Girls with Razor Hearts

  Quentin furrows his brow, looking disturbed.

  “And we were game,” she adds.

  The room is eerily quiet, and Annalise continues to go through the drawers, the metal scraping and then slamming as she opens and closes them. Quentin takes a container of lighter fluid, squirts it around the room and especially on the equipment. He pauses.

  “You gotta be like that lion,” he tells Annalise, as if he just thought of something. Annalise looks over at him.

  “What lion?” she asks.

  “The one that ate the hunter. The dude had a big gun, thought he was so bad with it. Lion came up behind and tore him apart. Be the lion, girl.”

  Annalise smiles. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll give that a try.”

  Quentin laughs. “You should,” he adds.

  Annalise opens the last drawer, seeing nothing, but just before she closes it, a piece of paper sticks out from where it was jammed underneath. Curious, she works it out.

  But as she reads it, her breath catches. Annalise quickly folds the paper and puts it in her pocket.

  “We need to call Mena,” she says, walking over to where Quentin is putting the fluid back in his backpack.

  “Everything okay?” he asks, worried.

  She nods, a smile breaking over her face. “Yes,” she says. “I found a bill of sale.”

  “A what now?” Quentin asks.

  “It means that Valentine’s alive,” Annalise explains.

  “Who’s Valentine?”

  “Our friend. The doctor lied—he didn’t destroy her. Not really. He sold her program to an investor. She’s alive, just … in a different body.”

  Quentin seems uncomfortable with the idea of Valentine getting a different body, but he holds out the lighter to Annalise just the same.

  “I assume you want the honors,” he says.

  “Thank you,” Annalise replies gratefully.

  Quentin grabs his backpack and heads for the door, but Annalise takes a moment to look around one last time. She’ll never see this place again, but more importantly, neither will any other girl.

  She crinkles her nose, the smell of lighter fluid thick in the air, and then she flicks on the flame. She tosses the lighter far away, and it ignites immediately in a flash of bright orange. The fire will spread fast through the old building, so Annalise starts at a brisk jog.

  When she gets outside, she takes a gulp of night air. She sees the headlights of Quentin’s car waiting at the gate.

  When she’s close, Quentin gets out of the driver’s seat, clutching the door and watches the building. Annalise walks to the passenger side and does the same.

  Dark smoke billows from the chimney of Innovations Academy, thick and black. There is an orange glow from the basement windows. She hears crackling, and a window shatters as the first flames lick out.

  Quentin gets behind the wheel and tells her to come on. Annalise climbs into the passenger seat and looks at Quentin.

  “But I want to watch it burn,” she says. “I want assurances that the academy is officially destroyed.”

  Quentin looks sideways at her, studying her, before nodding. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, all right.”

  She sighs and leans to rest her head on his shoulder. Exhausted. A bit sad. But in her pocket is an address, and that makes her smile as flames become visible behind the windows of one of the main-floor rooms.

  This part of their lives is finally over. And soon, they’ll have Valentine back.

  Annalise and Quentin watch until the bars fall from the windows and the top floor crashes down. They watch until Innovations Academy is gone altogether. It’s gone except for its girls.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my readers. Thank you for lending me your hearts. I’ll try not to break them.

  More from this Series

  Girls with Sharp Sticks

  Book 1

  More from the Author

  The Complication

  Feral Youth

  The Adjustment

  All in Pieces

  About the Author

  Suzanne Young is the New York Times bestselling author of the Program series. Originally from Utica, New York, Suzanne moved to Arizona to pursue her dream of not freezing to death. She is a novelist and an English teacher, but not always in that order. Suzanne is the author of Girls with Sharp Sticks, Girls with Razor Hearts, The Program, The Treatment, The Remedy, The Epidemic, The Adjustment, The Complication, Hotel for the Lost, All in Pieces, and A Need So Beautiful.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  authorsuzanneyoung.com

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Suzanne-Young

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  ALSO BY SUZANNE YOUNG

  The Program Series

  Book 1: The Program

  Book 2: The Treatment

  Book 3: The Remedy

  Book 4: The Epidemic

  Book 5: The Adjustment

  Book 6: The Complication

  Hotel for the Lost

  All in Pieces

  Just Like Fate

  (with Cat Patrick)

  Girls with Sharp Sticks

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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.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition March 2020

  Text copyright © 2020 by Suzanne Young

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2020 by Daryna Barykina

  Jacket photograph of razor by iStock

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Jacket designed by Sarah Creech

  Interior designed by Tom Daly

  Jacket designed by Sarah Creech

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2020 by Daryna Barykina

  Jacket photograph of razor by iStock

  Author photograph by Dawn Goei

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Young, Suzanne, author.

  Title: Girls with razor hearts / by Suzanne Young.

  Description: New York : Simon Pulse, 2020. | Sequel to: Girls with sharp sticks. | Summary: Mena and the other girls of Innovations Academy enroll

  in Ridgeview Prep, seeking revenge against the corporation that traumatized

  them at Innovations Academy, but they still face many obstacles.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019026200 (print) | LCCN 2019026201 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534426160 (hc) | ISBN 9781534426184 (eBook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Schools—Fiction. | Cyborgs—Fiction. | Revenge—Fiction. | Science fiction.
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  Classification: LCC PZ7.Y887 Gg 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.Y887 (eBook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026200

  LC eBook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/201902620