Can I really defy my older self, and her hard-earned wisdom, on a whim? Can I risk all those people in a deluded attempt to save one boy?

I don’t know.

Ping. Ping. Ping. The cell phone on my nightstand sounds with three successive text messages. Rolling over on my mattress, I pick up the device, almost afraid to look.

Sweetest Boy Alive: I’m not telling u what I’m wearing. This time I’m just gonna show u

The text is followed by an image of Bandit—more precisely, a selfie of his handsome face and solid body. In it, he peers at me through the blue hair flopping over his forehead, his eyes piercing and vulnerable. He’s wearing khaki pants and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words Sorry, not sorry. The last two words are crossed out with a thin strip of masking tape.

Sweetest Boy Alive: Last night didn’t end how I wanted. Can we talk? Plz

My breath catches. He’s apologizing…with his clothes? Even though I’m the one who won’t give him answers? That’s as cute as the baby hedgehog videos I watch on YouTube. Helplessly, I brush my finger across his face. The image moves as soon as I touch the screen, pulling me back to reality.

I shake my head roughly. What am I doing? I’m supposed to kill him, not caress him. The millions of dead people couldn’t care less how adorable he is.

Sweetest Boy Alive: The rents r out of town. That’s not a come-on, I promise. just…if u want 2 talk, I’m here

I drop the phone like it burns me. This is it, then. The perfect opportunity to fulfill my mission. His parents gone, the house empty. I can’t put off this task any longer.

Tonight. I have to kill him tonight.

I take breath after breath, faster and faster. But I can’t fill my lungs. I can’t stop my panting. Bandit can no longer be the guy I’m crushing on. I refuse to think about him as a person, as the boy who drinks sweet chrysanthemum tea because it reminds him of his khun yai. I have to forget his smiles, pretend I never knew the feel of his lips.

He can only be one thing to me: the target I need to take out to save the world.

So I change into workout clothes and do what I always do when I need to not think: run. Down the street, through the park with the rusted playground, onto the wooded trail that will take me on a four-mile loop.

Kill Bandit.

The sun inches into the sky, sneaking fingers of light through the gaps in the leaves. The shade offered by the densely grown trees is cool and blissfully serene.

Kill Bandit.