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For just a split second, I let myself look at this assignment as the ultimate revenge on Amber Lane. But then I realize that that's the sort of thought that makes God want to smite formerly nice girls with lightning and boils, so I grit my teeth and will myself to believe that she's just another name on the list that burned up in the back of the mail truck. I have to convince her to take the deal.

My eyes are stubbornly closed, but I know when we're in front of her house. I can feel it in my bones. Wyatt stops the truck but
leaves it running, as we always do. I gently pull my arm out of the window and away from Matty as Wyatt ducks below my knees to hand me my shirt. I turn away to slip it on, arms as heavy as the concrete block I used to rig the mail truck's gas pedal. Wyatt's hand wraps my fingers around the gun. Matty grumbles in her sleep, and I get out of the truck with a sigh and tuck the bloodstained edges of my shirt into my jeans. If Amber's home, she'll probably take one look at me and decide she was right to cut me off. Dirty, wearing dorky clothes and a stained hat, driving a beat-up truck, working for a place as dumb as the post office.

Will she even be home? She should be in school. But Dr. Ken Belcher should have been at work too, and every door I've come to has had the right person waiting behind it.

I pat the rumpled card and the signature machine in the shirt pocket. The gun's heavy weight against my back has become a comfort. Wyatt comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek.

“Good luck,” he whispers in my ear, and I turn my head to whisper, “Thank you.”

He sits in the front seat of the running truck, one arm back to pet Matty. I'm so not ready to do this, but I want it to be over with. I don't even feel for my missing necklace this time, and with a sinking heart, I realize I haven't said my prayers in a few days. I haven't asked for forgiveness.

Heavy with dread, I walk up the familiar sidewalk where we used to draw hopscotch boards with chalk. We found a baby bird out here once, fallen from its nest high up in a maple, and we were home alone because we were in fifth grade and our parents all had to work, so we smashed up worms and tried to feed the bird with Amber's mom's eyebrow tweezers. It died before any grown-ups could come home and tell us what to do, and we cried for hours and had a funeral for it. The bird's tiny headstone is probably still in Amber's backyard, along with the other memorial rocks we painted for random fish, a wild lizard, and her pet bunny, Patches.

Everything looks the exact same, except for the fact that there's no chalk on the concrete. Same trees, just a little higher. Her house is nicer and bigger than mine, and her dad always takes care of the yard. The house itself is the same tan it's always been, with the same dark green shutters and the same fancy white wood blinds that my mom always sighed over like they were made of diamonds. There's a lemon-yellow VW Bug in the driveway that I recognize from school, and my heart pounds as I realize that—big coincidence!—Amber is home too.

I try to pull out her Valor card and fumble everything in my hands. The signature machine, her card, Max's card—they all fall to the ground.

“Shit on a biscuit.”

I bend over, feeling like a monumental idiot. I also realize, as
I squat and feel a tug in my britches, that it's going to be hard to pull a gun out from under my tucked-in shirt, so I untuck the back. Who cares if she thinks I'm a dorky slob? Not like she's going to tell anybody this time. Because either she's going to die, or she's going to accept a job she'll never be able to finish and won't want to talk about anyway. If there's one thing I know about Amber, it's that as nasty and snobby as she seems socially, there's not a killer bone in her body. Hurt things just break her heart, and she couldn't shoot an ax murderer any more than she would let herself be seen in public wearing Kmart jeans. I've always felt like there was some reason behind what she did to me. I'm pretty sure she felt bad even as she broke my heart.

I take a deep breath and step onto her porch, right next to the boot scraper that no one ever uses. It's shaped like a hedgehog, and we used to play all sorts of games with it. Now it's looking at me reproachfully, so I spin it around with my foot before I knock on the door. Ringing a doorbell just feels so . . . impersonal.

Inside, slippers slap on parquet floors. I hold up the signature machine and card and smile brightly at the exact moment that I know Amber is looking through the peephole. In the silence, I imagine her scowling, tossing the dark waves of her hair, wondering why the reject has shown up to plague her, terrified that I'll actually say out loud what a selfish bitch she is for leaving me in the dust as soon as she could.

