But Cole jumped from the wall and got in my face. “My heart isn’t broken. It’s this fuckin’ country that’s broken. Everyone pretending to be someone they aren’t. Liars! All of them!”

  His breath stank of booze and salami, which I would’ve known without even smelling it, because that was what he’d been surviving on. I stepped back and said, “Chill.”

  Cole pointed a finger. “Why don’t you fuckin’ chill, all right. Go back to your little palace and shine your fuckin’ trophies. Be the fake-ass bitch you’ve always been. You don’t care about me. You don’t care about anyone.”

  “I care about Meeka,” I said.

  “Holly cares about me too,” Logan added. “And I care about you, Cole. I’m worried that you’re losing your way and that—”

  “Holly turned you into such a whipped little pussy,” Cole said to him.

  “Come on, man,” Logan responded. “Holly and I are only friends. We’re not even dating anymore.”

  It’d been a while, in fact. The last and final time we’d broken up was in May. It was early October at this point. Also, I’ll have it known that Logan was never whipped. If anything, I was the one compromising in the relationship. I was the who was always trying to please him, to speak on his behalf. Even months later, I was still doing it.

  “All Logan is trying to tell you is that as bad as things are going, it’ll get better. You have privilege. That should be encouraging. If you were born—”

  “It would’ve been a ‘privilege’ to be born in a gutter. A fuckin’ privilege to be given away. Then I would’ve been adopted by some rich Boston execs who’d whisk me off to a plush life in Vermont, right? You all adore heartwarming stories like that, don’t you?”

  I wanted to slap his face. This was an obvious dig at Meeka. Meeka wasn’t always forthcoming about her past because she didn’t know all that much about it. But people speculated, of course. About her birth mom being a sex worker who basically gave her away. Selling her, in so many words.

  All Meeka ever told me was that when she was adopted as a toddler, she was undernourished, could barely communicate. And Mason and Sara basically saved her. They’ve always been loving and supportive parents. Which has nothing to do with her being anything other than their daughter. Forget biology. Family isn’t about that.

  “Everyone has their own lives, their own problems,” I said to Cole. “Yours are big. I’m not saying yours aren’t big.”

  His eyes were glistening with tears about to burst. He sniffled and picked his phone up off the wall. “You’ll all have much bigger problems soon. When I’m finished, you’ll all regret how you’ve treated me. And everyone will know who I am. For a long time.”

  Grayson cleared his throat. He had been pretty quiet through most of this and I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or agreeing with the things Cole said. Of the rest of us, he was always the closest with Cole. They had their disagreements—loud ones, too—but they also shared some views.

  “What the fuck is all that supposed to mean?” he asked Cole as he puffed up his chest. “What kind of bullshit are you slinging? You call us out here, and now what do you want from us? You want us to convince her to go back to you? Or else? Is that it?”

  Sniffling, Cole said, “No. I want you to wait.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  Cole turned away from us and started walking into the moonlit woods. I’m not sure where his car was parked. Not out by the barn with our cars. I noticed that when we arrived. It was probably somewhere along the Malvern Loop. For all I knew, he had a gun in the trunk, and he was going to march right back here with it.

  “Wait for what, asshole?” Grayson hollered as Cole kept walking.

  Cole didn’t respond. He disappeared into the forest.

  “Should we go after him?” Logan asked.

  “And do what exactly?” I asked. “Hold him down?”

  “Yeah,” Grayson said, stepping forward. “Grab his throat and tell him we’re not playing. He’s gonna try to kill her, man. Us too. That’s how this shit starts. You heard him, right? How he wants to make a name for himself?”

  I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “He’s angry. Going after him right now might make it worse. We need to warn Meeka. We need to tell the cops.”

  That’s what we planned to do. That seemed like the right thing to do. At least at the beginning.

  GRAYSON

  It isn’t Gus, I text Meeka.

  You sure? she writes back.

