CHAPTER 1
I used to love the smell of the high school track in the early fall. It smelled like baked rubber, cut grass, and the lingering promise that the day was almost over.
But today, the air just felt suffocating.
I kept my eyes fixed on the white painted line of lane six, my running shoes hitting the ground in a steady, monotonous rhythm. The sun was beating down on the back of my neck, dampening the collar of my white physical education polo. We were doing our mandatory mile run, a weekly torture session that Coach Miller insisted built character.
For me, it was just another twelve minutes of exposure.
“Pick it up, Lin!” Coach Miller barked from the center of the football field, a silver whistle dangling from his thick neck. “You’re dragging! You run like you’ve got lead in your shoes!”
I didn’t look at him. I just adjusted my round wire-rimmed glasses, pushing them up the bridge of my sweaty nose, and tried to regulate my breathing. Keep your head down. Be invisible. That was the mantra I had lived by ever since my older brother, Leo, ended up on life support six months ago.
Before the accident, Leo was the one who cast a shadow in this town. He was loud, brilliant, and fiercely protective. He was an investigative journalist for the local paper, always digging into things people told him to leave alone. He used to take me to the gym downtown on weekends, wrapping my hands in white tape and teaching me how to throw a punch, how to use an attacker’s momentum against them.
“You’re small, Maya,” Leo used to say, holding the heavy bag steady. “That means they’ll underestimate you. Let them. Let them think you’re weak right up until the second they realize they made a mistake.”
I missed him so much it felt like a physical weight pressing against my ribs.
“Look at her,” a voice sneered off to my left.
I didn’t have to turn my head to know it was Chloe Vance. She was jogging in lane four with her best friend, Harper. Chloe’s dark hair was pulled back into a flawless, tight ponytail. She wasn’t even sweating.
“She looks like a rat trying to escape a maze,” Harper giggled, falling into step beside Chloe.
I stared straight ahead. I was used to this. For the last three months, Chloe had made it her personal mission to make my life miserable. It started small—bumping my shoulder in the hallways, knocking my lunch tray off the table, whispering loud insults when I walked into chemistry class. I never reacted. I took it silently, swallowing the anger, because reacting meant drawing attention to myself.
And drawing attention meant they might look into what I was carrying in my backpack.
Leo had mailed me a package two days before his car supposedly skidded off the quarry bridge in the middle of the night. Inside was a weathered leather notebook filled with his jagged handwriting, financial records, and water-testing data from the town’s reservoir. The reservoir was owned by Vance Industries. Chloe’s father’s company.
I hadn’t deciphered everything yet, but I knew enough to realize Leo’s crash wasn’t an accident. I was close to figuring out the password to the encrypted flash drive taped inside the back cover. Until then, I had to survive.
I picked up my pace, trying to put distance between myself and Chloe.
“Aw, is the little rat running away?” Chloe taunted, speeding up to match my stride. She drifted out of lane four, intentionally cutting across the track to box me in toward the outer edge.
“Leave me alone, Chloe,” I muttered, my voice barely audible over the sound of our shoes hitting the rubber.
“What was that?” Chloe mocked, leaning closer. The heavy silver charm bracelet on her wrist jingled as she pumped her arms. “Speak up, Maya. Or are you too busy crying over your brain-dead brother?”
The air rushed out of my lungs. My hands balled into tight fists, my fingernails digging into my palms. I squeezed my eyes shut for a fraction of a second, fighting the sudden, violent surge of adrenaline.
Keep your head down. Don’t engage.
I sped up, trying to sprint past her.
That was my mistake.
As I pushed off my right foot, Chloe suddenly stepped directly into my path, thrusting her left leg out. My shin collided hard with her calf.
The world tilted violently.
I pitched forward, unable to get my hands up in time to catch my full weight. I hit the track with a sickening impact. The rough red rubber tore at the skin of my palms and scraped up my forearms. My glasses were ripped from my face, bouncing across the track and landing a few feet away.
Pain flared in my knees and wrists. I gasped, the wind totally knocked out of me. Without my glasses, the bright afternoon dissolved into a hazy, disorienting blur of green grass and red track.
I heard the heavy thud of other students slowing to a stop around me.
Above me, Chloe’s shadow fell over my face.
“Oops,” she said. Her voice wasn’t apologetic; it was dripping with calculated, venomous joy. “Watch where you’re going.”