“You were always next, Devon,” she said. “It’s your names.” She was going to say more, but her mom, expression tense, started walking toward them again. Devon let his mom lead him to her car, and Lia braced herself for her mom’s wrath. She stopped before Lia, taking her in.

“What happened now?” her mom asked. “You couldn’t wait until this had all blown over?”

As if Lia were the cause of the problems, no questions asked. She got no benefit of the doubt. She got dealt with.

“Devon might have died,” Lia said, “and you want that to blow over?”

“We told you to stay home. We told you to withdraw from the game,” she said. “This is serious, Lia. This is a police investigation. Children are dead, and you’re running around like nothing has changed.”

“It wasn’t part of the game!” Lia said, her shivering slurring her words. “I had to talk to him, and then someone attacked him.”

Her mom’s shoulders slumped. She reached out as if to hug Lia and instead rubbed her shoulder. “You are very lucky that Devon and Mr. Jackson both saw the person who did it when you chased them out.”

Mr. Jackson was worth five school security guards.

“They’ll try to kill Devon again,” Lia said. “Detective James gets that, right?”

“Lia.” Her mother sighed and unlocked the car. “There is a murderer on the loose. They’re not going to waste their time playing pranks on you.”

But they sure did waste a lot of time emailing Devon and pretending to be Lia.

When they got home, Lia’s mom had a metal lockbox on the kitchen counter. Inside was Lia’s phone, laptop, Switch, bike lock key, and house keys. Her mom shut and locked it all in the box in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Lia asked. “I need to talk to Devon.”

“You talked to Devon.” Her mom’s jaw tightened. “You snuck out of the house against our orders and the police, and you nearly got Devon killed. You’re done talking.”

“I saved him!” she protested.

“People are dead, Lia! You are not a hero. I’m tired of your obsession with Assassins. It’s done.” She grabbed Lia’s arm and yanked her down the hall. “Abby Ascher was murdered in this neighborhood. What were you thinking biking that far alone?”

Lia dug her heels into the carpet, dragging them to a stop right outside her door. “I know Abby’s dead. I know where she died. I know how she died. I know what she sounded like as she died and what she looked like after. I know how happy Ben was the night before he died, and I know how still he was the next day. My friends are dead. You can’t expect me to not do anything!”

Her mom paused in the bright light of the hallway, her hair stuck to her lips and mud trailing behind her shoes. “One thing, Lia. We have asked you to do one thing.”