She did, though. I’ve never touched a cent of our grandmother’s money.
Our grandmother was buried beside her husband and son. I see her grave whenever Grace and I visit Derek’s, but I always keep my distance. Grace is fond of sticking her tongue out at it, but I didn’t endure the lifetime of callous cruelty that she did, so I don’t feel much of anything when I think of my grandmother. Which I rarely do.
I kept the last name Reed. So did Mom. She did go back to Tiffany, but that didn’t change much for us, since I still call her Mom.
I learn more about my father, my birth father, every day. I still don’t think of him that way, but Mom gets to, finally.
We also went back to New Jersey. Not to the same house, but near enough that I got to keep my job and I didn’t have to change schools. Regina and I are already planning to take graduation photos together in the spring. Mom and I also bring cookies to Mr. Guillory at least once a week, in lieu of paying off the damage done to his car—his request. He’s not my actual grandfather, but I find myself pretending sometimes.
Mom has gone to visit her dad a few times now. I can tell how hard it is for her, both because of the deeply damaged relationship they had while she was growing up and because he doesn’t remember all the ways he neglected and mistreated her. She’s not ready to let me go with her yet, but she promises it will happen one day soon.
These days her promises mean everything.
I also got to see Aiden. It turns out he did interpret my absence as an answer about our relationship and didn’t even know anything was wrong until the whole story made the news. We went out a couple more times, and he kept apologizing even though the reality was he couldn’t have done anything. In any case, seeing him wasn’t the same—few things were—so we ended it. I see him around sometimes, and it makes me miss my old life, if not exactly him.
Malcolm is back in college, and his grandmother is hanging on. We’ve kept in touch through the occasional email—mostly him giving me advice about which colleges I should consider, since I confessed an extremely late-in-life interest in computers, now that they’re no longer off limits to me in any way. There’s a veneer of awkwardness to our writing, though. We got to know each other only in the most extreme circumstances, and only for days, at that. I can rarely think of what to say to him, so I end up saying very little.
It’ll have to be better in person. I refuse to participate in an anemic conversation once he’s standing in front of me. Which he’s about to be.
One of the new changes in my relationship with Mom involves her learning to act less like a secret service agent and me learning to make my own decisions. Right now, I’m making the four-hour drive from New Jersey to Penn State to see Malcolm for the first time since he was released from the hospital. Mom probably won’t breathe until I’m back home, but I keep telling her to consider it a trial run for when I head to college.
* * *
The little billows of steam have long since faded from my coffee. It wasn’t great to begin with, and now that it’s cold, every taste on my tongue is an insult.
I keep sipping it, though, no longer disguising the eagerness on my face when the door chimes with the arrival of a new customer to the café.
“You should go freshen that up, hon.” A plump woman walking past my table with a sweet smile nods at my mug. She frowns, seeing how little I’ve drunk, and leans forward. “Who’re you waiting for?”
“A friend,” I say, twisting to see around her when the door to the coffee shop opens.
“Your friend is pretty late. Sure he’s coming?”
I don’t answer her. Because suddenly, he’s there.
Malcolm.
He’s leaner than he used to be, and he kept some of the facial hair, but it’s him.
He scans the room, spotting me when I stand, and freezes in place, half inside, half out. I can tell he’s holding his breath, because I’m holding mine.
“Now, that’s a look worth waiting for.”
I turn to acknowledge the woman with a thank-you, and the moment of indecision breaks. When I turn back, he’s walking toward me. Then he’s right smack-dab in front of me.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I say.
“You kept the bangs.”
“Yeah.” My hand flies up to make sure the short strands are smoothed down. The scar on my forehead is barely noticeable, but I’m not ready to look at it every day in the mirror and remember.
I don’t know which of us ventures a smile first, but the other returns it. I feel the brittleness of my own expression, and I don’t know how to ease it. I want to. I want to hug him and grin and laugh, because we’re alive and together and not running. But I don’t know how to take that step, and every passing second expands the distance between us.
“Do you want some coffee?” I ask, nodding toward the ordering counter. “Or something to eat?”
“Sure.”
We both go, because it’s better than just standing there. I listen to him place his order. We’re side by side. Inches apart. But I felt closer to him when he was out of state. At least then I could pretend.
My jaw is locked, and my heart is a wreck—beating slow, then fast, then somewhere in between. I don’t have to be afraid, but I am.
And then I’m not.
Warmth.
Skin.
The back of his hand presses into mine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I got the idea for Girl on the Run at the worst possible time. I was querying agents with what would become my debut novel (If I Fix You), and I had just gotten an R&R (revise and resubmit) request from a very respected agent. Every time I tried to work on that R&R, my mind would flood with scenes for this thriller. I tried to ignore them but quickly realized that I had to get the story out of my head and onto the page before I’d be able to think about anything else. I wrote the first hundred pages of what would eventually be called Girl on the Run in four days. I literally couldn’t type fast enough. Finally able to return to my R&R, I tucked this book aside and went on to land my dream agent with that first book, then sell it and three more books before rereading my thriller and deciding whether those feverish few days of writing had produced anything worth reading.
