When someone dies mysteriously during a Psych experiment, Rhiannon becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy that includes both the survivors and the killer.
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Short on cash, Rhiannon...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NON-ZERO-SUM GAMES
( — games, interactions, negotiations, or other situations in which one side's gain is not necessarily the other side's loss. in a non-zero-sum game, both sides can win with cooperation or lose as a result of competition. )
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IT'S TIMES LIKE THESE THAT MAKE RHIANNON ACKNOWLEDGE JUST HOW LUCKY THEY ARE. They're lucky that they all accept to continuously feed a lie to ensure no one gets unnecessarily hurt or arrested, even if some of them tend to back out on their word every now and then, only to get sucked back into the black hole that is the experiment.
They're lucky that there was no one else around to eavesdrop. Members of any out-group, as harmless as they might seem at first glance, are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs whenever they're all like this, discussing what happened that night. If any confidential information gets out, they might as well turn themselves in.
Jude's free hand reaches out to take hers, but she's frozen right where she is, exactly how she was that night. That night, she had no idea what to expect from the following moments, but this is only slightly different, especially considering there's not a dead body in front of her.
However, it's almost as if there was, seeing as she can't look away from Beatrice and Brooklyn as they go head to head. She knows she's shaking, with the floor swaying beneath their feet and no one else looking like they're being affected by her mental earthquake. That's good. It means she's able to keep it inside her instead of projecting the vibrating waves to the outside world.
"What kind of mistake are you talking about?" Brooklyn cautiously asks, and, heck, it's not like Rhiannon can blame her for immediately taking a defensive stance. It's one thing to talk crap about Beatrice behind her back and want her to take the blame for every single bad thing that has happened to them ever since the beginning of the experiment (since it would be rude to blame the dead guy, even if it would be easier), but actually facing her face to face is a whole new story.
Rhiannon would expect something like this coming from Hailey, who's prone to exploding and arguing with authority figures. Brooklyn, however, was only daring enough to flash her middle fingers at a surveillance camera and never opened her mouth to complain. She even agreed with the cover story.
These people keep surprising her, even after they've all been here for nearly four years. Graduation is only a few months away and, if all goes according to plan, they will never have to see each other again and they can try to forget all about that night when the police deem Frances' death an accident.
That's the utopic scenario. It also means they know it's not going to happen. Even if it gets ruled as an accident and they all get to breathe of relief for brief moments, there will always be someone else determined to find out the truth about what happened. There will always be someone who will refuse to swallow that half-assed explanation and decide to dig deeper.
