Chapter 1- Careless People

The house loomed over the lake like a temple to midcentury American tackiness. It glowed from within: clean white light spilling out of every one of its too many windows to shimmer on the surface of the water below. It was an altogether classy image, if you tuned out the shitty dubstep pulsing from the place, all sound and no fury.

Audrey was more than able to pick up the slack.

Her Doc Martens pounded against the abalone-patterned gravel of the great house’s wide drive, maybe performatively aggressive in their force, but still not loud enough to mask the violent pounding of her own heart.

The driveway opened up into a wide forecourt, ringed with precariously parked cars. Audrey could only imagine the impending Thunderdome when this crowd got back to their wheels to call it a night.

Not her problem.

The front doors of the great house were wide open, the broad patio thronged with party guests in various states of self-induced humiliation. Audrey felt their cloudy eyes on her as she neared the portico and took a hard right.

She could handle stares. So she kept telling herself. She could deal with each and every one of these mouth-breathing, red solo cup wielding drones. But to each in their turn.

The path wound off from the front courtyard through a picturesque garden, which was currently playing host to some kind of gladiatorial force-feeding tournament. A cluster of onlookers was cheering a Hawaiian shirt-clad, olive-skinned string bean as he gorged himself off a frothy hose for their amusement.

“J-A-K-Jake!” the lemmings cheered their champion discordantly, “Jake-Jake-Jake!”

Audrey pushed her way through the crowd, inadvertently shoulder-checking a broad-shouldered gawker, who cried out, “Oof!” and then “Sorry!” which seemed a little mixed up, and went crashing into the would-be keg king, unleashing a spray of beer mercifully out of Audrey’s radius.

“What’s your problem, LezBeast?” J-A-K—Jake called after her, “You trying to suffocate me or something?”

“Ew, dude,” the dude Audrey’d knocked into him was saying, “You’re dripping. Let me…”

She kept on, steeling herself against the cutesy little dig, the casual meanness. She’d have plenty of time for that later, and there’d be nothing casual about it.

The path debauched at a deck: marbled blue and silver tile ringing a kidney shaped swimming pool in and around which more revelers laughed, drank, and made merry.

Audrey only had eyes for one of them.

“Emma!” the name exploded from her lips like an expletive. The soft hum of the party ebbed as her quarry looked up and across the electric-blue expanse of the water at her.

Emma was sitting alone at the far end of the pool, feet in the water, dirty blonde hair swept with a careless ease over one shoulder. She’d dressed up, in a dark blue sun dress speckled with white dots. A new dress for an old-fashioned look.

The color drained from Emma’s face as she drew her legs up from the water, “Audrey,” her voice was small, already carrying that tell-tale guilty tremor that meant she was on the ropes, “Audrey, I can explain…”

“That’s big of you,” Audrey declared, starting around the pool, blazing a path through the peanut gallery, who were happy to give her a wide berth, “Since I haven’t asked you to explain anything,” she narrowed her eyes, “Guilty conscience?”

Emma winced, as though stung. Audrey rolled her eyes, “Seriously, Em? You’re gonna fold, just like that? C’mon, don’t make it too easy for me…”

“It was never supposed to go out!” she insisted, “Audrey, you have to believe me, I tried…”

“Well, you didn’t try hard enough!” she cut her off, yanking her phone out of her pocket and shoving it into Emma’s face.

Emma’s eyes widened briefly at the video or, since the footage was no doubt familiar to her already, at the still-climbing viewer count beneath it. She looked away, a shadow of something (Shame? Disgust? Audrey wasn’t sure which, and even less sure which she’d rather) flickering across her features.

“Gotta admit, Emma, all this time and I never knew you were so good with a camera…”

“I didn’t film it!” Emma interrupted, “Audrey, you can’t think…”

“Don’t you tell me what I can think!” she lowered her phone, “What, were you all hiding in the bushes? If I’d listened a bit harder, would I have heard you giggling amongst yourselves?”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“What the hell was it like, then?” the words scraped against her throat but she didn’t care about yelling, about making a spectacle of herself…too late to worry about that anyway, “You and your harpy bitch friends spy on me and…”

“Someone call for a harpy bitch?” a new voice, sugar on cut glass, cut into Audrey’s vitriol, “Sorry, I don’t think there was one on the guest list.”

Brooke Maddox, 10 tons of condescension packed into a five foot figure, sashayed across the tiles to them, moving between Emma and Audrey like a purebred-if-petite guard dog. She folded her stick thin arms, the various statement bangles on her wrists clinking merrily as she did so, “But you can’t rule out gate crashers,” she sized Audrey up, honey brown eyes roving over her with anabolic precision, “Obviously.”

Audrey scoffed, “Is that how it’s gonna be now, Em? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Gel Tips?”

“It’s fine, Brooke…” Emma began, but it quite evidently was not.

“Sweetie, I wear acrylics,” she waved a hand in Audrey’s face as if to prove it, “I’d happily recommend my stylist, but from what I hear, young ladies of your persuasion prefer to keep them short for better access…”

Audrey lunged at her, luxuriating in the brief flash of terror in Brooke’s oversized eyes as she did. Emma cried out, a couple of onlookers joined in for a quaintly elementary grade “Ooooooh…”, and Audrey personally couldn’t quite be sure what she was doing, since a pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her back before she could do it.

“Now, there’s no need for violence!” squeaked Audrey’s long-suffering sidekick, running to put himself between her and Brooke, “We can all be reasonable adults. Undeveloped pre-frontal cortexes notwithstanding.”

Brooke grimaced at Noah, “Do I have to invest in private security?”

“Ethically, probably not, given your father’s a public servant, but that hasn’t stopped anyone before…”

“You can hold the mercenaries, Maddox,” the hands holding Audrey released her as Amanda Steele folded her motor-oil stained forearms before her chest, cocking her head in appraisal, “We’re not staying.”

Brooke didn’t appear particularly impressed with this pronouncement, but didn’t fight it, making a motion to suggest she was wiping her hands of the whole thing, “Safe travels. If you’re posting, use hashtag BrookesBigBeautifulBash2015.”

“Hold the apostrophe, of course,” said Noah and, after a strained beat, “Because apostrophes break hashtags.”

“Good night,” Brooke repeated tersely, “C’mon, Em,” she looped her arm through Emma’s and proceeded to lead her off. Emma cast a lingering look over her shoulder as she went. She had that same plaintive expression that she’d get when Audrey caught her making origami out of her picture books: “I can explain.”

She’d changed a lot since then, but Audrey doubted she’d gotten anymore convincing.

“Not to break out a cliche,” Noah remarked, “But that was close.”

Audrey glared at him, “I don’t remember calling in the calvary.”

“I took initiative,” said Noah flatly, “Pardner.”

“Don’t take it out on him,” said Amanda.

“It’s fine. I’m a softer target. I get it.”

Audrey sighed aggrievedly, turning to take Amanda’s measure and seeing she was still in her grungy coveralls, “He pulled you out of work?”

“Which I wasn’t thrilled about either, until he caught his breath enough to tell me what happened,” her stony expression softened, and she affected something closer to the big sisterly concern she only broke out when the shit was really hitting the whirlybird, “Are you okay, Aud?”

Audrey looked into her friend’s big blue eyes, which were far too sincere for the rest of her, and just as quickly turned away, “Just swell,” and stalked off, aware of every eye in the place on her and telling herself not to give them another second more of free entertainment.

---

“Honestly, I can’t believe people sometimes,” Brooke declared authoritatively, closing the  French doors decisively in their wake, “Most of the time. No respect for peoples’ privacy…”

Emma must have been making a prize-winning face because Brooke betrayed a moment’s self-awareness, letting go of the door handle and moving into the kitchen proper, “Well, two wrongs don’t right a right. Double negatives or whatever,” she crossed to a pristine glass-fronted cabinet above the spotless counter adjacent to the eerily unblemished chromium fridge, “You want a drink? That was a rhetorical question.”

Emma watched Brooke retrieve her odds and ends from her father’s liquor cabinet and set to mixing them like a witch over her cauldron.

“She was right,” she said flatly, “Audrey.”

“About my nails? Please. You know how much maintenance these things take?”

“I’m a bitch,” Emma interrupted, “She called me a bitch and she was right.”

Brooke rotated the cocktail shaker in dancerly arabesques around her head, “Not to nitpick your doom spiral, Em, but she called me a bitch. You’re a bitch by association,” she set the shaker down on the (also spotless) kitchen island, “If that.”

“She saw the video,” Emma leaned across the black marble counter top to her, “She knows what I did.”

For the first time, Brooke looked surprised, “You showed her that?”

“She saw it herself!” Emma exclaimed, “It was posted tonight,” she narrowed her eyes, not entirely convinced Brooke wasn’t strategically turning up the ditz factor on her, “You didn’t know?”

Brooke shrugged, “I was otherwise occupied. Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash isn’t going to host itself,” she poured out two glasses, a sparkling pink concoction splashing merrily over the lightly heaped ice in each flute, “Come on, drink up.”

Emma eyed the glass dubiously, “What’s in it?”

“Stuff,” she paused, smiling mischievously, “Seriously, it’s just an Old Fashioned with grenadine. My Mom used to drink them for breakfast.”

“Before or after rehab?”

“Both and probably during, but that’s not why she’s in rehab. Come on, you could use the spirit.”

Emma sighed but, realizing Brooke wasn’t going to give up, picked up the glass, taking a tiny whiff of the tangy, fruity drink and finding it inoffensive. Brooke’s smile widened, heartened and she clinked her glass against Emma’s in a toast, taking a delicate, ladylike sip.

Emma followed up with hers, albeit more gingerly. The liquor burned going down, but she didn’t choke on it, which was an improvement.

She must be really grown up.

“So the video’s online and Aubrey saw it.”

“Audrey,” Emma corrected, “You know her name.”

Brooke shrugged noncommittally, setting her phone on the island between them, “It was posted just today?”

“About an hour ago.”

“So it can’t be that bad yet. I’m sure…” her finger hovered over her screen, eyes widening, “Oh.”

“It’s terrible. The whole school will have seen it by now!”

“Not the whole school,” Brooke pointed out, “That off-brand Amish chick probably won’t ever know…”

“I can’t believe Nina!” Emma exclaimed.

“So it’s been said, many times, many ways.”

“She promised me she would delete it!”

Brooke smirked at her knowingly over the lip of her glass, “Girl.”

Emma sighed in concession, “I’m awful. I should’ve stopped it before it happened. Snatched the phone from her hand…”

“Honey,” Brooke attempted placatingly, but Emma kept on.

“I’ve known Audrey forever,” she insisted, “And, yes, things haven’t been great with us lately, but I’d never out her like that!”

“Did we out her?” Brooke prompted, “Because, not to trip on any land mines, but I don’t think she was fooling anyone.”

“Brooke!” Emma scolded. Brooke lifted her hands in surrender, her already half-drained Old Fashioned sloshing whimsically in the glass, “It’s no skin off my nose if the preacher’s daughter lezzes out in her free time. I’m super sex positive.”

“She thinks I did it maliciously,” said Emma, “She thinks I deliberately filmed her and her girlfriend, or whoever that was…”

“I hope it’s her girlfriend. Ooh, imagine if she’s cheating! It would explain the anger. Not excuse it, mind you, but…”

“Brooke!”

“Sorry, you know I love a narrative.”

“I knew it was wrong when it was happening. But I just sat there and let Nina…”

“Okay, I’m gonna stop you,” Brooke held up an indeed impressively manicured finger, “We were all there. This wasn’t you against the world. It was seven against one. Maybe six and a half, given one of us was Jake,” she propped up her elbow on the island, “Badder bitches than you have tried and failed to keep Nina Patterson from having her way. Badder bitches than me, even,” she frowned, trying out “Than I? I swear, this grammar shit’s pulverizing me. I’m not sure all the tutoring is doing a thing…”

“Nina’s our friend,” Emma pointed out, “We should be able to…compromise on things, right?”

“Sure,” Brooke allowed, “Like seasonal lipstick shades and which 1D boy is boyfriend material…”

“That doesn’t strike you as unfair?”

“Sure, but I surrendered Liam to her anyway,” she shrugged, “Look, Emma, I’m not saying it’s pretty, but there are some concessions you have to make to be successful in this life, and dealing with the Nina Pattersons of the world is one of them. Does it suck what she did? Sure. Are you an evil bitch for letting it happen? No, or else you wouldn’t feel so shitty about it,” she took another drink.

