BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

‘No,’ Stephanie replied, shaking her head and smiling thinly. ‘Nothing like that. It was an online thing. An anti-bullying group. Like a helpline, but done on the internet. Locally, from what I can gather. I looked it up at the time and it seemed like you spoke to someone on a message board type of thing, then you could see them face-to-face if you wanted to. I saw Emily looking at it one day, but she closed her laptop when she realised I’d seen it. I googled the name of it and found out what it was.’

‘Did you talk to her about it?’

‘I tried to, but she wasn’t having any of it. She never talked to me about anything.’

Mark nodded and pulled out his notepad. ‘What was the name of this company?’

‘The Huddle,’ Stephanie said, then pulled her phone out from her pocket and checked again. ‘Yeah, there it is. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I know she was using it. I tried talking to her about it more, but by that point we weren’t really getting along.’

‘Why was that?’

Stephanie sighed, putting her phone away. ‘I’ve told you. Nothing important. Just silly stuff. I wanted to help her, but she just wasn’t seeing sense. I couldn’t get her away from her screen long enough to have a proper conversation with her and probably didn’t try hard enough. I should have made more of an effort, I suppose.’

‘You did the best you could, I’m sure of it.’ Mark smiled thinly, which turned into a grimace as she looked away. Maybe she could feel the insincerity of his statement as much as he could.

He wasn’t sure of anything. Other than he needed to speak to the people supposedly helping Emily.

Twenty-Nine

PLAYER ONE

Another phone call.

The next level.

Giving her the instructions. Telling her what they wanted.

She had tried to question it, tried to back out and find another way. It had been pointless. There was no reasoning with the voice.

She knew now that they had been watching everything. Checking her old posts, the way she had spoken online, what she’d talked about. Waiting for her to make one last mistake. Take it too far.