The Game

by Linsey Miller

  Faith lunged, pulling the knife away from Devon and pointing it at Lia’s throat. “I am worth it. I’m a Franklin. I’m a legacy. I earned this, and then Abby came in and got it without even trying. Devon’s fine—was fine—and all, but, I mean, but emergency medicine? Really? You might as well be a medical examiner for all the worth you’ll be. You don’t even know what you’re doing! I’ll be enough. I am.”

  Lia knew exactly what she was doing now.

  “Why would I kill Devon?” Lia asked. “I can’t figure that out.”

  “Of course you can’t.” Faith rolled her eyes. “You wanted to date. He didn’t. He wanted to date. You didn’t. Murder-suicide, blah blah blah. Maybe I’ll make you leave a note.”

  The knife scraped up Lia’s face to the corner of her eye. Even fake, that would do damage.

  Devon grabbed Faith. “You don’t—”

  Faith spun. She slammed the knife into his chest, blade sinking all the way to the hilt, and blood splattered between them. Faith pulled back, the knife still in Devon’s neck. He grasped the blade and fell from the chair. Blood pooled in the dirty cracks of the classroom floor.

  Lia froze. Red freckled Faith’s hands and face. Terror tangled around Lia’s limbs, holding her in place, and Faith let out a disgusted sigh. She pulled a pile of paper towels toward herself. Devon lay still and silent.

  The knife was fake. The knife was fake. The knife was fake.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Faith muttered, wiping off her hands and walking to the other side of the bench. She pulled the knife from Devon with a wet squelch. “I hate that.”

  The blood was so bright that Lia’s eyes burned.

  “Okay, okay.” Faith held out a hand to Lia. “Are you going to come here, or are you going to fight me?”

  Lia pulled the scissors from her sleeve. Faith sighed and dove at her. The knife rammed into Lia’s shoulder, pain blooming beneath it. Lia stumbled back, and Faith went with her. She ripped the knife up and stabbed Lia again. It hurt.

  But not much.

  Lia sliced the open scissors across her arm. Faith shrieked and fell back.

  “How?” Faith asked, and she looked at the knife. A muscle in her jaw twitched.

  She pressed the blade into her hand, and it sunk into the hilt.

  “You—”

  Lia kicked her in the stomach and scrambled back. Faith crumbled, clutching her middle. The prop knife clattered to the floor. Blood leaked from the hilt.

  “Me.” Lia raised one hand slowly and pointed to Devon’s phone planted high above eye level and staring down at all of them from the shelf. “Could you repeat it for the stream viewers in case someone joined after you confessed?”

  Faith froze.

  “Stream?” she whispered.

  Hopefully a few were watching. They had to be. Everyone checked their phones after being cooped up in school all day.

  “You’re bluffing,” Faith said, but whatever else she was going to say was lost beneath the sound of footsteps thundering up the steps to the stage.

  Lia scrambled back and held up her scissors. Faith backed away, looking at Devon. He was still and bloody on the floor. Lia touched his face. He cracked open one eye and winked. The door flew open.

  Faith wailed. A roar of voices spilled into the room. The door flew open behind them, and Lia didn’t even look. Devon sat up slowly, groaning.

  “What?” Lia asked. “How are—”

  Devon only raised one bloody finger to Lia’s lips. It tasted like corn syrup, glue, and too much food dye.

  Lia gripped his shirt. “I thought you were dead.” Lia wiped her face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Devon hugged her close. “You got her to villain monologue. I couldn’t interrupt that.”

  “I thought the knife failed,” Lia said, fingers skimming where it had struck.

  “Ow,” he mumbled against her cheek. “Okay, wait, no. I’m not dead but ow. It just nicked me. There was still a squib in the hilt.”

  The fake blood, sweet and sickly, clumped against his skin. The blade, still metal, had pierced his skin. The squib must have stopped it from retreating all the way. He laid his cheek against her shoulder.