The dead bolt unlocks, and the door opens inward. There she is, prettier and snottier than ever in expensive-looking yoga pants, a school spirit tee, and Minnie Mouse slippers.

“Hey.” She says it like a challenge.

“Hi,” I say. “Are you Amber Lane?”

“Are you retarded? You know who I am.”

I wince. “Look, I'm just trying to do my job.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Is that for my dad?”

“Yeah. Just sign here.”

I hand her the signature machine, and if she notices my hands shaking, she doesn't say anything as she signs her name in perky cursive. I click accept.

“Thanks,” I say, but she doesn't say anything back, and she's looking anywhere except at my face. She's gotten really good at being a snob.

She holds out her hand expectantly, and I find that I've completely forgotten my speech. I have to read it from the card.

“Amber Lane, you owe Valor Savings Bank the sum of $21,502.03. Can you pay this sum in full?”

“Are you dicking around with me or what?” she says.

“Definitely not.”

“I don't owe anyone anything.”

I glare at her, and she has the good taste to look away.

“Look, you either pay up, agree to work for Valor, or . . .”

“Are you threatening me?”

For a moment, I just stare at her. “Yes.”

Her mouth drops open. “What?”

“I'm threatening you.”

“Are you trying to get me back for dropping you?” she says, voice sharp and loud, like we have an audience in the cafeteria. “Is this some kind of stupid prank? Why are you even out of school? Who told you I was skipping? Did you come here to confront me or get revenge or something?”

“Jesus, Am. Do you ever listen to yourself? Like, at all?”

She rolls her eyes and makes an affronted sound. I guess she's forgotten what it's like to have someone who knows you call you on your bullshit. That's probably why she's tried so hard to avoid me for the past four years.

I clear my throat and read straight from the card, hoping she'll get the picture and not be such a bitch.

“By Valor Congressional Order number 7B, your account is past due and hereby declared in default. Due to your failure to remit all owed monies and per your signature just witnessed and accepted, you are given two choices. You may either sign your loyalty over to Valor Savings as an indentured collections agent for a period of five days or forfeit your life. Please choose.”

She gives a snide little laugh and speaks in the overly sweet voice bullies use right before they throw you in a locker. “Okay, that's
hilarious. Either I have to give you all this money I don't have and didn't spend, or I have to work with you at a bank? Um, no thanks. How do you come up with this stuff?”

“You weren't listening, Am. There's a third option,” I say, licking my lips nervously while hers glitter with lip gloss. “Pay, work . . . or die.”

“Holy crap, Patsy!” she cackles. “You seriously think I'm going to believe all that? I've been pretty nice at school, not telling any more of your dirt. And believe me, I know more than you do. But you're gonna get bitch slapped if you keep this shit up.”

I hand her the card, and she rips it in half without reading it and throws it on the ground.

“Fuck your reindeer games,” she says with a practiced toss of her hair.

“Am, seriously. If you don't listen to me and say the right thing, I am going to pull out a gun and shoot you. I've already killed, like, ten people this week. You're a major bitch, but I don't want you to die.”

“You are so demented. I can't believe we were ever friends.”

“Why do you have credit card debt, anyway? You're seventeen, for Chrissakes.”

I know I'm stalling. I don't care. Let Valor show up in their Humvees if I'm wasting their precious time. I'm still way ahead of schedule.

“I don't have credit card debt. My family does just fine, thank
you.” She holds up her French-manicured hands as if indicating how awesome her perfect life is.

I squat down and pick the card back up. I hold the two pieces together, up in front of her face. Her eyes were always a prettier, brighter blue than mine, her hair glossier and in perfect waves. She's like the A-plus version of me. Maybe that's why I didn't fight it when she dropped me. I never really deserved to be friends with someone as pretty and talented and special as Amber Lane, did I?

She reads the card, her arms crossed over her bulging chest, in the tight Big Creek Hornets T-shirt.

“This is kind of adorable,” she says. “I can't believe you went to the trouble of printing it up on expensive paper. But seriously, even if you thought this little prank was cute? I don't have a credit card.”

