Need (20 page)

Love.

Tears fall as that word echoes in my head. Nate said it was all for love. Maybe I don't understand love because no one who has said they loved me has ever put me first. I've always wanted to be loved, but if that's love I don't want any part of it. Because it isn't real. For a while the illusion is enough, but once you see beyond it, the only thing that's left is pain.

NEED knows this. It gets that under all the smiles and high-fives and laughter in the hallways, when push comes to shove, most people put themselves first. Their wants. Their needs—or what they think they need, anyway. Especially if they think they can hide it.

Good. Let NEED use that. Let NEED punish them all. Turn brother against brother and friend against friend. My brother and mother are gone for now. I'm safe in this house. NEED can do its worst. I don't care anymore.

Anger burns away the tears. But then, shame slides through me.

Because I do care. No matter how much I think I want payback for everything the people in this town have done to me, I don't. Not really. If I did, I would be like them. Like all the people who have made me a joke and called me an attention whore. Being like them would be worse than being alone.

I rub my hands over my face and wipe away the tears. Crying is useless. Other people could be dying because NEED is using their fears and their selfishness and their egos against them. Well, two can play that game.

Pushing to my feet, I walk to my desk and take a seat. NEED showed up and infiltrated our lives in a matter of days without almost anyone noticing it was happening. We're all so used to new things appearing on the Internet every day that we don't question what's behind them before welcoming them into our lives. Because they don't feel real. NEED knows that. It feeds on the belief that what's on the public forum of the Internet can't be all that bad. All sorts of things people wouldn't have the nerve or the heart to do face-to-face show up online, and most of the time people shrug them off because it's just the Internet. You can ignore them or convince yourself they aren't real. And since NEED insists on secrecy for both the network and the users, it's easier for members to pretend nothing bad is happening. Well, they aren't going to be able to pretend anymore.

I log on to NEED and start taking pictures of the message board with my phone. NEED thrives on anonymity, and members use it to hide from what they have done. Well, I'm going to make it impossible for them to hide. I'm fighting back. Let NEED come after me. I don't care. Because I'm not going to just break their rules this time. I'm going to shatter them.

E
THAN COUGHS
and wipes his forehead. The fumes are making his chest burn, but he has to finish. His hands shake as he takes the box out of his bag and opens it. He looks inside at the timer device and the New Year's Celebration Fireworks Fountain. The faster he gets this celebration ready, the sooner he can leave.

Sweat pours down his face. He tries not to breathe too deeply as he clears a spot on the desk for the big, colorfully wrapped fountain. His dad likes fireworks. Every year their mother freaks and yells and hides behind her hands as they blow off dozens of fountains, rockets, and mortars. None of the fountains they use are this heavy. This thing must burn for at least four minutes, maybe more. Plenty of time to get the party started.

Juggling the flashlight and the timer is tough with his gloves on. He can't make a mistake. His head pounds. He leans on the desk to keep his balance and knocks something to the ground. Crap. He shines the flashlight to see what it is. A metal and plastic desk nameplate. He's lucky the metal part didn't hit anything and strike a spark. Thinking about what could have happened makes his head swim. He can't stay in here much longer.

Suddenly he doesn't care about doing things exactly right. Not as long as he stays alive.

Ethan pulls off his gloves and stuffs them in his bag. He picks up the nameplate, then puts the flashlight on the desk next to the timer. Without the bulk of the gloves it's easier to make sure the timer is set and working. He barely breathes when he places the wick for the fountain on the ignition wire.

He did it. It's set. Now he has to get out of here.

Ethan grabs his bag and feels his knees buckle as he heads for the office door. It's not far, he tells himself. Just down the hall. His feet slide on the slick tile. Just a few more steps now until his mission is accomplished. He took too much time on this one. Next time. He'll do better next time.

“Ethan.”

He turns and shines his beam into the hallway behind him. The floor glistens with gasoline just waiting for the spark that will ignite it.

