“Yeah, but you put on a show,” he said. “You spent one whole judging round talking about the etymology of ‘sinister’ when you did that chirality project.”

Lia flushed and mumbled, “It was a chemistry project, and I got no points that round.”

“And it was the most I’ve ever learned during science fair. It was great.” He laughed softly and shook his head. “I like that when you know something, you know you know it. You’re in a different category each year, and each year you know exactly what you’re talking about. I could goof my way through a bunch of biology experiments, but you go all in. Like with Assassins. You don’t do things by halves. It’s a little intimidating.”

Lia had never thought of herself as intimidating. Off-putting maybe, but she was short, plain, and blunt. Her dad called her a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. There was nothing she truly excelled at unless researching counted.

“You like me because I’m intimidating?” she asked.

“I like you for a lot of reasons,” he said. “Maybe that’s a strong word. You’re certain? You know what you know? You trust yourself?”

Lia wasn’t sure she trusted herself now, with the memories of her dead classmates’ ghosts haunting her every thought. She didn’t know what she was doing after high school. She didn’t know how to carry on with Assassins when people were really turning up dead. She didn’t know how to navigate this weird new life she had found herself in.

She knew Devon, though.

“I don’t feel like I can right now.” Lia reached out and brushed his hair back. He caught her hand with his, and she didn’t pull away. “I didn’t send you those emails, but other weird things have happened. I found my journal in my backpack the other day, even though it can’t have been in there. I emptied it out completely when I thought I had lost the journal. It’s mesh. You can’t lose things in it. I was right. There was a second person at that park with Cassidy and me. I didn’t shoot Cassidy. I—”

And she couldn’t say it because the idea that she had been right there, she had been steps from the person who slammed Cassidy’s head against a table hard enough to kill her, burned the words out of her. Devon tugged her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Lia tucked her face into his neck.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’ll be okay.”

A hand reached over the railing and yanked Devon back. Lia grabbed his arms. The hand pulled his jacket harder.

His feet lifted off the ground. The rush of blood in her ears drowned out Devon’s shriek, his fingers gripping the rail as his jacket sleeves cut into his shoulders. Lia wrapped one arm around his waist and shoved one of the sleeves down his arm and off.

“Let go!” she cried out.

Devon let go of the rail with both hands and let his arms dangle. Lia hugged him to her. The jacket ripped off of him. It fluttered to the landing below. Footsteps thundered down the stairs.