Emma smiled sadly, not really up to arguing about it. At a certain point self-pity could become its own kind of self-congratulation. She’d seen that written somewhere, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember where. It would be nice to imagine she’d read it in a book or a poem or something, but more likely it came from Instagram.

It didn’t change the fact that she’d sat there with the rest of them yesterday, all but conspiring in the bushes as Nina trained her phone on Audrey’s car and captured her private moment. The only thing Audrey had been wrong about was them following her.

Just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.

“Ugh, this playlist,” Brooke was saying, wrinkling up her nose as if she could smell the trap beats piping in from the pool deck speakers out back, “The last time I give Jake music privileges,” returning to her phone, she pulled up Spotify and in two taps chose something more to her liking, the song echoing in the cavernous confines of the kitchen.

Emma watched Brooke poorly lipsync Miley Cyrus for one verse and half a chorus, an amused smile working its way to her lips despite herself.

Brooke grinned, satisfied, “It’s our party, we can love who we want/We can kiss who we want/We can screw who we…” she paused, saying aloud, “Here’s to Audrey!” lifting her nearly drained glass, “Seriously, #LoveWins,” and subsequently draining it, setting the glass down with a theatrical smack of her lips.

“Speaking of big jocks with tiny brains, where is Will?” she cocked an eyebrow, “Not that I minded saving milady from the mob, but he lost out on some serious white knight points.”

Emma rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “Don’t bother hunting him. He never showed. I tried texting…”

“But farmboy goes radio silent at sundown,” Brooke finished with a world-weary sigh, “I don’t understand him sometimes. Most of the time. I mean, snubbing my big Harvest Moon celebration…”

“Is that what this is?”

Brooke made a dismissive gesture as if telling Emma not to worry about it, “That, I fully expect. But leaving you out in the cold,” she tetched in the manner of a needling grandmother, “I tell you, I worry about him.”

Emma snorted, “I’m sure he appreciates the concern.”

“He should! Seriously, whiffing on a catch like you?”

“A catch?” she laughed, this time actually choking on her drink.

“Yes, a catch, girl!” Brooke giggled, slapping her between the shoulder blades, “You’re a catch and he should count himself lucky and…ooh, don’t spit up on my counter, it’s Terrie’s night off and the last thing I need is her having more to hold over my head…”

---

The door was solid: a light, caramel-tone wood, probably not synthetic, with a tiny window in the top center, shaped like an inverted fleur-de-lis, presumably for no other reason but because Louisiana. Too small and too high up for shattering it to be of any use, but he could figure out a workaround.

“Just sit tight,” he looked briefly over his shoulder, attempting his most reassuring smile, which he knew from experience wasn’t worth jack all in this company and not being surprised when his company stared at him through half-lidded eyes and made a noise reminiscent of a neglected air filter.

Deanna, naturally petite, had lately developed a troubling talent for making herself even smaller. She sat at the top of the porch steps, knees pulled up to her chin, arms knotted around her legs, as if she were trying to collapse entirely onto herself. Her eyes peered at him over her self-imposed veil and, for a moment, it was his mother looking at him, hunched, haunted and vaguely accusatory.

“I’ll get us inside,” Kieran assured her, rooting around in the pockets of his aviator jacket, “We’re not sitting on the street.”

She made a soft, nondescript sound, muffled by the sleeves of her hoodie, which had been pulled up to her knuckles, and Kieran sighed, following her gaze to his truck, the lone occupant of the driveway. The thing had carried them over three state lines and would undoubtedly support them for a short wait more, with no mileage required.

But he couldn’t do that to her. The whole way from Atlanta, she’d been a nervous wreck, jumping at every speed bump, at every rough turn. Some asshole had cut them off on I-85 and she’d screamed at the jolt.

No, he wasn’t going to pin her in a car seat any longer than she needed to be.

Kieran’s fingers closed around the well-worn grip of his old reliable. The switchblade opened with a soft click. Behind him, Deanna let out with a short gasp, and he winced, but got to his work.

It had been a while since he’d picked a lock, and longer still for someone’s front door, but once you ripped yourself from the mental fainting couch, you realized life was made of necessary compromises.

And if he was gonna catch hell for keeping his sister from waiting on the curb at whatever forsaken hour of the night, he’d take it with open arms.

Two quick turns and the lock clicked pliant as butter. Kieran withdrew the blade with a smirk, turning to Dee, “Still got the magic touch.”

She didn’t seem to find that funny, but that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary, so he shrugged it off, “C’mon, I’ll get your bag.”

She didn’t argue that, at least, so she wasn’t completely absent her senses. Burdened with his bags on one side and his sister’s on the other, Kieran shouldered the door open and entered his father’s house.

“No security alarm,” he commented at the silence, “So he’s either cocky or cheap.”

Deanna’s eyes widened briefly, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility of alarms but could appreciate the relief of not encountering them. Not like this was the most obvious thing to look on the bright side of, but the more he thought about Dee’s trend toward pessimism, the more pessimistic he got, and if he ended up too miserable to function, they were well and truly screwed.

So better power on.

The house was neat, or at the very least not a dump. The polite term, Kieran guessed would be ‘lived in’. A pair of grungy work boots had been left in the corner between the front door and what must be a coat closet. The living room, which opened immediately to the right on entering the house, was suffused with a faint woodsy smell, like aftershave or sporty deodorant. There was a La-Z-Boy positioned at a direct 75 degree angle from the TV, bearing on its seat cushion the legacy of its owner.

“That’ll be his calling card,” Kieran remarked, “Closest I’ve been to the old man in eight years.”

This didn’t elicit a response and, sighing, he set his bags down, “Let’s worry about unpacking later. You hungry?” he didn’t wait for an answer, “I’m hungry. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

The kitchen was at the end of a short passage. It was, from all Kieran could see, a typical suburban job, with an L-shaped counter and a little table and chairs for eating around. That being said, it was practically the square footage of the apartment they’d been living in for the last year.

“If we can get some light in here…” he flipped a nearby switch and nearly jumped out of his skin as the sink roared like a rabid animal, “Shit!” flipping the switch off, “Garbage disposal. We’re garbage disposal people now.”

No response, but he powered through, crossing to the fridge and conducting an inspection.

“We’ve got…some eggs,” he declared gamesomely, “This ground beef might still be good. A box of those White Castle sliders you just put in the microwave…Jesus Christ, how does this guy live…”

He turned back and found he was talking to nobody, “Dee?” he blinked, “Deanna?”

A brief jolt of panic shot through him, try though he might to assuage it. Closing the fridge, he headed down the hall and back to the front room, where he was greeted with the soft sound of his sister’s breathing, gentle and reassuringly childlike.

She was curled up on the couch, in her usual fetal hunch, having not even kicked off her grungy hi-tops. Wavy tendrils of blonde hair draped over her face in an uneven scrim, one strand coming dangerously close to her partially ajar mouth.

Smiling resignedly, Kieran brushed this bit of hair away and, looking around the room, grabbed a woolly afghan from the back of the recliner and setting it gently over his sister.

“G’night, Dee,” he said softly, pressing two fingers to her brow and telling himself things would be better in the morning, even if only by a fit and a start.

---

“So, after some evaluation,” Noah declared in his customary breakneck pace, “Not my best plan. Not my worst, either. It’ll take a lot of doing to beat the Great Soft Server of 2011. Still not sure how I dodged charges on that one…”

Amanda cut him off before he could gather too much steam, “I’m glad you called me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he pointed out, “But the ‘Audrey Jensen Defense Squad’ is a skinny address book.”

“Good thing we got here when we did, or else she’d need a defense attorney,” Amanda considered, “And bail money.”

“Yeah, something tells me she won’t be thanking us,” Noah craned his neck, “But that’s fine. Part of the job description.”

“Job description?” Amanda prompted, curious despite herself.

“Sidekick,” Noah supplanted, “Always there when the going gets tough, with a snappy remark and a gung ho attitude, until the target audience gets too grown up and the happy bastard gets shot in the head.”

Amanda frowned, “So if you’re Audrey’s sidekick, what am I supposed to be?”

Noah looked her over, “Chewbacca?”

Amanda aimed a playful cuff at his head, but she was interrupted before it could land.

“That’s a fun one,” a smooth voice, equal parts twee and corporate, “I was thinking the gay robot with the waddle. Just less polite.”

Amanda glared at the attractive young couple walking around the pool to them, “You want to teach me manners, Patterson? Is that before or after the crash course on particle physics?”

Nina Patterson smiled as thinly as the violent coral patina on her lips would allow, “A dumb blonde joke. Cute. Precious, even, coming from the resident super-senior.”

At Nina’s shoulder, her boyfriend/accomplice/purse dog cocked a lazy eyebrow toward an almost comically perfect chestnut coif, “Go easy, babe,” gray-blue eyes lingered impassively at Amanda’s lower half, “Not a good look, picking on the disabled.”

“Disabled?” Nina repeated in mock surprise, pressing one hand to her bosom, which was currently wrapped in a lusciously patterned floral bikini top that Amanda doubted had ever seen water outside the delicates cycle, “My goodness, Amanda, I completely forgot. Seeing you out and about like this…” she joined her dainty hands in an opera clap, “Never would’ve guessed. I mean, I guess those baggy dungarees should’ve been a clue, but that’s always been your style…”

Amanda stepped forward, “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

“Funny, I was gonna say the same thing about you,” Nina’s smile widened, “Crashing a party you weren’t invited to. And bringing a pet!”

Beside her, Noah shrank. Already a pretty scrawny kid, he relied on his (to put it politely) volubility to get by. Silenced by Nina’s icy brand of wit, he reminded Amanda harshly of the quivering 12-year-old boy she’d defended on the playground once upon a not-so-long time ago.

“You get a kick out of playing God, Nina?” she challenged, “Is that why you filmed Audrey?”

Nina’s smile didn’t slip, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the bullshit,” she took another step and Tyler put a hand out.

“Look, Steele,” his modelesque features may as well have been carved from stone; but Amanda found herself thinking, not of the beauty of a marble statue, but of the brutal featurelessness of a granite slab, “I know you’re operating with too much anger and half the body to hold it, but do you really want to do this?”

“Hey!” Noah squeaked a protest, but Amanda shook her head to stay him, “Tell me something, Tyler, how much more are you going to give Nina?”

He scoffed mirthlessly, “I’d tell you, but I wouldn’t want to sully the Space Cadet’s virgin ears,” he indicated Noah.

“Seriously!” Amanda pressed on, “Your time, your dignity, your self-respect…”

“You don’t know a damn thing,” his voice had gotten dangerously low.

“How much more are you gonna give her? And for what? Her respect? Her love? You’ve already lost her loyalty…”

“Excuse me?” Nina interjected, her frosty composure cracking for the first time. Beside her, Tyler frowned, “What’re you talking about?” he turned to Nina, “What’s she talking about?”

“That’s a great question, Nina,” Amanda spread her arms, “What am I talking about?”

“Sorry, Robogirl, but diagnosing your delusions is way above my pay grade.”

Tyler grabbed Nina’s arm, turning her to face him, “Are you seeing someone?”

“Don’t tell me you’re buying this crap!”

“Nina!”

“You’re really gonna believe her? After everything she…”

“One word answer, Nina!”

“Motherfucker!”

“That’s two words,” offered Noah helpfully, “Or, I guess a compound word…”

Tyler rounded on Amanda, “Who is he?”

“Is it really that hard?” Amanda prompted with a world-weary smile, “You don’t have to look very far.”

Which was the only confirmation Tyler needed. Face reddening, he bellowed over the sonorous electronic beats of the party playlist, “JAKE!”

Nina mouthed the name, her face contorted into an expression of incredulous disgust, but this was the rare occasion when she wasn’t the center of attention. Around the pool, all eyes went to the keg out on the garden path, where the current champion was still guzzling the devil’s beverage, and staying mostly vertical in the process.

Seeing as he wasn’t being heard, Tyler strode around to the opposite end of the pool, grabbed Jake by the shoulder and spun him around.

Jake let out a noise of surprise (Phonetic: “BwAUAUGHhhh?”) as his mouth was separated from the vital instrument, which proceeded to loose a fountain of frothy beer onto the nearest spectator, who staggered back with an, “Aw, man, again!” that was roundly drowned out by the outraged Jake.

