"That's not him," I say as I stare at the picture my dad is showing me on his phone.

He pulls it back to his face to inspect it, squints over his reading glasses, pinches the screen to zoom in on the man walking through traffic and looking over his shoulder.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he asks me. "He matches your description perfectly."

My dad's right. He does. From the salt and pepper hair to the square jaw and pointed chin. "It's not him, Dad."

He pulls his eyebrows together and continues to hold his phone up to me, as if the longer I look at it I'll somehow miraculously realize I've been remembering the face of the man who took my mother's life wrong all along.

"But are you sure, honey? It's been almost eleven years. How can you be certain your memory of him hasn't been distorted over time?"

I take the phone from his hand, press the lock button so that the screen goes black, and hand it back to him. "I will never forget his face, Dad. I couldn't even if I wanted to. It's the only thing I see every time I close my eyes."

"Well, darn," Dad says. My father never curses, not even in trying times of frustration and red, red, red. "Brody was so sure about this one, too."

I scoff. Dustin Brody is the detective who was supposed to catch Gray and get us out of hiding ten years ago. And all he's managed to be good for is he somehow gets me an 'A' name every time we switch identities, a small favor in exchange for a lifetime of running, a chance to keep a small sense of myself throughout each change of my person. He's sent us several photos of "Gray" through the years, none of them legit. I stopped believing he would save us a long time ago.

"Brody?! I thought we agreed you were gonna get rid of him! How hard could it be to report a conflict of interest and get him taken off our case?"

And then I feel a black aura, and it is not my father's, as his is still red as ever. "Mom wants you to, too."

He sighs, and it is more like a disgruntled huff than a sigh. "It's gonna take more than just your woman's intuition and your superstition of your mother's lingering spirit to convince me to put the man's entire career on the line. Brody's been very good to us over the years."

Dad doesn't really believe me when I say I can still feel Mom's aura. He thinks it's something I've made up to use against him in my favor. And I can't argue that too much, because although I feel it more often than just when her opinion matches mine, when she proves me wrong I don't always admit it to him.

"Whatever, Dad. That picture? It's not Gray."

He grunts at me. "Good heavens, Aspen. How many times do I have to lecture you about the name thing?"

"Well, what else do you want me to call him?" I ask, my voice raised. I hate raising my voice to my father. "The unidentified subject?"

"First you name the stray dog, Pen. Then you start feeding it, then you let it sleep in your bed, and then you take down all the FOUND ads and it becomes a part of your family. I don't want you to get too attached to this man you call Gray — don't want you to let your life revolve around catching him, because then, once we do and we're free, you'll be lost, and you won't know what you're living for anymore."

He is genuine, this I know for a fact. But that doesn't stop me from saying what I say next. "I hate to break it to you, Dad, but I have no option to detach from him as of late, my life does revolve around his capture, and I'm already lost."

Then I turn and go to my room because I am ashamed of the dark blue disappointment I feel from both of the auras in this one.

🦎

April showers bring May flowers, or so they say. On March 31st, it is raining. In homeroom, when the announcements are made over the intercom, we are told that prom will be held on April 19. Every girl in the class's auras shift. Some are excited; they must already have dates. Others are nervous; prom dresses are expensive. I am a true neutral. Eli is white.

Unfortunately, the soft gasps and quiet squeals of excitement aren't the last reactions I hear. Throughout the day, I catch bits and pieces of flitting conversations regarding the spring formal.

"My dad said my limit is five hundred dollars, but the eight hundred dollar one is, like, my dream. If I can't wear it, I'll just die!"

"I'm wearing my sister's dress from two years ago. It's vintage. And it makes my boobs look a whole cup size bigger."

"I don't know... I'm prolly not going. Organized functions aren't really my thing."

"Guess who asked me to go with him this morning?! Xander! ...Yes, Xander Paxton. Literally, how many other Xanders do you even know."

"Me and Jon are boycotting. He goes to UNO and he's been growing his beard out, some lumbersexual movement or something. Anyway, he'd have to shave it to be allowed in. Which is ridiculous. I am totally against modern society. Like, what right do they have to tell him who to be and how to live his life?! It's jacked up is what it is. He's so rebellious. Eff the system."

"...Wait, prom's this month?"

"I know me and Ashleigh have already been dating for, like, three months now, so it's getting pretty serious. But I still wanna do a sweet promposal. Like, a dance mob or something. Or maybe I'll just buy her some flowers. Girls love flowers. I'm a romantic like that."

