“Enough.” Ben laughed. “He’s dating Ryan, and they’re on a team together. I’m guessing Shane and Carlos are the other two on the team. They’re all faster than you, so don’t chase them. Ryan and Carlos are definitely faster than you and probably faster than me. We’ll have to catch Leo when he thinks he’s safe. Maybe at the gym? He’s more an endurance guy, usually at the back during their post-workout lap. I bet we could separate him from the pack.”
“Yeah, maybe. They run around the gym, right? I don’t know what to do with that,” Lia said. Two weeks ago, she would’ve lured him off the path or rolled something before him to make him stop, but now she couldn’t stomach the idea. “Why don’t you play soccer? You did when we were kids, and then you swapped to football.”
Ben offered her some pretzels. “I don’t know. May’s better at soccer. Didn’t want to make our dads pick which game to go to, and now our games are different nights.”
“I think my mom would be happier if I played a sport,” Lia said, taking a pretzel and breaking it at the joints. “If I’m not good at school, I might as well be good at a sport.”
“Didn’t your brother play basketball?” Ben asked.
Lia nodded. “Since he was five. I don’t like it, though.”
“Yeah, but you did debate and stuff,” he said. “Don’t those count?”
“Only if I want to go to law school, apparently. Since I don’t, my parents don’t think debate’s very useful,” Lia said. “They figured it was a distraction, so I quit to focus on grades.”
That hadn’t worked, and now she had the same grades and no debate club. She pulled the binoculars up to her eyes and watched Leo take a water break with some other players. What was the point of her parents paying and helping with loans if she didn’t have a plan? According to them, there wasn’t one. She had plans for Assassins and escape rooms, but not a single one for life after graduation.
It infuriated her parents.
Footsteps pattered across the ground behind them, and Lia glanced over her shoulder. Leaves fluttered to the ground. Nothing was there.
Ben patted her shoulder. “Probably Slushie, but I get it. I’ve been hearing stuff, too. Or at least imagining it. Last night I nearly punched a tree. Thought it was attacking me in the backyard. I could’ve sworn there was a person behind it, but nope. Nothing but trees.”
“Slushie?” she repeated, confused.
“Slushie,” he confirmed, and took the binoculars from her. “The 7-Eleven’s cat.”
He said it with such certainty that Lia could only nod. They watched the practice carry on in silence, and when the sun got low and the players ran one last sprint and called it a night, Lia took note of which car Leo got into and entered it on her phone. Ben said it was Ryan’s.
“So he’s almost certainly on a team with Ryan, Carlos, and Shane,” Lia said, lowering the binoculars. All three of them were driving home together. “Where do you think he’s going now?” Lia asked.
“Babysitting,” Ben said. He tipped the pretzel bag up and emptied the crumbs into his mouth. “He’s CPR certified and everything.”
“We can’t get him tonight,” Lia said, biting into a chocolate bar. “But we can get him tomorrow.”
The next morning, Lia rose with the sun and Abby didn’t. The fact haunted her, a ghost at her heels as she packed her bag for a Saturday of assassinating Leo. She had spent all night figuring out how to get Leo, and the thrill of the game, of doing something right, lifted the weight in the pit of her stomach. She waited in the dark of her living room for Gem, the sounds of her father’s snoring thundering in her ears. Maybe if she won, she would feel better about having been the one who lived.
“Survivor’s guilt,” Gem said as Lia got into the backseat next to Devon and told them how she was feeling. “We talked about it in psych once.”
“Cool,” Lia said, because putting a name to it didn’t really help. “So, about Leo—the team has to cross the street when they do their lap around the grounds. That means they have to wait for the light, and they usually go in two or three groups. Leo’s usually last, and when everyone crosses the street, there’s a stretch of sidewalk that’s usually blocked by traffic. He’ll feel safe. He won’t speed up because usually he wouldn’t be alone. We hit the crosswalk buttons on either end of the street and delay traffic, and one of us takes him out while he’s crossing that stretch. He won’t be in the line of sight of the others if they all stick to their usual running patterns, and given how exhausting practice is, they probably will.”
“On top of things as always,” Devon said.
“Gem and Ben will hit the crosswalk buttons. Because of traffic, they won’t count as alone, so we have to stop traffic,” Lia said. “Devon or I will take the shot from across the drainage ditch.”
“Going to challenge me to a duel to determine who the best shot is?” Devon asked.
Lia grinned. “I’m the best shot. I was just going to let you take it if you wanted.”
The best gym in Lincoln was across from a closed YMCA. Gem let Devon and Lia off in the YMCA’s parking lot, all three making sure no cars had followed them and no one was watching from the windows of the gym. Devon helped Lia out of the car and flipped up his hood. If they got caught, it would be best if Leo didn’t know it was them. She pulled her wool hat lower.
“Here,” she said, and pointed to the gate at the edge of the overgrown YMCA lot. There was no fence attached to it, and the little valley behind it was meant for water runoff, but it had been far too dry for that. “It’s not trespassing; I checked. We can keep watch from atop the other side. The moment Leo’s alone, we’ve got him.”
“How many times did you spy on the team to figure this out?” Devon asked, his face drenched in light from the rising sun.
“Only a few times,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “It meant I knew enough about the whole team to call it there.”
He shook his head, and Lia trudged out of the creek and up into the little forested area separating the neighborhood from the old lot. His chuckling followed her.
“What?” she asked. “Not all of us have everything figured out. I need something to be good at, and games are it. Competitions. You’ve got orchestra, and I’ve got this.”
Lia had always needed something. She was hungry, but everyone always told her that what she wanted wasn’t right. It was like wanting bread and being told carbs were bad. She wanted to do what she wanted, and here she was, finally doing it, except none of it was right.