“What the hell, man? I was going for a record!”

“Are you sleeping with Nina?”

Jake regarded Tyler through glassy eyes for an agonizing stretch before parting his still-slick lips and throwing back his head to laugh, “Heh. Good one, bro. That’s funny.”

“Am I laughing?”

“Do you really have that little respect for me?” Nina barreled past Amanda and Noah to Tyler, “That you think I’d subject myself to this?”

“You have before!” Tyler insisted.

“And that was more than enough, man, seriously,” Jake held up his hands, “The Jake knows his limits, and this…” he pointed, presumably aiming for Nina but alighting on a floatation device with a flamingo head instead, “Is hella limiting.”

Tyler slugged Jake on the chin. There was a collective delighted gasp from the crowd, including from the clutch of admirers who moments ago had been hanging off “The Jake’s” every swig, go figure.

Jake, his equilibrium already pretty washed, staggered backward as if stuffed with feathers, nearly falling into the crowd, only one of whom (the dude who kept getting doused) bothered to keep him from landing on his bermuda-shorted posterior, “Hey, man, maybe take it easy, okay?” followed by a reedy stage whisper, “I think you’re drunk.”

“I don’t say this lightly, Jake,” intoned Nina, coming up to Tyler’s side, “But Zach Attack’s right on the money. Now, before either of you semi-intelligent primates embarrass yourselves even mo…”

“I don’t think I’m drunk,” Jake interrupted, his slackened grin taking on abstract proportions, “I know I am,” whereupon he let out a guttural battlecry and launched himself into Tyler, who only had time for a distorted, “What the fu…” before both boys went flying into Brooke Maddox’s pool.

As much as Amanda would’ve loved to stick around to see the full effect of the resulting chlorinated geyser, she possessed the requisite self-preservation to get out while the getting was good.

She did catch Nina’s resulting wail of mingled outrage and despair as that designer bathing ensemble finally came in handy, which was more than good enough.

“Look what you did!” Noah babbled as Amanda grabbed him by the arm to haul off, “I can’t believe what you…” he shook his head bemusedly, “Is Nina really seeing Jake?”

Amanda smirked crookedly, pushing on against the human tide, “Who cares?”

---

Riley wasn’t much of a party girl, as she’d impressed to Brooke many, many, many times before. Still, Brooke was a bestie, and this party was a big deal for her. Then again, every party Brooke threw subsequently became ‘the big deal’ one, usually to make up for some deficiency (real or imagined) that had cropped up in the one before.

Still, she’d gone a long way to breaking out of the ‘shrinking violet’ typecast, if she said so herself, and a few hours of fun wasn’t going to kill her.

Even if it was a school night.

It was easier earlier in the evening, when she’d had Emma (no party girl herself) for company, but Em had gotten a load of something on her phone and bolted like there was a warrant out, which put an end to that.

Given all the gossip spreading around the Maddox palace, pretty easy guess what that bit of bad news was. Nor would Riley be at all surprised if the aquatic battle of the titans currently unfolding was connected to it.

“Oh my God,” she declared, less shocked and more resigned, running up the path to the pool deck, “Excuse me, excuse me, sorry…” she pushed as forcefully as she felt comfortable with (which wasn’t very much) through the gawkers, singling out a broad-shouldered back hovering at the edge of the pool.

“Zach!” she tapped him on the shoulder and preemptively ducked as he whirled around with a gasp.

“Oh. Riley. Hi.”

“What’s going on?”

He smiled sheepishly, spreading his big, football player arms in a cutesy approximation of ‘Who even knows?’ which Riley could concede was likely the best explanation on hand.

“Come on, before they kill each other!” she started toward the pool, but Zach held up a hand.

“Nah, it’s cool, I’ve got it,” he flexed his hands, “I’m already pretty soaked,” he blinked, adding, “With beer,” and, again, “Which I didn’t even drink!”

He jogged over to the pool, where Jake and Tyler were currently bobbing up and down in the water, screaming incoherent profanities at each other.

“Guys!” Zach bent over the edge, hands on his knees as if he were speaking to misbehaving kindergartners, “Guys, seriously? It’s not worth it!”

Jake screeched something to the effect of Tyler’s sloppy seconds likewise not being worth it, to which remark Tyler bludgeoned him with an inflatable flamingo.

“Dude, if you guys drown, Brooke’s gonna be so pissed…”

“What the hell is going on?”

Zach yelped at the exclamation, promptly losing his footing and hitting the water with an anticlimactic splash.

Brooke stood in the back doorway of the house, petite frame magnified tenfold by sheer volume. She stormed across the tiles of the pool deck, “Are you freaking kidding me?”

Zach gurgled something that sounded like “Sorry,” but Brooke wasn’t paying any attention, looking past him to the two battlers, “Get out of my pool!”

Emma, who must have followed Brooke out but been diminished by the sheer magnitude of the performance, came up to Riley’s side.

“What happened?” she asked, brow furrowed in worry.

Before Riley could attempt to outdo Zach in the nonanswer department, Tyler finally succeeded in getting up on dry land, errantly splashing a lanky, dark-haired kid who may or may not have been attempting to offer him a hand.

“Watch it, Dennis!” he snarled.

“My name’s Derek…” the kid mournfully intoned, but Tyler had already moved on, violently seizing a towel from a nearby deck chair and twisting it through his sopping locks.

“Tyler…” Riley stepped forward, “Tyler, why would you…”

“Not now, Riles,” he said curtly, determinedly avoiding her eyes as he stalked off down the path.

“You’d better leave that towel at the door, O’Neil!” Brooke called after him, “This isn’t Key West!”

Tyler gave her a one finger salute as he vanished. Brooke let out an aggrieved sigh, rounding back on Jake, who was just climbing up to land himself, “And you…” she jabbed a finger in his face at an impressive diagonal trajectory given Jake had more than a foot on her, “You know how much work I put into this party? The calls and the favors and the planning. Even just getting my Dad out of the house…”

“Look, Brooke, respectfully…”

“I had to bribe city council to meet on a Sunday!”

“He came for me first, Brooke!” Jake insisted, “Got in my face, asking if I was banging Nina…”

“You’re banging Nina?” her eyes bugged out in abject disgust.

“I didn’t! Ask her…” he gestured broadly with one arm, but realized there was nobody to gesture to, “Fuck.”

“Leave it to her to ditch the scene of the crime.”

“I didn’t do anything! Hell, even when we were together…”

“Get out!” Brooke roared, getting on tiptoes in her strappy heels. Jake blinked, “Wh-what?”

“All of you,” she whirled away from him, “You heard me.”

“Brooke, you can’t call off the party…”

“They say trouble comes in threes. I’m cutting us off at two,” she looked around the pool deck, “You heard me? Go! Leave! Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash is over.”

“Bash?” Jake doubletaked, “Shit, sorry, B, I been using the wrong tag…”

“Leave!”

He left, not very gracefully, staggering off up the desk, onto the lawn, back onto the path, and out of sight. Around them, the other guests, getting the idea, began to disperse, chattering excitedly amongst themselves, presumably satisfied with the evening’s entertainment.

“You okay, Zach?” Emma bent by the pool to offer the forgotten footballer a hand, which he readily accepted.

“Soggy, but I’ll live. Thanks, Em…”

“What are you still doing here?” Brooke looked over Zach’s head to the reedy kid in the Skeletor graphic tee, standing awkwardly at the far end of the pool.

Noah blinked, pointing at himself, “Me?”

“Yes, you! Can’t you take a hint?”

“Take one, yes; use one…variable. But in my defense, I kind of dissociated watching Waterworld just then…”

“I’ll show him out!” Riley stepped forward before a fourth body ended up in the water.

Brooke turned to Riley, regarding her as if she’d forgotten she was here, which sort of sucked but wasn’t surprising. She nodded, “Better you than me.”

Riley smiled to show this was absolutely true, and hurried over to Noah Foster, who was gawking at her like she’d just descended on a winged stallion, “This way.”

“Oh, uh, I know the way…” Noah began, but she looped her arm through his and he desisted, “But I won’t refuse the hospitality.”

They walked hip-to-hip along the garden path, stepping around the sad detritus of the party: plastic cups, bottlecaps, and a couple of condom wrappers, which had Riley eying the hedges warily.

“I’m sorry about that,” Riley said at length.

“Eh,” Noah shrugged, “Not your party.”

“Brooke’s been planning this thing for weeks. It was supposed to be for Labor Day, to close out the summer, but Nina has this thing she does every year, and there was drama, so Brooke pushed it back.”

“To celebrate what? The Harvest Moon?”

Riley smirked, “Actually, yes.”

“Nobody told her that was last month?”

“Would you have?” she giggled despite herself.

“Touché,” he nodded, sticking his hands in the pockets of his flannel, “I guess I can’t get too outraged. I did crash the party,” he added, somewhat laboriously, “Which I am sorry for.”

“Well,” Riley cocked her head to the side, “Wasn’t my party.”

“Granted. So I guess none of us need to apologize for anything,” he fist-pumped, “Anarchy!”

Riley put on a smile, hoping it was sufficient to mask a sudden spasm of guilt. She may not have to apologize for tonight but, in a roundabout way, Noah wouldn’t have shown up here at all if they’d done things differently yesterday.

It had felt like such a silly thing, then, all of them hanging out, spread out between Jake’s muscle car and Nina’s Benz. Zach breathlessly reenacting a play out of his latest game while Jake surreptitiously tried to trip him; Emma dozing in the high afternoon sun, resting her head on Will’s shoulder as he ran his fingers through her hair; Tyler showing Riley a ream of code he’d written out on his tablet, on the off-chance she could figure out which absent-minded keystroke had fudged up something that, swear to Christ, had been working fine just this morning.

Above them all, Nina, queen over her court, sitting on the hood of her car, long legs crossed in an eerie approximation of an algebraic 𝑥 as she gazed from their perch on the Overlook summit, not out over the lake, but back, toward town.

Say would you will about her, but Nina was nothing if not a people person.

“I like your shirt,” Riley told him, to spare speaking her thoughts.

“Huh?” he seemed honestly surprised, looking down at the triumphant hooded skull on his chest, rampant against a rainbow background, “Thanks. Custom print. It’s from that old video, you know it?”

Riley frowned, “You mean He-Man?”

“Well, the image is from He-Man, but the context, of the shirt I mean, is this YouTube video…” he took out his phone and started tapping away, “It’s all these clips from the He-Man cartoon, but they cut it so it’s like they’re singing this song, and in it, Skeletor has this bit where he goes ‘AND HEAT RAYS’, and I don’t know what it is, but it’s this really kickass moment…” he opened YouTube and faltered, complexion taking on the character of overripe cheese.

It didn’t take much to see why: it was the top of his feed.

“Oh,” Riley winced, briefly looking at the crude thumbnail, and the clip’s cruder title.

“That’s the algorithm for you,” Noah laughed hollowly, “Feeding you whatever drivel the local mouth breathers are gulping up and presenting it ‘For you’. Personally, I resent the implication that candid lesbian make-out videos are ‘for me’…and even if I did consume such content, I absolutely wouldn’t now out of, yanno, respect. Or solidarity. Or…”

“You’re good friends with her, right?” Riley interrupted, unable to help herself, “Audrey Jensen?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, tight-lipped, tucking his phone well out of sight, “Since we were kids. Regular Dynamic Duo, she and I. Tell each other everything,” he blinked, “Well. I guess not everything, or else I might’ve handled today more gracefully. We tell each other a reasonable amount,” he spoke so quickly, his lips didn’t always seem to know what they were supposed to be doing, giving his words a kind of slurry affect which, combined with the dancing pinpricks from the garden’s fairy lights on his face, made him appear to blur in real time.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” said Riley awkwardly, knowing she was probably better off not saying anything but unable to help herself, “I’m sure she would’ve told you! When she was, um, ready. But…”

“But we live in a post-privacy world,” he shrugged grandly, “Go figure.”

They’d reached the forecourt, which had by now mostly cleared out. A few stragglers were still piling into their cars, precariously navigating their way down to the main road. No sign of Noah’s friends.

Appearing to be on the same thought, Noah spoke up, “It’s fine. Amanda’s probably gone after Audrey. You wouldn’t think it, but she’s pretty fast,” he hesitated, clarifying, “I can wait. You can tell the lady of the manor I won’t be any trouble. No risk of me purloining the family silver. I didn’t even touch the towels.”

