My cry reverberated in the dumpster as I staggered back, panic swelling in my chest. I scrambled out and nearly face-planted on the concrete. The girl’s image burned into my vision—familiar spindly limbs swimming in those bloody clothes, the logo from the salvaged game system on her jacket. She had my face too, all chin and cheekbones, and a petulant scowl even in death.

“What is it?” Matt leaned in, hand on my shoulder, his forehead lined with concern.

My stomach churned while my knees went bendy. “There’s a body.” I left out the part about her looking exactly like me. Was she just someone … similar? A sister I’d never met? It was hard to see past that awful gash on her face.

Matt pocketed his phone, his concern melting into a smirk. “I’m not falling for that one.”

A retort died on my lips as I spun toward footsteps from the street at the alley’s entrance.

A bearded man with sport sunglasses, maybe fifty feet behind Matt, ground a flower under his sneaker like you would a cigarette—and stepped from the far curb, striding toward our shaded alley with an uneven gait.

Watching us.

He wore joggers, a tattered ball cap, and an empty smile. Something about his swagger made my throat clench. The way you could tell someone was bad news. He’d shown up right when we’d found the body. Had he been waiting? I wasn’t going to hang around, even with a best friend for protection. So hands in pockets, I turned tail and speedwalked the other way. “Let’s go.”

Matt started after me, oblivious. “Wait, where’re we going?”

“We’re leaving.” Shit, what were we doing about the body? If there was ever a time to call the cops …

A dog barked in someone’s backyard, and Matt’s footsteps behind me cut short.

I whirled back to find him balanced on one leg, shaking a pebble from his leather sandal.

“What?” he said. “They’re hella comfortable. The cork footbed—”

The man reached the alley a couple car lengths from us and his smile evaporated. If I still had any doubt about whether he was after us, that dried up too as he accelerated into a sprint, producing a handgun with a steady light spilling from its muzzle.

Matt turned toward the footsteps and loosed a high-pitched shriek.

Shiiit! Why the hell was that thing glowing? That wasn’t … normal. I raced ahead with knots in my belly, cornering into an intersecting alley of brick-backed restaurants and thrumming air conditioners.

Matt was hot on my heels. His eyes bulged, his wrist cast a blur. “Oh my God, oh my God!”

The man was further back, his arms pumping as he gained on us with every loping step.

My legs went wobbly again and I almost bit it. I rounded a stack of pallets—only to pull up short in a dead end. No. My gaze ping-ponged to a steel door tucked behind another dumpster, scents of gyoza and overripe cabbage. I dashed over and levered the door open wide.

A doe-eyed dishwasher guy on a non-slip mat barred the way with a steaming stock pot, totally deer in the headlights.

Shoving past and getting third-degree burns? Bad. Hiding? Good.

Matt skittered to a stop, almost bowling me over. “What is happening?”

I met the dishie’s eyes. “Run.” Then I slammed the door good and loud, tossed my backpack into the open dumpster, and tumbled in after it—neck-deep into trash bags. A pile of Matt smashed into me.

My heart battered my sternum while I tried not to breathe. A sunlit trash bag stinking of sulfur and past-due vegetables nestled my cheek, while something warm soaked through the hole in my boot. Before me, there was only Matt’s clenched hand, a cracked car battery, and the Dalek patch on my backpack.

Heavy footfalls slowed to a trot. The restaurant’s door slammed open again.

Matt was sucking in air. I reached up, felt across his clammy face, and sealed his mouth with a shaking hand. We just needed to stay quiet.

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“Two teens come through here?” a man asked, his voice like a dull rotary rasp. “Little white girl, all legs? And a big guy, kind of hefty?”

Little? I was easily five-three and a quarter in these boots.

“Yes, right in there.”

My heart trilled in my ears. The cute dishie was giving us up. Shit, shit, shit! We should’ve bowled him over and risked the burns. I craned back to exchange a look with Matt, his hair falling into eyes wide with alarm. We had to fight back! We had to do someth—

But footsteps receded into the restaurant, and I heaved a giant sigh. God bless the hot dishie. I never should’ve doubted him.

Still wheezing, Matt clawed my hand from his face and levered off me. The icing on his forehead had been replaced with plum sauce, his cheeks beyond rosy. “What the fuck was that?”

