Welcome to the game and happy hunting.

The Council

“Think this means we’re on the same team?” Gem asked.

“Maybe.” Lia shook her head, rubbed the back of her neck, and picked up her backpack. “It means that whoever the Council is knows us well enough to assume we’re together right now.”

“You know,” Gem said, turning away, “even if we don’t win, it’ll be a good way to spend time together before next year.”

“We’ll win.” Lia shook her head at her shattered image in the mirror. Gem won lots of things—best grades, theater tournaments, and test score competitions. The only award Lia had ever gotten was for attendance. “I just wish the Council told us everything up front.”

No one knew who the Council was or how they were chosen, but the rumor was that it was three seniors handpicked by the previous year’s Council. Everyone in Lincoln knew each other and their deepest secrets, so Lia had always assumed that rumor was true. The town was too small to keep such a mystery for so long.

“I bet it’s Gabo,” Gem said. “He loves stuff like this.”

Gabriel Gutierrez, math genius and theater nerd, was one of Lia’s guesses for the Council, too. His older brother had won Assassins seven years ago and had given him all his old notes. Gabriel even had a hand-me-down tricked-out water gun.

Mark, Lia’s older brother, had placed third but had never told her anything helpful.

“Don’t worry,” Lia said. “The Council always teams up friends, families, and crushes to keep the real fighting to a minimum.”

In the years before the Council became anonymous and focused more on the teammate and target assignments, friendships had been ruined and relationships dashed due to Assassins.

“I hope we get May as a target,” Gem said as they joined the crush of students in the hall.

Seniors opened bathroom doors and tugged their friends inside. Lia kept an eye on the ones who vanished inside for only a minute, noting their names or descriptions. There were 317 seniors, and Lia had spent all last year figuring out who would play. She had been left with fifty definites.

She had documented their daily schedules and which classrooms they were in this semester. Her journal was filled to the edges with names, maps, and by-the-minute timetables. Lia clutched it to her chest and wound her way upstairs to the biology lab with Gem.

Gem opened the door. “Stalking everyone?”

Lia waved her journal. “Not everyone, and it’s all stuff they say aloud. It’s not like I’m following them home. Stalking makes it sound weird and illegal.”

Once the game was on and Lia had her first target, she would be following them home, but even she knew that sounded creepy.

A student snorted behind Lia, and she turned. Faith Franklin was frowning at her, her eyes going from Lia’s muddy shoes to the soda-stained journal in her hands.

“Not illegal, Prince,” Faith said. She was always immaculate from her pin-straight brown hair to her pure white tennis shoes. “Definitely weird, though.”