I thought they had.
My agent, Kim Lionetti, and the rest of the amazing team at BookEnds Literary loved it.
And editor extraordinaire Wendy Loggia made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Kim, I still remember that email you sent after reading those first early chapters. I don’t think I’ve ever smiled harder. Thank you for seeing the potential in Katelyn’s story and for working so closely with me to develop the plot. Brainstorming with you is one of my favorite things to do as an author.
I’m so grateful to my editors, Wendy Loggia and Audrey Ingerson, and the entire team at Underlined and Penguin Random House for taking this book and making it so much more than I could have dreamed.
Sarah Guillory and Kate Goodwin, can you believe this is an actual book? Thank you for your endless encouragement and the many, many times you both read early drafts. You make everything I write so much better, and I would not have become published without you. Thank you also to Rebecca Rode for always being ready to lend your truly talented eye to anything I send your way. I’m so glad that PitchWars brought us together.
I’m also indebted to the AZ YA/MG group for surrounding me with talented and inspiring authors: Kelly DeVos, Kate Watson, Amy Trueblood, Amy Dominy, Nate Evans, Dusti Bowling, Joanna Ruth Meyer, Stephanie Elliot, Sara Fujimura, Kara McDowell, Traci Avalos, Karen Chow Hsu, Tom Leveen, Paul Mosier, Lorri Philips, Glynka FritzMiller, Riki Cleveland, Shonna Slayton, Mallory Suzanne, and so many more!
To my parents, Gary and Suzanne Johnson, thank you for instilling in me a love for action movies from a young age, especially Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzen
egger movies. To my siblings, Sam, Mary, and Rachel, thanks for reenacting totally unsafe action scenes with me when we were kids—and when we weren’t really kids anymore and should have known better. Ross and Jill, cofounders of House Balls and that super-dangerous game that involved jumping off the balcony onto mattresses…thanks for marrying my siblings and growing our family in the best way possible. To Ken Johnson, Nate Williams, Rick & Jeri Crawford, and the Depews, I love you all. To my nieces and nephews—Grady, Rory, Sadie, Gideon, Ainsley, Ivy, Dexter, Os, and Goldie—being your aunt is the best part of my life.
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: The Game Begins
I am ready to kill or be killed. This email serves as the official notice that I, [NAME HERE], am entering this year’s round of Assassins. I understand that I must send this email before midnight Wednesday and that I will receive the rules, my team members’ names, and my target’s name Friday at 12:00 p.m.
The game begins Friday at 5:00 p.m.
Wish me luck,
[NAME HERE]
“This is it,” Lia said. She added her name to the email and read it over one last time. “Think we’ll be the first?”
“I didn’t wake up at five to not be.” Gem launched themself off the bathroom counter and peered over Lia’s shoulder. “It’s simpler than I thought it would be.”
“Dramatic, though.” Lia nudged Gem in the side. “Do yours. We’ll send them together.”
Every March, in the anxiety-ridden weeks before colleges sent out acceptance decisions, the seniors of Lincoln High went to war. The game was the last great equalizer before the seniors went their separate ways.
And Lia—who had been planning her Assassins strategy since ninth grade, who had color-coded it red in her planner, and who had never been the best at anything—had already hung on her closet door a practical pair of running shoes, a black T-shirt she only mostly cared about, and a pair of leggings that wouldn’t feel like sandpaper if they got wet.
Not that they would. She just liked to be prepared.
“Gem Hastings reporting for murder.” Gem took a step back and raised their phone.
This year, the invitation to play was taped to the back of the bathroom doors. Few teachers ever ventured into these bathrooms, and even if one did, every bathroom was the same. Powder soap dusted the damp counters and inspirational posters decorated the dented stall doors. The invitation was a large poster of the white Lincoln High lion overlaid with three concentric circles in blood red. At their center was a QR code.
Assassins wasn’t a school-approved event, but it was tradition. Anyone who wanted to play would know what this poster meant.
“Scanned,” Gem said. The email opened, and they filled it out. “Three.”
“Two,” Lia said, thumb hovering over the SEND button.
It was only a game, but it was the game. It was hunting season for seniors. It was permission to stay out late with friends and teammates. It was the last chance for Lia to be good at something instead of being stuck in the shadow of her older brother.
“One,” they both said.
The emails sent.
“I hope we’re on the same team,” Lia said, “or else we had better get used to murdering each other.”
Gem snorted. “Should I not have already gotten used to that?”
Lia and Gem had been best friends since third grade—after an incident with the school-issued square pizza and May Barnard’s face—and had been inseparable ever since, even though Gem’s loathing for May had shifted to a crush this last year.
“Look at us!” Gem spun Lia to the mirror and rested their chin atop her head. “We’re going to win.”
A crack in the mirror split Lia’s long face in half and made her green eyes uneven. Behind her, Gem’s tall, muscled form was split and squished.
Their phones dinged with the same message:
Hello, Lia Prince & Gem Hastings.
Welcome to the game and happy hunting.
The Council
“Think this means we’re on the same team?” Gem asked.