  Dinner is over and I’m sitting on a wicker chair on our back porch. It’s chilly, but the porch is screened in and this is my favorite time to sit out here. It’s dead quiet and plenty dark. I’ve got my phone in my lap. It’s cold enough that I can see my breath in the glow of the screen, but not so cold that I can’t flip the horseshoe over and over in one of my bare hands.

  Dad’s devil story has got me all wound up again. Not sure why—it’s only a legend—and yet something about it seemed personal.

  I imagine myself in thirty years, with a teenage son looking all confused about something. Assuming I get through this mess, what sort of story do I tell him? Do I tell him about Cole? About how we hung a horseshoe on our world and drove that devil right the fuck out of here?

  Hell no.

  But what about in sixty years, when I’m really old and have nothing left to lose. Who knows? Maybe I’ll confess to every bad thing I’ve ever seen or done. Lay it all out there.

  For now, what I’ve done stays between me and the rest of them. And the Gus stuff stays, well, only with me.

  I don’t respond to Meeka’s text right away. Explaining the whole Gus shakedown would take too long, and besides, I need to get a handle on what exactly is going on. So I plop the horseshoe down on the wicker table and I unlock my phone.

  I search for “The Cavalry.”

  Tons of hits. There’s a Wikipedia page that talks about horses and the military and all that. There’s a podcast called The Cavalry and I listen to the first minute of it and figure out it’s a dead end; meatheads talking about football doesn’t have shit to do with Cole. There’s some band from Kentucky that’s also called the Cavalry and they play punk bluegrass and their SoundCloud clips aren’t half bad—I might even check them out in the future—but they aren’t what I’m looking for.

  Finally, after a few pages of results, I spot a site called TheCavalry.net. I open it.

  It’s pretty simple looking, and I recognize it as the same thing Gus showed me. Again, along the top there’s that photo of two guys wearing those stupid horse head masks, trying to look tough. And there’s that tagline:

  HORSEMEN OF THE MEMEPIRE

  When I was thirteen or fourteen, I might’ve thought this was badass, but now it’s pathetic. What grown person is actually impressed by shit like that?

  Cole. That’s who.

  I suddenly realize that Cole used to forward me articles and videos from this site all the time. He was always writing shit like this one will melt your face right the fuck off. I never bothered to read any of them. If I’m not even taking the time to read my homework, I’m not about to settle down with some nose-picker’s essay about how he can’t get laid.

  That’s basically what most of this stuff is. The homepage is plastered with articles, but they’re all borrowed from other sites. I scroll down and see titles like:

  Rules for Ghosting

  Cryptocurrency and Becoming Master of the New Economy

  How to Bang Your Waitress

  None of it is what I’m looking for and I’m pissed that Lopez showed up when he did. Gus was all ready to point me in the right direction, and now here I am, having to dig through mounds of hot garbage.

  There’s a search bar at the top, along with a menu. I notice there’s a link for Forums in the menu, so I go with that. I tap it and it takes me to a page full of folders.

  There’s one called Our Favorite Boyatee Memes. Another is MRA Talk with Emperor Augustus, whatever that means. But it’s the one at the top, the one labeled The Dank Lord of Memes, that makes me go holy shit.

  HOLY SHIT!

  Gus wasn’t blowing smoke, because I know exactly who the Dank Lord of Memes is.

  It’s Cole! Fucking Cole!

  That was his avatar, or whatever you call it. It’s what he named his video game characters—top scores always went to the Dank Lord of Memes. It was also how he signed everything online—YouTube and Reddit comments were always from the Dank Lord of Memes. Probably thought it was a superhero identity, like his Batman to his Bruce Wayne.

  I open the Dank Lord of Memes folder and it leads me to a forum full of posts, and there’s a caption along the top that says:

  THE FORGE OF THE MEMEPIRE

  There are hundreds of posts with titles like Meme Away and Meme It Long and Hard and I’m not sure I have time to sift through all of them. But I start with the latest one. It’s titled Meme This Shit.