She giggled guiltily at the thought of Tyler, “To be honest, you could probably squat here all night and Brooke wouldn’t notice.”

“I didn’t want to sound too radical, but it is a big house.”

“Well, that,” Riley acknowledged, “And she’s gonna be on the warpath after Jake and Tyler’s splash fight. Especially if Nina’s been cheating with Jake,” she rolled her eyes, “You must think we’re really obnoxious.”

“That’s not the word that comes to mind.”

“We can be.”

“Is that the royal ‘we’ or the ‘plural inclusive’ we?” he cocked an eyebrow, “Because, not to put too fine a point on it, but you and…oh, Tyler O’Neil aren’t exactly pulling from the same obnoxibox.”

“Obnoxibox?”

“Literally just came up with that this second,” he sounded genuinely chuffed with himself, “Next stop MIT.”

“MIT?” she cocked an eyebrow, “Okay, cool. Well, that’s funny because MIT is on my college wishlist too…”

“Really?” Noah brightened visibly, “I mean, yeah, why wouldn’t it be? You’re in all Honors classes…”

“It is also on Tyler’s,” Riley held up a finger, “Who is also in all Honors classes. So that’s one thing we have in common.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s really smart, but there is such a thing as using one’s powers for evil…” but he stopped himself, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously, “Uh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say you…”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s parts of Tyler you don’t know about. Not just his brains. He can be very…”

His smile, patient and vaguely self-deprecating, as Riley pointed out the so-called fatal error in his own code: “You forgot the colon here. That’s why it didn’t execute.”

“Shit,” twisted his knuckles against his brow, eyes alight with the discovery, “Do I need glasses?”

“You might need an assistant,” she smiled teasingly, “But I don’t come cheap.”

“He’s not all bad,” she said at last, “Sometimes, he’s…really great. Honestly, if Nina is cheating on him, maybe that’s not so bad for him, in the end.”

“So you’re suggesting,” Noah said at length, “I have to readjust my priors?”

“Well, you’re not running an experiment, are you?”

“Sometimes, I wonder,” he hesitated, looking off down the brightly lit path that connected the Maddox property to the street, “Um, Riley?” he sounded vaguely embarrassed to say her name aloud; it occurred to Riley that, though they’d been going to the same school for more than a year, they’d never spoken to each other for this long, “About Tyler and Jake…”

She cocked an eyebrow, “What about them?”

“They, um,” he cleared his throat noisily, “They’re…” he let out a long breath, smiling slackly, “…probably gonna forget all about this in the morning.”

She grinned agreement, “Probably,” taking a step back, “I should get back. Brooke’s gonna need help straightening things out.”

“Doesn’t she have servants for that?”

“Her Dad has servants for that,” Riley said pointedly, “Will you be okay out here by yourself?”

He nodded readily, “Yeah. Sure. Um…thank you,” he lifted his hand in a cutesy half-hearted wave which Riley didn’t quite know what to do with and so reciprocated.

“Guess I’ll see you at school?”

“You might,” said Noah, “Unless I, yanno, cut.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever missed a day of school in your life.”

“There’s always time,” he pointed out, “Nobody’s all good, right?” he was smiling like he’d just been very clever. Riley’s smile got sort of strained, “Heh. Right. Um…okay. So, I guess I’ll see you. Whenever.”

“Right. Whenever.”

She turned and headed down the path, back toward the pool. She thought she could hear Noah muttering to himself, something like, “‘She might’? Dude, what is wrong with…” but her head was full of unaired confessions so she couldn’t pay his words much mind.

---

Wren Lake was calm tonight. It was calm most nights: placid and unmoving even in bad weather. A stagnant black pit surrounded by luxe waterfront housing. Welcome to America.

The lights of the various lake houses that ringed the water on its northern side shone in the darkness like a horde of petrified fireflies. The Maddox manse, perched at the crest of a soft incline a short walk from the jetty, loomed over the water with a particularly forceful garishness, though at least someone had cut the brain dead soundtrack.

Not that Audrey much wanted to listen to her thoughts.

She sat at the end of the pier: a narrow slab of mottled wooden planks jutting out over the water. There were several such piers around the lake these days, most of them privately owned by the owners of the aforementioned waterfront housing, but this motley structure was the oldest, the least remarkable and, given the way it creaked when you breathed funny, the most dangerous.

Audrey felt right at home.

She held her phone out, sort of loosely propped up on her knee, watching Nina Patterson’s little home movie. She’d conceded to turn the sound off…she wasn’t a total glutton for punishment; no reason to subject herself to whatever Adobe stock music Nina had decided best suited the mood.

Watching it from beginning to end, she couldn’t help but notice little things, things she couldn’t imagine the Esteemed Filmmaker had been aware of. Audrey’s back was to the camera, though she occasionally turned enough…or was turned enough…for her to get a good profile in. It was poor Rachel who kept finding, but not spotting the camera, who kept coming up for air and diving back with more hunger than before.

She left nothing hidden, her heart on her sleeve and her want in her eyes.

Audrey wasn’t half so charitable.

“There’s gotta be something better to watch,”

She didn’t startle at the voice. It was only a matter of time, after all.

“That’s a nice way to talk about my first screen credit,” she remarked sourly, turning to face Amanda, who was slowly making her way up the pier to her.

“Not your first,” Amanda pointed out, “You’re your own go-to star, remember?”

“Yeah, but I never had the stones to put any of them online,” Audrey pointed out, “Nobody’s ever questioned Nina’s stones.”

Amanda’s lips curled. She crossed the uneven boards with a steady deliberation, more aware than most of the potential pitfalls of tripping. That being said, she walked with such confidence it was easy to forget she’d been confined to a hospital bed only a few months ago, unable to so much as sit up and, for a while after that, unwilling to try.

“You didn’t have to come looking for me.”

“Yeah, well, I sort of overstayed my welcome with the Beautiful People,” she indicated the white hulk of the Maddox house with a jut of her chin.

“Sorry to cost you your invite to the country club.”

“Something tells me I’ll deal.”

“Where’s Noah?”

“Back at the house, probably. I’m his ride,” she paused, biting her lower lip, “He was really worried about you, Aud. When he called me, he was so freaked, I thought you’d been maimed or something.”

“Maybe he didn’t watch the video all the way to the end and got the wrong idea.”

“Audrey,”

“He must’ve seen it,” she shrugged, “no judgment. There’s…” she double checked, “5,000 people and counting. That’s gotta be at least…locally viral. So he’s not alone.”

Amanda sighed, moving to the pylon opposite Audrey, at the other end of the pier, and leaning against it, “I think he was surprised. And worried.”

“That’s a fun switch-up.”

Amanda opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say, she must’ve thought better of it, instead looking out over the water.

“I’m sorry,” she said at length, “That it came out like this.”

“It?” Audrey prompted coolly.

“You,” but she scoffed at herself, “Not that ‘you’ really came out at all. Nina took a fly swatter and whacked you out of the closet…” her grip tightened at the much-abused wood of the post, calloused knuckles whitening.

“Amanda, if you’re gearing up to give me the ‘talk’, that’s a very nice gesture, but I will deal…”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about!”

“If you say ‘it gets better’, Amanda, I swear to God…”

“What if it does?” she spoke over her, “You have done nothing wrong, Audrey! You’re the victim here…”

“I am not…” Audrey stood, stabbing a finger into Amanda’s face, painfully aware of the tremor beneath her words, “…a victim.”

Amanda lowered her eyes, “No. No, of course not. But…what I mean, Audrey, is Nina’s the bad guy here…”

“You think I don’t know that?” Audrey demanded, raising her voice despite herself, “Yes, Amanda! Nina’s the bad guy. But you and I can know that and it doesn’t mean shit! You think all these people…” she waggled her phone in Amanda’s face, scrolling through the comments section at breakneck pace, “Care about privacy o-or boundaries or whatever talk therapy bullcrap? No! They’re bottom feeders, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re the majority!”

She turned the phone back toward herself, scowling at the uploader’s username: “You know what she calls herself? Lakewood_Eyes,” she scoffed at the account’s avatar: a stylized illustration of a woman’s eyes (complete with cat’s eye mascara, natch) peering over the rims of scarlet sunglasses.

“Pretentious,” Amanda noted.

“Yeah, but she’s not wrong! She’s just giving the people what they want! It’s the law of supply and demand. They lap this shit up and they don’t care if it’s weird and invasive. They don’t see a damn thing wrong about looking at a pair of teenage girls and rating them, or posting links to dog shelters…”

“Jesus.”

“I can take it, Amanda,” she insisted, “You know me. I’ve been dealing with crap my whole life, but…” she turned on her heel, stalking back to the pylon.

“What’s her name?” the question was asked gently, even hesitantly, as if Amanda wasn’t sure whether she was pushing too heavily against a nerve.

Audrey sighed heavily, turning her phone over in her hands, “Rachel. You wouldn’t know her. She goes to St. Mary’s.”

Amanda made a soft noncommittal noise at this, not explicitly inviting Audrey to go on, but she went on anyway, “We met on a film message board. She makes stop-motion zombie movies out of LEGO.”

“That sounds time-consuming.”

“She posted a sequence and I commented she mustn’t get out much.”

“Ouch.”

“I know,” Audrey turned to Amanda and saw the faint smile tugging at her mouth, “Somehow, that didn’t scare her off.”

“Must be something about you,” she folded her arms, “Is she okay?”

Audrey winced, “I haven’t heard from her,” averting her eyes, “She doesn’t deserve any of this, Amanda. You know damn well if it had been anybody else’s car, nobody would know about it, but they saw me and…”

“They?”

“It wasn’t a one woman job, was it?” Audrey demanded, “Nina may have pulled the trigger, but they were all there…” she faltered, “Emma was there.”

“You really think Emma would do that to you? I know you guys fell out, but…”

“That’s the thing,” Audrey interrupted, “She didn’t do anything. She stood by and she let it happen, which is worse,” she shook her head, walking to the end of the pier, “She can’t even speak for herself without her Prada-wearing pitbull coming to the rescue. It’s…” she began to say it was sad but, truth be told, it was hard feeling anything for Emma but contempt lately.

“It’s fucked up.”

Amanda twisted her hands together, “Do you need a lift back?”

“I’m fine. I’m in enough shit without my Dad waking up to your truck coming up the block.”

“Excuse me, my transmission’s a kitten,” Amanda chided, though her eyes remained serious, “But I guess I’m supposed to take that to mean your Dad doesn’t know yet?”

“It’s Sunday night,” Audrey explained by way of explanation, “But given the lively discourse on the state of my immortal soul being had in the comments…”

“By the same people shopping out dog shelters?” Amanda wondered, aghast.

“No, different demo. You can’t say I don’t have broad appeal,” but the joke soured on her lips, “He’ll wake up to it, first thing.”

Amanda sighed heavily, “Shit, Aud.”

“I’m not ready for this,” she admitted.

“Telling your Dad?”

“I never even told you,” Audrey laughed self-deprecatingly.

“You wouldn’t have been my first gay friend,” Amanda allowed with a thin smile, “Or my third.”

“Gay,” Audrey repeated, “See, you just said the word and I had this fucked up little Pavlovian response, like I got a volt to the solar plexus. How the hell am I going to sit in front of him and deal with…”

“You really think he’s going to take it badly?”

Audrey didn’t answer immediately, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Amanda said after some consideration, “He might have a problem with her being a Catholic.”

Audrey glared and Amanda’s paltry smile faded, “I’m just saying, he might surprise you.”

“Like your folks surprised you?” Audrey shot back, maybe too cruelly. Amanda winced, “There are good surprises too.”

“Not for people like us,” she started up the pier, “Thanks, Amanda, but I’ll be fine.”

A couple of footsteps behind her, before Amanda seemingly thought better of pushing it and stopped, “You want me to parrot that to Noah?”

“It won’t help, but you might as well.”

“Audrey, he’s just worried about you. So am I.”

“And that’s nice of you,” she stopped at the head of the pier, hands clenched at her sides, “But I’ll deal.”

Amanda drew in breath to say more, but Audrey quickened her pace, moving from the worn wood of the pier to the soft earth of the trail, starting up the rise and into the night.

She waited until she’d crested the hill to exhale, and realized how badly she was shaking.

---

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Emma asked with her typical matronly concern, dithering prettily in the kitchen doorway.

