name please . . . Edward Velasquez . . . Can you hear me. Can you understand me. Do you know what you’re doing here. Do you know where you are.
EDWARD VELASQUEZ (Student) _ No.
Y _ Okay. But you know you are being spoken to.
EV _ No.
Y _ How about this. Repeat the word yes for me.
EV _ No.
Y _ Yes . . . Yes. Repeat this word. Yes. Yes. If you have any idea of what I’m saying at all just repeat the word yes.
EV _ No.
Y _ Jesus. What goes on in that brain . . . How about . . . Do you know this girl . . . You’re staring does that mean that you know this girl. Yes you can touch it.
EV _ No.
Y _ Eddy please. Give me something to work with here.
EV _ No.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ He won’t.
Y _ Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ Sorry for dropping in without warning. How is it going.
Y _ He won’t say anything other than no.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ I know. It’s tragic.
Y _ What happened.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ Some kind of trauma but we have no idea. Wait what is this.
Y _ Oh it’s called a MONKEY. It records what we’re saying.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ I know I use one too. I am just surprised my name is coming up as unidentified voice.
Y _ Yes you have to program the voices for each session.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ Of course.
Y _ The school wanted us to record every conversation we have in this missing student search.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ How is it going.
Y _ Not well. I don’t know if it’s this girl in particular or just how the students are here. But everyone seems to be very guarded and no one wants to answer questions about this directly. It seems like every time I say the name Emma.
EV _ It took her.
Y _ What. Eddy. What did you say. It took her. What took her.
EV _ The flood.
Y _ What did you say. Repeat that. Tell me what took her.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ He said the flood.
Y _ What does that mean.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ It’s been a repeat phrase for him. Just started recently.
Y _ The flood. The flood. The flood.
EV _ It took her.
Y _ Who is her. Emma. Is it Emma. Eddy do you understand. Emma.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ He doesn’t understand.
EV _ The flood.
Y _ What is the flood.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE (Unknown) _ That’s what all of us are trying to figure out.
Aiden.
AIDEN STARED, BAFFLED, at his own desk. “Why don’t you just swallow them?”
“Faster if you snort it, man.”
“I feel like it hits me fast when I swallow it.”
“Not fast enough.”
“It hurts my nose.”
“Yeah, you’ll get over that.” Peter’s head dove toward the table.
Peter boosted like an artist. He drew zigzag lines across Aiden’s desk with the tiny silver balls, emptied from the pill’s casing, cutting and sharpening them with his student ID and then—when they were angled just right—vacuuming them up in one swooping, ducking, floating motion across the desk, his nostril the crop plane, his Apex the crop. Except in reverse. Like, if the crop plane sucked the crops out of the fields. Or whatever.
“Alright, that’s enough.” Aiden eyed the bag of pills on the desk. “We should get to work.”
“It’s a focus drug, this is