Page 57 of My End

Nothing.

My fingers curled around the center drawer. I gave it a tug, and it slid open.

There, nestled between an envelope and a plain black notebook, sat an old flip phone.

I grabbed it.

It was lighter than I expected. Cold. Unassuming. But when I opened it and pressed the power button, the screen lit up with a low buzz.

One contact.

Just one.

I didn’t even hesitate. I pressed the call button and brought the phone to my ear.

The line crackled.

“Hello?” a voice came through the static. Deep. Gruff.

I froze.

“Hello?” the voice repeated, louder this time. “Stretch?!”

My lips moved before my brain caught up. “Are you there?”

“Who is this?”

“Is this Dice?” I asked. That was the one name I remembered him telling me.

A pause. Then: “Yeah. Who the hell is this?”

My throat felt tight. “My name is Tilly... and Stretch needs you. They know.”

Silence.

Footsteps shuffled above me, and I froze.

Shit.

I hit end and dropped the phone in my lap, with my heart pounding so hard I thought it might leap from my chest.

I had done it. I had made the call. And now everything was set in motion.

I didn’t understand it all. I didn’t know why Jake/Stretch was here. I didn’t know what the Iron Fiends were planning. But I knew what I had just heard Boone and Gibbs say, and I didn’t think they had been joking.

They would bury anyone who got in their way.

I looked down at the phone still in my hand.

Jake had said one call, and his brothers would have come running.

I had made the call.

Maybe it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe it was too late.

But it was all I could do.

And for the first time since I’d set foot in this house, I felt like I had chosen a side.