Tomorrow we follow Abby. Gem and I will pick up Ben at 5:45 AM and Devon at 6:00 AM. Be ready. I’ll explain the plan then.

She was taking charge of the team, but someone had to, and if anyone was qualified, it was her.

Ben sent back sixty-nine exclamation points.

A few minutes later Devon texted back.

You still owe me a water gun, Prince

Blue, green, or yellow?

Surprise me

The next morning, Gem and Lia met in Gem’s driveway at five, and Lia waved to the yawning Mrs. Hastings, who was standing at the door. Lia wore black leggings, an old blue sweatshirt, and running shoes. Her hair was in a ponytail, and the only makeup she wore was mascara and some lip balm. It was easy for Lia to go unnoticed; she was middling. She doubted the assassin who had her name even knew what she looked like. Not that she was leaving her survival to chance; her neighbor walked her dog every morning at five, rain or shine, and Lia had walked over with her.

“I can’t believe you have the whole senior class tracked,” Gem said. “It’s creepy.”

“Which is why I’m not telling anyone,” Lia said as they got in the car. She scrolled through her spreadsheets. “And all the information I have, people blabbed about freely. It’s not like I hacked their calendars.”

Lincoln was a strip of hilly, boggy, foresty land in the way that only Arkansas could be, and the car wound its way from the dark streets that were too remote to warrant streetlights to the well-lit stretch of perfectly manicured lawns along Highway 10. Gem and Lia lived in the center of Lincoln, and their neighborhood was a mix of lower-middle-class people and people pretending to be middle class and ignoring the rising costs of their area. Ben’s family was new money, and he lived a good twenty minutes from Gem. White stone columns and peaked roofs replaced the skyline of evergreens and listing power lines.

Gem pulled up to a large house whose yard was littered with sports equipment, and several minutes later Ben jogged out the front door as if he woke up before dawn for elaborate water-gun assassinations every morning.

“ ’Sup,” he said, and tucked all six feet three inches of himself and his modded-for-distance water gun into the backseat behind Lia. He wore all black and had covered his Lincoln-Lions-red hair with a black beanie. “May said most of the soccer team isn’t playing, but track is. Hope y’all are in shape.”

“Is May playing?” Gem asked.

“I’m not my sister’s keeper.” Ben grinned and snapped the bands of his braces with his tongue. “Guess you’ll have to be brave and ask her yourself. May doesn’t like cowards.”

“Be nice,” Lia said, knowing how Gem felt. “Is May in the game or not?”

Gem’s light brown skin reddened around their cheeks and ears. By the time they had pulled into Devon’s small neighborhood tucked behind an old cemetery and the new Starbucks, Gem’s face was practically heating the car.