I nod.

“Then go for it. You know what to do.”

She pushes the purse back into my arms. Without even looking, I know the blouse is in there. It radiates a heat that makes the whole purse pulse. I unzip it just a crack. Inside is a slip of white silk, a splash of color.

“It’s not hurting anyone,” Sam says. “You’re the one who got hurt, Quinn. You and me and Lisa. We’re the damaged ones.”

“Damaged goods,” I say.

“You’re damn right.”

Silently, Sam drifts to a nearby rack of sweaters. She grabs two handfuls and drops them onto the floor, plastic hangers clattering. The noise draws a salesgirl, who zips to Sam’s side.

“I’m so clumsy,” Sam says.

That’s my cue. As Sam and the salesgirl collect the downed sweaters, I snatch the earrings from their display and drop them into my purse. Then I speed-walk from the scene of my crime. I’m halfway out of the women’s department when Sam catches up to me. She grabs my wrist, yanking me to a slow walk while whispering, “Easy, babe. No need to look suspicious.”

But we are suspicious. And I’m certain all those bored salesgirls and haughty matrons and listless teenagers who should be in school know what we’ve done. I expect them to stare as we pass, but none of them do. We’re so radiant we’ve become invisible.

Only one man notices us. A twentysomething in distressed jeans, Brooks Brothers polo and shiny black sneakers with red stripes down the sides. He spies us over one of the fragrance counters, pausing mid-spritz to watch us float to the door. I watch him, too, noticing something click just behind his eyes. It worries me.

“We’ve been spotted,” I tell Sam. “Security.”

My heart starts doing jumping jacks in my chest, thumping faster and faster. I’m scared and excited and breathless and exhausted. I want to run but Sam keeps gripping my arm, even as the man drops his cologne, picks up a newspaper sitting on the counter and starts to follow.

He calls out to us. “Excuse me.”

Sam curses under her breath. My heart beats even faster.

“Excuse me,” the man says again, putting a more urgent spin on it, getting the attention of others, who look up, look at him, look at us. We’re visible again.

Sam increases her pace, making me do the same. We reach the door and start to push through it, but the man is behind us, moving fast, reaching out to tap me on the shoulder.

Out on the street, Sam prepares to run. Her body tenses next to mine, readying for the sprint. I tense up, too, mostly because the man is right at my back now. His hand drops onto my shoulder, making me spin around and hold the purse out to him, as if in offering.

The man looks not at the purse, but at the two of us, a stupid grin on his face. “I knew it was you.”

“We don’t know you, man,” Sam says.

“I know you,” he says. “Quincy Carpenter and Samantha Boyd, right? The Final Girls.”

The man fishes in the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a pen tangled in a ring of keys. He yanks it loose and hands it to me.

“It’d be awesome if I could get your autographs.”

He then offers the newspaper. It’s a tabloid, the cover stretched tight and facing us. When we look at it, our own faces stare back.

I teeter backwards, dropping to earth, the sidewalk under my feet suddenly hard and jarring. A second look at the newspaper confirms what I already know.

Somehow, Sam and I have become front page news.

CHAPTER 12

Our picture takes up most of the front page, filling it all the way to the masthead. The image shows Sam and me during our first meeting, standing outside my building, sizing each other up. It captures me at my very worst—with my weight shifted to my right leg, hip jutting, arms crossed in suspicion. Sam’s positioned slightly away from the camera, with just a slice of her pale profile visible. Her knapsack is still settling at my feet and her mouth yawns open as she speaks. I recall that moment with cutting exactitude. It was right before Sam started to say, You don’t need to be such a bitch.

The headline sits below the photo in large, red letters. SOUL SURVIVORS.

Beneath it is a photo of Lisa Milner, similar to the one on her book cover. Next to it is a headline smaller in size but no less alarming.

Final Girls meet after suicide of kill spree victim Lisa Milner.

I look to the masthead again. It’s the same tabloid that reporter idling outside my building yesterday said he works for. His name lurches into my head. Jonah Thompson. That devious prick. He must have still been there, probably spying on us while scrunched in the front seat of a parked car, camera poised on the dashboard.

I snatch the newspaper from the autograph hound and start to walk away.

“Hey!” he says.

I keep walking, tripping down Fifth Avenue. Even though my legs are wobbly from Xanax, my muscles yearn for another. And then another. As many as it takes to plunge me into oblivion for a few days. Which still wouldn’t be enough to snuff out my anger.

I flip through the newspaper as I walk. Inside it is a bigger photograph of Lisa and a series of shots detailing the first conversation between Sam and me, all taken from the same angle. I look gradually less angry in those pictures, my stance and expression softening. As for the actual article, I can barely make it through the first two paragraphs.