Author/Uploaded by Cale Dietrich
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Sevente...
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Newsletter Sign-up Copyright Guide Cover Title Page Dedication Chapter One Epilogue Acknowledgments Contents Copyright Pagebreaks of the print version Cover Page i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 ii Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page Thank you for buying this Feiwel and Friends ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. To Jayden Chapter One TWO YEARS AGO A meat cleaver goes through Sam’s chest, killing him instantly. “Damn it,” he says as the bloody words GAME OVER splatter across the screen on his iPad. He unhooks his headphones and glances warily through the window in the door that leads outside to the deck and out to the forest. He stares at the darkness of the woods, and a wild thought of someone watching him invades his mind. He shivers. He’s sitting on a king-sized bed in a white tank top and boxers, with his legs stretched out in front of him. It’s humid, and despite the best efforts of a fan in the corner of the room on the highest speed possible, he can’t get comfortable. He doesn’t know why he can’t relax. The only bad things that have happened on this weekend so far have been the man who stared at him and his boyfriend at the Pancake Barn before they got here, and Max’s run-in with poison oak as they were walking back from the lake from their hike. Those can easily be explained: homophobia for the first, and Max’s thickheadedness for the second. Everything else has been idyllic: the drive, passing by towering redwoods and Douglas firs, followed by a swim in Lake Priest, which Amy made sure everyone knew was actually a reservoir. Sam knows he has nothing to worry about, but he can’t get rid of this grim feeling, no matter how much he tries to distract himself. Maybe playing horror games like Hunting Ground doesn’t help, but he loves them too much not to. He does this a lot, watching scary movies or playing creepy games until he freaks himself out to the point where he can’t sleep, picturing all the bad things that could happen to him. An ax murderer could burst through that door, or maybe this house is haunted by a demon that collects the souls of sixteen-year-old boys. Who knows? Shaking off the thought, Sam opens his most recent Word document, where he has been editing his latest draft of Tectonic, a queer superhero novel he has been working on for the past year. He flips out the keyboard and starts to type. He’s rewriting a big action scene, where Tectonic fights his archnemesis, the Grim Sailor, for the first time. Sam has a whole series mapped out in his head and has moments for books in the future that he already can’t wait to write. And sure, maybe it’s a little weird that he wants to follow in the same career path as his mom, but her being an author isn’t why he wants to be