Free The Book of Love by Lynn Weingarten

scissors and chopped the top off, so the newly enormous neck hole kept drooping off the badass girl’s shoulder. She was wearing so many bracelets on each arm, they looked like a cross between jewelry and glittering armor. On the bottom she had on a short dark denim skirt, and a pair of maroon ass-kicker boots. Her eyes were ringed in dark liner. This girl didn’t just look ready to play a single song at a festival, she looked like she was ready to headline the whole damn show.
    “Bastian, you are magic,” Olivia said. And then she went up to the desk and paid the absurdly large bill.
    The four girls headed back out into the parking lot.
    “Well, sisters,” Liza said, her voice a throaty purr, “I guess all that’s left to do is go and break a heart.”
    The sky was the color of a ripe nectarine when they pulled into the SoundWave lot and Olivia popped the trunk.
    A guy was sitting in the back of a truck with three friends watching them. “Welcome to the Wave, ladies,” he said. He was about their age and had a smooth Southern accent. “Need help carrying your stuff?”
    Liza reached into the trunk and yanked out an enormous bag. “Nope,” she said. “But let me know if you boys do.”
    Five minutes later, they were approaching Tent City, their temporary home for the duration of the festival. The big show didn’t start until the next morning, but already the campgrounds were starting to look like a tornado blew through carrying a postapocalyptic carnival city, and left it there. There were tents everywhere, from little two-person pop tents to enormous canvas contraptions that could easily hold ten. A few people rolled their sleeping bags out right onto the grass. In the center of the field a girl and three guys were hammering the final spokes into a large teepee that stretched fifteen feet into the air. The outside was decorated with gold flowers that glittered in the orange glow of the setting sun. Off to the side, a girl was playing an accordion and another girl was playing a guitar, and they were singing. Lucy turned to get a better listen and spotted a Heartbreaker tattoo popping over the top of the guitar girl’s tiny stripy strapless dress.
    “Olivia,” Lucy whispered. “Look! I think that girl is a . . .” Lucy knew that other Heartbreakers existed, ofcourse. But she’d never seen one in person before. The girl had short dark hair, high cheekbones, and bright red lips. She was stunning.
    Olivia just shrugged without turning. “Yeah, you’ll see some of that here. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who picked Beacon as a target.”
    “Don’t look so worried, Lulu,” said Liza, “they have nothing on us. Besides, if it was too easy”—she turned and grinned—“it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”

Fourteen

    W ithin an hour the place was packed, but once Lucy got used to looking for other Heartbreakers, they were easy to spot. They had a glow around them, a shimmering golden sort-of-halo that Lucy remembered seeing that very first night, when through Olivia’s window she watched Gil breakEthan’s heart. Gil and Lucy wove their way through the crowd of cute music nerds, design geeks, hipsters, festival followers, and photo junkies taking pictures with their fancy giant-lensed cameras. Lucy spotted four girls with the glow to her right, laughing as they dipped their fingers into a tiny pot of what Lucy knew must be Empathy Cream. But none of that mattered now—Gil and Lucy were on a mission.
    They passed through a high chain-link fence out onto the enormous field where the concert would officially begin in the morning. A half-dozen eighteen-wheeler trucks were parked on the grass. Dozens of people in SoundWave Crew shirts were busy unloading equipment. A hundred yards away the main stage rose up into the sky.
    There was a very tall woman standing in the center of the field, black hair flopping down over her face, her head shaved on either side of the flop. She was holding a tablet