It's amazing to me how big a deal this dance is to these kids. I decide it's on account of the fact that there's nothing to do in York. Mostly, you have to make the forty-five minute drive out to Grand Isle or Lincoln to even do anything worth doing. So a formal occasion here in their very town is not one to be taken lightly.

Eli even mentions it. We're working with soft molding clay in art. He's in the beginning stages of creating something that he tells me is to be a peace wand used in Omaha friendship ceremonies, although right now it just looks like a stick. When he brings up the prom, I've been aimlessly kneading the clay between my palms for ten minutes, at a loss for what to create.

"Did you go to prom at your last school?" He makes it sound casual, but I hear the underlying meaning beneath his words.

He wants to ask me to go with him.

And if my life was normal, I'd probably say yes. Besides the unattainable glamorous hype that surrounds it, prom sounds nice, and I'd be lying if I said I'd never imagined myself going.

"Nope."

But that's the thing. I don't actually plan on going.

"Oh, why not? I find it really hard to believe that no one asked you."

"Well, believe it."

He looks at me, appalled. "What?! Why!? What's wrong with the boys in Chicago? Are they blind?"

I shrug. I've never met any of the boys in Chicago. "I didn't have a lot of friends at my last school. I wasn't there long."

"That sucks," he says. "So you must really wanna go this year, since it's your last opportunity."

The clay's consistency and almost chalkiness between my palms reminds me of the Play-Doh I used to have when I was little. "No, not really."

"Not even if someone really super cool asked you?"

I side-eye him. "Not even if someone really super cool asked me, no."

He mashes his peace stick up into a ball, clearly taking his frustration out on the clay that did nothing to harm him. He begins again, slower and more carefully. I can almost see the idea when it comes to him, a light bulb lit up atop his head instead of the usual white halo that blankets his thoughts.

"What if you were, like, on the prom court, or something? Then you'd have to go."

I don't mean to laugh in his face, I'm sure. But I do. "There is a single fatal glitch to that theory, and it is that I would never be on the prom court."

He doesn't mean to frown at me, I'm sure. But he does. And a less than one hundred percent happy Eli is new territory for me to tread in.

"I'm just not one of those girls." I hate the words as soon as they've left my lips. But he's caught me off guard and I'm left unsure how to worm my way out of this one.

"One of what girls?" he asks offendedly.

"I don't know..." I stall, trying to think of similar characteristics of court girls from my previous schools, characteristics that I have not attained. "I don't know anyone. I'm not involved in any after school extra curriculars. I'm not on any teams."

He squints his eyes at me in challenge. "And how do you know for sure what kind of girls are gonna be on York High's prom court?"

Okay, now he's just being dumb. "I've been at enough schools to know how the court works. You have to have the votes. You have to have, like, friends."

My friend grins mischievously. "Are you under the impression that you don't have the votes? It only takes a few to get nominated."

My knowing look now morphs into one that could kill. "Don't you dare even think about it, Elijah Whitney."

Eli's challenging look morphs into one of sly amusement. "Don't I dare even think about what, Alyssa George?"

My cheeks flushing in anger, I drop my eyes back down to my clay, which has now taken on the form of a raindrop. I wonder if I could paint it blue-gray and turn it in as completed work. "I'm not even having this conversation with you right now, Eli," I say.

He doesn't take my hint — the hint that this topic isn't even one worth discussing. "You're not even having what conversation with me right now, Alyssa?"

And then up comes my wall, quick and thick and all at once, the one I've recently thought to keep Eli on the inside of, not outside, fruitlessly throwing stones at it. "Just drop it, okay? I'm not going to prom. That's all."

"Fine," he says after a too-long moment of staring at me, as if he could read my mind if he tried hard enough. He secedes, but there's something a little too optimistic in his voice that I don't like. "You were right, anyway. Statistically speaking, people don't nominate dark and moody chicks like you."

I laugh, and the wall comes falling down in a heap of boulders and bricks; Jericho. "We're much too busy feasting on the hearts of men who cross us to indulge in things as frivolous as the prom."

He gives me a look that might accompany a brown aura. "You're terrifying, you know that?"

"Thank you."

🦎

I thought I could count on Eli not to cross me. I really did.

But a week later, our homeroom teachers take nominations for prom court. I'd all but forgotten about our headache of a conversation regarding such, and I never even considered the slight possibility that Eli could be so moronic... But he sits behind me, and his stupid brain is all stupid white all the stupid time, so naturally, I can't stop him before he raises his hand.