“Maybe.” Lia shook her head, rubbed the back of her neck, and picked up her backpack. “It means that whoever the Council is knows us well enough to assume we’re together right now.”
“You know,” Gem said, turning away, “even if we don’t win, it’ll be a good way to spend time together before next year.”
“We’ll win.” Lia shook her head at her shattered image in the mirror. Gem won lots of things—best grades, theater tournaments, and test score competitions. The only award Lia had ever gotten was for attendance. “I just wish the Council told us everything up front.”
No one knew who the Council was or how they were chosen, but the rumor was that it was three seniors handpicked by the previous year’s Council. Everyone in Lincoln knew each other and their deepest secrets, so Lia had always assumed that rumor was true. The town was too small to keep such a mystery for so long.
“I bet it’s Gabo,” Gem said. “He loves stuff like this.”
Gabriel Gutierrez, math genius and theater nerd, was one of Lia’s guesses for the Council, too. His older brother had won Assassins seven years ago and had given him all his old notes. Gabriel even had a hand-me-down tricked-out water gun.
Mark, Lia’s older brother, had placed third but had never told her anything helpful.
“Don’t worry,” Lia said. “The Council always teams up friends, families, and crushes to keep the real fighting to a minimum.”
In the years before the Council became anonymous and focused more on the teammate and target assignments, friendships had been ruined and relationships dashed due to Assassins.
“I hope we get May as a target,” Gem said as they joined the crush of students in the hall.
Seniors opened bathroom doors and tugged their friends inside. Lia kept an eye on the ones who vanished inside for only a minute, noting their names or descriptions. There were 317 seniors, and Lia had spent all last year figuring out who would play. She had been left with fifty definites.
She had documented their daily schedules and which classrooms they were in this semester. Her journal was filled to the edges with names, maps, and by-the-minute timetables. Lia clutched it to her chest and wound her way upstairs to the biology lab with Gem.
Gem opened the door. “Stalking everyone?”
Lia waved her journal. “Not everyone, and it’s all stuff they say aloud. It’s not like I’m following them home. Stalking makes it sound weird and illegal.”
Once the game was on and Lia had her first target, she would be following them home, but even she knew that sounded creepy.
A student snorted behind Lia, and she turned. Faith Franklin was frowning at her, her eyes going from Lia’s muddy shoes to the soda-stained journal in her hands.
“Not illegal, Prince,” Faith said. She was always immaculate from her pin-straight brown hair to her pure white tennis shoes. “Definitely weird, though.”
Lia hadn’t bothered documenting Faith; the girl hated games as much as she hated mess. Faith sat at the first bench in the biology lab and pulled out a bullet journal bursting with stickers and notes. Hannah, who sat behind her, pulled out some new calligraphy pen to show her. Lia dropped her journal and half-chewed pen onto a bench next to Gem.
“She’s so organized,” Lia said. “I bet her closet is gorgeous.”
“Don’t worry.” Gem pulled out their work and grinned. “Once we win the game, nothing will be able to hold us back. We’ll be unrivaled.”
Lia laughed. “I don’t think they give scholarships out for fake-murdering classmates.”
In class, Lia had always been very, very rivaled.
With AP exams looming and their fates soon to arrive in admission portals, everyone took to the lab with as much liveliness as the day-old sheep
eyeballs they were dissecting. At the next table, Devon Diaz, Lia’s oblivious crush since seventh grade, was the only one really following the steps of the lab and not just cutting the eye into tiny pieces. His fingers curled around the handle of his scalpel as if it were his violin bow, steady and sure of every move. He blew his black hair, a touch too long and curling at the ends, out of his eyes and rolled his shoulders back. Devon was sharper than any note he ever played, always wearing button-down shirts and dark jeans. He was put together and knew exactly what he wanted—all A’s, pre-med, and no distractions. Like dating.
Specifically, like dating Lia.
Near the end of class, Gem leaned over and whispered, “If Devon’s our target, will you be able to kill him?”
“Of course I could kill him,” Lia said, already calculating how hard she would have to pull the trigger to let loose the least amount of water. “But he’s not playing.”
“Did you ask him?” Gem asked. “You never talk to him.”
“Yes.”
This was a lie. Lia hadn’t asked him. She’d just watched him for months. They moved in similar but distant circles, and he liked talking about music and how math touched everything. Lia could listen to him talk for hours, and sometimes did when she happened upon him talking to someone else and she could listen from the other side of a corner or bookshelf. He had no interest in what she could talk about—escape rooms, games, and sometimes art—but he was always kind enough to listen to her anyway. He would nod and smile, nudging her to keep talking. He was too nice.
And he always laughed at her jokes no matter how goofy they were.
“I never thought you’d have the nerve,” Gem whispered.
Lia held up the small Nerf pistol—accuracy over deluge—she had started carrying in her bag Monday to get used to the weight. She didn’t want any surprises come Friday. She sprayed Gem once, only lightly on the shoe, and a few drops of water splattered across the floor. Abby looked up from the book in her lap across the aisle.
Girl on the Run Page 18
