“Everyone has to make their own choices. That’s the point of the game. Jewel sets the stage, and we play our parts,” Francis said, shrugging. “I don’t like it, but I get it. Harlow made the choice to go through with it.”

But she’d been manipulated! Didn’t he see that? Harlow wanted to win—had said so multiple times now. Maybe Nicole was just different. Maybe she just didn’t want the money bad enough (which was a hot take she hadn’t been expecting at all). If that had been her challenge, she would’ve taken the penalty. There was absolutely no way in hell she’d agree to being put in her grave early for a game.

“I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. Being buried is one of my worst nightmares,” she admitted. Her stomach began to bottom out just thinking about it. “Both of my parents are dead. Watching their caskets being lowered into the ground kind of broke me.”

Her brain refused to shut up about it. One day, that’s where you’ll be too. Cold and in the ground with a faded headstone, no one to remember you.

Nicole had never told anyone that. If Jewel had known, would that have been her part to play instead of Harlow? “Would you have done it?” she asked him, carefully watching his reaction.

“I already did,” he said, surprising her.

“During Scavengers Initiative?”

He nodded. “I wasn’t buried, but I was in a glass coffin full of tarantulas. I got bit by a spider when I was seven, ended up having a severe allergic reaction, and almost died. All Jewel knew was I didn’t like spiders, not why. Don’t give her anything else.”

“My God.”

“But you don’t have to worry,” he said quietly. “Just be careful.”

“What do you mean?”

Francis glanced at her quickly before looking away. “I mean exactly what I said.”

Had Francis just tried to give her a hint? But how would he know? He’d been so adamant that he was playing the game too, that he didn’t know more than they did. Had he been lying this whole time?

Nicole eyed him warily, trying to decide what to say next. Her mom used to say: You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If she were like Stella, or even Luna, she’d immediately go on the offensive, but that wasn’t her style.

Disarm him, Nicole thought. She’d confided in him about her parents and her fear. And he reacted, letting his mask slip to tell her, in his own way, that she’d be fine.

She got him to slip once. She could do it again.