I Hunt Killers Neutral Mask Read online

  “You have beautiful eyes,” Jazz said.

  Caught off guard, Connie blinked rapidly and nearly stuttered in response.

  “They’re just brown,” she said.

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “No. Blue or green or even, like, yours, hazel, but brown is just boring. It’s —”

  Jazz cocked his head to the left, and something deliciously cold tiptoed up her spine.

  “Boring? Are you kidding me?” Without asking, without preamble, he touched his thumb and forefinger to the flesh of her left eye socket, gently holding her eye open. Connie couldn’t tell if the liquid heat that pulsed through her heart was fear or lust, but she realized she didn’t care. She could only stare into Jazz’s eyes, those hazel whirlwinds, coruscating flecks of gold and gray, threaded through with darker shoots like the veins of leaves gone autumnal.

  “There’s a gentle blend to them,” Jazz whispered, his voice now low because he was so close that she could feel his words. “They’re not just brown, Connie. They’re deep. They’re unchanging and warm, like someone took everything about you and distilled it down into these whirlpools of—”

  She lunged at him, grabbing him by the shoulders, and smashed her lips to his.

  She was no longer in control of herself. Her heart was. Her soul was. Or maybe her hormones—she didn’t know and didn’t care. She just knew now, in this moment, that Jazz was hers and would be hers and had to be hers.

  Or...no. That wasn’t true. Maybe she’d realized it in this moment, in this beautifully sinfully hot kiss, but it had come true in Ginny’s classroom, during Jazz’s neutral mask exercise. She’d fallen in love with him then. Wholly.

  No one could produce something so demonstrative, so passionate, so alive, and be a soulless killer. Parents passed down much to their children, true, but she couldn’t believe they passed down madness. The children of alcoholics often never touched a drop of alcohol, for fear they would also fall into a bottle. Jazz, too, would never hurt anyone. She knew it. He would spend his life avoiding even the opportunity to harm someone, for fear of lifting his eyes to a mirror one day and seeing Billy Dent staring back at him.

  They broke the kiss. Jazz gasped for breath.

  “What was that for?”

  “For liking my eyes,” she said, and went into his arms, putting her ear to his chest and finally hearing his strong, strong heart.

  “We really should be going,” he murmured. “I should get you home. And my grandmother—”

  “In a minute,” she said. She did not relish that eventually she would have to tell her dad that not only was she in love with a white boy, but that he was the son of the local psychopath to boot. Let them have this moment. This respite. The parking lot of Lobo’s Nod High School could be their safe haven for now.

  He held her for a while, and then she pulled back and gazed up at him.

  “What was going on behind the mask?” she asked. “I have to know. The whole time you were acting, I wanted to see your face.”

  Jazz stroked the pads of his fingers along her cheek. She fell into his hazel eyes. He said:

  “You did.”

  ABOUT THIS STORY

  This story, like the other I Hunt Killers prequels, grew out of a very natural process. When I started writing the books, I knew that the “present” of the story took place four years after the notorious Billy Dent had been arrested, tried, and convicted. Furthermore, I knew that Billy’s “career” stretched back twenty years, longer than his son had been alive.

  This meant that I had a lot of backstory in my head and in my notes as I wrote. Some of it leaked out in dribs and drabs over the course of the trilogy.

  Now, one thing authors have to drum into their heads early on is this: Backstory is not story! We have a tendency to fall in love with our backstories, which oftentimes leads to terminally dull prologues or extended, boring flashback sequences. It’s easy to forget that the audience cares about the story, not the backstory.

  But when it came to I Hunt Killers, there were bits and pieces of the backstory that I thought would be of interest to readers…as long as they didn’t interfere with the action in the story itself. How did Jazz get his nickname? How did Jazz and Connie fall in love, given the circumstances? These were the sorts of character-driven backstory elements that I thought readers might enjoy.

  My solution? This story you’ve downloaded, as well as some others. I hope you agree that they were worth the time!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Called a “YA rebel-author” by Kirkus Reviews, Barry Lyga has published novels in various genres in his career, including the New York Times bestselling I Hunt Killers. His books have been or are slated to be published in a dozen different languages in North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia.

  After graduating from Yale with a degree in English, Lyga worked in the comic book industry before quitting to pursue his lifelong love of writing. In 2006, his first young adult novel, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, was published to rave reviews, including starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal. Publishers Weekly named Lyga a “Flying Start” in December 2006 on the strength of the debut.

  His second young adult novel, Boy Toy, received starred reviews in SLJ, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus. VOYA gave it its highest critical rating, and the Chicago Tribune called it “…an astounding portrayal of what it is like to be the young male victim.” His third novel, Hero-Type, according to VOYA “proves that there are still fresh ideas and new, interesting story lines to be explored in young adult literature.”

  Since then, he has also written Goth Girl Rising (the sequel to his first novel), as well as the Archvillain series for middle-grade readers, the graphic novel Mangaman (with art by Colleen Doran), the I Hunt Killers series, and the (very) adult novel, Unsoul’d.

  Lyga lives and writes in New York City. His comic book collection is a lot smaller than it used to be, but is still way too big.

  For more information, visit barrylyga.com.

  ALSO BY BARRY LYGA

  If you enjoyed “Neutral Mask,” you might also enjoy these other books by Barry Lyga:

  The I Hunt Killers Series

  Jazz is the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, "Take Your Son to Work Day" was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminals' point of view.

  In an effort to prove murder doesn't run in the family, Jazz joins the police in the hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret — could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

  A riveting series about a teenager trying to control his own destiny in the face of overwhelming odds.

  I Hunt Killers

  Game

  Blood of My Blood

  Lucky Day (prequel novella)

  The Brookdale Books

  Controversial. Award-winning. Critically acclaimed. From a comic book geek meeting the girl of his nightmares to a baseball star with a shameful secret to small-town politics to a girl figuring out how to be a woman, the Brookdale Books form an “unseries” of loosely linked stories that “proves that there are still fresh ideas and new, interesting story lines to be explored in young adult literature” (VOYA).

  The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl

  Boy Toy

  Hero-Type

  Goth Girl Rising

  Unsoul’d

  “That day, I had a bagel for breakfast and sold my soul to the devil. In retrospect, the bagel was probably a mistake.”

  Randall Banner is thirty-five years old, a middling mid-list author who yearns for more of everything: More attention. More fame. More money. More fans.

  Then, one quiet morning, he meets the devil while pounding away at his laptop at his usual coffee shop. Soon, a deal is made, a contract is signed, and Randall is on his way to fame and fortune unlike any he ever imagined.

  What follows is a bawdy, hilarious, yet harrowing tale of one man, on
e devil, and a deal that could change the world.

  "Like Nick Hornby writing an episode of Californication!" — Sarah Maclean, New York Times bestselling author.

  BACK MATTER/CREDITS

  Copyright © 2014 Barry Lyga LLC

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art from www.shutterstock.com | young black child with braids over face: Michael C. Gray/Shutterstock.com | Plaster mask isolated on black: pummyoohoo/Shutterstock.com

  Cover font: Holstein (http://www.fonthead.com)