“You never asked me to do anything,” whispered Lia. “The cops said don’t go anywhere, and they meant don’t leave town. And I haven’t.”
“You always pick apart things until you find what you think is a loophole,” her mom said, shaking her head. “You’re not as smart as you think you are. Sometimes you just have to do as asked.”
“I’ve always done what you’ve asked.” Lia yanked her arm away. “I gave up debate. I gave up piano. I gave up Latin for Spanish. I have done everything you asked and nothing I wanted. All those AP classes you made me take—I hate them. All those tutors and competitions? I did those because you asked.”
“That isn’t fair, Lia,” her mom said. “That was for you. For your own good.”
“No, I wasn’t good enough for you!” Lia shouted. “What I liked wasn’t good enough for you.”
Her mom was silent for a moment. “We’ll talk in the morning,” she said quietly. “They’re canceling school after Monday until this is dealt with. Monday, I will drop you off, and I will pick you up. You will stay at home. You will do the homework they give you. You can have your things back when you stop acting like a child.”
After her mom left, Lia tore through her old dresser picking through frayed cables and broken keyboards. “Aha!” She pulled out an old flip phone. The charger tumbled out with it. “Come on. Come on.”
The old phone powered on. Lia scrolled through the options, each screen taking an age to load. She had no cell service, but it would still connect to Wi-Fi. Lia typed in the password, messing up every other letter on the number pad. The loading signal kept loading.
“Lights out!” her mom shouted through the door.
Lia turned off the light. The phone connected, and she crawled into bed with it in one hand and her Assassins journal in the other. It took another five minutes to get to a chat screen on the HTML free page no one used anymore. She sent a single message to the group chat they had made for their Assassins’ team. Ben’s icon stayed shadowed and silent, but she liked the idea that their words still reached some part of him.
What do they all have in common? Lia asked the chat.
It took three minutes to send.
Gem’s response was instant. YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU GOT INTERROGATED AS A SUSPECT AND THEN SNUCK OUT OF YOUR HOUSE FOR A DATE?
Lia winced.
It wasn’t a date, Devon said. Someone has been sending me emails from Lia’s account and pretending to be her
They even emailed the Council, Lia said. She tapped the keys and sank deeper beneath her blanket. The Council knew it wasn’t me, though. How?
Ellipses danced next to Devon’s name. Three dead students, all related to Lia, and a series of emails that make her sound like she’s becoming a bit too obsessed with the game. This is too much for it not to be related. In another town, maybe three students would die in one month, but this is Lincoln. We didn’t have that many students to begin with