“So we’re going to let the bad guy win?”

“We’re just going to protect each other instead of fighting.”

A smile spreads on his face and he hugs me. “Come on.”

My heart soars as he holds my hand and we quickly walk to the back of the ballroom and out the door. We start walking down the hall until we hear, “What. The. Hell.”

I turn and, of course, see Jessica glaring at us, pure death in her eyes.

“WHAT are you doing here? Were you crashing my party? Are you really that stupid?”

“Jessica, we’re leaving, it’s nothing,” I try to explain while still backing up.

“No way. I can, like, get you arrested,” she says, a smug look on her face.

“Why are you so awful?” Nik asks.

“EXCUSE me?”

“You say stuff like that, but you’re the bad one. You know that, right?”

“Oh no. No, you do not say that.”

I take a cue from Nik and pull out my phone. “Listen, we weren’t just crashing your party.”

“Yes, you were. You were so sad you weren’t invited, so you decided to come. What, were you hoping one of the guys would feel bad and dance with you? Doubt it. They all have taste, unlike terrorist over here.”

That’s it. I show her the picture. Her mouth drops.

“We were going to show Brett, but we didn’t. We’re choosing not to because we’re not as bad as you.”

“Give me that.” I put the phone back in my pocket. “Give it to me.”

“Nope, we’re leaving now.”

“How do I know you won’t share it later?”

“You just have to trust me,” I say, and I turn around, grab Nik’s hand, and run. I don’t look back.

We run out of the hotel, hearing voices and music behind us. We run back to the lake. We keep running until we get to a little grassy patch, falling down and breathing heavy.

“That was savage.” He laughs.

“I don’t know where that came from,” I say.

He smiles and squeezes my hand, which I realize he’s still holding.

Nik leans his forehead against mine, our noses touching. We smile. He kisses me.

We won tonight because we saved what we love.

Giving Up the Ghost

Giving Up
the Ghost

Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

Fourteen hours . . .

“Talk to her. That’s an order,” Ching declared from her perch, floating cross-legged in the air above the library table. “You know what I did to anyone who disobeyed my ord—”

“Yeah, yeah, beheadings, you’ve told me,” Sanjiv said, slumping over his tablet. He had ten minutes before his first calc test and he was going to fail. The equations swam before his eyes, wiggling and curling into nonsensical patterns. All Ching’s fault.