I withdrew my other hand from a nest of expired scallions, wiping it on my cutoffs. “Yeah.” I was at a loss for words—an unusual condition for me. I reached up to clamber out.

“Gimme a second.” Matt’s eyes were half-mast like he’d switched to power save mode. He steadied himself on the car battery.

My heart thudded away as we crouched in the garbage. “That body … I dunno how to say this.” I tongued my bad tooth just to feel something real, the familiar stab of pain rushing back. “The body was me. At least she looked like me. My face, my build, everything. Except for the weird haircut and no eyeliner.”

Matt gave me a shaky smile, sizing me up. “Yeah, right. You saw her for like—what?—two seconds? What I wanna know is who was that guy chasing us.”

“I’m not kidding about the body, Matt.”

“We should probably get going anyway before—”

He bit off his words as the restaurant’s door slammed open. The dumpster reverberated like a tolling bell.

My stomach plummeted into my boots. I couldn’t breathe. The guy with the gun was back.

“Yeah, about that.” It was his gravelly voice. “It’s possible they found it…. Yes, but if there are other girls exactly matching the dead one, we need to find them now before—I don’t care what your intel said…. No. I didn’t get a good look. You know how my eyes are…. I will. I am. They couldn’t have gotten far, especially the porker.”

Matt glowered, his nostrils flared.

This guy was looking for people matching the dead girl. Unless there were others, that meant me.

Something brushed against the outside of the open dumpster, a hand or a shoulder.

My chin trembled. He couldn’t know we were here, right?

Matt apparently decided he could. Because he lit his lighter and held it to the car battery, the flick of the striker deafening against our held breath.

Jesus, Matt. He was making an improvised explosive like that time in Chemistry. And on the Fourth of July. And … Valentine’s Day.

He met my glare with an apologetic shrug while heaping makeshift tinder atop the battery’s terminals.

No time to smother the fire. I needed to get the battery out before it blew and painted us in sulfuric acid. I’m sure Matt planned to throw it eventually, but I wasn’t about to leave that call to him. So, chest tight, I lunged.

And hit the dumpster with my foot—the clang probably heard all the way to Milpitas.

Fuuuck. I froze, my breath caught in my throat, my horror reflected in Matt’s eyes. Whole civilizations rose and fell in the silence that followed.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” the man said coolly.

This was my chance. I seized the flaming battery and, biceps quivering, heaved it out of the dumpster with a ragged cry. Matt scaled the opposite side and I wasn’t far behind, backpack in hand. We thudded into concrete and knelt to wrap arms around our heads—waiting for an explosion that didn’t come.

The man ambled around the dumpster, all casual. Our tiny reflections shone in his wrap-around Oakleys. “Hey there,” he said, a world-weary grin behind a neat black beard. He tipped his gun at the backpack under my arm. The weapon was smooth, tan, maybe ceramic. An amber glow spilled from the barrel. “What’ve you got in there?” His tone was breezy, almost playful. But there was no warmth in it.

Fingers of cold spread through my chest. “Homework,” I said without thinking, my eyes glued to his strange weapon. We were going to die.

His smile hardened, the chill reaching my bones. “How about you hand over the pack.”

Sweat dripped from my neck as he strolled forward, the useless car battery ass-up on the concrete behind him. Matt and I crouched against the dumpster, utterly defenseless. I imagined whipping out my phone, saying, This is going straight to Instagram, asshole. But instead, Mom’s voice played in my head. Someone has a gun, you give them what they want.

Teeth clenched, I shrugged off my backpack, shifting my body to shield Matt. If he hissed something behind me, I didn’t hear it.

The man took another step.

Heart drumming, I steeled myself. My fingers curled into fists.

Then the battery shattered with a thunderous crack of blooming flame.

The man pivoted minutely toward the explosion, reflected tendrils of fire creeping up his sunglasses—just as a blazing case fragment shot through the air, carving a tight arc that ended in his face.

He screamed, stumbled back, crumpled.

I gasped. Flaming debris spiraled overhead. I gathered a fistful of Matt’s collar and dragged him to his feet, snapping him out of a slack-jawed stare. We tore through the alley, embers hissing into concrete as we fled.

Somehow though, through all that, I’d managed to hold onto my backpack. But as we ran, I swear to God something inside it grew hot against my back.

Almost like it was powering up.