I had a dull throbbing ache behind my eyes. It was from the drug, I thought. Like last time, when I was shot with a dart in the parking lot.

The only source of light was a single candle burning on a desk to my right. The light was dim, but I knew where I was. I was at TriBro. I was in Clyde’s office. I could make out the action figures in the bookcase to my left.

I pushed myself up so I was sitting and realized someone was slouched in a chair, lost in shadow, watching me from across the room. The shadowed figure leaned forward into the candlelight and I saw that it was Clyde.

“You’re awake,” he said. “And you look scared. Sometimes when I get scared I get sexually excited. Do you get excited when you get scared? Are you hot?”

The words sent a new rush of cold fear into my chest. I looked into Clyde’s eyes and I saw the monster emerging.

“Get up,” Clyde said. “Go around the desk and open the drawer. I have a surprise for you.”

I steadied myself on the desk and got to my feet, swallowing back nausea from the drug. I inched around the desk, carefully opened the drawer, and looked down at another lock of my hair, tied with the slim pink ribbon.

I looked up and my eyes met Clyde’s. “Now you know,” Clyde said. “You’re surprised, right? I bet you never thought it was me.”

Everything fell into place. Web Master wasn’t a computer term as we’d all assumed. It was a Spider-Man reference. Days ago, I asked Clyde what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to be Spider-Man. Spider-Man was known as the webslinger and Clyde’s game name was the Web Master.

“Spider-Man didn’t kill innocent people,” I said. “Spider-Man was a good guy.”

“I’m not the webslinger,” Clyde said. “I’m the Web Master. There’s a difference. And I don’t kill innocent people. I run a game so people can kill each other. How cool is that?”

“What about the prey? Aren’t they innocent?”

“I pick the prey out real careful. And they’re never innocent. The cop killed a guy in the line of duty. And so have you. As soon as I saw you at the plant that day I knew you had to be the next prize. Bart tried to warn you away, but you wouldn’t listen. It wouldn’t have mattered. I had my mind made up right away.”

“Bart knows about the game?”

Clyde was smiling, rocking back on his heels, enjoying his moment. “Bart’s confused. I got careless with the game two years ago and Bart got to read an email. Paressi and Fisher Cat were left in the game and I was giving them the kill clue. Bart didn’t know it was a game. He thought I was involved with Paressi and he went to the kill spot to stop me from a crime of passion. Problem was, he got there too late. Paressi was dead and Fisher Cat was gone.”