“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.”

The next morning, Lia rose with the sun and Abby didn’t. The fact haunted her, a ghost at her heels as she packed her bag for a Saturday of assassinating Leo. She had spent all night figuring out how to get Leo, and the thrill of the game, of doing something right, lifted the weight in the pit of her stomach. She waited in the dark of her living room for Gem, the sounds of her father’s snoring thundering in her ears. Maybe if she won, she would feel better about having been the one who lived.