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I flicked on my flashlight and swung the beam into the dark, the arc of light barely penetrating the blackness, even as I squinted to get a better look.

And then I saw them—Scout and Jason behind her, both in uniform and both running toward me as if they were running for their lives. I dropped the beam of the flashlight to the floor to keep from blinding them.

“Scout?” I tried to call out, but fear had frozen my throat. I tried again, and this time managed sound. “Scout!”

They were still far away—the corridor was a deep one—but they were running at sprinter speed . . . and there was something behind them.

Chasing after them was the blonde we’d seen outside on Monday—the girl with the hoodie who had watched us in the memorial garden. She was in jeans, running shoes, and a T-shirt this time,

and she ran full-bore after Scout and Jason. But even as she sprinted through the corridor, herexpression was somehow vacant, a strange gleam in her eyes the only real sign of life. Her hair was long and wavy, and it flew out behind her as she ran, arms pumping, toward us.

Suddenly she pulled back her hand, then shot it forward as if to throw something at the two of them. The air and ground rumbled, and this time the rumble was strong enough to knock me off my feet. I hit the ground on my knees, palms out in front of me.

By the time I glanced up again, Scout and Jason had reached me. I saw the look of horror on Scout’s face. “Get up, Lily!” she implored. “Run!”

“Chicago—a city where they are always rubbing a lamp, and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.”

—Mark Twain

1

They were gathered around a conference table in a high-rise, eight men and women, no one under the age of sixty-five, all of them wealthy beyond measure. And they were here, in the middle of Manhattan, to decide my fate.

I was not quite sixteen and only one month out of my sophomore year of high school. My parents, philosophy professors, had been offered a two-year-long academic sabbatical at a university in Munich, Germany. That’s right—two years out of the country, which only really mattered because they decided I’d be better off staying in the United States.

They’d passed along that little nugget one Saturday in June. I’d been preparing to head to my best friend Ashley’s house when my parents came into my room and sat down on my bed.

“Lily,” Mom said, “we need to talk.”

I don’t think I’m ruining the surprise by pointing out that nothing good happens when someone starts a speech like that.