All Your Twisted Secrets

by Diana Urban

But strike a match in a room doused with lighter fluid, and you’re bound to get burned.

If I were even slightly capable of hiding my emotions, I might get through the night unscathed. Unfortunately, I’m a crap liar, so splitsville with a side of bruising was basically inevitable.

“Bacon.” This had been our customary greeting ever since we used to play together as kids, before we realized how little we had in common.

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting. Within the hour, you must choose someone in this room to die. If you don’t, everyone dies.’”

“Can I . . . can I get your autograph?” he pleaded with wide eyes, clasping his chest. Sasha furrowed her brow. “What the hell are you talking about?” “It’s just . . . I never thought I’d meet the person the world revolves around.”

I’d seen death before. I shuddered to think of that instant the soul leaves a body. That instant when a person becomes nothing more than an empty shell, a decaying carcass.

Grief choked the air from my lungs. Maggie would have loved this game.

This was my entire future on the line. And I didn’t like depending on luck. When you depend on luck, something’s bound to go wrong.

We were less than fifteen minutes in, and despite the rising temperature, it chilled me to the bone that someone so headstrong was already crumbling.

The walls were closing in, the hot air rank with sweat and roasted meat and eggs suffocating me, and there was nothing I could do to stop drowning in my own panic. No way to claw myself free. No way to escape.

Yep. Whoever invented the snooze button should rot and die. In that order.

I didn’t know any of them, but terror flooded our town like a tsunami.

With his valedictorian status, sponges, and sci-fi-themed wardrobe, his nerd flag was already flying. There was no need to hide it.

“I can think of someone who’d want Amber dead.”

This book is really grabbing my attention! But why does there have to be past POV’s

It was the last time I ever saw her alive.

“Sorry, do you need to lie down?” I glanced at the floor. “Why?” “I didn’t realize you were recovering from spine removal surgery.”

“Oh, like it’s treason to say anything against Queen Sasha! My life might be worth shit, but you are the definition of shit. The epitome of shit. The bacteria that fester on shit—”

It wasn’t our mistakes that defined us, but how we learned to overcome them.

“I’m just tired. I’m tired of trying to make everyone happy, and doing the exact wrong thing. I’m tired of doing the best I can, and it’s never good enough. I’m tired of being manipulated. I’m tired of failing so miserably. I’m. Just. Tired.”

The thing about being trapped in a room with five other people, a bomb, and a syringe of lethal poison is that at some point, shit’s going down. No matter how frantically you claw at rationality, how desperately you cling to common decency, you eventually give in to your basic instinct to survive.

I’d prioritized those dreams above all else over the past year—over Priya, and our friendship, and her pain. And now I’d caused her even more agony, and I couldn’t risk letting her get in trouble on my account. I had to do what was right for my best friend. This much, I could do for her.

It’d be so easy to let myself fold into Diego’s arms and be Priya’s best friend again and be done with this horrible night, the secret tucked away in each of our hearts as we each went off to college and accomplished our dreams.

was. I had to forgive Maggie for taking herself from this world, when she could have asked for help, and when none of us were ready for her to leave. But she wasn’t being selfish. She was sick. She was sick, and I wasn’t there for her when she needed me.

I was the selfish one. In my quest to redeem myself, and get revenge on Sasha, and regain Priya’s friendship, and all the rest of it, I’d put everyone through hell.