“Em, I appreciate your spirit,” Brooke informed her, perhaps not super-appreciatively, stabbing a red solo cup with the business end of her litter picker as it were a more-synthetic-than-average cocktail weenie, “But you’d only slow me down.”

Emma cast her eyes out over what could be described as the absolute state of the pool deck, “If you say so.”

“I should’ve taken ‘before’ pictures,” Brooke muttered feverishly, “Terrie is going to be so insufferable. And she’ll know. If there’s even a single pool chair out of place…never mind that stupid towel Tyler made off with…” she raised her head at the sound of footsteps on the flagstones, cocking an inquisitive eyebrow at her other stragglers.

“Sorry, Brooke,” Riley shook her head, “No sign of it.”

“Maybe he put it on his car seat,” said Zach, beside her, “Because of the leather.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really have tears to spare for Tyler’s upholstery,” she stopped herself, exhaling heavily from her nostrils, “Sorry,” she waved the litter picker like a queen’s scepter, “It’s not you. You’re all very nice for sticking around and I’m just having an epi…” she blinked, getting an actual look at Zach, “You’re dripping everywhere.”

“It’s okay!” Zach said quickly, “I didn’t go inside…”

“Grab a towel,” she urged, as kindly as she could manage, “You have my blessing.”

“Sweet, Brooke, thanks,” he bounded over to the heavily reduced pile of still-folded towels and grabbed one, “Can’t afford to get sick. We have early practice tomorrow.”

“You won’t catch me being responsible for Johnny Football missing roll call.”

Zach’s face scrunched up the way it usually did at the deployment of the nickname, but he raised no objections, presumably not wanting to poke Brooke’s proverbial bear more than it already had been.

Another ignominious feather to stick in her fascinator. These suckers were the only ones with the evidently uncommon decency to stick around to help her clear away the wreckage of the last four weeks of planning and two hours of collapse.

“You guys didn’t happen to catch Nina, did you?” she asked, “I wouldn’t mind giving her a garbage bag and putting her to work,” she skewered three cups at once, shaking them into the bin bag in her other hand.

“Wouldn’t she have left with Tyler?” Emma asked, descending from the patio to join them properly.

“They didn’t come together,” said Riley.

“That’s the rumor,” muttered Brooke. Zach let out a strained half-laugh as Riley reddened, “Tyler got here first, I mean.”

Emma sighed, “I should text her, right?” she got her phone out.

“Maybe try loving yourself just a bit instead?” Brooke suggested, “Because it’s probably not a good time.”

“She can’t just hide!” Emma exclaimed, looking around at them beseechingly, “She went behind our backs!”

“What, with Jake?” Zach frowned.

“With the video!”

“Oh,” he paused, “No offense, Emma, but she sort of went behind your back.”

“You’re telling me you knew she was going to post that video?” Emma demanded. Zach blanched and Riley moved in front of him, “No! Not like that, but…it was a reasonable assumption.”

“You know Nina, Emma,” Brooke reminded her, “And I’m sorry about your friend…”

“I’m not sure she is my friend,” Emma said bitterly, “You’re all fine with this?”

“No!” Riley said quickly, “No, of course not. It’s awful what happened…”

“But a tiger doesn’t change its spots,” Zach pointed out.

“Stripes.”

“Nina wasn’t going to get talked down,” Brooke maintained, “If you ask me, Em, the best thing to do is let it run its course. A day or two will pass and there’ll be a new main character to grab the spotlight and, by and by, everyone will move on.”

Emma didn’t look particularly convinced by this, but she threw her hands up in surrender, “I’ll take your word for it.”

“That’s a good policy. I wish more people would.”

“It’s getting late,” she sighed, “I’d better head home,” she started toward the path.

“Sorry, Em,” Zach shook out his now mostly dry hair, “You can’t,” at her questioning glance, he explained, “The Behemoth’s blocking you.”

“Firstly, don’t encourage propaganda,” Brooke chided, “Jake’s ugly car is blocking her. Secondly, he is not still here?”

Zach shrugged, “Maybe, he’s not, but his car is.”

“Perfect,” Brooke rolled her eyes, setting down the garbage bag to grab her phone from the side table she’d set it on, “I swear, he’s two-stepping on my last…”

“Yo!”

Brooke screamed, whirling around, and nearly skewering the Jake with her litter picker. Jake, for his part, staggered wildly backward, eyes bugging out of his head, “Wait, wait, Brooke, it’s cool…”

“You moron!” Brooke screeched, to overpower the pattering of her heart, “I could’ve killed you.”

“Shit,” Jake pressed a hand to his own chest, “Shit, I think I pissed myself…”

“What part of get out didn’t you understand?”

“I was going!” Jake said, or tried to say, give or take a few syllables, “I was looking for my keys and then I realized…” he gestured broadly toward the pool.

“Perfect,” Brooke sighed.

“We can get it out,” said Zach gamesomely, “Brooke, where do you keep that net thingy…”

“I’ll get it,” Brooke declared, “And I’m moving your car,” she told Jake.

Jake cracked a cockeyed grin, “You wanna ride my Behemoth, Brooke?”

“Please. I know where it’s been.”

“I am telling you, I didn’t…”

“Why don’t you do me a favor and pass out on the couch like a good little drunk, huh?”

“Sleepover?” his smile widened, “See, I know you can’t stay mad at me…”

“The couch!”

“You’ve got, like, five bedrooms nobody sleeps in!”

“You wanna climb the stairs?” she challenged and, getting no protest, added, “Make sure you put some plastic down before you conk out.”

“Look, it’s okay,” Jake insisted, swaying dangerously and needing to be propped up with a gentle fist-bump to the back from Zach, “I’ll just bum a ride off Will,” he looked at Emma, as if she might summon her boyfriend from the ether.

“He’s not here, Jake,” Emma informed him, as though she were talking to a remedial first grader, “He never showed.”

“Huh?” he seemed genuinely surprised by this, “Fuck, really?”

“You never noticed?” Riley asked. Jake muttered something to the effect of “Must’ve scared him off…” before swaying treacherously and plopping with a thud onto the nearest deck chair.

Zach sighed, “I can carry him.”

“Just leave him,” Brooke rolled her eyes, “If his keys aren’t in the pool, Emma you have my full permission to drive on the grass. It’s not as bad if I can make it Jake’s fault.”

Emma smiled good-naturedly, looking to the others, “You guys aren’t walking back?”

“It’s not long,” said Riley, “Anyway, I’ve got a bodyguard.”

Zach absentmindedly shot a thumbs up, scrolling through his phone with his other hand.

“My Mom’s been blowing up my phone…” he smiled, “I told her I’d be out…” he froze, eyes widening, “Oh man.”

An uneasy pallor settled over the pool. Brooke stopped outside the pool shed door, her grip tightening on the stem of the net. Zach looked up from his phone, his expression sickly and faraway, “…guys?”

---

The witness was maybe too forthcoming.

“I’m sorry about the phone,” she apologized for what must’ve been the fourth time in as many minutes, her fingers fretting over the aforesaid smart accessory, “It’s just my son, he’s out at a party, with his friends…”

Clark nodded patiently, a hard-won yet unsung skill in his line of work, “He’s on the football team?”

Paula Henderson, an attractive, if careworn woman with a heart-shaped face and lustrous auburn hair, brushed a tremulous hand over her tear-streaked face, “He’s the runningback.”

“Played a great season last year,” Clark affirmed, “Would’ve made it to state, if it weren’t…”

Paula made a noise halfway between a sniffle and a scoff, “I know I shouldn’t be getting like this.”

“Well, you saw something very upsetting, Mrs. Henderson…”

“He’s on the football team too,” her face, already quite pale, took on a sick gray pallor as she jutted her chin toward the window. Clark looked over his shoulder at the window, where the Venetian blinds had been drawn, the flickering red and blue lights from the street the only indication of the crime scene unfurling outside.

“Brock Carmichael?” he prompted.

Paula nodded sniffily, “He’s one of the…” she trailed off, at a loss for the term and mimed with her hands, as if she were giving thanks and praise.

“The receivers?” Clark guessed.

“Yes. That. God, you’d think I’d know these things…”

“You wouldn’t happen to know Brock’s relationship to Stacy Winters?”

“Boyfriend,” Paula hesitated, red eyes narrowing, “I assume. It’s not really any of my business. You’d have to ask the p-parents, oh God…” she lowered her head into her hands again, “I can’t even imagine. That’s the worst news you could give a person. I don’t know what I would do if…”

Clark produced yet another Kleenex from the box on the coffee table, which Paula accepted gamesomely.

“We’ll see that the families are informed appropriately,” which wasn’t a very reassuring comment, but he could only spin the damn thing so many ways, “You wouldn’t by any chance know where the Winterses went tonight?”

“I do!” Paula said excitedly, as if surprised at herself for knowing, “Gina told me. They had a date night. Between you and me, I think she was showing off, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it…”

“Do you know where the date was?”

“The new fusion place,” she said at length, “Like an Asian fusion kind of place, with Chinese and Japanese food. She made a big deal about telling me, Gina, I think because she knows we don’t really do date nights, Sam and I, and if you ask me, she was especially happy to let me know because of that, but I don’t want to speak badly, she just lost her little girl…”

Clark exhaled heavily, reminding himself he had been a cop nearly 20 years, and an elected enforcer of law and order for 10 of them, and was equipped for this.

“The address, ma’am. Of the restaurant.”

“Cherry Street,” she answered swiftly, “It used to be a video store, and then it was nothing for a while, and now it’s a restaurant.”

“Great, we’ll make some inquiries,” he shot off a text to this effect to the deputy he had roaming the streets, “Now, Mrs. Henderson, to reiterate, you heard the screams at 7:20?”

“Or 7:22,” she nodded, “Before 7:30,” she hesitated, “I’m so horrible.”

“Horrible?”

“I didn’t think it was anything!” she exclaimed, “I heard the noise and I said ‘Oh, you’re imagining it’ and then, ‘Oh, it’s just kids’…which it was just kids, but…” she let out a shaky sigh, “I was selfish, sheriff. My son’s with his friends and my husband’s in Montreal and I thought ‘you’re going to have a night in, Paulie’. I heard that girl screaming to death and you know why it took me so long to get moving? I was in the tub,” she indicated her plush pink bathrobe and still slightly damp hair, “Reading,” she halfheartedly tapped the paperback novel beside the Kleenex.

Clark followed her gaze, which she must have misinterpreted as an expression of interest.

“It’s Outlander. Have you read it?”

“I can’t say I have.”

“It’s about a lady who touches a magic rock and gets sent back in time.”

“Huh.”

“The first guy she meets is her husband’s great-great-great grandpa, only her husband’s a nice guy and this guy’s a jerk, and for a second there I thought the twist was she would fall in love with him and be her husband’s great-great-great grandma, but no, the guy she does get with is very different,” she blinked, “It’s a TV show now too.”

Clark smiled patiently, “I’m not sure it’s my genre.”

“That’s what I told myself, but I got so sucked into it, I didn’t even drag my pruny self out of the bubbles until that poor girl was already…” her shoulders shook and she cast another fearful look at her phone and Clark realized he’d gotten as much as he could from this little interview.

“I’ll leave you to ring your son, Mrs. Henderson,” he nodded, “Thank you for your…”

A surge of energetic chatter from outside cut him short. Clark lifted his head toward the veiled windows and sighed. Muttering something that vaguely approximated a complete thanks, he left his witness to her anxieties and crossed to the front door, so single-minded in his determination that he nearly stepped on the dead girl’s still outstretched hand as he went.

“Jesus,” he muttered and, more loudly, “Hey!”

Giving the corpse as wide a berth as he could, he sort of skipped down from the porch, landing roughly on the lawn, and strode across the street to the Winters house (helpfully linked to the Henderson home by the blood trail the dying Stacy had forged between her boyfriend’s remains and Paula Henderson’s doorstep), where two women were facing off across opposite ends of the police barricade.

“Ms. Duval,” the woman on the outside of the line was saying, projecting her voice, presumably the better to be picked up by the lavalier microphone clinging desparately to the lapel of her blazer, “This is the most violent crime we’ve had in this town for 20 years. You really don’t have a comment?”

On the inside of the line, the medical examiner pressed her lips together tautly, green eyes hardening behind thin-framed reading glasses, “Dr. Duval.”

