Lia opened a bag without looking at whose it was and pulled out several neatly organized journals. “You know high school is too much when we need three agendas for one year.”

Gem snorted.

Lia flipped through the first one and her head swam at the multicolored bullet points and to-do lists. She slid it back into place, the bag was impeccably packed with little pouches to keep everything private and neat, and she pulled out the next journal. This one was a butter-soft letter notebook tied shut with leather strips, and Lia was struck by the winding way the bow was tied. The first page of the journal was only a contact page, the upper right corner slightly bent. Lia turned it over.

Abby’s name decorated the top of the first page. Next to it was a pale blue box filled in, the edges meticulously lined so that none of the ink bled through. Lia ran a hand down the page.

• morning runs through Pleasant Pines w/Omelet

• breaks on bridge for 5 minutes

• 1st target for assassination is Mark Crooks (?)

• Δ route (?)

The page was full of notes. Lia turned to the next page, fingers shaking.

“Hey, Devon, the little triangle means change, right?” Lia asked, even though she knew the answer.

He checked his watch and put a phone back into the bag he was searching. “Yeah. Why?”

Lia nodded.

Ben’s name was at the top of the second page, and beneath it in the jagged caps of Lia’s own handwriting was “ALLERGIC TO LATEX; EPIPEN IN POCKET.” The EpiPen note had been whited out, and beneath it was a color-coded copy of Ben’s daily schedule from Lia’s Assassins journal. Next to it a smaller copy of May’s schedule, from her soccer practices to her weekend sleepovers with her best friend, had been taped neatly into the journal and the cut edges covered with “do it today!” and alarm clock stickers. A purple box had been filled in next to his name. A few notes lined the margins in looping cursive.

Lia turned the journal sideways to read “stays with team after practice to carpool” and “rxn appears 5–10m after exposure.”

Fear settled heavy and cold at the base of Lia’s spine, and she sat down on the floor next to the bag. Devon paused.

“Lia?” he asked.

“Two minutes left,” Gem said. “What are you doing?”

She turned to the next page. Cassidy’s schedule had been carefully printed and pasted into the book as well, and the notes jotted down in cheerful yellow ink. An email address and password were highlighted at the top of the page. Next to them was a sticker in the shape of a lock. Another square, yellow, was next to her name.

“So organized,” Lia whispered, flipping to the next page. “So meticulous.”

Devon’s name was handwritten at the top of the page in calligraphy and his schedule written out by hand. Lia had never followed him, and so none of his information was in her journal. Oxford-style notes took up the page; the left-hand side was an outline of things to cover in the emails to Devon. The bottom of the page included footnotes in miniscule cursive referring to his schedule and tendencies outlined on the page proper. Garlic bread was underlined in spring green. The box next to his name was empty.