Chapter 2

I slowly stood up, the legs of my chair scraping sharply across the floor.

I looked at Zane.

He turned his face away.

"Why exactly $260,000?" I asked. "That can’t be a coincidence."

He was silent for a long time, staring at the floor.

Finally, he pressed his lips together.

"Sophie lives far from work. She has to cram onto the subway every morning. In the summer, she gets to work drenched in sweat. In the winter, her hands crack from the cold."

He paused.

"She’s your best friend. If you knew what she was going through, you’d feel bad for her too."

I braced a hand against the edge of the table and looked down at my fingers.

I had kept that money in a separate account.

I’d even named it 'Home'.

Every month, as soon as my paycheck came in, I transferred half of it into that account.

My commute from the station took thirty minutes on foot, with no direct bus. I walked it every single day because I couldn’t even bring myself to spend money on a bike rental.

Last winter, the skin across the backs of my hands cracked open in several places.

Every keystroke hurt.

I kept telling myself I could put up with it a little longer.

The money I spent seeing a doctor could buy a few things for our new home instead.

Just last month, I had checked the balance and smiled to myself.

A few more months, and we’d have enough for heated floors.

"That’s not what I asked."

I paused and took a deep breath.

"That was our money. What gave you the right to take it without telling me?"

Zane finally looked at me.

There was a coldness in his eyes I had never seen before.

"That money wasn’t all yours."

"Wasn’t half of it mine?"

He suddenly gave a quiet laugh through his nose.

"Are you really going to stand there and act like you’ve never hidden anything from me?"

I froze.

What was he talking about?

I stared at him, waiting for him to explain.

But he only looked back at me, something unreadable shifting behind his eyes.

Sophie spoke up.

"Cecilia, don’t be mad. Zane only lent me the money. I was going to pay it back."

"It’s just that now…"

"My car is gone…"

She lowered her voice.

"And because half the money was yours, and I wrote your name down, the system must have decided the money counted as something you gave me. That’s why it took the car away."

By the end, she sounded almost as though *she* were the one who had been wronged.

Nausea rolled through me.

I was about to speak when the system cut us off.

The second round began.

[Choose the scene where you first met the person you love.]

[You have one minute to choose.]

[Anyone who answers incorrectly will be punished.]

I was sent into a room by myself.

There were no windows.

Only a harsh white light overhead.

Two videos appeared side by side on the wall in front of me.

Both were filmed from a third-person perspective.

There was no sound, and the faces were blurred.

But I recognized them anyway.

In the video on the left, a little boy was curled up inside a rundown apartment, the door hanging half open.

A large man stood over him with a broken beer bottle in his hand.

Just as he swung it down, a girl rushed in and threw herself over the boy’s back.

Shards of glass flew.

One buried itself in the back of her neck.

The video on the right was set in winter.

Dirty snow was piled at the mouth of an alley.

A boy lay facedown on the ground with his eyes closed, dressed in a thin school uniform.

His lips were turning blue.

Two girls walked past and stopped to talk.

The shorter one shook her head at something the other said.

Then, in the end, she took off her puffer jacket and laid it over the boy.

I watched the video on the right several times.

Then I chose the one on the left.

When I stepped out of the room, Zane and Sophie were already waiting.

Zane’s expression was ice-cold.

"You saw that, and you seriously have nothing to say?"

His voice was pulled tight.

I stopped in front of him, my hands curling into fists.

"What exactly do you want me to say?"

He gave a humorless laugh.

"Just because you couldn’t see anyone’s face, you think you can act like you did nothing wrong?"

"Fine. Treat me like that."

"But Sophie too?"

"Isn’t she supposed to be your best friend?"

My throat tightened.

"If you have something to say, just say it."

"That puffer jacket—"

Sophie grabbed his sleeve.

"Zane, forget it. It was a long time ago."

His chest rose and fell sharply.

Then the system announced the results.

[Cecilia: Correct.]

[Sophie: Correct.]

[Zane: Incorrect.]

[Zane Jefferson will receive the punishment.]

Zane spun toward the system.

"I didn’t get it wrong!"