**To stay alive, an adopted girl must discover the secret of her birth

**

When her parents tell her that she is adopted, Eve is upset but not surprised. After all, she doesn’t look like her parents, and has always felt a strange distance from them. But as she approaches her fourteenth birthday, something begins to feel very wrong. While skiing, she sees a girl about her age die suddenly of a heart attack. A few days later, Eve learns that the girl’s sudden death is part of a pattern of fourteen-year-olds dying of strange causes, based on a chromosomal defect. One of the dead is Alexis, a girl who looks *exactly* like Eve.

Eve tracks down Alexis’s parents, hoping she has finally found her real family—but it turns out Alexis was adopted too. Something is killing fourteen-year-old children, and finding out where she comes from is the only way for Eve to save herself.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Peter Lerangis including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

**

### About the Author

Peter Lerangis (b. 1955) is a bestselling author of middle-grade and young-adult fiction whose novels have sold more than four million copies worldwide. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lerangis was working in musical theater when he began editing fiction, which eventually led to writing novels of his own. He got his start writing novelizations under the pen name A. L. Singer, as well as installments of long-running series such as the Hardy Boysand the Baby-sitters Club. Lerangis began publishing under his own name with 1994’s *The Yearbook *and *Driver’s Dead*.

In 1998 Lerangis introduced Watchers, a six-novel sci-fi series that won Children’s Choice and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers awards and led to an invitation to dine with the President of Russia at the White House. His other work includes the Abracadabra novels; the Spy X series; Drama Club, a four-book series about high-school theater based on his own Broadway experiences; and exactly three and a quarter books in the *New York Times*–bestselling 39 Clues series. He lives with his family in New York City, not far from Central Park.

### Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

She is born.

She breathes.

She feels.

She shrieks.

At the cold. The light. The pain.

No retreat now. No comfort.

Just instinct.

A pair of hands lifts her. Wraps her in a blanket.

We did it, whispers a deep voice. Again.

She turns to the sound. Tries to focus on a face.

A door opens.

She moves. Sheltered by the arms.

Warm.

Her screams fade to whimpers.

She goes limp.

She sleeps.

When she awakens, the arms are carrying her through a shaft of blazing white.

Did the mother leave a note? asks a voice. Different. Softer. Higher.

No. The deep one. The one that makes her rumble.

Look at the resemblance. It must be the same mother.

Have you notified the ICU, Dr. Rudin?

Of course.

Would you get the paperwork started for the adoption process? Same agency as the last?

Please hurry. I need your help.

What shall I tell your daughter?

Tell her Ill be another couple of hours. Words. Rhythms. Gentle. Yes. Please have somebody order her dinner.

Motion. Speed. Sleep.

* * * Before leaving Dr. Black, Julia Rudin adjusts the sleeping infants head. Briskly but delicately. In midstride.

On the back of the babys neck she spots the red arrow-shaped birthmark. The same as the other foundling how long ago? A year?

As Dr. Black barges through the ICU door, the childs face is peaceful. Trusting. Dr. Rudin turns away and walks to a small waiting room. There, a twelve-year-old girl reads a magazine.

Sorry, Whitney, the young doctor begins. Sort of bad news. Your dad told me

The girl puts down the magazine and looks up. Eve, she says.

What?

Thats the babys name. Eve.

How do you know?

Whitney smiles. And shrugs.

As the girl turns to pick up the magazine, Dr. Rudin notices something on her neck.

A mark. Red and arrow-shaped.