  Nothing about this was funny, but relief swam over her and Lia laughed. Faith kept crying until the cops arrived and separated them all. The paramedics took Devon away despite his protests, and Lia waited at the edge of the crowd. Detective James wasn’t there yet, but they took initial statements while it was all fresh. The moment the cuffs clicked shut, Faith stopped crying. Her gaze slipped to Lia.

  “Don’t worry,” Lia said. “You earned this.”

  “It’s the one thing she did earn,” a voice whispered near her ear.

  Devon was back, his arm bandaged.

  “Maybe we should get you a real knife,” Lia said, wrapping one arm around him. “Everyone says college is more brutal than high school.”

  The cemetery where Abby was buried didn’t allow dogs, so Lia brought pictures of dogs instead. The end of March had come and gone quickly, and Lia couldn’t remember April, though she was pretty sure she hadn’t napped through it. Grief and panic had made a blur of everything, smearing the edges of even last year’s memories until it was all Before and After. The final day, though, was as clear as if Lia were still living it. She hadn’t been able to go near the auditorium since. Georgia had been poisoned—Faith had laced her granola bar with something toxic—but miraculously, she hadn’t died. Lia had heard that she was finally out of the hospital.

  Lia had only returned to school four times since that day with Faith. All of them were mostly cruising till graduation. None of the teachers want to be that teacher and yell at someone for not working.

  Apparently, the high school administration was fairly touchy about being known as Serial Killer High online, with competitive kids killing over grades. They had brought in extra counselors and therapists to work with the students, and they had agreed to let Lia finish school with relaxed hours in class. Most of her work was handled at home or at Gem’s. Gem had tried to tell the security guards what was happening in the drama room and hadn’t been believed at all until a dozen seniors started sprinting toward it and the cops were called. Gem’s parents hadn’t been as kind to the front office as Lia’s.

  They probably would’ve believed Lia sooner.

  “They finally stopped sending out those letters about cutting class,” Lia said, giving Abby’s shiny new headstone a sympathy pat. “I think the front office took about a month to catch up with what my counselor had arranged.”

  “Caught a murderer and didn’t die,” muttered Devon. “What more do they want from you?”

  Lia reached over and nudged his leg. “Anyway, Faith’s going to jail. For a long, long time.”

  Faith’s parents had hired the best defense attorney in the state, and any time Lia saw them on the news, they were silent and stone-faced. They never looked at Faith. It was like she wasn’t there at all. But Faith had found a new sort of attention in the dregs of the internet. Some people agreed with Faith and thought she had deserved the scholarship. They weren’t kind in their comments about why.

  Lia had deleted her social media accounts after that.

  And she’d also accepted that the game was over. The Council never announced a winner—and somehow, she was okay with that. She and Gem and Devon had all won, really.

  They were alive.

  Carefully, she laid a new picture of Omelet, biodegradable and cleared by the cemetery’s front office, next to the wilting flowers and mementos. “May adopted a dog. He’s the wrinkliest pug, like five years old already and breathes like a tornado, but she likes him. He tried to eat Gem’s socks.”

  “My favorite pair of socks,” Gem added from somewhere behind Lia. “The little goblin.” Lia knew Gem had spent a lot of time rec
ently at May’s house, supporting her. It was going to take a long time to accept everything that had happened.

  Lia stood up and glanced back at Gem and Devon, who waited a few steps behind her. Gem had returned to class. Devon hadn’t returned to school, and his parents had dared the office to say anything. It was amazing what getting stabbed on school property did for administrative red tape.

  “Ready?” he asked. He had on a concert T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts. The mark on his arm was all but gone. You had to look really close to see it. “We can walk if you’re not.”

  “I have no good socks left,” Gem whispered to him. “Don’t volunteer me to walk.”

  “I would carry you, but I got stabbed.” He shrugged.

  Gem snorted. “You didn’t even need stitches.”