"I'd like to nominate Alyssa George for prom court, please, Mr. Mathers, sir."

No.

I'm not sure if I say that out loud or not, but the entire class turns to look at Eli and, consequently, me, and if they didn't know who I was then, they surely do now.

Mathers, on the other hand, completely ignores me and continues to scribble on the paper beneath his hands. I speak up. "Um... No, thank you, Mr. Mathers."

Eli nearly cries out in agony behind me. "What?! Why not!!"

Mathers doesn't like me very much either, and I can't think of any other reason besides the fact that Eli likes to chat while we're supposed to be working. I know I've turned in all my assignments, I stay awake during class, and I've never failed an exam. So I don't know why he doesn't just move Eli and I away from each other at this point, if that's what his issue is. He doesn't even look up from the paper. "Mm, what was that?"

"I said I don't want to be nominated."

Eli kicks the back of my chair in protest. I ignore it.

"Are you formally withdrawing your name from candidacy?" Mathers asks, and I get the impression that he's trying to play dumb with me in order to piss me off.

"Um... Yes."

"Alright then. Anyone else?"

I don't think anyone has the balls to nominate someone else in our class after that show. Either that or they don't care as much as I'd thought they would.

Eli tries to get my attention in various ways for the rest of the period — tapping my shoulder with his pen (I have warned him on several occasions, to no avail, not to do his math work in ink), coughing loudly, blowing in my hair. I do a pretty great job of ignoring him, if I do say so myself.

As soon as the bell rings, I am up and out of my seat and out of the door. Eli nearly trips over his own lanky legs trying to catch up with me.

"Hey!" he calls into the breezeway. "Alyssa! Wait up!"

All I want to do is get to English and put my head down on my desk for two little minutes. But I argue with myself that it'd be wise to stop and let him catch up with me or he'll likely keep calling my name and draw attention to us.

"Hey," he huffs as I swivel around and lift my head to look at him. "What's your problem?"

And now I'm not just embarrassed; I'm angry, too. "What's my problem?" I say louder than I intend to. I peek around us and make sure no one has wandering eyes. I grab his arm and pull us over out of the walkway. "I told you I didn't want to go to prom."

He just shrugs as if this whole situation is completely normal. "I thought maybe I'd give you an incentive."

"I didn't say I would go if I could. I said I wasn't going. Period," I say, my voice short.

He finally seems to sense my hostility because he draws his brows together. "I thought it was every girl's dream to be on the prom court."

Nope. I was wrong — he's not regretful. Just confused.

"Not mine," I say, even though he's not wrong, and leave Eli standing alone.

🦎

For the past few weeks, I have showed up at the Whitneys' house every Thursday evening promptly at seven o'clock. They invite me in for burgers and games, and then Eli and I sit at the table and do homework or sit in the living room and watch television with Kei and his parents — typically it's back-to-back re-runs of "Impractical Jokers". He hasn't asked me to go back up to his room again, and something somewhere in the cavity of my chest where my heart is supposed to be feels something resembling relief.

I know it's reckless making a habit of having a normal life when I will be leaving sooner rather than later. But it's been quite a few years since I've felt any ounce of what I imagine it'd be like to be normal...ish. So I ignore both the guilt and warning I feel, push them to the side, lock them in a drawer. Besides, Dad is glad that I have found "a slice of lemon".

This Thursday, though, the very day Eli has attempted to nominate me for the prom court, I do not attend game night. I make up some lame excuse that I'm not doing well in chemistry and need the extra study time. I hope he gets the hint that he should never do something to me against my wishes again. And it's not even because I'm stuck up, which he will probably think. It's just because I'd like to stay alive, thank you very much. And if acting like a snob is what it takes, then that's just what I'm going to have to let him believe that I am. Instead of studying, I tune into a re-run of "Impractical Jokers" with my TV dinner.

On Friday morning, the student council president's voice booms confidently through the intercom speakers with a grandiose announcement.

"Good morning, Dukes! As you all know, prom 2015 is only two weeks away. Tickets are on sale in the main office and there will also be a booth set up in the cafeteria during lunch. When you purchase your ticket, a sheet of guidelines regarding dress and other important matters will be given to you. Remember, all juniors and seniors are invited, but tickets for couples are twenty dollars while singles tickets are twenty-five.

