Page 99 of Antihero

The screen grab attached to this one showed a pigtailed girl who only maybe was eighteen assaulted from all sides, wincing in pleasure-pain or just pain depending on which way you looked at it.

Evan’s heart rate had risen three to five beats per minute.

The RoamZone rang, jarring him out of his low simmer. The area code showed 818, the city listing Van Nuys, CA.

His thumb hesitated over the virtual green button, tapped.

“Do you need my help?”

Wet, shaky breathing. The back end of a good cry. That happened sometimes up front.

He waited.

Then: “H-hello?”

“Do you need my help?”

“I think so.”

“Where did you get this number?”

“I, uh, I’m a high-school volunteer in Querida Alonso’s third-grade classroom?” That odd uptalk pattern iGen used, where every sentence ended as a question. “And her mom? Neva? She said you helped when Querida was taken?”

Evan had indeed.

He checked his Vertex fob watch. It was a touch past three o’clock. School had just gotten out.

“She saw I was … I guess I was crying? After the school play? And she asked what was wrong?”

“What is wrong?”

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“I, um…” A hushed voice. “It’s too embarrassing to say.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I can wait.”

She took him up on the offer.

In the ensuing silence, he checked the phone to make sure the connection hadn’t dropped. After another spell, he checked again.

Finally, she pushed out the words: “There’s a guy? Like, a few years older? And we hung out a little. And I sent him, like, a … like a picture? And now, um…”

Evan waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

“He says I have to do … more? Or he’s gonna send the picture of me to everyone I know. Like, to my whole school? And I found out … He’s actually done it. Before, I mean. To girls? And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know…”

Quiet, desperate cries.

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“And he keeps calling me. And calling me. And telling me what he’s gonna do and I’m not sleeping, not anymore, and I just…” The next words came out hoarse, almost without sound: “I just wanna die.”

“What’s your name?”