Panic (ARC) (Lauren Oliver) by Lauren Oliver

Author:Lauren Oliver
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Girls & Women, Juvenile Fiction, Love & Romance, Friendship, Social Issues
ISBN: 9780062014559
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-03-03T20:00:00+00:00

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 27

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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dodge

THERE WAS NO JOY LEFT IN THE GAME—NO LIGHTNESS or humor at all. Panic, as far as Dodge knew, had never been this serious. It had never been played with so much secretiveness, either. This was about more than getting busted for continuing a game. The cops were still trying to pin the fire at the Graybill house, and Little Bill’s death, on someone.

Even the judges had, apparently, lost their sense of humor. The next email that arrived, several days after Ellie had been eliminated from the game, was bleakly to-the-point.

Malden Plaza, 1-87. 9:00 p.m. Wednesday.

Bishop drove. It felt almost routine: Heather sat shotgun, Nat and Dodge were in the back. Nat spent the whole drive tapping the window with a knuckle, unconsciously beating out her own private rhythm. Dodge could almost believe they were just heading on some kind of late-night adventure to the mall. Except that Heather looked exhausted, and kept yawning, and Bishop hardly said a word except to ask her, in a low voice, what was wrong.

“What do you think is wrong?” Heather replied. Dodge didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help it.

“Your mom called,” Bishop said after a pause. “She said you haven’t been home.”

“I’m just staying at Anne’s for a few days. I’m fine.”

“She said you took the car.”

“So now you’re on her side?”

Bishop must have gone to Little Bill’s funeral. Dodge recognized the folded memorial pamphlet, featuring a winged angel, now hanging on a ribbon from his rearview mirror. Like a charm, or a talisman. Weird that he’d felt the need to hang it. Bishop didn’t strike Dodge as superstitious. Then again, Dodge didn’t really get Bishop. He didn’t, for example, understand why he seemed to feel he was part of the game, why he seemed to feel guilty for Bill Kelly’s death.

When they passed the Columbia County water towers, Dodge looked out and remembered the night of the first raid, when he, Nat, and Heather had hid from the cops. He felt a sudden wrench of grief, for the way time always goes forward, relentlessly. It was like floodwater: it left only clutter in its wake.

The sky was choked with masses of dark clouds, but it had stopped raining at last. Impossible to tell, actually, where the sun was coming from. A thick beam of light, singular and strange when the rest of the sky was still so dark, cut across the road. But the drive to Malden Plaza was long—they had to loop around to get to the northbound side—and before they’d arrived, the sun had set.

There were a few dozen cars in the lot, most of them hugging up as close to the McDonald’s as possible, plus a couple of eighteen-wheelers, trucks that must have been on a run from Albany to Canada. From the opposite side of the lot, Dodge watched a family emerging from the big swinging doors, carrying paper bags of fast food and large soda cups.

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