Excerpt from I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But something already did.

His eyes meet mine.

"I gotta trust you to be smart," he says again, slowly.

"Is that because you think I'm stupid?"

"Don't start. I'm locking the door behind me." He opens one of the drawers under the sink, grabs a fresh pack of Camels and tears the plastic wrap off it, tucking it into his pocket. "Don't go anywhere else today."

"I won't."

"I mean it." He snatches his keys off the counter. "I'm gonna call the house. And I'm not going to tell you when. And if you're not here to pick it up, George, I swear—"

"I'll be here." I pause. "What are you going to do about the pictures?"

"I'm gonna stop at the mall when I clock off," he answers and then cuts me off mid-protest. "I will figure it out. And if I don't, a summer job's not going to be the worst thing for you. At least I'll know where the hell you are." He grabs my bag. "Watt wants this."

"Will I get it back?" I don't know why this is the thing I ask.

"I don't know." He stares at it, then snaps himself out of whatever road his mind is trying to take him down. He gestures to the door. "Keep it locked, okay? Stay inside. Call if you need anything. And wait for my call."

"I will."

He hesitates one last time and then he goes. After I hear his truck pull out, I get up and move to the door, touching the lock, turning it back and forth, listening to the click and release. Locked—unlocked—locked. I close my eyes and feel the road against me, pebbles and dirt scratching my scalp, getting in my hair ...

Unlocked.

The car coming back. Wavering, indistinct, formless, a shadow, no color or license plate or driver, but it had all of these things. I don't remember letting go and this is what terrifies me the most: to be so acutely in my body one minute and then, suddenly, not there at all, and then, just as suddenly, returned, someone else's story writing itself in my gaps.

I think of footsteps around me, carving a path.

Locked.

And now, something else: hands rooting through my messenger bag, finding my photos and leaving with them, the hands of someone who killed a girl ... and did he always decide to kill her, to use her body like that and let her die in the same moment?

What makes you decide to kill a girl?

What makes you decide not to?

He has my photos.

Unlocked.

Knock-knock-knock.

I jerk away from the door. The lock. Fuck. I reach out quickly to lock it and the loud click of it gives me away. I fumble back when I hear my name—or I think I do.

"Georgia."

Cleo Hayes.

She stands in front of me as real as she's ever been and even more beautiful for it, though I'd thought her shattering out there on the road when she was no more than the hazy, angel outline of someone who would save me. She's taller than I realized. Her blond hair is slicked from her face, making the lines of her jaw and cheekbones even more distinct. Her lips, cherry red. She wears a wide V-neck shirt revealing her collarbone before its long plunge down, hinting at her impressive chest. There's a gentle intensity in her blue eyes as they take me in, and that intensity makes it easy to forget she's only twenty-five. She occupies a space between delicate and sharp, and every part of her body feels like an imposition on the place it inhabits, a demand to be recognized on its own terms. It sends a shiver through me.

She tells me she was worried. She's called to check on me a few times, but Tyler wouldn't tell her anything, and said no when she asked if she could stop by. So forgive her, please; she decided to take matters into her own hands. She was driving down my street when she saw Tyler leave in his truck, hoping what she did next would bring her to—me.

"I don't make a habit of showing up where I'm not welcome," she says. "But you were in such a state when I saw you last, I had to be sure you were okay ..."

Excerpted from I'm the Girl by Courtney Summers. Copyright © 2022 by Courtney Summers. Excerpted by permission of Wednesday Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.