“We have to go,” I whisper.
“Then let’s go.”
His car is already parked in front of the old blue truck. I untie Matty and help her hop into the back seat of the gold Lexus, where she sniffs Monty’s traveling aquarium, as Wyatt downright refused to leave his snake behind. I’d be pissed about that boy’s big heart if it hadn’t saved my ass a dozen times. Apparently, snakes don’t smell like food, as Matty immediately presses her nose to the window and leaves behind a smear of dog slobber. Wyatt’s backpack full of band shirts and jeans is in the trunk, but all of my things are in the back of the camper truck, right where Valor would expect to find them. I don’t know what I’ll wear tomorrow or when I’ll get to shower for real again. But we’re keeping all four of the guns and all the bullets. And we’ve got Alistair Meade’s laptops, too. I have a feeling those are the key to everything that’s happened to me, and I intend to crack their codes as soon as we’re safely away from here.
I take one last look at the front door where it all began. The signature machine is cracked open on the ground, and the last green-printed card has already flapped away in the November wind. Amber’s dark, hacked-up hair almost matches the dirty, scattered mulch. I wonder how long she’ll lie here before anyone notices.
“Come on,” Wyatt says, and he takes my hand. When he helps me into the passenger side of the Lexus, I wrap the green and gray scarf around his neck, hoping it’s luckier than my locket was. I pull the photo of my dad, the letter from Alistair’s trailer, and the two halves of Amber’s card from my back pocket and slip them in the slot of my pull-down mirror. Every clue is important now, and I suspect my dad is at the center of everything.
Wyatt kisses me gently, gets in the car, and drives us away. The farther we get from my house, the heavier my heart grows, but I have to believe that my mom is alive, that they’ll help her like they promised. We can’t go back to check, and it’s the only way to move on. As far as I can see it, I’ve fulfilled my half of the deal. I just hope it won’t break her when they tell her I’m dead.
Matty settles down across the backseat and sighs happily. Wyatt turns on the stereo. It’s a song from the band on his shirt, a shirt I used to have too. The dashboard glows blue. No GPS. No list of names. No ticking red clock. I pull one of Alistair Meade’s laptops onto my lap and fire it up as Wyatt guns it onto the highway. My fingers itch like they do when I pick up knitting needles, when I cast on my first stitches for a colorful exercise in harmless anarchy.
I type in Adelaide and press enter.
It’s time for the anarchy to get real.
Acknowledgments
Big thanks and lilacs to:
My Agent of Awesome, Kate McKean, for ongoing support and waffles, and because when I said, “So I have this teen assassin bank novel sitting around, but . . .” she was all over it.
My amazing editors, Liesa Abrams and Michael Strother, and the entire Simon Pulse team, with special hugs and gluten-free cupcakes for cover magician Regina Flath and Kelsey Dickson and Katy Hershberger in publicity, who performed a miracle in getting me to Chicago.
Ken Lowery, who provided the music for the playlist that powered the edits.
Jessica Banks for a quick beta read and a lesson in writing disability.
Stephanie Constantin for helping in the Great Title Search and for being an amazing friend.
All the wonderful folks who invited me onto panels and to festivals, including Becky at Anderson’s Bookshop and the YA Literature Conference, the fabulous Foxes of FoxTale Book Shoppe, Bev Kodak and the YA Track at Dragon Con, Doctor Q and the Alt History Track at Dragon Con, Lee Whiteside and the Phoenix Comicon team, Carol Malcolm of the Urban Fantasy Track at Dragon Con and the Dahlonega Literary Festival, and the JordanCon crew. And thanks to the RT Booklovers Convention for letting me attend and accept two awards, even though I clearly had a zombie disease.
All the bloggers and podcasters who have been kind enough to mention the book or host me, including Reddit Fantasy and Reddit YA Writers, Sword & Laser, SF Signal, Functional Nerds, and the Vaginal Fantasy Book Club. Thanks to RT Book Reviews and Fashion by the Book for revealing the cover!
The students of Tinley Park High School and Glenbard East High School in Illinois, who were attentive and kind during my first school visits as a YA author. And thank you all for following the directions and only using “boobs” once in our Mad Libs.
As always, enormous thanks to my best friend and husband, Craig, who always encourages me and feeds me when I forget. Thanks to my children for putting up with me, and my parents and grandparents for cheering me on. Thanks to Team Capybara and the Holy Taco Church and my LitReactor students and Twitter and everyone who keeps me smiling when the writing gets tough.
The hard part about the acknowledgments is that I want to thank everyone and can’t. But just know that if you’re reading this, I appreciate you and would gladly SQUEE and hug you one day.
Read your terms of service, folks!
About the Author
Delilah S. Dawson is a native of Roswell, Georgia, and a big fan of cupcakes, horses, coffee, and high adventure. She's the author of Servants of the Storm and Hit for YA readers, a novelization of the Shadowman comic, a short story in the Carniepunk anthology, and the dark and whimsical Blud series, including three books and three e-novellas. Although she's never used it, Delilah has a BA in Studio Art from the University of Georgia and used to paint murals and pet portraits and teach art classes. She currently lives in the North Georgia mountains with her husband, two children, two cats, a spotted Tennessee Walker named Polly, and a smooshy-faced mutt named Merle. One day she hopes to see a bear in her backyard.
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ALSO BY DELILAH S. DAWSON
Servants of the Storm
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition April 2015
Text copyright © 2015 by D. S. Dawson
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Author photograph by Dolorianne Morris
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dawson, Delilah S.
Hit / Delilah Dawson.
p.
cm.
Summary: Near future thriller about a teen forced to become an indentured assassin who has only three days to complete her hit list—with the added complication of her sole ally’s brother being the final assignment.
[1. Assassins—Fiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D323Hit 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014022216
ISBN 978-1-4814-2339-7 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-2341-0 (eBook)
Hit Page 25