"Okay, I know you probably spaced out there, but it's time to tune back in as I announce the official candidates for our 2015 prom court! As you all know, every female student is eligible for nomination, but you must have at least a two point five GPA, zero detentions, and no more than five unexcused absent days or tardies to be considered for the official ballot.

"Alright. Teachers, you may pass out the ballots as I call out the names, and they will be collected by members of the student council during your off periods. Here we go! Drumroll, please!"

A really awful excuse for a drumroll — most likely performed by two wooden pencils atop a textbook near the microphone — is heard over the speakers, and a few of the students in Mathers' join in with palms and pencils atop theirs. And then the names of the lucky ladies are read in alphabetical order:

"Liliana Araxes, Eileen Bunch, Taylor Caldwell, Amber de LaRosa, Alicia George, Sarah Leiber, Brittany Mayfield, Skyler Petersen, Stefanie Sims, Paige Sims, and Libby Weston.

I pass the handful of ballots to Eli behind me without taking one or even looking down at them. I only look up when I hear Mathers call my name.

"Yes?"

He smiles at me and it is fake on all accounts; his aura doesn't match it. "I said congratulations."

I lift my eyebrows at him. "What fo—"

I don't finish my sentence.

No.

I turn around slowly, and Eli's face is red as a pepper and scared for his life. I snatch the paper from beneath his too-long fingers. And there it is. My fake name, third from the top, spelled correctly. Alyssa George.

I look back up at my so-called friend. "You," I whisper, my face pale and rigid and unforgiving.

He shakes his head quickly, lifting his hands palm-out in surrender. "It wasn't me. I swear!"

"Meet me outside," I mouth to him.

I face the front and raise my hand altogether in one swift movement. "Mr.MathersIneedtogotothebathroom."

Pink, pink, pink. "Right now?"

"It's an emergency," I say. I pull the oldest card from the book. "A girl emergency." I could kick myself for drawing all attention towards me with that statement, but the situation that presently haunts me must be amended at all costs.

Mathers makes a face of disgust, but it is gone so quickly that only a person who could feel the muddy aura would have caught it. He nods his head at me and I wonder if he's married or has a daughter and how unlucky they must be.

A minute or so later, Eli has joined me in the hallway. "I told him I had to take a dump," he says. "He wasn't gonna let me at first, so I clenched my butt cheeks together and walked funny and everyone laughed."

I don't laugh. I walk. He follows. And when I'm positive the coast is clear and I've stuck my head into the girls' bathroom to see no bookbags or feet, I pull him in behind me rather forcefully and shove his back against the door.

"Whoa. Dude. Are we about to, like, hardcore make-out right now?"

I am all work and no play. "How did my name get on that ballot."

He lifts his hands up in surrender. "I swear to you I didn't do it!"

I all but punch the door next to his arm and end up slapping it instead. He is nearly the size of two of me, but he is the one scared and I am the one in charge. "How else would it have gotten on there?! No one else at this school even knows who I am!"

Unless...

I come to the realization just as Eli realizes I have come to the realization. "What did you do..."

"It takes more than one nomination to get on the ballot, A.G." He winces and pulls away from me a little. "So, it's a good thing I've got four loyal companions, right?"

"I told you I didn't want to be on the freaking ballot!" I screech. I am too angry and flustered to make use of my usual logic and rationality.

"Yeah, after I'd already nominated you!" he says quietly, hinting at me to do the same. "And after I'd already told the boys what the plan was!"

I don't say that I definitely told him before nominations occured.

A hear a pair of hinges squeak then, and I whip my head around to see the grinning expression beneath a pair of glasses on the face of a girl whose feet weren't previously accounted for. In my rage, I hadn't even been watching for her aura. How could I have been so stupid and careless?

"Uh... Am I interrupting something?" she asks, and her high ponytail bounces as she tilts her head at us.

I realize my captive and I have been blocking the door and I don't know how long she's been peeping at us through the crack in the stall. "Sorry," I say to her. "We were just leaving."

"No, no; you're cool." She walks over to the sink and begins washing her hands. "You're Alyssa, right?"

The look of panic that crosses my face surely prompts her to explain herself. "Just asking because I obviously heard your conversation and you're the only name on the ballot I didn't recognize."

I swallow. This is not good.

When I don't answer, the girl just chuckles, and her aura is a coral-colored shade of amusement to match the hoodie she wears. "You know it's not hard to get it taken off the ballot, right? Just go to the office and tell them to."

I blink at her. "Thanks."

"Yep... Have fun."