  “I’m ready,” Lia said, and joined her friends. “Come on. No carrying required.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go?” Devon hooked one arm through Lia’s, the loose weight of his arm against hers as warm as the sun peeking through the spring clouds above them. “It’s not like we have much to do. We can wait around.”

  “No, I’m good,” Lia said. “I don’t know if this is for me.”

  Her therapist had suggested talking to Abby, but like everyone else, had underestimated Lia’s hatred of explaining her own feelings, even to ghosts. Instead of apologizing, she had tried talking about everything else this time. It still felt weird.

  Her mom was trying, and her dad was attempting something like parenthood now that the seriousness of the past few months was clear. Mark had even taken a week off to come visit her, and their parents hadn’t said a word about him missing class for Lia. That was nice.

  New but nice.

  A month ago, Lia’s mind had been fixed on May as the month her childhood would end and the world hit her full force. Every choice had felt important and every mistake like the end of the world. Then death had come barreling in with all the grace of an angry eighteen-year-old who thought they were owed the world.

  But after all that had happened, for the first time in ages fear didn’t constrict her chest or speed up her heart. It didn’t even rear its head.

  “Your parents haven’t been on you as much now, right?” Gem asked.

  Lia nodded. “Yeah, they have been treating me a lot better, but I don’t know how long it will last,” she said. “They’re already iffy on letting me visit Devon next year.”

  “It’s only three hours away!” Devon pulled them to a stop, his fingers curling gently around her arm. “You can confront a killer but not have a boyfriend?”

  Lia laughed. “It’s funny when you say it like that.” She wasn’t sure what would happen between her and Devon. Things changed. People changed. Maybe Lia and Devon wouldn’t like who the other became in four years.

  But for now, they were together. And they had caught a murderer and not died. A long-distance relationship and college seemed a lot less daunting after that.

  They walked through the cemetery grounds, avoiding stepping on headstones. It was a quiet and peaceful place, with trees and stone benches and ornate shrubbery. It made Lia sad to think of Abby here, but as far as final resting places went, it was pretty nice.

  “Yeah, I think they put up a fight just for show. I’m not keeping to that rule,” Lia said. She kissed his cheek. “I’m allowed to visit Gem—that is, if you still want me.”

  Gem gave her a gentle push. “Please. You are welcome anytime. I’m bringing a sleeping bag for you so you’ll always have a place to crash.”

  Lia wasn’t going to college. Not yet, at least, her mom kept saying. After everything, Lia wanted a break. She had gotten a job at a café a town over where fewer people knew her face. If nothing else, working would give her more control over her life. Maybe that was why her parents hated her new plan.

  Devon exhaled with a whistle. “Let’s just hope no underclassmen get any ideas about how to get a free pass senior year.”

  Suddenly, the sound of three phones vibrating at the same time disrupted the stillness of the cemetery grounds.

  Lia looked at Gem and Devon, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Gem and Devon took their phones out as well.

  A new email notification scrolled across Lia’s phone.

  “Hunting season is open?” Gem asked, reading aloud.

  Lia opened hers.

  Hello, assassins.

  Are you ready to finish your jobs? This email serves as the official notice that you have not completed the final round of Assassins and still fall under our command. Instructions will follow.

  Happy hunting,

  The Council

  “They’re not serious,” Devon said, shaking his head incredulously. “Right?”

  “I don’t know.” Gem swallowed and checked another message. Assassins had been officially banned. No one had dared to argue it. No one even wanted to. “It looks like other people besides us got this message, too, even the ones who withdrew ages ago.”

  A second email appeared in Lia’s inbox. It had no subject and took up only two lines.

  “Let’s not worry about the game anymore,” Lia said, shivering in her paper-thin cotton top. The game was in the past. Her future, whatever it was, lay in front of her.

  Devon reached for her hand. “Cold?”

  “Yeah.” An unsettling feeling had formed in her stomach. She ran her hands over her bare arms, which were now covered with goose bumps. Lia deleted the second email and put her phone away. “Come on. Let’s get away from here.”

