Last to Die

because of our families.” She turned to Will. “Tell them how your parents died.”
    Will looked down at his feet, those enormous feet in their enormous sneakers. “They said it was just an accident. A plane crash. But I found out later …”
    “It wasn’t an accident,” said Julian.
    Will shook his head. “It was a bomb.”
    “Teddy,” said Claire. “Tell them what you told me. About your family.”
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” Teddy whispered.
    She looked at the other students. “They were murdered, like Will’s parents. Like mine. That’s what you all wanted to hear, isn’t it?
That’s
what we have in common.”
    “Tell them the rest of it, Claire,” said Julian. “What happened to your foster families.”
    Everyone’s eyes turned back to Claire.
    She said, “You
know
what happened. Why are you doing this? Because it’s fun to screw around with the weird kids’ heads?”
    “I’m just trying to understand what’s happening here. To you, and to the school.” Julian looked at the other Jackals. “We talk about being investigators someday, and how we’ll make a difference in the world. We spend all our time learning about blood types and blowflies, but it’s all just theoretical. Now we have a
real
investigation going on around us, right here. And
these three
are at the center of it.”
    “Why don’t you just ask Dr. Isles?” said Will.
    “She says she can’t talk about it.” He added on a faintly resentful note, “Not to me, anyway.”
    “So you’re going to run your own investigation? A bunch of kids?” Claire laughed.
    “Why can’t we?” Julian moved toward her, so close she had to look up to meet his eyes. “Don’t you wonder about it, Claire? You, too, Will and Teddy? Who wants you dead? Why do they want it so badly that they’d
twice
try to kill you?”
    “It’s like that creepy movie
Final Destination
,” Bruno said, far too cheerfully. “About those kids who are supposed to die in a plane crash, but they escape. And Death keeps coming after them.”
    “This is not a movie, Bruno,” said Julian. “We’re not talking about the supernatural. Real people are doing this, and for a reason. We need to figure out why.”
    Claire gave a dismissive laugh. “Listen to you! You think you can figure out what the police can’t? You’re just a bunch of kids with your microscopes and chemistry sets. So tell me, Julian, how are you going to fit all this amazing police work in between classes?”
    “I’m going to start by asking
you
. You’re the one this is happening to, Claire. You must have some idea what connects the three of you.”
    She looked at Will and Teddy. The endomorph and the ectomorph. “Well, we sure aren’t related, ’cause we don’t look anything like each other.”
    “And we were all living in different places,” said Will. “My mom and dad were killed in Maryland.”
    “Mine were killed in London,” said Claire.
Where I almost died, too
.
    “Teddy?” asked Julian.
    “I told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
    “This could be important,” said Julian. “Don’t you want answers? Don’t you want to know why they died?”
    “I
know
why they died! Because we were on a boat. On my dad’s
stupid
boat in the middle of nowhere. If we hadn’t been on it, if we’d just stayed home …”
    “Tell them, Teddy,” Claire prompted gently. “Tell them what happened on the boat.”
    For a long time Teddy didn’t say a thing. He stood with head drooping as he stared down at the stones. When at last he did speak, it was so quietly they could barely hear him.
    “There were people with guns,” he whispered. “I heard screaming. My mother. And my sisters. And I couldn’t help them. All I could do was …” He shook his head. “I hate the water. I never want to be in a boat again.”
    Claire went to Teddy and wrapped her arms around him. Felt his heart fluttering like a bird’s against his frail chest. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured. “You couldn’t save them.”
    “I lived. And they didn’t.”
    “Don’t blame yourself. Blame the people who did it. Or the shitty world. Or even your dad, for taking you on that boat. But never blame yourself, Teddy.”
    He jerked out of her arms and backed away from the circle. “This is stupid. I don’t want to play this game.”
    “It’s not a game,” said Julian.
    “To
you
it is!” Teddy shot back. “You and your stupid club. Don’t you get it? For us,