  It’s from Sunday of last week. The day after we killed Cole.

  I click it, and sure enough, there it is. That fucking picture. The one that started the meme. Our goddamn faces in a circle. It’s a clean version of the picture, except for some weird word in the bottom corner: THEDLOM.

  It freaks me out to see the pic in its raw form.

  There’s a single comment in the thread below and it’s from someone who goes by the name Emperor Augustus. It says:

  How about this one? Appropriate, right?

  And it’s the same picture, but now it has text over it. DUCK, DUCK, DUCK . . . GOOSE it says. Like the game kids play.

  I understand it in that I understand the reference, but I don’t get it. Maybe it’s an inside joke? If this is where Gus found the pic and where he was trying to impress Cole with his meme, then I’m guessing Emperor Augustus is him, right? Makes sense.

  And it reminds me. I saw that name, Emperor Augustus, on one of the previous pages. I click back to check it out. But when I open the folder called MRA Talk with Emperor Augustus, I get an error.

  404 Error: The page you’re looking for can’t be found.

  I refresh the page. No luck. I even go to my settings and clear all the caches and cookies, which supposedly makes the internet run faster and smoother. It doesn’t help. Same error.

  So I click back to the page I’ve already looked at and—

  What? The fuck? Is this shit?

  Another error.

  Refresh. Click back. Type in the name of the site. Errors all around.

  Every post, pic, page, and folder. The entire Cavalry.

  It’s all gone.

  LOGAN

  I TURN ON MY DELL LAPTOP. It’s 11:50 p.m. and I’m wide awake, sitting at my desk. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to be so tired and yet still so awake. But here I am. Scientists should put me in a glass room and poke and prod and study me.

  Everyone in the house is asleep. I know because I crept past my parents’ room and I could hear them all snoring. Mom, Dad, Toby (the dog)—all curled up together on the king-size bed. Still, I check my door to make sure it’s locked. It is. Even though it’s cold in here, I turn my fan to high. I can’t risk anyone hearing anything, even though I’m not sure what they might hear.

  I feel dizzy, but my body is also pulsing from a toxic brew of anxiety and regret. I can’t believe what I’m about to do. I can’t believe what I’ve already done.

  I type in my password and I close my eyes and try to focus on the sound of the blood pumping in my head, but the fan is so loud that I can’t hear anything else. I can hardly think.

  I give my face a little slap to jump-start my brain. It works well enough. It keeps me on task. I reach down to grab my backpack, unzip it quickly—tearing off that proverbial Band-Aid—and plunge my hands inside.

  I have it.

  There in my fingers, in my shaking hands, I have Cole’s Heart.

  After my visit to Esther’s house, I went back to the trailer to get it. I know it was a risky move, but when she mentioned wanting to talk to Grayson, I was gutted. Esther made it clear that she’s not interested in me in the way I want her to be, and so my sole focus became about salvaging what I can of my future.

  Everything that matters—Logan’s Heroes, the goals of so many wayward dreamers—has been compromised because someone took advantage of my mistake, and if stealing this red box gets me closer to figuring out who that person is, then that was my only option.

  The trailer was the same as we’d left it. I slipped in, did what the others didn’t have the courage to do, and slipped out. I don’t think I touched a single other thing. I hardly even looked at anything, though of course I couldn’t help but notice the video of the Boyatee was still looping, like some wound that won’t stop oozing.

  Walk like a man, talk like—

  I slap the Heart down on my desk, next to the laptop. Could this thing fry my computer? I’m willing to risk it.

  I plug it into the wall, and then I plug it into the Dell.

  The Heart mounts. I suppose that means it’s a hard drive and I can access what’s on it.

  The name of it is MY HEART BELONGS TO? That’s undeniably weird, but it has to mean something important, right? I double-click the icon and it prompts me for a password.

  Crap.

  How am I supposed to guess one of Cole’s passwords? He’d make it impossible.

  Or would he?

