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associate with triumphant arrival, stirs my anger further. I’ve hit the child-sized prop’s head, caught the brown hair in the door.
    Is it real hair? Did a woman somewhere shear her head thinking her keratin threads would bolster the confidence of a child fighting cancer, only to have them end up a part of this sick game? Is the donor watching, and will she recognize the hair as hers? Will she feel the impact of the car door against her own head?
    Stop.
    I make my way to the other side of the car, take a deep breath, hold it, and open the door on that side. I yank the cooler from the car and slam the door shut. The sound echoes in my skull.
    Cooler in hand, I ease myself to the ground in front of the car and lean against the bumper. My teeth feel as though they have fused together, top to bottom, and they tremble with the strength of their connection. I sit with my eyes closed, working to relax my jaw.
    The first fake corpse I saw was at the end of a Team Challenge. The third, I think. Maybe the fourth—it’s hard to remember. It was me, Julio, and Heather, following the signs: red drips on rocks, a handprint in the mud, a thread caught in some thorns. We got turned around, lost the trail when it crossed a brook. Heather tripped and got wet, then bumbled into a stump or something and started whining about a stubbed toe as though she’d broken her leg. We lost a lot of time and, ultimately, the Challenge. Cooper and Ethan’s group got there first, of course. That night, Cooper told me that they found their target with a fake head wound sitting near the top edge of the rock face. I remember the anger in his voice, how surprised I was to hear it. But I understood.

    We watched our target tumble over the cliff.
    I saw the harness under his jacket; I saw the rope. But still.
    At the bottom we found a twisted mess coated in cornstarch blood. It didn’t look very real, not that first time, but it was still a shock. The latex-and-plastic construct wore jeans, from which we needed to retrieve a wallet. Heather cried. Julio placed his hat over his heart and murmured a prayer. They left it to me. After I got the wallet my nerves were raw and Heather’s hysterics sliced through them. I don’t remember exactly what I yelled, but I know I used the word “bimbo,” because afterward I thought, What an odd word choice, even for me. I remember everyone staring at me, the shock in their eyes. I’d worked so hard to be nice, to be someone to root for—to vote for. But enough was enough.
    Walking away from that Challenge, I thought I finally understood what they were capable of. I thought I understood just how far they were willing to go. And I knew I had to do better. I apologized to Heather—as sincerely as I could, considering that I’d meant everything I said and only regretted saying it—and I hardened myself until I was ready for anything.
    I feel myself getting harder every day. Even when I startle and soften, even when my façade breaks, it seems to me that it always comes back harder, like a muscle strengthening with use. I hate it. I hate being hard and that my hatred hardens me further. I hate that I’m already pushing the child prop from my mind, thinking instead of the cooler.

    I press the button, pull the handle so the top tilts away.
    A Ziploc bag stuffed with green and white mold. Beneath it, a juice box. Pomegranate blueberry. I fish out the juice box and then close the cooler. I feel as though I should return the cooler to the car, like how I spread out the components of my debris huts each morning, returning everything to its natural place. But this is different, there is nothing natural about the placement of this car, this cooler. I stand and shove the cooler against the front bumper with my foot. A moment later, juice box in hand, I am walking again.
    I wonder if I’ll make it home without hitting a boundary or finding another Clue—if they’ll let me go that far. Have they carved out a corridor for me