I know her tells, and she's not lying. I don't know what to do. Everyone else pretty much admitted they owed the money, except for Alistair, who was probably framed. But it's not like Amber's driving a brand-new car or wearing superexpensive clothes. Her family might be doing well by Candlewood standards, but they're not in the Dr. Ken Belcher league or even the Preserve league.

“Um, is there any chance your parents might have taken out a credit card in your name?” I say. “They can do that once you're over sixteen.”

“No way,” she says. “They would not do that to me.”

But her pouty mouth is turned down at the corners. We both
remember when her mom found out her dad was cheating and when her mom lost her job and got caught shoplifting. Her parents have definitely made some mistakes, and by the look on her face, the puzzle is coming together. She glances nervously at her car and back to me, blue eyes gone from hate to fear.

“Look, Am. Maybe you could, I don't know . . . call Valor Savings and ask them. See if you have an account you don't know about. It doesn't have to go down this way.”

“Oh, yeah. I'll get right on that,” she says. “Just let me call customer service. You're a fucking joke, Patsy.”

She tries to close the door on me, but I shove my foot inside.

“This is not a joke,” I say. “Take the deal. This is kind of your only chance.”

She slams the door on my foot, hard, and I show my teeth instead of whimpering.

“Seriously, Pats. Get your foot out of my door and go bother someone else who doesn't have a life.”

Her eyes narrow to slits. She always had a short fuse.

“I really, really don't want to shoot you, but if it comes down to you or my mom . . .”

“You'll what—shoot me? Really? Look at yourself. I can smell you from here. You're filthy. You're dressed like a hobo. You're begging me for attention with this stupid, dumbass prank. You're trash, Patsy, and you're always going to be trash. That's why your
dad left. My mom told me. He was rich, and you were an accident, and he disappeared as fast as he fucking could. Nobody wants you. And if you think you can just join the Postal Service mafia or whatever and show up and yell at me in my own house, you can go fuck yourself.”

I go cold all over, and not just because of the insults.

“What did you say about my dad?”

She opens the door and puts her hands on her hips. “That's all you heard in that whole thing? Christ. He was rich. He was connected. He was your mom's boss, and he totally screwed her. They were never even married. I told you. You're a bastard, Pats.”

I slap her right across the face, just like that. The crack is loud, although not as loud as a gunshot. But she looks just as surprised as if I'd shot her.

“Bitch, you do not want to mess with me,” she growls. Her perfectly manicured fingers ball into fists, and her right cheek is a lot more red than her left. God, that felt good. I've been wanting to slap her for years. I should have done that a long time ago, when I still thought she was worth having as a friend.

I laugh, but it's humorless and frosty. I pull the gun out of the back of my jeans and aim it at her. I have never seen her look so surprised in my entire life, and on one level, it's fucking hilarious. On every other level, it is horrible, and I try to make my hand stop shaking. It's impossible.

“Take the deal, Am,” I beg. “I already told you that if it came down to you or my mom, you were gone. It's come down to that, okay? Take the goddamn deal and don't make me shoot you.”

“You th-think you can scare me?” she stutters. “You think you can show up at my door and wave a toy gun in my face, and I'm just going to do whatever you say?” She whips a smartphone out of her pocket and stares me down while she dials 911 with a smug grin. “You are so dead, Pats.”

Far away, I hear ringing and then a recorded message. Her face goes three shades of white.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Valor Savings can't come to the phone right now?”

She spins, runs back into her house, and slams the door. I toss the door open and run after her. I've got a straight shot down the hall, and I aim low. Arms outstretched and shaking, I pull the trigger once, and her hall mirror explodes. She gives a little scream, and I shoot again, and she grunts and falls over.

Without looking back at me, she tries to drag herself down the hall on her arms and one leg, but it looks like I got her right through the back of the knee. She's crying, and so am I, and I walk up behind her and catch her ankle with one hand. The other hand points the gun at her head, although I would never hit her there. It would be too much like shooting my own sister in the face, like shooting myself.