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His face has drained of blood. He looks like I’ve slapped him.

He doesn’t speak.

I slam out of the room.

I
stand in front of Mattie’s door, staring at the sparkly My Little Pony stickers she’d decorated it with when she was little. I hear Pearl Jam’s “Black” playing in the background again. I pound on the wood with the heel of my hand.

“What do you want?”

“It’s almost seven. Are you dressed?”

When Mattie doesn’t respond, I push into the room. She’s sitting on her bed in her underwear, looking out the window into the dark.

“Is that what you’re wearing to Samantha’s house?”

She says nothing.

I go to her closet and look over her inventory. She hasn’t done laundry in days, just tossed her dirty clothes on the floor. There are only a few shirts, a pair of jeans, and a skirt still on hangers. I pull out a pink long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans and carry them to her bed. On the way, my knees go out and my muscles turn to jelly.

The next thing I know, I’m staring into my own face as my sister hunches over me. I’ve slid into my sister. I’m seeing everything from her perspective—including my own body. It’s completely surreal.

“Vee? Vee? Are you okay?” She shakes my shoulders, and my eyes roll back into my head.

“Oh god. Oh god. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I’ll get dressed. I’ll go to the party. Just wake up.” Tears splash down her cheeks and onto my face. I can’t stand to see her like this. I decide to take over, just to calm her down.

Hijacking my sister’s body is about as easy as it gets. Maybe it has something to do with genes, but moving her limbs feels natural. I sit back and take a few breaths.

“It’s okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure she can hear me. I don’t feel her there at all anymore, like she’s gone to sleep or something. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. We’re going to go to this party, and we’re going to have fun. Just
chill
.”

When my sister’s muscles have relaxed a bit, I let go of her, will myself to return. I can almost feel the energy channeling out of her and flowing back into my body, only inches away.

I open my eyes to see Mattie sitting calmly by my side. “I don’t know what happened,” she says, smiling. “But I feel so much better.”

Samantha pulls into our driveway around 7:05. Mattie jumps into the front seat, and I skulk into the back. Samantha flashes me a totally fake smile, like the past year hasn’t happened and we’re still besties.

“Can you drop me off at Zane’s? He’s going to drive me over.”

“Zane?” Samantha asks, eyeing me in the backseat. “Yeah. He lives on Arbor.” I pull the seat belt over my lap and click it in. I’ve seen enough of Samantha’s driving to know I’m not really ever safe when she’s behind the wheel, even if I’m only riding with her for a few blocks.

“I guess,” she says reluctantly, steering the car toward Arbor Lane.

“This is it,” I say, pointing.

She pulls into his driveway and barely even waits for me to climb out before she peels backward, into the street. Her car disappears around the corner, and I hear her engine revving as she picks up speed.

I knock on the door, and then stare at an ugly jack-o’-lantern carved to look like a demon. I wonder who carved it—Zane or his mother? Whoever it was has some skill with a knife.

Again, I knock, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I need to talk to someone about what happened with my father. I need to talk to Zane.

Still, no one answers the door.

He
did
ask me to come over. Surely it wouldn’t be that rude to just go in. Maybe the television is on really loud and he can’t hear me. Or maybe he’s upstairs.

I ring the doorbell and wait.

When no one comes to the door, I put my hand on the knob and give it a little pressure. It slides easily to the right, and the door opens just a crack. I peer in the front entryway, hoping to hear footsteps, someone coming to see who’s been knocking all this time.

But no one does.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

I push the door open wider and see something strange. A tall table—the kind you might set your keys or gloves on—is tipped over, a smashed vase on the floor next to it. Shattered glass surrounds a withered rose.

“Hello?”

I step inside, eyeing the mess.

This doesn’t look good. I should leave. I
know
I should leave, but something keeps me glued to the floor. I have to find Zane, make sure he’s okay.

“Zane?”

I set the table upright and look around. A large open area off to the right seems to be the living room. I think I can make out the shape of a television in the dark. To my left is a staircase. The only light shines down a long hallway directly before me.

My feet carry me toward the light. I find myself in a small kitchen at the end of the hall. A small olive-colored refrigerator stands in the corner, covered with little cow magnets. But most of the room is taken up by a round wooden table.

Every inch of the table is covered in papers. Bills. Junk mail. I recognize a few of Zane’s papers from school. In the middle of everything is a small, generic desk calendar. Today’s date is circled in red marker.

October 27.

Mattie’s birthday.

Déjà vu slams into me. The white page I found on our door on the day Sophie died, on her birthday. The date was circled in red. It was that piece of paper I was holding when I slid into the killer.

My knees slam into the floor.

The paper came from this house.

The paper came from Zane.

Holy shit.

My mind reels as I search for an explanation. There must be some reason for this calendar. I mean, plenty of people must have them. Mr. Golden has one. It’s just an ordinary desk calendar.

But not everyone circles dates in red.

I review the past week.

Zane’s first day of school was the day Sophie died. Coincidence?

Under the bleachers, Zane rejected my theory that Sophie was murdered. Was he afraid I’d find out the truth?

The red stain on my carpet. Had he been the one to vandalize Mattie’s locker? He’d had plenty of time to do it while I was in Mr. Golden’s room. The blood-red paint wasn’t a prank—it was a threat.

This whole time, I’ve been so desperate to believe a boy like Zane could ever be drawn to a girl like me. Let’s face it—he’s amazingly hot. He could have any girl he wanted. Yet
he
approached
me
. Was I too blind to see the real reason? All this time, was he using me to get close to Mattie?

It’s
her birthday
that’s circled in red. Just like Sophie’s.

Oh, shit.

