Danica’s alligator smile widens, her long brown hair snaking behind her in the breeze. “Because I’d do it for free.”

She’s dead serious. Utterly serious. Which, I’m guessing, is why Kit completely loses it. She starts laughing, quietly at first—normally, like a normal person. But when personal offense writes itself all over Danica’s face, she starts laughing harder, and harder, and harder. Dee joins in, and Joel tries not to, but fails. Shawn tries to suppress a smile that won’t stay hidden, and eventually, Kit laughs so hard that she descends into a full-on coughing fit.

Sneezes and coughs from nearly the entire band made up the soundtrack of our hike through the woods, but Kit coughed more than anyone else, wiping her nose with her sleeve and insisting that she was fine every time Shawn lectured that she should have stayed home. Now, those coughs get the better of her, and she doesn’t stop until she hacks something up and spits it into the water at Danica’s side.

“Gross,” Danica scolds, which only makes Kit laugh again. “What is your problem?” she snaps, and I wait for her to murder Kit, or Kit to murder her, or someone to murder someone and turn this place into a real-life crime scene, when Mike wraps his arm around Danica’s shoulder.

“Kit’s just delirious,” he says, giving Kit a pointed look. He turns to stand in front of Danica, his big hands on her shoulders. “And they’ve put a lot of thought into this. We all have.”

“I’m just trying to help.” Danica pouts, and Mike studies her for a moment before replying.

“I know. I appreciate that.”

“My idea wasn’t bad,” Danica insists, looking past Mike to implore Shawn. “I could take this music video to the next level. Having a sexy girl in it would make—”

“You realize Kit is sexy as hell, right?” Dee snaps, and I can’t tell if Kit’s cheeks are red because she’s embarrassed or red because she’s sick, but I don’t remember her being that flushed a minute ago. “Look at her. She’s a fucking bombshell. This video will already have a hot girl in it.”

“Well, yeah,” Danica reluctantly concedes, “but—”

“Are you going to shoot the video at night?” I interrupt, and everyone’s eyes swing to me. I don’t even know why I open my mouth, except that something about sharing the same bloodline as Danica forces me to protect her from putting her foot further into her mouth. “To make it more ghostly?”

Shawn stares at me while I use my nonexistent powers of telepathy to beg him to go along with my subject change, and finally, he says, “Yeah.” He scratches his fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “But the film crew is going to bring up all sorts of high-tech lighting to help light the dock so we’ll be visible.”

“It sounds like it’s going to be really amazing,” I offer, and an easy smile finally returns to Shawn’s face, lighting his forest-green eyes.

“Thanks, Hailey.”

“Whose idea was it?”

The guys and Kit start telling me who came up with which ideas, and I listen. I smile back at Shawn, my attention skipping between him, Adam, Joel, Kit, Mike, and even Rowan and Dee—until it accidentally lands on Danica.

She should be happy I changed the subject. The guys weren’t going for her idea, and I was just trying to keep her from looking fame hungry. Or from offending anyone. Or from . . . I don’t know . . . causing Kit or Dee to fly across the dock and strangle her with their bare hands.

But she isn’t happy. Not when she locks eyes with me. Her tight lips and her hard gaze make me an unspoken promise.

She is going to kill me.

Chapter 11

When Danica decides later that afternoon, after the guys have fully scouted the woods surrounding the meadow, that she needs to pee and that she needs me to go with her—which requires a private trek into the trees, just the two of us—I’m fully certain I’m never leaving this forest alive. I know she’s still stewing about the way I derailed her “I should be the star of your music video!” campaign, and I also know that the only punishment for such an offense is certain death.

But instead of clubbing me with a fallen tree branch or pushing me off a conveniently located cliff, Danica simply tramps her designer boots through the tall field grass alongside me and complains, “I hate having to hang out with his friends all the time. I hated it in high school, and I hate it even more now.”

“Why?” I ask, and she gives me a poignant side-eye.

“They hate me.”

“They don’t ha—” I start, but Danica rolls her eyes.

“Don’t lie, Hailey. You’re terrible at it. You always have been.”

She’s right, of course. Whenever we got into trouble when we were younger, I’d always have to let Danica do the talking, because if I attempted to spin the truth, our parents would be able to tell in two seconds flat. I’d end up giggling, or worse—crumbling under the pressure and spilling every tiny detail, even ones they didn’t ask for. Once, when Danica and I got caught driving my dad’s tractor, I ended up selling us both down the river and confessing that we had done the same thing a week earlier but never got caught. We were both grounded for three lonely, boring, miserable weeks.

“Okay,” I admit as we finally reach the tree line and I muscle a thick bush out of my cousin’s way, “they hate you.”

“I’m aware,” she mutters, walking through the passage I make. “They don’t hate you though.”