“A career woman, through and through,” the brassy reporter turned to her cameraman, a freckle-faced youth in a puffy blue jacket bearing the insignia of their local news station: a radio tower rising out of the lake, a bird perched proudly atop its spire, beak open to emit a cone of sonic rings, “Such a career woman that she’s adopted the old boys’ party line before the bodies have even gotten cold…”

“Is there a problem here?” Clark asked, aware of the rolling camera and realizing too late there was probably a more diplomatic way to make that remark.

“Here’s the old boy himself!” the intrepid reporter’s cat eyes gleamed with predatory glee at his approach, “Sheriff Hudson, any comment on the tragedy?”

“It’s very tragic,” Clark said dispassionately.

“You heard it here first, folks!” she turned back to the camera authoritatively, “The dead teenagers are a tragedy. Stay tuned for more brainwaves from our elected protectors…”

“We’ll have more details as we collect them.”

“So the killer is still at large?”

“You don’t see him here, do you?”

She looked back at the small knot of spectators that had spilled out of their houses to watch the drama, gradually bringing her attention back to the camera, “I guess that remains to be seen. Until then, stick with us for the latest as it happens. Eliza Taylor, Lakewood KLA…”

She stood there, plasticine grin frozen on her face until the cameraman gave her a thumbs up, “All good, Liz.”

“You know it, Greg,” she said flatly, turning back to Clark, “Thanks for the sound bite, Sheriff, but between you and me, you didn’t do yourself any favors…”

“This is an active crime scene,” Clark spoke over her, “My team has urgent work to do and precious time to get it done. You can’t expect juicy tidbits while we’re still combing the grass for DNA!”

“You have your job, Sheriff. I have mine.”

“Don’t twist this, Taylor. I know your gimmick.”

“Gimmick?” she cocked her head to the side, chestnut hair cascading in a clean sweep over her shoulder, “My stock in trade is the truth, Sheriff Hudson.”

“And if I phoned your editor at the station and told him you were five inches from a dead kid, harassing my ME for dirty details, he’d tell me it was all in a day’s work?”

Eliza squared her shoulders, “More than that, sheriff. He’d thank me for doing my due diligence as the eyes and ears of this community to let our neighbors know vital facts about an urgent emergency as it…”

“Um, Liz,” Greg the cameraman tapped her on the shoulder, “Al just texted. He pulled us off the air.”

“He what?” Eliza blanched, whirling on him, “Why the hell…”

“The kid’s body ended up in the frame.”

“Greg!”

“I know! I’m sorry! My hand must’ve slipped, remember I had to swallow a puke…”

Much as Clark would’ve enjoyed to sit ringside to this showdown, he remembered what remained of his professionalism and turned from the barricade to rejoin the medical examiner.

“Sorry about that, Mag.”

Maggie Duval shook her head warily, “Nothing you could’ve done. She’s like a dog with a bone,” her attention alighted on the prone form of Brock Carmichael, sprawled out in the Winters driveway, the bicycle tire around his neck catching and refracting light from the surrounding squad cars.

“First impressions?” he asked, indicating the camera around Maggie’s neck.

“Just that they’re practically Emma’s age,” she stepped away from the body, “I know I shouldn’t be thinking that way. Professionalism and all that…”

“Eh, screw professionalism,” he followed her, taking a few paces out into the street, “I tell you, when I came out and saw them I…” his mouth had gone dry and vaguely acidic; he supposed he wasn’t so different from the hapless cameraman in that, “I was a beat cop in South Atlanta. I’m not a stranger to dead kids. But…” his hand moved to his neck, fingers twitching in an approximation of Brock’s improvised collar, “This is new.”

“An autopsy will tell me more. Forensics don’t sound too optimistic.”

“No forced entry,” Clark indicated the open front and garage doors of the Winters house.

“And no signs of a struggle inside,” Maggie commented, “She left of her own accord. And Brock…”

“He was her boyfriend,” Clark commented, “So Paula Henderson thinks.”

Maggie looked sympathetically over to her friend’s house, “Thinks or knows?”

Clark smiled bitterly at the implication, “We could have that confirmed and more if we could find their phones.”

“They’re missing?” Maggie frowned.

“So far,” Clark lowered his voice, “I may not have a teen in the house, but I figure that’s not standard procedure.”

Maggie shook her head, eyes widening, “Teens in the house…oh my God, Clark. I almost forgot. Have they…”

Clark opened his mouth to answer, but was curtailed by the slamming of a door at the opposite end of the block, just past the other barricade. He held up a gentle hand to stay Maggie, admittedly morbidly relieved to dodge this subject for now, and with his other flagged down his deputy, “What have you got for me, Richard?”

Richard Steele, six feet of grim menace only slightly diluted by the khaki drab of his uniform, never looked particularly happy or relaxed as a rule. The IED that had cost him half his face in Iraq accounted for that: on the right side, his features were twisted by mottled pink scar tissue, bunching up in florid knots at the stub that remained of his ear, and the shallow crevasse where his eye had been and where now, a glass eye, blue to his natural brown, glinted disconcertingly even in near darkness.

All this to say that, despite the relative flatness of Richard’s expression, Clark had worked alongside him well enough to recognize when his deputy was bringing him bad news.

“We found her parents,” the blast rendered Richard’s voice gravely, rough, and a sheer pain to use; by necessity, he spoke only in short bursts, which was mightily inconvenient for him, but had trained him well in the art of getting to the point.

So well, in fact, that he didn’t need to say another word to get across that, though he may have found Stacy Winters’s parents, they were in no state to receive the bad news.

---

The call went to voicemail, not for the first time, but Tyler wasn’t about to throw in the towel.

“You can’t ignore me forever, Nina,” he said tersely, watching his phone jitter unnervingly on the dashboard, “I know it’s tempting to think so, but sooner or later we’re gonna have to talk anyway and…”

His grip tightened on the wheel, “I’m not mad, okay? Maybe I should be, but I’m not. Just call or text or…” he turned onto his block and felt a cold shock slice through him, “Shit.”

He cut his message short, fingers shaking against the phone screen (mercifully left on a deck chair at the time of the dunking) as he pulled up to the house and affirmed that there was indeed somebody sitting on the front porch. Not a burglar or a drifter or even a late night Jehovah’s Witness, unfortunately.

This wasn’t a stranger at all.

He pulled up to the driveway, bathing her in the bright white glare of his headlights. She stared through the light, big gray eyes unblinking, gauchely painted red lips curling into a smirk as she took another drag off the cigarette she was smoking.

“Shit,” Tyler muttered again, hyper-aware of his heart thundering against his ribs, “Fuck.”

Outside, his visitor twiddled her fingers at him in greeting. Taking a breath to steel himself, Tyler cut the engine and let himself out of the car, roughly shoving aside the towel he’d draped over the driver’s seat as he went.

“What’re you doing here, Gemma?” he demanded as coolly as he could manage, letting the harsh slam of the car door behind him serve as punctuation.

“Still haven’t been house-trained yet, huh?” she cocked a thin black brow, “The nice thing to say would’ve been ‘Hi, big sis. Long time no see’.”

“Lying wouldn’t be very house-trained of me, would it?” he looked her over, soggy sneakers squelching against the walkway, “What part of ‘get the hell out and never come back’ didn’t you understand?”

Gemma got to her feet, wrinkling her nose at him, “Aw, Tyler…you’re all wet.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Why don’t you let us in and you can dry off,” she folded her arms, “Soaked to your Calvins like this, you’ll catch your death.”

“You want to take your chances with Dad?” Tyler challenged, “You’re crazier than I thought.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about the ’rents?” she smiled condescendingly, “And, anyway, my business will be done and over with long before they get back from Thailand…”

Tyler blanched, his bluff swiftly killed in the cradle, “Singapore,” he corrected, “What, you been watching the house?”

“Stalking Mom’s Facebook,” she snorted, “Really, Tyler, it’s not that hard. You have to ditch that thing where you think you run the world just because you know CSS. It’s very unflattering.”

Tyler glowered, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They stared at each other in a tense silence for some time more before Tyler realized she wasn’t going to let up.

“Whatever you think you want, Gemma…”

“Speaking of Junior Varsity Geniuses who think they’re hot shit, how’s the girlfriend?”

Tyler froze, his hand tightening around the keys in his jeans pocket, “You stalking her socials too?”

“Please,” Gemma scoffed, “The less I see of that priss, the better.”

“Nobody says ‘priss’ anymore,” he said bitterly, getting the keys out, “It makes you sound old. Maybe homophobic too.”

“You wanna moralize to me, big bro? That’s cute.”

He froze, the key in the lock. The video. He hadn’t even been thinking about it, but…could she know?

But that was a stupid question. Tyler didn’t know his sister very well, but he did know that there was little she wanted to know that she couldn’t find out.

“I guess you have her to thank for all this too?” Gemma continued, leaning casually against a patio column.

He turned, maybe too sharply, “For what?” he asked softly.

Gemma blew smoke rings at the bug zapper hanging from the awning, the electric blue light giving the smoke a suffused, alien quality, “Well, for getting you all wet,” she snickered, “First time for everything, right?”

He rolled his eyes, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in as he unlocked the door, “Nina’s not your problem.”

“You know that’s not true,” Gemma said authoritatively, grinding her cigarette out on the porch railing, leaving a violent singe mark on the white paint. In the near distance, a police siren wailed, and Tyler was seized by a brief, irrational thought he didn’t have the words to describe: a mix of frenzy, of panic and, overriding it all, a sort of mad surrender.

But the moment passed.

“I told you before, Tyler,” Gemma paused in the entrance of their parents’ house, “I’ll tell you again: you’ve got to shake that tick off before she sucks you dry,” she chuckled in the back of her throat, a low, predatory sound, “If she hasn’t already.”

She went on into the house, casual and confident as if she owned the place. Left out in the cold, Tyler pocketed his keys and cast a lingering look down the street. No bystanders, no allies.

He was alone.

He reached for his phone, but he’d no sooner started on a text before Gemma cried out from inside.

“Tell me they haven’t put an exercise bike in my room?”

Swallowing a curse, Tyler pocketed his phone and went after her. Another siren sounded down the street, closer this time, but he closed the door before he could get any ideas.

---

It was a quarter to midnight and the shouting hadn’t stopped. Rachel had long ago given up trying to decipher the words; she wasn’t even sure they knew what they were saying. Just a never-ending battle of blame, and no winner but the one who runs out of breath last.

“If you’d kept a better eye…”

“She’s a human girl, Pam, not a houseplant!”

“And you can lay off that accusatory tone.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything…”

“You can’t even look me in the eye and say it. Would it kill you to be a man for once?”

“Oh, that’s very nice, Pam. That wasn’t targeted at all. What a great pair of role models we are? No wonder she’s…”

Rachel turned over onto her side, the mattress creaking ominously with her weight. She’d known lying down there’d be no sleeping tonight, so she didn’t know who she was kidding here.

It was the waiting that was the worst part: the weighty anticipation of an unavoidable disaster. An ordeal she would not be able to delay or escape. Walking the halls, feeling every eye on her, hearing the hushed snickers, like a horde of omnipresent chittering insects…

And it wouldn’t all be behind her back. She could almost deal with being ogled from across the room. But St. Mary’s Academy for Young Women boasted some real brave bitches in blue.

There would be a gauntlet, and here she was not even able to muster up the will to go to sleep.

Rachel turned again, her restless eyes alighting on the plastic battlefield spread out between the bed and the balcony doors. She’d finished setting up the scene just this morning, a few hours before she’d become a movie star in her own right.

The scene was comprised of a dozen plastic minifigures, arranged on and around the slopes of a hill she’d formed by draping some Astroturf over a stack of textbooks. The undead horde, their ghastly expressions accentuated by careful strokes with a calligraph pen, were pursuing the heroine, whose own stubby arms were weighed down by her prone love interest who, surprise-surprise, wasn’t dead yet, bitches.

45 minute set-up and probably upwards of two hours to capture all the necessary frames. When she could bring herself to get around to it.

Her phone sat on the nightstand, the screen faintly luminous in the dull blue glow from the pool lights outside. Looking at it, she felt like the central character of a pithy object lesson: the girl who couldn’t get enough of a bad thing.

Cursing her fickleness, Rachel picked up her phone anyway. The lockscreen, a relatively recent selfie of herself and Audrey in her car, produced a chillier effect now. They couldn’t have taken the picture more than a couple of weeks ago, and they would’ve been parked in more or less the same place where they’d been yesterday, out at the Overlook, Wren Lake spread out to one side of them and the town of Lakewood on the other. Alone at the top of the world.