My boyfriend has a bizarre fetish for killing cheerleaders, and he’s probably on his way to Samantha’s house right this minute. I have to get there first. I have to find Mattie. The only problem is that Sam’s house is on the other side of town. I’ll never get there in time.

I dig my cell phone out of my pocket and call the only person in this world I can really count on. Rollins picks up on the second ring.

“Vee? What’s up?”

“Rollins.” I have to fight to make my words understandable because my throat has started to close up. “Rollins, you’ve got to help me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Can you come get me? I’m at Zane’s house, on Arbor. Hurry, please. I think something terrible is going to happen.” I back out of the kitchen, feeling like I might puke if I look at that stupid calendar any longer.

“Are you okay? What’s the address? I’m coming.”

“Just hurry. Don’t worry about the address. I’ll be standing in front.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Over and over, I try to call Mattie, but no one picks up. I bounce up and down, waiting for Rollins to arrive, hoping that the music at the party is just too loud for Mattie to hear her phone ring. Because I can’t let myself think about the alternative.

Please. Please just let me get there in time.

“So what’s this all about?” Rollins asks, steering toward Samantha’s side of town.

I review the events of the last week, trying to think how to distill them into a sentence that will make sense to him. My brain is numb. It refuses to work properly. “I’m just worried about Mattie. I shouldn’t have let her go to the party alone.”

When we turn onto Samantha’s street, we’re confronted with a wall of cars.

Rollins grunts in frustration, looking for enough space to park. I squirm, clutching the door handle.

“Just let me out in front. You can meet me inside.”

“You sure?” Rollins asks doubtfully, but instead of a response I throw the door open wide and leap out. I steady myself and then run toward Samantha’s house. Even if I’d never been here before—which I have, a million times in a past life—it would be easy to tell which house is hers. Every single light is blazing, and music pumps into the night air. There are a couple of senior boys standing on the front porch, slurping lazily from bottles.

“Hey, pinky,” the one wearing a football jersey slurs. “Want a beer?”

“Have you seen my sister?” I demand.

He grins. “Your sister? She as cute as you?” He reaches toward me and grabs my shoulder. I snarl at him, and he snatches his hand away. “Okay, okay. Jeez.”

I push past them and let myself into Samantha’s house. Music reverberates through the walls, more a feeling than a sound. I smell cigarettes and weed and stale beer and body odor.

The foyer is packed wall to wall with drunk kids. I keep my eyes peeled for Mattie, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Anxiously, I push past the cheerleaders and jocks doing body shots off each other, into the kitchen, where a couple of idiots are wrestling with a beer bong.

Through the glass door that opens onto the deck, I see a snatch of white T-shirt steal behind a tree. Straining my eyes, I peer through the darkness. A figure dashes out, passing through a pool of light shining from a room upstairs, and in that split second, I recognize him.

Zane.

And he’s carrying something.

I pull the door open and step into the chill of the night. The wind rustles the trees and bushes. Zane has disappeared from sight. Slowly, I cross the deck and peer over the side.

“Zane?” I call out uncertainly. “Come out where I can see you.”

A figure emerges from behind a tree. It’s Zane, his face illuminated by the light coming from behind me. He looks stricken. “Vee? What are you doing here? I thought you were going to my house.”

“What are you doing, Zane?” My eyes fall to the red plastic container he’s holding.

“You have to get out of here,” he says, throwing a nervous look to the bushes behind him. “Vee. You have to run.”

“I know what you did, Zane. I was there when you killed Sophie.”

A look of confusion crosses Zane’s face. Just then, someone else bursts out of the shadows.

It’s the white-haired woman.

Evelyn.

I look from Zane to Evelyn and back again. What is my father’s mistress doing here? Her face twists in rage, and she begins shouting. “What do you mean, she was going to our house? They were both supposed to be here.”

My mind lingers on the words
our house
, and I’m trying to figure out what they mean when a smell, unmistakable and terrifying, rises from below.

Gasoline.

“No matter,” Evelyn says. “They’re both here now.” She waves her arm over her head, and I realize she’s holding a book of matches.

An alarm goes off inside me.

For some reason, this crazy woman is going to start a fire. And Mattie’s somewhere inside.

Who
are
these people?

And why are they doing this to us?

I spin around, knowing I have only moments before the woman throws a match on the death trap she and Zane have created. It’s not enough time.

I throw open the door and start screaming. It’s like I’m in a dream, yelling so loudly, but no one can hear me. They all keep smiling, nodding, dancing, talking, grinding. I push into the crowd, still yelling.

“Get out!” My voice gets sucked up in the sea of bad techno and laughter. “Get out of the house! Fire! Fire! FIRE!”

Finally, people turn toward me, their faces changing, delight melting into fear, their mouths forming Os as they realize what I’m saying. One person after another starts to echo my cry.

“Fire!”

“Get out!”

“Fire!”

One person misinterprets the situation and yells, “Cops!” but it doesn’t matter. The effect is the same. Bodies scattering, pushing to get out.

Where is Mattie? Where is she?

I run down the hallway, continuing to scream. It takes all my strength to push past the people coming the other way. In the back room, slumped on a bed, is my sister. She loosely holds a plastic cup, the last dregs of a beer sloshing around inside. How did she get drunk so fast? She’s only been here for an hour.

“Mattie! Mattie! Get up! There’s a fire!”

Her head lolls to the side. “Vee? Whass goin on? I feel funny.”

Smoke tickles my nostrils, threateningly thick.

I muster all my strength and pull her to her feet, adrenaline pumping through me. I practically carry her down the hall to the living room. Thick smoke has filled the room, but I can make out a girl lying on a plaid couch, her legs splayed. It’s Samantha.