“Christ, Trace,” Rhys says.

“Oh, sorry, Moreno. I forgot you were president of the Cary Chen Fan Club since he got most of us here and everything.”

The whole time Trace is talking, my eyes are on Cary. I don’t have to look at Trace to know the vein in his forehead is pulsing, that he’s talking through his teeth. Cary’s face is deceptively calm but his eyes are all sadness. Maybe guilt.

“Say what you want to say, Trace,” he says.

“Okay, fine. There was no way in hell that alley went from empty to swarmed in ten seconds. You said it was clear—”

“They move fast—it was clear—”

“You said it was clear and you knew it wasn’t and you let them walk right into it—”

“It was clear!”

I flinch again. Cary gets to his feet and Trace does the same. I have this vision of Trace killing Cary, straddling him on the auditorium floor, bashing his head against it until Cary’s brains are everywhere. Cary sees it too. He walks away like that’s the end of it, but then he doubles back, red-faced, and points at Trace. His fingers are in the shape of a gun.

“I would have never, never—”

“But you did. You know you did—”

“Trace, what could Cary have possibly gained by doing that?” Rhys asks.

Trace turns on him. “I know what I saw—”

“Did anyone else see it? Hey, Sloane, did you see it? Did you see Cary tell the Caspers to walk into a swarmed alley? What did you see?” I shake my head, trying to keep myself from being pulled into this but he won’t stop. “Come on, tell us what you saw, Sloane—” The more he says it the more I feel myself start to cave—I’ll tell Rhys what I saw, no, I’ll say what Trace wants to hear—when two things happen: Grace screams, “Stop!” At the same time a loud bang sounds against the doors, startling us all, sending us scrambling back.

We stare at the doors for the longest time after that but nothing else happens.

Harrison whispers, “Oh no,” over and over even though nothing else happens.

“Look,” Cary finally says, and he sounds tired, like it’s the end of a long day and not the start of new one. “We should check the barricades. Maybe add more to them and make sure nothing’s moved. That’s all I was going to say before.”

“I am not helping you,” Trace says.

He storms across the room, his footsteps loud against the floor, somehow louder than everything that’s going on outside. He steps into the hall like he has somewhere to go but there’s nowhere to go.

I think of reality TV shows.

Contestants on an island, whatever. This feels like it could be bad reality television. I imagine an audience, comfortable at home, some other world watching this right now, judging me for everything I’ve done and will do. This is television. We’re actors pretending to be people and when this is all over, one of us will be a million dollars richer. I just forgot.