  When I start typing, I notice that it enters all the letters in caps, so I at least don’t have to worry about capitalization. And the name of the drive is clearly a clue. He wants me to answer the question.

  So who does Cole’s Heart belong to?

  I try MEEKA.

  It doesn’t work.

  I try MEEKAMILLER.

  Nope.

  I try variations on: MOM, MOMMY, MOTHER, TERI, and TERIWESTON.

  I was sure one of these might be the solution, but no, no, no, no, no, no, and no. Luckily, it hasn’t locked me out. It’s almost like Cole wanted someone to guess it. I’m obviously not the best candidate for that.

  Esther mentioned there were kids in the hack club who could handle things like this. It’s best if I don’t deal with her anymore, but maybe I should contact one of them? They might have an idea of how to crack this open and get out all its secrets.

  Nope. No way. I can’t involve anyone else. I can’t drag any innocent parties into this mess. For my safety, sure, but primarily for their safety. I need to think of other people. All the time. Never me. This isn’t about me. It’s about saving Meeka, letting Holly live up to all her potential, and making sure Grayson steps out on the right path in life. Even if that’s a path that puts Esther in his arms instead of mine.

  That’s when it hits me. Even though I sometimes slip, I’m naturally a selfless person. Cole, on the other hand, was a proud Libertarian. By definition, selfish. It’s no wonder I can’t figure out his password. It’s not in my nature to think like him. So how do I solve Cole’s riddle? How do I think like him? Who does his heart ultimately belong to?

  I think like a selfish person. I type COLE.

  Wrong.

  COLEWESTON?

  Crap. Nope.

  Maybe I misjudged him. But who else can it be? His heart doesn’t belong to Meeka or his mom or anyone else. It’s only him. I stare at the screen hoping the answer will suddenly appear, but the only thing that appears is an alert.

  I have a new email.

  I switch over to my Gmail tab, and there it is, the message I’ve been waiting for.

  RE: Boy Seeking Boyatee

  I don’t delay. I double-click. It reads:

  This is a joke, right? Because I don’t get it. Did he put you up to this? You Plainview kids are a strange bunch and I’m sorry if the article didn’t turn out to your friend’s liking. But I told him from the beginning that I wasn’t going to plug his vile website. And I’m not plugging your little charity either, as well-intentioned as you might think it is. Sorry.

  That was it. That was Kameela Stokes’s entire response, and I am, for lack of a better word, flummoxed.

  What on Earth?

  I’m stuck on the fourth sentence. “You Plainview kids are a strange bunch and I’m sorry if the article didn’t turn out to your friend’s liking.”

  Is the implication that the Boyatee is from Plainview? And that I should know him?

  I close my eyes and I feel dizzy. Colors swirl on the dark background of my eyelids. I’m not sure I can handle any more of this. I try to replace the colors with my memories of the Boyatee video, in an attempt to recognize the kid’s face, but I can’t do it. All I see is color. All I can—

  An idea strikes me. I open my eyes. I click over to the Heart. I try one more password.

  BOYATEE.

  Nothing . . .

  Except a shadow, moving across the light that’s cast from the laptop onto the wall.

  The door is locked, the window is locked. Everything, locked. But I saw it, the sweep of a shadow. I swing around and—

  Is that a dark figure reclining on my bed? I can’t make out a face; it’s almost like a 3-D silhouette.

  “Hello?” I say.

  No answer.

  “Who . . . are . . . you?” I ask.

  There’s something there. I swear it. A body, bathed in darkness, but with a distinct shape. Round, smooth. The thing doesn’t speak, not out loud. But suddenly I feel it communicating, a soundless whisper.

  You know me.

  “No,” I say. “No. I don’t know you because you’re not real.”

  What’s real? Don’t you see me?

  I don’t hear the words. I feel them. Like you do in a dream. And as for what I see, it’s shadows. The shape of a boy? The shape of a manatee? The shape of—

  I close my eyes and slap my face again. “Go away,” I say.