  Lia Prince, you will miss your friends next year,

  but you have bigger things to worry about.

  This time, we won’t let you ruin our fun.

  But then again, murder is a necessity. Fun is optional.

  The Council

  I am so thrilled to be a part of Underlined and Penguin Random House!

  I owe a tremendous amount of thanks to Wendy Loggia, who is an amazing editor and was a dream to work with. Alison Romig and the entire Underlined team—thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Thank you, Rachel Brooks, for being the best agent I could have ever asked for.

  Brent, thank you for being a great husband and suffering through the trials of living with me while I’m on deadline.

  And as always, thank all of you for reading The Game. Happy hunting.

  Aiden isn’t watching the movie.

  My skin grows warm as I realize he’s not even pretending to watch the movie.

  “You know, you were the one who picked this.” I extend a finger toward my laptop. “What happened to all that ‘I can’t believe you’ve lived in New Jersey for nearly a year and you still haven’t seen Garden State’?”

  I barely get the words out before Aiden’s hand fits to my jaw and he leans in to kiss me. It’s a good kiss, the kind that makes my skin tingle and the whole world fade away until we’re the only two people on the planet. His free hand slides around my waist, pulling me closer, and a light sigh escapes from me. I could get so lost in him if I let myself.

  That thought abruptly brings reality back into focus, and I shimmy from Aiden’s arms until we’re awkwardly sitting beside each other again in the reading chair that’s meant for only one person. This chair, my bed, and my thrift-shop desk and dresser make up the entirety of the furniture in my room—unless you count the boxes I never bothered to unpack.

  Easygoing almost to a fault, Aiden lets me go without protest, raising a single eyebrow. “Did you hear your mom or something?”

  I shake my head and shift to the cushioned armrest so we’re no longer smooshed together. “She left barely an hour ago. That would be a new record for world’s shortest first date, even for her.” I want to check the window, though, and he knows it.

  Aiden toys with a thread from the fraye
d knee of my jeans. There’s an ease to the way he’s touching me that screams boyfriend. I shiver involuntarily, which in turn makes me inch my leg away.

  “Would it be so horrible if she knew about me?” he says. “I mean, we’ve technically already met.” He glances over at the hiking boots next to my dresser, the ones he sold me and Mom four months ago, before she and I hiked the Smoky Mountains over the summer. I’d wanted to go to Disneyland, but she gets superanxious in big crowds, so she surprised me with a road trip and a secluded weeklong hike instead, which, I’ll admit now, turned out kind of amazing. So did the cute REI sales associate who oh so casually slipped me his number while Mom was checking out mini stoves.

  I gnaw my lip, trying to think of a way to say that, yes, it would be horrible if Mom knew about him, without actually having to say yes. I settle on “It’s not you.”

  In response, Aiden gives me a slow nod. “Right.”

  “It’s not.” I reach for the hand he’s drawn back. “It’s not even her. It’s me.”

  He lets out a humorless laugh. “Ashamed of me, huh? No, I get it. Guys who volunteer at animal shelters are generally dicks.”

  “No.” I let my mouth curve in a smile. “But they do sometimes smell like cat pee.”

  A genuine laugh erupts from Aiden. “Seriously? I try to be really careful about that.”

  I lean forward to brush his cheek with a kiss, catching a hint of something crisp and foresty and definitely not at all like cat pee. When I start to stand, Aiden tugs me back.

  “Then what?” His voice is as gentle as his touch. “’Cause I keep expecting you to just ghost me one of these days, and I’m fully ready to admit how much that would suck.” His hand slips over mine. “I like you, Katelyn. I’m fine if it’s more than you like me, but tell me I’m not wasting my time here.”

  Every bit of the humor that initially attracted me to Aiden is gone. We’ve always kept things light and fun. Now he looks like my next words have all the power in the world to elate or crush him.