Chapter 3They Told Me To Be Quiet. So I Disappeared.

The Blue Trail was quieter than I expected. After twenty minutes, I had not seen another person. I opened the class group chat. No one had shared a location or mentioned where the teams were supposed to meet.

I sent a message. [Anyone else on Blue Team, or did I miss the invisibility workshop?]

A red exclamation point appeared beside it. [Not Delivered.]

I addressed the nearest tree instead. "Excuse me. Do you know which way the campground is?"

The tree did not answer.

"That's fine. You already have better manners than Luca. At least you haven't accused me of begging for attention."

Rain began to fall. Within minutes, the rain was pouring. No one had maintained the Blue Trail in years, and wet leaves made the ground slick. I moved forward slowly, holding on to tree trunks for balance.

Near a collapsed wire fence, the earth gave way beneath my feet. I had no time to grab anything. Mud flooded my collar as I tumbled down a steep slope. Rocks struck my shoulders and back. Then I crashed through rotten boards and fell into an abandoned underground passage.

Pain swallowed everything. My vision went black. When it finally cleared, the opening above me was more than a dozen feet away. Rainwater poured through it. Mold covered the brick walls, and rusted metal supports and broken crates littered the floor. It looked like one of the old smuggling tunnels beneath the Moretti property.

I tried to sit up, but my left leg would not move. A slab of broken concrete pinned my calf, and my ankle was wedged between two stones. Every attempt to move sent pain drilling into the bone.

Half my phone screen was shattered, but I still had a signal. I called Luca first. He declined after three rings, and my second attempt went straight to voicemail.

I sent two messages.

[Luca, I think I took the wrong trail.]

[I fell into an underground passage, and my leg is trapped. Can you ask Ms. Carter to send someone for me?]

Red exclamation points appeared beside both messages. I called Mom. She did not answer.

Then I opened my conversation with Bianca. This time, the messages went through.

[Bianca, did you pin the wrong tag on my backpack?]

[I fell somewhere deep, and a concrete slab is trapping my leg.]

[Please tell Ms. Carter. Just reply so I know you saw this.]

The words "Bianca is typing..." appeared at the top of the screen.

My heart lifted. As long as one person answered, I still had a way out.

Her reply arrived seconds later. [Are you done pretending?]

Before I could respond, my next message failed. Bianca had blocked me too.

I stared at the screen, then opened my contacts and called one person after another. Students, teachers, the school nurse, the bus driver, and Moretti employees. Thirty-seven calls. No one answered.

They were following the Social Silence Protocol with impressive discipline. They would not even give me a punctuation mark.

Rainwater streamed through the opening and soon covered my shoes. I took the lace from my free foot and tied it around the bleeding wound on my trapped leg. Then I held up my phone and recorded a video for Mom.

"Mom, I'm not acting out." I turned the camera toward the concrete slab. "See? My leg is really trapped. Please get someone to pull me out. I promise I'll finish the Social Silence Protocol when I get back."

The video failed to send. I tried again. It failed again.

The countdown in the corner of my screen showed fifty-one hours remaining. I could probably last that long.

My third foster family had once locked me in a basement storage room for two days. I kept pounding on the door because there were no lights. My foster father complained about the noise and shoved a tool cabinet against the door to block it completely.

That was when I learned something important. You should not be too loud when asking for help. Noise only made people dislike you more.

By then, the red group and the other students had reached the mountain campground. Ms. Carter frowned as she counted heads.

"Are we missing someone?"

Bianca was taking pictures of the campsite. She did not look up. "Poppy said she felt sick and went back to the parking area."

One student started to speak. "I thought I saw her wearing a blue tag and walking toward the old trail..."

Luca gave him a cold look. "No one discusses her during the Social Silence Protocol. Poppy likes to disappear or claim she's sick when she wants attention. If you go after her now, she'll use something worse next time."

The student fell silent. Ms. Carter hesitated. A teacher should not obey a twenty-year-old heir or stop counting before confirming that a student was safe. But the Morettis had paid for the school's gym, library, and scholarships. Ms. Carter asked nothing else.

At six that evening, the students returned to the parking area. Walter stood beside the bus and checked the roster.

After the first count, he frowned. He counted again. After the third count, he lowered the clipboard.

"We're missing someone."

Ms. Carter looked at Bianca. Bianca answered without hesitation. "Poppy caught a ride back to school in another car. She knows everyone. Why wouldn't she find someone to drive her?"

The explanation satisfied almost everyone. I was Poppy. They believed that if someone abandoned me at a gas station, I would know the tow-truck driver's birthday in ten minutes and be invited to dinner in thirty.

Walter did not smile. He knew when every vehicle had left and who had boarded it. He took out his phone and called me.

My phone rang while I was tightening the blood-soaked lace around my leg. When Walter's name appeared, my hands shook so hard I nearly dropped it.

I answered at once. "Walter, I..."

Noise came through the line. Someone took the phone from him.

Then I heard Luca. "No one answers her calls."

The call ended. I sat with the dark screen in my hand for a long time. They knew I was calling. They simply did not want to answer.