“Ethan. Please don't leave me here.”

Hannah's voice is groggy. It's hard to tell one word from another the way she slurs them. The gas fumes must be getting to her, too.

Good,
he thinks as he pushes the bar on the exit door and walks into the fresh air. He hopes for her sake she's unconscious when the alarm goes off and the fireworks start. If she hadn't seen his face he might be able to help her out, since NEED didn't say she had to die. Actually, the instructions spelled out a way to get this done and let her go. But he can't, because she brought a flashlight and she saw, which means it's a choice between Hannah and him. And that's no choice at all.

I
WORK FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES
pulling the pictures I think are the most telling about NEED. The only time I stop and let myself feel anything other than anger is when my mother texts to make sure everything is okay at home. I say yes, then lie again and say that Nate sends his best to DJ before turning back to my project. It takes some editing to make sure the photographs are positioned so that people can recognize the image while understanding that it came from the website. Those who aren't on the website will probably think I'm up to my old attention-seeking tricks. There's nothing I can do about that.

My fingers hover over the keyboard as I try to decide what to say to accompany the photos. I'm scared of typing the wrong thing. Scared people will ignore me. Scared they won't. Annoyed that I still worry about what people think. If it weren't for their belief that they can get something for nothing, NEED would be harmless. It would just sit out there on the World Wide Web—powerless to cause harm. As much as I blame NEED for Amanda's death and any other disasters it has caused, I blame us. All of us. Because I was gullible and asked for something too. Something I never believed would be delivered, but still I asked. No one gets something for nothing. We all should know better.

And that's when I realize I know what I want to say.

Is what you thought you needed worth this?

I hit Post and wait for the photo and caption to appear before loading another photo. This one of a Santa sleigh that's been beaten to a pulp and what I think used to be light-up reindeer. A broken baseball bat is also in the photo.

What did you think you needed enough to do this?

Another photo—this time of the grave that was dug in my yard.

And this.

Finally, I post the photo of the bloodstained snow.

Red streaked on white.

Bits of fur.

Pieces of flesh that belonged to pets someone loved.

And what could you possibly need enough to do this? Stop doing what NEED asks. Nothing is worth the price we will pay. Nothing is free.

I hit Post. For better or worse I have broken the Terms and Conditions NEED threatened me with. Now what? Waiting to see what people say would be torture, so I click back on the NEED shortcut and start looking for other things that I should document. Some people will ignore or attack what I've done, but others will be less selfish. Even if it's only one or two, I can ask them to talk to Officer Shepens with me. He will have to believe me if there are others who say the same thing. Won't he?

NETWORK MEMBERS—683

NEEDS PENDING—685

NEEDS FULFILLED—228

Oh God. The network is down more members. Who else is dead? And who killed them? The numbers swirl before me. I blink my vision clear and notice a red exclamation point in the top right corner of my screen. That's new. I move my cursor so it hovers over the symbol. The message
One notification
appears
.
I click on it and feel a scream build inside me.

A KIDNEY HAS BEEN LOCATED AND IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING PROCURED. YOU CAN REST ASSURED YOUR NEED REQUEST WILL BE FULFILLED.

Beneath the message is a picture of a cell phone with a blue case sitting atop an ugly purple knitted hat.

Nate.

Then my screen goes black.

“Y
VONNE
.”

She flips the page, hoping her mother will stop calling her. At least until she gets to the end of the chapter. She has to know if—

“Yvonne, did you hear me?” Her mother stands in the doorway of the living room. Her dark bushy hair falls over one eye, but Yvonne can see her mom's annoyance in the way she stands with the phone in one hand. “Mrs. L. is on the phone for you. It would be nice if you actually paid attention to what's going on in this house instead of what's in those books. Those books aren't the real world, you know.”