And then Eli and I step aside so she can get back to class. Putting my hard face back on, I turn back to him. "Wait a few minutes before you come back so we don't look suspicious." I leave him there without checking to see if he's smart enough to move to his own bathroom for the remainder of his wait.

🦎

The second hand ticks by slowly and I can hardly concentrate on anything in any of my classes leading up to lunch. My mind is on a mission and there's no room for anything else, much less other peoples' thoughts, no matter how they might yell at me and flash their lights and bright colors, desperate for my attention. And all I can think about is lunch. Getting my name off that stupid ballot before it becomes permanently etched somewhere and Gray has a means of finding me. Gray, the man who wants to kill me. Gray, the man who killed my mother. My mother, whose hair was long and shiny and dark as a raven's wings, whose laugh was like the twinkling of fairy's bells. My father and I miss her so much. My father, who does everything in his power to protect me, to keep me hidden, which even means him not having a job and his only source of income being Mom's life insurance policy. And I know he'd pull me out of school too if it wasn't illegal. All to keep me hidden from Gray. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, gray. I've got to get my name off that ballot.

When lunch finally crawls forward on the back of a snail, I march myself straight to the office instead of the cafeteria. Why should I eat food that will keep me alive while there's still a possibility that my name is on a ballot that could end my life quicker than I can starve?

Secretary Kelly greets me without a smile. "Can I help you?"

I get straight to the point. "I need to get my name taken off the prom court ballot."

The thing about Secretary Kelly? She's so apathetic about her job that she doesn't even ask questions. She does deliver some upsetting news, however. "I don't see how that's possible since they were already handed out this morning. And half of them have already been taken up from the teachers by now."

"No one even asked me if I wanted to be on the prom court, though!" I say a little too aggravatedly. "I was nominated without knowledge or consent!"

Another voice says my name, and I look around Ms. Kelly to see the girl from the bathroom, the one with the tiny blonde ponytail and the coral hoodie. She walks over to the corner of the counter and motions for me to meet her. "Hey. Mason and I are actually gonna be the ones counting up the votes."

I don't ask who Mason is. It doesn't matter.

"I can totally just not count your votes if it's that big of a deal. Which, judging by your heated bathroom conversation with the Indian kid, it is."

I attempt a small smile, willing my nerves to relax. "Yeah. Thanks."

"No big," she says with an easy smile back and adjusts her glasses atop her ears. "I don't really wanna be on the court myself, but my sister and I are the only twins at this school and people feel like if they nominate her then they have to nominate me, too."

I wrack my brain for the mental image of the ballot from earlier, try to remember if there were two girls with the same last name. And I come up empty. I look to my savior for help.

"I'm Stef," she says. "Sims. My sister Paige is the one who's into all this kinda stuff, but we're both on the volleyball team, so I think people just kind of assume that if she wants to be prom queen then so do I. But volleyball is, like, the only thing we have in common." She laughs to herself, some joke I'm not in on. "I, for one, have no desire to share a dance with the prom king."

I don't know why she's telling me all this. "Oh. That sucks," is all I can think to say.

She is sifting through a pile of check-out slips and doctor's excuses in a wicker basket atop the counter that divides us. "So, like, why is it such a big deal for you to not be on the prom court?"

I pause and try to come up with a believable reason other than that I'm in the WPP and being tracked by my mother's killer and don't want my fake name and picture published anywhere large scale, not even in the school yearbook. "I just... can't."

She laughs, and her ponytail does that bobbing thing again. "Right. Well I'll make sure your votes round out to zero."

I keep my sights set right on her aura, and it is never anything too drastic a shade away from light blue. Her ease makes me feel at ease myself, and I finally really smile at her. "Thanks."

"Yeah, for sure."

I keep the smile as I leave the office, and I think that if it wasn't so vital to my survival that I don't make a lot of attachments to tie me to any one certain place, she's the kind of person I'd want to be friends with.

And then I realize I've already done the very thing I know I shouldn't. Leech Eli has attached himself to me. And I haven't made one single effort to stop him.

__________

Okay, I'm stopping myself here. My original draft had 1000 more words, and this condensed version still has 1000 more words than the previous two chapters.

The attached edit was done by, duh, @LilianaAra. She's made me a multitude, but this one, I think, is my favorite so far. THE TREEEEES. And the freckleeeessssss!!!!!!

Also, I've gained several new readers. You da real baes. I appreciate each and every one of you!!! Have a wonderful weekend; be kind and stay safe!