Legend

Two misspelled words. My brother would never have done this by accident. I look around, as if there might be a surveillance camera in the room. Then I lean toward the coffee table and start sifting through all the pages of Metias’s journals. I store the misspelled words in my head. No reason to write them down for someone else to find.

I find a third word: bourgeoisie, spelled bowrgeoisie. Then a fourth one: emanating, spelled emamating.

My heart starts to pound.

By the time I finish going through all twelve of Metias’s journals, I’ve uncovered twenty-four misspelled words. All of them come from the journals written in the last few months.

I lean back on the couch, then close my eyes so I can picture the words in my mind. That many misspelled words from Metias can be nothing other than a message to me—the one person who was most likely to go through his writing. A secret code. This must be why he’d pulled all the boxes out of the closet that fateful afternoon . . . this might be the important thing he’d wanted to talk about. I shift the words around, trying to form a sentence that makes sense, and when that fails, I move the letters around to see if each one might be an anagram for something else.

No, nothing.

I rub my temples. Then I try something else—what if Metias wanted me to put together the individual letters that are either missing from each word or in the word when they aren’t supposed to be there? I quietly make a list of these letters in my head, starting with the d in refridgerator.

D L W G W U N O W M J W U T C E E L O F O O M B

I frown. It makes no sense. I scramble the letters over and over again in my head, trying to come up with various combinations of words. When I was little, Metias played word games with me—he’d throw a bunch of letter blocks onto the table and ask me what words I could form with them. Now I try playing this game again.

I play it for a while before I stumble across a combination that makes me open my eyes.

JUNE BUG. Metias’s nickname for me. I swallow hard and try to stay calm. Slowly, I line up the leftover letters and try to form words with them. Combinations fly through my mind until one of them makes me pause.

FOLLOW ME JUNE BUG.

The only letters left after that are three W’s, then CTOOMD. Which left one logical option.

WWW FOLLOW ME JUNE BUG DOT COM

A website. I run the letters through my mind several more times, to make sure my assumption is correct. Then I glance at my computer.

First I type in Metias’s hack that allows me to access the Internet. I put up the defenses and shells that my brother taught me—there are eyes everywhere online. Then I disable my browser’s history, and type in the URL with trembling fingers.

A white page pops up. Only one line of text appears at the top.

Let me take your hand, and I will give you mine.

I know exactly what Metias wants me to do. Without hesitating, I reach a hand out and press it flat against my monitor.

At first, nothing happens. Then I hear a click, see a faint light scan across my skin, and the white page disappears. In its place appears what looks like a blog. My breath catches in my throat. There are six brief entries here. I lean forward in my chair and start reading.

What I see makes me dizzy with horror.

July 12

This is for June’s eyes only. June, you can easily delete all traces of this blog at any time by pressing your right palm against the screen and typing: Ctrl+Shift+S+F. I have no other place to write this, so I’ll write it here. For you.

Yesterday was your fifteenth birthday. I wish you were older, though, because I can’t quite bring myself to tell a fifteen-year-old girl what I found—especially when you should be celebrating.

Today I found a photograph taken by our late father. It was the very last one in the very last photo album they owned, and I’d never noticed it before because Dad had hidden it behind a larger photo. You know I flip through our parents’ pictures all the time. I like reading their little notes, it feels like they can still talk to me. But this time I noticed that the last photo in that album felt unusually thick. When I fiddled with it, the secret photo fell out.

Dad had taken a photo of his workplace. The lab in Batalla Hall. Dad never talked to us about his work. Yet he’d taken this photo. It was blurry and oversaturated, but I could make out the shape of a young man on a gurney pleading for his life with a bright red biohazard sign imprinted on his hospital gown.

Do you know what Dad wrote at the bottom of that photo?

Resigning, April 6.

Our father had tried to resign the day before he and Mom were killed in a car wreck.

September 15

I’ve been trying to find clues for weeks. Still nothing. Who knew the deceased civilians database was so difficult to hack?

But I’m not giving up yet. There’s something behind our parents’ death, and I’m going to find out what it is.

November 17