Welcome to the 21st century, where you’re never alone, even when you’re the only living soul in the room.

She’d left her phone idling on the video and, while she knew this going in, it was still a knife to the gut seeing the comment section, still hopping hours after the video was uploaded.

‘U know what they say about catholic girls lul’

‘someone’s gotta put #rabidrachel down’

‘For all those complaining they can’t see Rachel’s face, trust me, you’re lucky.’

She closed YouTube, letting out a shaky sigh as she pivoted to her messages. Her most recent: ‘Hey. Are you OK?’

A little blue tick beneath the message indicated it had at least been seen. By somebody. At some point in the last two hours. Ditto for every plaintive, pathetic message before it.

Knowing this, Rachel sent a new text anyway: ‘I can’t sleep.’ Which wasn’t any less pathetic than the rest of tonight’s oeuvre. She began typing a follow-up ‘I’m sorry’, not even sure what specifically she was apologizing for, but she was kept thinking of an answer for this question by the appearance of three tell-tale animated dots.

‘Same.’ and then, ‘can you talk?’

And maybe it wasn’t very dignified or put together of her, but Rachel didn’t hesitate a second before calling.

“There’s my answer,” she could imagine the familiar wry smirk on Audrey’s face and smiled softly.

“It’s may you talk, by the way,” she pointed out, “For what it’s worth.”

“Aw, foiled again,” there was a short silence, “Are you okay?”

“I…” Rachel began, but felt her throat tighten and stopped herself, “No. No, Audrey, I’m not okay.”

She didn’t want to cry. Not that crying was new for her: she was a first class crybaby, but she’d never cried in front of Audrey before, and she didn’t need to hear that, she didn’t need to be subjected to it…

“I’m so sorry, Rach,” Audrey’s voice was tight and low,  “Your folks?”

“Well, they’ve moved on to trying to kill each other. But that’ll pass.”

“Jesus.”

“What about your Dad?”

There was a short silence, “I, uh…I don’t know. I didn’t exactly stick around the house.”

She frowned, “Where are you, then?”

“Trying to clear my head, for a start. I kind of crashed a party.”

“What, to bust some heads?”

“That was the plan.”

Rachel’s smile dimmed, “You didn’t, though? Audrey…”

“They did a good enough job embarrassing themselves.”

“This ‘they’ of which you speak. Is that an abstract collective, a group of people, or are you butting heads with an anonymous nonbinary individual?”

“You don’t have to put on the laughs for me, Rach. The people that filmed us, they did it because of me. To hurt me.”

“Audrey, you can’t know that. People do horrible, cruel things everyday…”

“I know these people. The bitch behind the account’s had it out for me and my friends since junior high. Catching us was crack for her.”

Rachel paused, “You know her?”

“I know them all. They’re cruel and hateful and they like nothing better than kicking people when they’re down…”

“They’re not that unique, then,” Rachel commented, “I’ll have a whole mob of them attending my inquisition tomorrow.”

“You shouldn’t have to. And if it wasn’t for me, it wouldn’t be happening…”

Rachel frowned, “I’ve had bullies before you, Audrey.”

“You haven’t had this before me. And you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for these bloodsuckers. But they’ll get theirs, Rachel, I promise.”

“They might,” Rachel allowed, looking up at the stationary blades of her fan, casting their twining spidery shadows on the old world white plaster pattern of the ceiling, “But there’s still tomorrow to worry about. And the day after, and the one after that.”

“I’m not gonna pretend to know my Bible the way my Dad would like, but I’ve got that ‘sowing and reaping’ thing pretty understood. And these people are staring down a surplus.”

Another short silence, “Goodnight, Rachel. Text me if you need me, okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel affirmed softly, “I…”

But she’d already hung up. Rachel sighed out the rest, “…love you,” to the silence, setting her phone back down on the nightstand. The impact jostled the thing beside it: a little tin box decorated with pink roses, its already loosened lid shaking somewhat off its axis.

Rachel looked at the box guiltily, a phantom itch prickling on the inside of her wrists.

With a determined resolve, she pressed her eyes shut to will sleep on. The box remained unclosed.

---

There was soft gray light in the sky by the time Clark headed home.

It would be a brief stop, just long enough to wash his face and get some food in him. Or that had been the plan before he turned onto his block and saw the truck in his driveway.

It was a sizable vehicle: a Ford F-150, maybe six or seven years old, its original sleek slate blue tinged a dingy gray by the wear and tear of the road. Clark tensed at the wheel as he pulled his own truck up short, blocking his own property, as he sized the new sight up and realized, of course, this wasn’t going to be a brief pit stop at all.

“Jesus,” he cursed himself, rubbing his knuckles against his brow. Maggie had known too, when she’d seen him at the scene, the way she’d been all but jumping out of her skin to quiz him on whether or not he’d received any guests yet. Faced with the enormity of two freshly killed teenagers, he’d somehow forgotten.

What an asshole.

Sighing heavily, he cut the engine, leaving his truck blocking the walkway. Not like anybody was going to give him a ticket.

Clark crossed to the truck in the driveway, peering through the driver’s side window. The seats were worn and well-depressed; a rabbit’s foot hung from the rearview mirror: early morning sunshine tinging the tawny synthetic fur with gold.

The rabbit’s was the only foot in the truck, it turned out. Clark frowned, his grip tightening briefly on the door handle as he turned, slowly, toward the house.

He thought of Stacy Winters’s open front door and suppressed a shudder, crossing the lawn and gingerly trying the door, which opened pliantly at the touch.

There was music playing inside: Whitney Houston was singing about saving all her love for you. His breath hitched, fingers twitching toward his side as he crossed the threshold with quiet, deliberate tread.

The house smelled of coffee, and there was a soft popping noise as of oil simmering in a skillet. Friendly smells and inviting sounds, but he thought of the metal spokes in the Carmichael kid’s neck and felt his hackles rise.

He walked down the hall to the kitchen, heart in his mouth, and found a stranger standing over his stove.

“’Morning,” the young man regarded him impassively, “Hope you like ’em scrambled,” shocking blue eyes finding their way to Clark’s sidearm, where his fingers had been hovering the entire way from the entrance.

“Kieran,” he breathed, moving his hand from the holster, “It’s you.”

His son was a young man now, taller than Clark, with a lean, angular build he hadn’t had since his days on the Atlanta beat. The mop of sandy hair that had topped his head when Clark had last visited him had been shaped and styled into a neat sweep. He had a goatee too: a faint but noticeable mustache and a dusting of gingery hair at his chin.

Clark’s throat tightened, his suddenly quite dry lips working to form something, anything…

“How did you get in?”

Kieran sniffed dismissively, turning off the gas and scraping eggs from the skillet to a platter on the adjoining countertop, “Busting out the interrogation right out the gate, huh, sheriff?”

“No,” he amended quickly, “Sorry. That wasn’t what…I’m surprised, is all.”

“You knew we were coming, didn’t you?” he asked flatly.

“Of course I knew. I-I was going to meet you,” he looked around the kitchen, “I was gonna take you out to dinner.”

“Must’ve missed that text. Sorry to keep you waiting up. You get any of those unlimited breadsticks? That’s almost a meal on its own…”

“I got called in,” he interrupted, “There was a case. A pretty bad one.”

Kieran set the skillet back down on the stove top, sizing him up with those piercing blue eyes of his. Eileen’s eyes, somehow even more now than when he’d been a kid. Looking at him, Clark was struck with the weight of years…the eight since his last visit to Kieran in Atlanta, the 15 since Eileen had kicked him to the curb, the 17 since he’d first set eyes on the improbable son he and Eileen had made and, despite everything, decided to try their luck with.

“Comes with the job, huh?” Kieran asked at length, his tone neither understanding nor accusatory.

“Sad fact,” Clark affirmed, “But I’m very sorry I couldn’t welcome you prop…”

“What about Mom’s funeral?” he didn’t raise his voice, “You had an emergency that day too?”

Clark winced at the memory, “That…that was my fault. I meant to be there…I called your aunt, maybe she told you…”

“You’re not serious?” Kieran scoffed, crossing to the coffee pot and pouring into a prepared mug…a navy blue job bearing the words ‘Have No Fear, the Sheriff is Here!’, a gift from Maggie for his last birthday, after he’d manfully insisted he didn’t need anything, “She doesn’t talk about you unless it’s to invent new cusses,” he set the pot down and held up the steaming mug. Clark stepped forward instinctively to accept the mug, which Kieran promptly swigged from, eying him through the steam all the while.

“You take it black, huh?” Clark attempted.

Kieran nodded, setting the mug back down, “Hasn’t stunted my growth yet.”

“True enough,” he sighed heavily, “Son, I’m not gonna pretend I’ve handled the last few years…”

“Few?”

“…everything the best way I could. It’s a lot to go into and a lot you don’t need to be bothered with, but the long and short of it is I told myself I was doing what your mother wanted by staying away.”

“What she wanted?” Kieran repeated, dangerously quiet, “I don’t want to rock your world, Dad, but she wasn’t exactly the best judge of her wants and needs by the end.”

“I dropped the ball. But I’m ready to step up now, Kieran, I mean it. Not just for you, but for your…”

Footfall from the passage. Clark turned around and beheld a ghost.

His ex-wife’s daughter was the spitting image of her mother, not as he’d last seen her but as he’d known her 20 years ago, when she’d been a child and he barely a man. She stood there, shrunken in an oversize hoodie, tangled blonde hair cascading over slight shoulders, staring at him through wide, marble-bright eyes.

“Hi, Deanna,” Clark greeted at length, hoarse and wary, “I’m Clark, your…”

Stepfather? That wasn’t quite the right word. ‘Guardian’ was more correct, but it felt clinical, sterile. ‘Kieran’s father’ was factually exact, but wasn’t going to make her feel included.

“I can’t get the TV on,” Deanna’s voice was soft, barely a whisper. Clark blinked, “Oh,” looking over at Kieran in silent appeal. Kieran merely took another swig from Clark’s mug, eying him expectantly.

“Right,” he sighed, starting to the living room, “You have to press the button on the black remote first, and then the white remote. The black one…” he paused in the entrance, observing from physical evidence that Deanna had slept on the couch, which he decided to castigate himself for later, “…probably ended up between these cushions. Let me just…”

He rooted around beneath the seat, aware they were both staring at him from different vantages.

You’re a dupe. A world class putz. You weren’t cut out to be a father then, you sure as hell can’t handle it now. And they don’t want you, you can see that plain as dirt: they don’t need…

“You mean this remote?” Kieran prompted, wagging the remote control in one hand and indicating the recliner, whose seat it had presumably slipped under.

“Right,” he chuckled half-heartedly, “That one. Figures it’d be there. I…don’t really use the sofa for much these…”

Kieran clicked once on black; from the opposite end of the room, Deanna clicked once on white, and the TV dimmed itself to life, not with the comforting staticy flicker of yesteryear, but a low fade-in that Clark couldn’t help but find ominous.

But maybe that was just on account of the programming.

“…the search is on for the person or persons responsible for the violent killing of two high schoolers right here in the heart of our community.”

A soft thunk. Deanna had dropped the remote to the floor, her face sickly gray. Across the room, Kieran turned the TV off.

You only needed the one remote for that.

---

“Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael, freshmen at George Washington High School, were meeting up for a date night at the Winters home when tragedy struck. At the very same time, moments away, Stacy’s parents, Robert and Gina Winters, were departing a date of their own, at a local restaurant, but never made it home.

“While the Lakewood Sheriff’s Department hasn’t yet disclosed the exact manner of the senior Winters’ demise, you don’t need magic marker to draw a line between these four shocking deaths. This has been Eliza Taylor, Lakewood KLA.”

Maggie stopped at the bottom of the stairs, “She’s right. She didn’t need magic marker.”

Her daughter looked up from her phone, blinking as if a trance had been broken. Maggie smiled darkly, “She does just as good a job with a glitter pen.”

Emma propped her elbow onto the dining table, watching her approach, “I noticed you weren’t home when I got back. I guess you’ve been busy.”

“I’m heading back in a bit,” she nodded somberly, “I just wanted to see you first,” she walked around the table to the coffee pot, already healthily perking. She poured out a mug, her knuckles white against the pot’s handle.

“Did you know them?” she asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably, a neat summary of her career as a mother, come to think of it.

