My phone vibrates, and it triggers me. A text from Fiona on the screen: GET OUT NOW.

The door swings open, and a person walks in. A girl with Sawyer’s hooked nose, pale skin, and blond hair. She stops dead when she sees me. We both freeze.

“Oh, hi!” I chirp. “I’m the organizer. I’m helping your mom get organized.”

God, that was awful.

Face twisted with disgust, she lunges from the room, screaming, “MOMMAAAAAA!”

“Fuck.” I pace around the items of the box. Do I try to make it look like I wasn’t here?

I pick up the box, but it tumbles over, spitting out tapes and books and candles. The candles are labeled WILDERNESS RESORT and WET WOOD. The tapes are labeled SAWYER’S FIFTEENTH and ANNIE—PROM.

I tuck the journal in my jeans and dash across the room as a voice shrieks down the hallway. “MOMMA, CALL THE POLICE!”

The book falls out as I lift my leg to the windowsill. I dive for it, sweep it up, and launch out, landing in the muddy grass, journal pressed to my chest.

I take off like a running back into the trees and past the porch, where Fiona flies out the front door.

Allister’s car is hidden, so I can’t see him, but all of our lives are in danger. As I run, the mist lifts me, pushing me faster than I thought possible, grazing my toes on just the tips of leaves until I’m crashing into the Hyundai, throwing myself into the back seat. Fiona bolts in like a torpedo behind me.

“DRIVE!” I scream at Allister, who’s fiddling with the keys.

“Oh, shit.” He sticks the key in, thrusts the gearshift forward, and floors it backward through the woods.

Sawyer’s mom comes running down the front steps, holding a handgun. “Hey!”

Allister whips the car in a circle, narrowly avoiding a tree.

We roll over a hill as the lady fires the gun. BANG!

“AAAAAAHHHHH!” Fiona screams, diving to the floor.

I turn back around so the mom’s gun is right in line with my eyes. If she shoots, she might break the windshield and kill me. Allister pushes forward, and I remember the license plate covered with Fiona’s sign—sorry.

Ms. Doon lowers the gun and lets us drive away, watching with somber indifference as Allister swerves through the trees, and we lose the house.

When we’re back on the street, Fiona plunks down in the seat and curls up, laughing, her hair wild and loose around her. “What a RUSH! WHAT A RUSH!”

Allister’s shaking his head. “Y’all are crazy. CRAZY. I’m finding new friends, okay? I swear to God.”

I’m smiling and clutching the book. I got the journal. I one-upped Sawyer Doon.

Allister checks his mirrors and floors it down the street, leaving a cloud of exhaust in our wake.

Jake