“The game is on,” Gem said. It was after school and Lia and Gem were on a bench next to the parking lot. They looked at the texted screenshot on Gem’s phone. “The school will punish anyone found playing the game who breaks school rules, but we don’t play on school grounds anyway.”
Someone had sent Gem a screenshot from the PTA Facebook group, and they hadn’t bothered to cut out the names of the parents with the most to say. Lia’s mom was not happy by the looks of it.
“Y’all see it?” Ben came over to the bench and held up his phone. “Look.”
“Happy hunting,” Gem said. “Definitely not Gabo. He liked Abby.”
“There are fewer people playing,” Lia said. “Leo must still be, or we would have gotten a new target.”
“He is. He loves a good competition.” Ben crawled over the bench and squeezed himself between Gem and Lia. “How you doing?”
Ben was the first person who didn’t ask it while looking at her like she was dying.
“Better,” Lia said. “I need something to do. The game’s been all I’ve been looking forward to since ninth grade. I’m ready to go.”
The reminders she had—skinned knees and a thick bruise across her ankle—were already fading.
“I love a good competition, too.” Ben stretched his arms up and twisted till his spine cracked.
Lia winced.
“Diaz!” Ben waved behind them. “We’re still in. Are you?”
“He said he’d play if we wouldn’t get in-school suspension,” Lia said. “So he’s in.”
Devon held up his phone as he approached. “Yeah, I got your message.”
Lia turned back around, about to ask what message, and Devon winked at her. She shut her mouth. He’d never done that before.
“So what’s the plan?” Ben asked.
“Lia?” Devon leaned his arms against the bench back, shoulder bumping Lia’s head. “You’re the stalker.”
“That makes me sound creepy.” Lia reached into her backpack for her journal. Her fingers scraped across cheap paper and cardboard covers, but the journal was nowhere to be found. “Shoot. I left my journal in Ms. Christie’s class.”
“Want to go back to get it?” Gem asked. “I don’t remember seeing it when we left, but Faith was behind us. I’ll text her.”
Gem typed something, and a few seconds later nodded.
“Faith says she saw it when she left but forgot it was yours. Ms. Christie probably has it now.”
“It’s fine,” Lia said. It wasn’t fine. She had spent months working on it, and Leo’s data was in there. “I have most of it online, and my name and email are in the journal. Ms. Christie won’t toss it. Let’s just focus on Leo.”
“Leo Liu,” Devon said, peering over Lia’s shoulder and reading from her phone. “Soccer star, best history student, vegetarian.”
“He makes great lentil burgers,” Ben said, leaning forward. “He has practice tonight if we want to get him. Afterward he’ll be with the other players. They carpool.”
“I have a family dinner tonight,” Devon said. “Are you good if I catch back up with you tomorrow?”
Her skin prickled at the brush of his breath past her ear. “Sure. Just make sure you don’t go anywhere alone.”
From the corner of her eye, Lia saw Gem wink at her.
“Yeah, yeah.” He smiled. “If I need anyone to accompany me anywhere, I’ll message you.”
“I can’t do tonight either,” Gem said, “but I can drop everyone off to make sure none of us get taken out.”
Lia couldn’t stomach referring to the targets as “killed,” and was glad they’d used “taken out.” “Ben and I can see if we can get Leo tonight, and then we can regroup tomorrow if not?”
“Yes.” Ben clapped Gem on the back and pulled his hood over his red hair. “Think you’ll survive if you drive home alone?”
Gem hummed and stood. “Yeah, unless they break into my garage.”
Technically illegal, so they were probably safe.
Gem drove Devon home first. They pulled onto his street as his mother was getting home, Dr. Diaz lingering at the door. Lia hadn’t seen her at the funeral, but she couldn’t remember much of that day anyway. She waved to them.
“She’s anxious because of Abby,” Gem said softly. “My parents are, too. I can’t believe yours aren’t, Lia.”
They were. They were worried about her taking too much time off school even while telling her she needed to focus on her health. They wanted her to recover and take as much time off as she needed. They wanted her to keep her grades up. They wanted a daughter they could be proud of.
