Book Five, Chapter 45: The Farmhouse

“I’d love to sit here and sing ‘Kumbaya’ with all of you,” I said, as I put my tickets away into the ether where they disappeared, “but it’s getting dark, and we still haven’t decided what we’re going to do about her.”

I glanced over at Lila.

We had expected there might be some friction when rescuing new teams—that was built into the plan. We had thought that part through. So, when Andrew and Michael took longer than would be convenient to trust us, that did not slow us down.

But what were we supposed to do about this living human we could not trust?

From their body language, I could tell that Andrew and Michael had been protecting her for a long time. Yet, as I posed that question, I could see that even Andrew didn’t know what to do.

Dark thoughts entered our minds.

Lila had said that she was tricked, that she was just trying to save lives, that she had been told some small portion of Project Rewind—even if she didn’t know that name—and she was trying to prevent the drastic measures that cost the lives of dozens upon dozens of Players.

If we had been told ahead of time that all of Camp Dyer would be sacrificed to reset the game, would we have proceeded?

I didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter because she could just be lying. For all I knew, she was telling just enough of the truth to justify the horrific thing she had done to her friends.

And Andrew appeared to be on the same page as I was.

More than that, even if she was telling the truth, that didn’t mean she was level-headed and trustworthy. Even if she was just a dupe, she was a liability.

“We will offer you shelter and whatever food we have,” Antoine said. “We came here to save you. You can ask Cassie and Isaac—that was our plan—but Riley’s right: we can’t bring her back to our base before we know we can trust her. It’s too risky.”

Michael and Andrew looked at each other, then at Lila.

They agreed that she could not be trusted, but they couldn’t just abandon her without considering the options.

We needed to press them to make a decision.

“Are we just supposed to kill her?” Michael asked. “If you have any ideas, just tell me. I saw what she did. She could say it was an accident all she wanted, but I could see in her eyes that she was up to something. I just didn’t follow my gut.”

He spat on the ground, clearly angry with himself.

“Michael, I thought I was doing the right thing,” Lila said.

“Oh, hush,” Michael responded. “You wanted to save Camp Dyer by killing all of us? That doesn’t make any sense to me. You were on our team! You should have put us above anybody else. Heck, better yet, you should have just talked to us. We were all in it together.”

He spoke in an angry tone, but I could see there was pain in his eyes. They had lived, fought, and died together multiple times. Every team at Carousel had the same story, so her betrayal must have hurt.

Lila didn’t answer.

“You all seem to have a much better grasp on the current landscape than we do,” Andrew said, looking at my friends and me. “Do you have any suggestions about what we do with her?”

What were the options? We could abandon her, and she would get killed by some Omen or wander into a monster lair. We could try to force her into a Storyline, but then we’d risk getting caught in it ourselves.

That was too brutal. That was intolerable. Could I ever do that?

My friends and I grouped together and whispered amongst ourselves.

“We can’t show her my loft,” Kimberly said. “If she knows where it is, she could sabotage us. She could answer the door when an Omen shows up.”

Kimberly was particularly apprehensive and wasn’t hiding it well.

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Antoine said. “We’re not going to let her know where we’re living.”

“We could let her live at my place out in eastern Carousel,” Bobby suggested. “I do still have a writ for it, and she would be safe.”

That was definitely an idea.

“Except for three weeks from now, when she needs to run a Storyline and isn’t able to,” Antoine said. “I mean, we would just be putting off her death.”

“Why are we even debating?” Dina asked. “We have a clear goal, and she’s an obstacle to it. I don’t need to remind you that I’m also an invitee, and if she’s going around killing invitees, that makes me a little more than nervous.”

“We have rescue tropes,” I said. “Even if she gets killed, that’s not really her dying. It’s just her being out of the way for a while.”

“I can’t believe we’re discussing this,” Kimberly said. “This was supposed to be a happy moment.”

“The question is,” Antoine said, “do we believe that she actually thought she was helping? Because if what she said is true, she might be an ally now. But if we can’t trust her, then it doesn’t matter what she said—she has to go.”

We knew what the answer was.

We had to do something about her.

We could abandon her and wait for her poster to end up on the board near the diner.

Or we could send her to Bobby’s place, the farm where she would have peace for a time, but then we’d always wonder what she was up to. If she knew too much, it was possible she could still be a threat.

If she was lying and in league with a Narrator or something, did we want her out of our sight?

The whole Narrator thing wasn’t that likely, but still. In my head, I knew that she could just be a semi-innocent pawn who helped Project Rewind come to fruition. Heck, it was even probable, but it was not in my nature to ignore the uncomfortable possibilities.

Postering her own teammates? That was an act that could condemn her regardless of her motive. If she could be swayed to lead her team to death, even for ultimately a good reason, she was dangerous. It wasn’t like she acted on good evidence.

“We can’t stay here,” I said. “That’s the bottom line. It’s safe while the sun is up, but I have not scouted this place out for mobile Omens when it gets dark.”

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“So where do we go? Do we keep her with us?” Antoine asked.

“Yes,” I said, “but we don’t go back to the loft.”

“Then where do we go?” Kimberly asked, plucking at her hair.

“We go to Bobby’s place,” I said. “Not just her. All of us. We’ll be safe there to rest. There is food and water, even though it’s not the best, we’ll have time to think about things before we show them the loft.”

We needed to make a decision, but what we really needed was time.

The others looked almost relieved to hear of some compromise that could put off the hard decision and keep us safe, at least for a time.

Antoine turned back to Andrew and Michael.

“We know a place where we’ll be safe for the night,” Antoine said. “It’s a bit of a walk from here, so we’ll have to be quick. It should give us some time to make a decision.”

Andrew nodded his head with a glance back at Michael.

“Thank you,” he said.

“So we’re just bringing her with us?” Michael asked. “Great, wonderful idea. I just hope next time she gets us stuck in a storyline, it doesn’t have any damn bedbugs.”

No one was going to argue with him on that.

“If you want me to open up Sound Stages, I can,” Lila said meekly.

“How about you don’t say anything?” Michael said.

“There’s no need for that,” Andrew said. “Lila, thank you for the offer, but that isn’t necessary.”

Lila had a scouting trope that allowed her to open up Sound Stages from nearby storylines. Essentially, it allowed her to walk through a sort of backstage area where there were no wandering Omens.

The truth was, I really wanted to see that ability used, but not by her.

The walk was long, and we did not manage to get to Bobby’s farmhouse by nightfall, but we did manage to get there safely.

No one wanted to speak. No one wanted to think about the upcoming choice we had to make.

We knew that she could not be allowed in the loft just yet. If she had the goal of killing us, she could easily do that by triggering an Omen as soon as it knocked on the door.

Carousel was a nightmare in and of itself, but not being able to trust our fellow Players was not a part of the game that we were ready for.