“I know, Mama,” Yvonne says. She gets off the couch, walks over to her mother, and takes the phone. She hopes Mrs. L. isn't going to ask her to work extra hours this week. With break ending and finals less than two weeks away, she needs the time to study.

“Hi, Mrs. L.” Her sister yells that Javier is hitting her, and someone cranks the volume on the music, so Yvonne leaves the room to ask, “Are we going to have a snow day at the bakery tomorrow?”

“I hope not.” Mrs. L. laughs. “The weatherman swears the snow will stop around two a.m. That should give the plows plenty of time to clear the streets before the store opens. But if you have any trouble getting there, just give us a holler and I'll send Jed and his truck to pick you up. Sound good?”

“Sounds great, Mrs. L.”

“Lovely. Now, on to other business. Do you remember taking an order for a box of seventeen cookies? The police contacted me and asked, but I'm at home and don't have the paperwork in front of me. With the snow, I'd rather not go out so I've been calling everyone who might have manned the front the last couple days. Seventeen is an unusual number, so I thought it might stand out in your mind.”

The police. Damn.

Yvonne thinks of the form she filled out. She'd forgotten about it, with the store being so busy in the afternoon and her brothers and sisters screaming and racing around all night. She hasn't even logged on to the computer since she got home because her dad's been on it. He promised he'd finish soon so she could check her email and message some of her friends. The fake order was supposed to be no big deal. Who cares about a box of cookies? It's just something she did because of a website. It doesn't really matter, unless Mrs. L. finds out she faked it and basically lied.

“You know, I do remember that order.” Putting her hand over the receiver she yells. “Would you all hold it down in there so I can talk? Please?” The screams subside to loud giggles. So she says, “It came in yesterday or the day before.” She can't think of exactly what date she put on the form.

“Oh, good,” Mrs. L. says. “Do you happen to know if it was one of our regulars? If you don't remember, that's okay too. Now that I know it's real I'll go over to the store and check the forms.”

“No. I remember.” And because Mrs. L. is going to see the order Yvonne wrote anyway she says, “It was placed by a girl I go to school with. Her name is Kaylee Dunham.”

N
O
.

I hit Enter again and again and again.

No. No. No. No. Why won't the screen load?

Then I realize the computer hasn't stopped working. It's only the Internet page that has gone black. I shut down the browser and fumble with my mouse as I click on the NEED shortcut. A black screen appears with red lettering.

ACCESS DENIED

“Denied.” I click on it again. The same message appears. This has to be a mistake. The message I saw before the screen went dark is a mistake. Nate was here. He was fine. A total jerk, but a jerk who was fine.

Until I made him leave.

I won't feel guilty for that. I won't. After what he did, I had no choice. He isn't my friend anymore. He never was. But . . .

NEED could just be screwing with me. They must have seen or heard about the pictures I posted. They sent the message about Nate and then locked me out because they're angry.

But as much as I want to believe that's true, I don't. I pull out my phone and dial Nate's cell phone, praying that he's okay. I don't want to talk to him, but as angry as I am, I want him to at least be okay.

Straight to voicemail.

Now what? Think. Think.

NEED has Nate, and even though he's scared and doesn't want to be operated on, they've chosen him to be a donor for DJ. They'll force him. I want to feel satisfaction at that. I want to believe it's okay, since he should have made that decision on his own. But while removing a kidney isn't usually a life-or-death operation for the donor, if NEED takes Nate's kidney without his approval there is no way they'll let him live. They can't. Not without being exposed. DJ would live, but for that to happen Nate would die. NEED has already killed Amanda and possibly others. They will have no problem killing him, too.

Oh God. No. He deserves a lot of things for what he's done. I want him to feel the abandonment and pain I'm feeling. But I don't want him dead.

There has to be a way out of this. This was my request. NEED's doing this for me. And I do want what I asked for, but not like this. There has to be a way to tell the website. And then I remember that there is. I open up my email, hit Reply to NEED's message for me to stay silent, and type.