They wanted so much for her, all of it without asking what she wanted.
They had never even let her take off school if she was sick in the past. She couldn’t believe it would really be okay if she needed more time off now.
“Ben,” Lia said, turning to look at him, “are your parents okay with you being out late?”
He nodded. “As long as I text them where I am and am home by ten.”
“I promise to get you home for dinner.” Lia smiled. “Gem, drop us off at the soccer fields.”
“No.” Ben pulled up his phone, squinted, and shook his head. “Drop us at that 7-Eleven near them. It’s uphill. We can watch from there.”
They grabbed snacks from the store after Gem dropped them off. Ben piled all of it into his backpack and led Lia to a small, tree-filled alley overlooking the soccer fields. There were several well-worn dirt paths cutting through.
“How’d you know this was up here?” Lia asked, settling down with her back to a tree.
He sat next to her and pointed to a clearer area barely large enough to hide a car. “My ex and I used to come here.”
“Cool,” Lia said quickly. “What do you know about Leo?”
“Enough.” Ben laughed. “He’s dating Ryan, and they’re on a team together. I’m guessing Shane and Carlos are the other two on the team. They’re all faster than you, so don’t chase them. Ryan and Carlos are definitely faster than you and probably faster than me. We’ll have to catch Leo when he thinks he’s safe. Maybe at the gym? He’s more an endurance guy, usually at the back during their post-workout lap. I bet we could separate him from the pack.”
“Yeah, maybe. They run around the gym, right? I don’t know what to do with that,” Lia said. Two weeks ago, she would’ve lured him off the path or rolled something before him to make him stop, but now she couldn’t stomach the idea. “Why don’t you play soccer? You did when we were kids, and then you swapped to football.”
Ben offered her some pretzels. “I don’t know. May’s better at soccer. Didn’t want to make our dads pick which game to go to, and now our games are different nights.”
“I think my mom would be happier if I played a sport,” Lia said, taking a pretzel and breaking it at the joints. “If I’m not good at school, I might as well be good at a sport.”
“Didn’t your brother play basketball?” Ben asked.
Lia nodded. “Since he was five. I don’t like it, though.”
“Yeah, but you did debate and stuff,” he said. “Don’t those count?”
“Only if I want to go to law school, apparently. Since I don’t, my parents don’t think debate’s very useful,” Lia said. “They figured it was a distraction, so I quit to focus on grades.”
That hadn’t worked, and now she had the same grades and no debate club. She pulled the binoculars up to her eyes and watched Leo take a water break with some other players. What was the point of her parents paying and helping with loans if she didn’t have a plan? According to them, there wasn’t one. She had plans for Assassins and escape rooms, but not a single one for life after graduation.
It infuriated her parents.
Footsteps pattered across the ground behind them, and Lia glanced over her shoulder. Leaves fluttered to the ground. Nothing was there.
Ben patted her shoulder. “Probably Slushie, but I get it. I’ve been hearing stuff, too. Or at least imagining it. Last night I nearly punched a tree. Thought it was attacking me in the backyard. I could’ve sworn there was a person behind it, but nope. Nothing but trees.”
“Slushie?” she repeated, confused.
“Slushie,” he confirmed, and took the binoculars from her. “The 7-Eleven’s cat.”
He said it with such certainty that Lia could only nod. They watched the practice carry on in silence, and when the sun got low and the players ran one last sprint and called it a night, Lia took note of which car Leo got into and entered it on her phone. Ben said it was Ryan’s.
“So he’s almost certainly on a team with Ryan, Carlos, and Shane,” Lia said, lowering the binoculars. All three of them were driving home together. “Where do you think he’s going now?” Lia asked.
“Babysitting,” Ben said. He tipped the pretzel bag up and emptied the crumbs into his mouth. “He’s CPR certified and everything.”
“We can’t get him tonight,” Lia said, biting into a chocolate bar. “But we can get him tomorrow.”