Page 141 of The Friend Scheme
Something is clearly very wrong.
“Yeah?”
“You can’t. Look at me, you can’t tell me anything about them.”
His eyes are wide.
“What? Why?”
He looks like he’s in pain.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He pulls his shirt down a little.
In the middle of his chest, nearly invisible, is something that looks like a plastic circle. He obviously wasn’t wearing it before; I would’ve noticed it. I think back, and he left for a little while before to go to the public bathroom. He took his backpack. He must’ve put it on then, before we came here.
Oh no.
I think I know what it is.
And why he wouldn’t let me tell him about my family until we got here.
“What’s that?” I ask. I need to know for sure.
There’s horror in my voice.
He peels it off his skin, wincing as he does. It looked like it was stuck tight. There’s now a red circle on his chest where it had been.
“It’s a wire,” he says. “It’s new tech.”
He tries scrunching it up in his hands, but that doesn’t work, it’s too flexible. So he pinches it, and rips it in half. Inside, I can see tiny wires, glinting in the sunlight.
I don’t know what to say.
“So I was right?” I ask. “You are still trying to learn my family secrets.”
“Yeah, I am. But it’s not what you think.”
I feel like I could be sick.
“I’m not who you think I am,” he says.
I scoff. “You’re right about that.”
I’m only just managing to keep it together. I always had this fear, and it’s because it was founded. Jason was pretending. He was still trying to learn the secrets about my family so he could tell his. Thescariest part is I was about to tell him everything. I was seconds away from doing it.
But he stopped me.
Why?
“Matt, my last name… it isn’t Donovan.”
“What?”
“It was just a cover. If we got caught, we were told to tell you we’re Donovans, to throw you off the scent. My mom thought your hatred of them would blind you to the truth.”
“What truth?”
