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

Hey, kid. You all right?

Nora takes me in.

"You think it means anything, he put her like that?" Her voice splinters. "Does it feel like it means anything?"

"I don't know." I pause. "It feels uncomfortable."

"She was raped."

I close my eyes. "I know."

"She was drugged first. Died of an overdose while he was raping her, they think." My stomach turns. She touches the crook of my elbow. "There was an injection bruise there."

She was thirteen.

"She was messed up so bad, my dad can't even get out of bed, and he's seen a lot." I open my eyes and she's above me, blocking what little view there is of the sky, her expression cold, and more than that—angry. "And you couldn't even get a look at the guy driving the car."

Nora reaches her hand out to help me up and I slap it away. I try to get to my feet, first on my bad arm, which elicits a pained yelp, but I'm successful the second time, fumbling away from her with what little dignity I can muster.

She calls after me, "Avis, hey—Avis," and I flip her off over my shoulder, nauseous and sweaty, dirt and grass and leaves stuck to my clothes. I make my way to the road, the ghost of my escape on me—but this time no one's pulling up to help.

"It's not your fault." Nora emerges behind me.

"I don't need you to tell me that."

"But do you know what it means?"

I turn to her, holding out my arms.

"What does it mean?"

"It means he's anyone. It means he's still out there. It means I'm going to find him. I'm gonna find the fucker that did that to my little sister."

"And then what?"

"What do you think?"

I don't know what to say to her, and the way she's looking at me wants me to say something.

"It was Cleo Hayes picked you up, right?" she asks after a minute, and I nod. "What do you think your mom would think of that?"

"I'm sure she'd just be glad I was okay."

But I'm not. Not really.

"Let's get out of here," she says. "Since you can't be out long."

In the car, Nora seems steadier, surer of herself. An evolution of grief taking place before my very eyes, like she just needed to say out loud to someone what she planned to do. I feel like less of myself in the exchange, some part of me still out there in the woods because I saw the question when she stood over me; if there was some way, some world, where this could have happened to Ashley and me with the roles reversed. I'm tired, the kind of bone-deep fatigue that comes with healing. The sun sears my eyes through the windshield.

I pull the visor down. Nora asks what my problem is.

"You," I tell her.

She takes me back home.

I slam the car door and that's a mistake; the sound burrows into my skull. I stand on the curb with my back to her until I hear her pull away, and then I slowly make the walk to the screen door, where I press my forehead against its cool metal. After a long moment, I pull it open, fumbling for my pocket, to get my key. The cast makes it nearly impossible. I'm reaching across myself with my good hand to get it, the pressure building behind my eyes, when Tyler flings the inside door open and says, "You couldn't text me?"

I hadn't noticed his truck in the driveway.

"I don't have a phone," I remind him, edging past.

"Then leave a note, George!" he snaps. I wince and rest my hand against the kitchen table. "And—sit down before you fall down. Jesus."

He grabs the painkillers under the window at the sink, then goes through the cupboards for a glass, which he fills with water. I sit as he sets both in front of me.

"You've still got a concussion, you know that? You're not supposed to be running around doing—" Now he remembers what he was pissed at me for, and he asks his next question with no small amount of wariness: "Do I even want to know?"

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.