The Girl in the Wall by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Daphne Benedis-Grab

a school project. But not so much when she’s working to make your life hell.”
    He gulps down half the glass, then passes it to me. I take a sip, feeling coolness trickle down my throat. It gives me the strength to move over to one of the bar stools. The hors d’oeuvre are still on the counter, grease congealed in lumps around the food.
    “She misses you, you know.”
    I laugh, something I wouldn’t have guessed was possible as the minutes tick down to midnight. “Right.”
    “Seriously,” he says.
    He’s obviously just trying to be nice because if there’s one thing I’m certain of it’s that Ariel does not miss me. That she has made abundantly clear.
    “We need to get the phone,” I whisper. We’ve been speaking too quietly for the agents in the doorway to overhear but I’m not taking chances.
    “Just one second.” Hudson opens the fridge.
    “I can’t believe you’re still hungry.”
    “My mama used to say that I could eat a whole turkey and be back at the kitchen asking for a snack an hour later,” he says, taking out an apple.
    I smile, as much at the fact that he calls his mother “mama” as the story itself. And I love the Southern drawl that has been creeping into his voice this past hour.
    “Let’s go,” he says.
    Everyone is pretty much still sitting where they were when we left. I guess we weren’t gone that long but so much has happened. Then I see something that makes me stop in my tracks. An agent is sitting on our sofa. Panic pierces me at the thought of the phone slithering out from its hiding place and falling on the floor, or even just poking up above the edge of the cushion, but when I can bear to look, there is no sign of it.
    “What are we going to do?” I hiss. We have to get that phone.
    “I don’t know,” he says, biting his lip.
    We are by the poker table and he sets the apple down, his appetite obviously killed. I want to say something, to come up with some kind of plan, but then I see my classmates standing up and heading toward the chairs where The Assassin told us to sit at midnight. And now my stomach lurches for a whole other awful reason.
    “We should probably go sit,” Hudson says. “You ready?”
    “No,” I say, trying to make it sound like a joke but failing.
    He takes my hand. “Me neither.”
    Groups of girls sit close, the guys are in clusters hovering nearby. No one is really talking. I guess there isn’t a lot to say. Cassidy looks like she accidently bit a lemon when she notices me and Hudson but other than that no one bothers with us as we sit down.
    All the seats in the back are taken, of course, so we end up in the front row of chairs, next to the other people deemed most expendable by the class. I’m surprised to see Ella there but less surprised to see Noah and Lulu, two grinds who don’t really do anything social. I notice Franz toward the back, his nose swollen, his shirt stained with blood.
    The grandfather clock in the corner begins to strike midnight and a taut silence falls over the group. The air feels heavy, like it does right before a shattering thunderstorm.
    At the eleventh chime The Assassin walks in. The rest of the agents look alike but there is something to his walk that lets you know exactly who he is. He strides over to our group and easily grabs Mike from the back row where he is sitting next to Cassidy. People near them lean out of the way as fast as they can, like Mike is now contagious.
    The Assassin walks Mike to the front of the chairs, places the gun at his temple, and then turns to us.
    “So who has some information for me?” he asks in his calm voice.
    Mike’s eyes are shut tight but tears begin to leak out, making his face shine in the harsh light. An hour ago he was making jokes in the kitchen and now he is terrified for his life.
    My chest is so tight I can feel my heart working to beat in the small space it has left and my lungs are having trouble filling. I think I might faint. But Hudson squeezes my hand