“Help, right—like outing me as a liar to the entire world and inviting the Swarm to assassinate me?” My mom’s hanging baskets full of freshly planted mums swing above her head. I imagine one of them falling and knocking her out.

Emi smirks. “You saw my interview.” The pride in her voice sickens me.

The closer I get, the more I think I’m going to hit her. I picture her powdered face with a swollen black eye. That would slow down her chances at a national spotlight. Adrenaline pumps through my veins. I narrow in on her pinched cheekbones—a perfect target for my right cross.

Then I get a vision of the Initiators delivering the first hit to Jeremiah Dopney, to my dad—the ones that knocked them down, set them up for their brutal beatings. No matter how much I hate this woman, I could never do what they do.

“Who do you think you are?” I reach the porch, unleashing my pent-up anger and shame. “You set me up to get killed. All to boost your own reputation, because you’re that desperate for fame. And now you show up pretending like you want to help me?” A stinging sensation forms behind my nose. I lift my chin, swallowing it back.

We stand face to face on opposite ends of the porch. If she weren’t wearing such high heels, we’d be the same height.

Her eyes narrow, mimicking the perfect mean-girl glare. “That’s the thing with you. You’ve always acted like everything is all about you.”

“This is about me!” I snort at how ridiculous she sounds. “It’s my life you’re screwing with. My father died in the Swarm.”

She closes the three feet between us in one stride. “Didn’t you ever wonder why your father’s case closed after he died?”

It catches me off guard, and I stand there like a giant idiot unable to think. “Bill Morrell killed himself.” I give the standard answer—the one the media proclaimed was the end of the Death Mob era.

“That suicide story was a cover-up. Bill Morrell was a fall guy, which you already knew, or else you wouldn’t be stalking the Death Mob.”

I’ve waited two years to hear someone agree with me, that Bill Morrell wasn’t the actual head. Now that it’s happening, I don’t know what to say. Emi Vega is certainly the last person I expected it to come from.