“Not well,” Emma admitted, “They’re freshmen,” as if that explained the whole thing, and didn’t it? Her daughter was so grown, but in many ways she…all her friends…were still children.

At that age, you have a tribe. The strange fluidity of very early childhood fades too quickly: the idea that anybody can be your friend if you have a single pleasant chat, or play half a poorly thought out game.

Before enough time passes, though, the lines harden. You have your pack and you stick with it, where it’s familiar and safe, because these people are your people, they want what you want and like what you like and that’s all you need.

It’s safer, when with you’re with your own kind. Safer, yes, and suffocatingly limiting, but most of us don’t learn that until the terrible 20s.

“The girl,” Maggie returned to the table with her mug, sitting across from Emma, “Stacy, she was Zach’s neighbor.”

Emma nodded, “He told us last night, his Mom…” she grimaced, “Well, she found her.”

“I’m so relieved you weren’t alone,” she shook her head, “Even if it was at one of Brooke’s raves.”

“Nobody calls them ‘raves’ anymore, Mom,” Emma smiled patiently.

“Which I take to mean you left as sober as you came in?”

Emma shrugged, “I had one drink. And it wasn’t a happy one.”

Maggie frowned, “Did something happen?”

Emma eyed her over the lip of the mug: a blue affair, patterned with van Gogh’s sunflowers; Maggie had a whole set of them, mugs and dishes adorned with the artist’s flowers. A wedding present with more staying power than the marriage they’d been celebrating.

“Well, people died,” she said quietly, as if she knew the inadequacy of the answer. Maggie doubted she and her friends had been drinking a toast to their fallen peers.

“What about the parents?” Emma asked before Maggie could pry further.

“What?”

“It’s just the news made it sound like her parents weren’t…”

“It’s an active investigation, Emma,” Maggie said heavily, “You know I can’t comment on it.”

“But they are dead?”

Maggie pressed her lips together. Much as she’d like to roll her eyes at Eliza Taylor’s grandiose journalistic sensibilities, she wasn’t wrong: you sure as hell didn’t need a magic marker, a glitter pen, or any other stationery to link the two murdered teens on Kleinfeld Road to the dead adults Richard Steele had found locked in their car in a vacant lot 15 minutes from their date night locale with the engine running.

But you couldn’t make declarative statements in this line of work, not necessarily because you might be wrong, but because you might not be right enough.

“They’re dead,” she nodded.

“God,” Emma grimaced, “And what about Brock’s…”

“No, they’re alright. Clark had to break the news to them,” she twisted her mug around against the tabletop, “I don’t envy him. He had a sister, did you know? She can’t be more than 5 or 6. I can’t imagine…” but she stopped herself, squaring her shoulders, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.”

She shook her head, “I brought it up. It’s just…hard to think of something like that happening here,” she hesitated, as if remembering and added, somewhat guiltily, “Now. I guess it puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

Maggie eyed her carefully, “Tragedies have a habit,” she looked her daughter over, “Emma…” she cocked an eyebrow, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

She gave her a second look, as if caught off guard, her ears tinging pink, “It’s just high school drama, Mom.”

“If it’s bothering you, it isn’t just anything.”

“I’ll be alright,” she got to her feet, pressing a gentle kiss to her brow, “I promise.”

Maggie watched her shoulder her schoolbag, struck by the gulf of difference in her daughter. Last year, she’d headed out to school in faded jeans and gaily patterned blouses, her hair invariably bound with luridly colored scrunchies, backpack bounding between her narrow shoulder blades.

Looking at her today, her hair down to her mid-back, beige suede boots complementing a caramel-tone leather jacket, school things worn not over her back, but slung over her shoulder in something more resembling a designer handbag than a bookbag.

A cold shock, how quickly we want to grow up, until we’ve grown too much and realize just how much we missed on the way.

“Can I give you a lift?” she heard herself ask. Emma turned to her, visibly surprised, “Mom?”

“To school. I don’t mind,” she hesitated, “Unless Will is picking you up…”

“Not today,” there was a faraway sort of expression in her eyes, but Emma didn’t give her time to interrogate it, “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll see you later,” she hesitated, one hand on the door handle, “Good luck today.”

Something about that brought a smile to Maggie’s lips, “You too, honey,” she waved, taking another drink of her cooling coffee.

Emma was gone by the time she lowered the mug. Maggie felt the mug chilling between her palms as she listened to the purr of Emma’s car getting underway and tried not to think of the Carmichael family, reeling from the loss of their only son, a little girl learning that she’d never see her big brother again.

She would give anything not to go to that morgue today. To run out and keep her daughter from heading to school, just hole up with her here in the house and watch romcoms until the day was done.

To stop time, even if for just a little while.

A childish fantasy, and she hadn’t been a child in a very long time. People depended on her now, and she had to do right by them, whether she wanted to or not.

Maggie drained her mug and forced herself back to the present, telling herself that if her daughter could rally and face a difficult day ahead then so could she, who had accumulated much more life and many more reasons to be wary.

…who knew better, she told herself darkly, and stifled the thought in the cradle.

---

Not to be morbid or anything, but there was something pretty exciting about all this. Not that he could get away with saying that without sounding like a dangerous lunatic, but if people would just get over their knee-jerk tendency to go for the fainting couch at the slightest colorful remark, they’d be able to acknowledge that an active double (quadruple???) murder investigation unfolding in your school parking lot is unprecedented and, indeed, pretty dingle damned exciting.

There were squad cars flanking the school all along Post Road. Noah, who walked the relatively short distance from home, raised his hand in a cheeky salute at a tired-looking deputy.

“G’morning, officer,” he greeted, knowing that wasn’t the right title but wanting to keep the local badges on their toes in these trying times, “Catch anything?”

The deputy blinked through sleep-deprived eyes.

“You don’t want to search my bag or anything?” he asked, not bothering to hide his disappointment.

“You have something you want to show me, kid?”

“Well, there’s always a distinct possibility, and you can’t leave stones unturned at a time like this,” he began to unshoulder his bag, at which point he was quite literally strongarmed away from behind.

“Don’t mind him, Parker,” Amanda said casually, looping her arm through Noah’s, “He gets hyper around men in uniform.”

“Hey!” Noah protested, “That is not true.”

Amanda didn’t break her stride, leading him past her already parked truck across the steadily filling lot, “You wanted me to tell him you get unaccountably excited at the thought of dead people?”

“Also not at all true! I will claim a certain enthusiasm for the various formal and informal processes surrounding the creation and disposition of dead people…”

“That doesn’t sound much better.”

“And, anyway, you spoiled my punchline. I was gonna show him my old Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards, challenge him to a duel. It would’ve been funny.”

“Noah, people have gotten shot for less.”

“Hey, it’s not my problem if our public servants have twitchy fingers, but if they want to go the lawsuit route, my Mom’s been eying the Columbo box set…” but Amanda’s unflappable attention had a withering effect and he was not spared it. Sighing, he looked off down the lot, spotting another familiar face and flagging her down, “There’s my favorite surveyor of the human condition.”

Audrey alighted from her car, combat boots thudding lightly against the asphalt. She readjusted her backpack on one shoulder, fussing with the hand held video camera in her other hand.

The sight of her with the trusty accessory was oddly comforting, circumstances notwithstanding. Even the perpetual scowl she’d been wearing last night had given way to a more neutral state of confusion, which Noah could work with.

“What’s with all the cops?”

Amanda frowned, “You don’t know?” as Noah asked “What’s the camera for, then?” in almost the same breath.

Audrey shrugged, “I had this idea I’d turn the tables on the public humiliation gauntlet. Give the gawkers a taste of their own medicine.”

“How easily we all become content in this malcontent world.”

“Sure, something like that. Why are there cops everywhere?”

“You honestly don’t know?” Noah blinked.

Audrey looked at him flatly, “I’ve been on a media detox.”

“Two kids were killed last night,” said Amanda.

“Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael,” Noah interjected, “Freshmen. Stacy’s parents were found dead too, in ‘suspicious circumstances’,” he put up air quotes, “Crazy, right?”

Audrey, bone pale, switched off her camera, “Crazy,” she repeated flatly, “They don’t know who did it?” she looked at Amanda, which Noah reserved the right to feel put out about.

“Richard doesn’t talk about his cases,” Amanda pointed out, “I didn’t even see him this morning. I think he’s pulled an all-nighter. But if they have any leads, they aren’t saying.”

“They’ve gotta be chasing their tails,” Noah declared, eying Amanda out of the corner of his eye, “No offense.”

“I’m immune, Foster. Don’t worry about it.”

“Usually, when a girl’s killed, the first suspect’s the boyfriend, but Brock got it too…and pretty messily, if that footage they ripped off the news last night wasn’t just a really good Shop job. So, failing the boyfriend, the next likeliest is the father, but he’s dead too, and given what we know about how he and his wife died, it looks like they died first, and any Rube Goldberg device he cooked up to deal with the kids would’ve left a trace, so that rules out that…” he trailed off, realizing the looks on the girls’ faces.

“My enthusiasm for true crime podcasts is well documented,” he explained, admittedly defensively.

“Maybe try to curb that enthusiasm for the next few days, huh?” Amanda remarked wryly.

They continued across the parking lot toward school. George Washington High loomed over all, an austere cream-colored brick, its only concession to ornament the red and white sign bearing its name, and the somewhat sad-looking pennant hanging beneath, declaring it to be ‘Home of the Lancers!’ of which gallant knights in armor they were now two short.

The banner was currently serving as a strategically placed backdrop for a newscast in progress.

“I’m here at George Washington High School,” Eliza Taylor, Lakewood KLA, was telling the fine folks at home, “Where students are grappling with the harsh reality that, for two of their classmates, homeroom will never come again,” she turned her microphone to a scrawny, mop-headed boy in a scarlet hoodie emblazoned with the Element Skateboards decal, “Colin is one such student. Colin?”

Colin smiled broadly, “Yeah, um…it’s just really shocking, right? Like, I think of myself as a citizen of the world, and this is just…so shocking.”

“Shocking,” Eliza Taylor repeated, smile quite fixed.

“We’re told to love each other. Even here, in these very halls,” he gestured to the school behind him, “We’re taught to have love and respect for our fellow men. And women! And then something like this happens and…” he sighed, “it is just so sh…”

“Cut!” Eliza snapped, “Cut, Greg, thanks,” she waited for her cameraman to do the necessary action before turning back to her subject, “Okay, great job, kid, but for future reference, my eyes are up here…”

“Oh!” Colin nodded, “Right. Yeah, sorry. I was just so impressed with the dignity of your badge,” he indicated the press badge clipped to the reporter’s lapel.

“Sure you were. Okay, again from the top…Greg!”

“There is one bright side,” Noah remarked as they headed up the steps to the entrance.

“What’s that?” Audrey asked, casting a distasteful eye back at the news setup.

“Nobody’s gonna be talking about that video.”

---

Nina cruised her Benz to a gentle stop in her customary place. This spot was prize real estate and, like most of life’s conveniences, deceptively hard won.

For a few moments after cutting the engine, she sat at the wheel, removing her sunglasses and caustically eying the police vehicles parked at odd intervals around the parking lot, the news van idling at an awkward angle near the entrance. Kids chattering in hushed, guiltily excited tones as they milled past. She spotted more than one of the littler ones crying. A knot of freshmen girls were huddled up outside the just arrived school bus, heads together and arms around quaking shoulders, like a group of dusty black and white war widows in a Social Studies picture.

She had the morbid thought that those girls were young enough still to find some comfort in grieving together. Give or take a year and they’d end up in that wide, empty gulf between preteen and war widow, where the only thing your fellow woman can give you is validation, and even that at a premium.

“Don’t worry,” a hand on her shoulder, “They’re not for you.”

Nina let out a sharp gasp, whirling around so quickly her high ponytail slapped her in the face halfway through the circuit, “What?”

Tyler’s sardonic smile, already pretty faint, faded, “The cops. In case you were worried.”

“Classy, Tyler,” she rolled her eyes, stepping out of the car to join him. She cut an impressive figure today, she didn’t mind noting: white pleated pants and a black-and-navy beaded top that glittered in the sun. Tyler, she observed without much pleasure, looked like shit. His clothes were unironed, his hair uncombed and his eyes, usually his most appealing feature, were red and sleepless.

“We have to talk,” he informed her, quickening his pace to keep up with her customary stride.

“That’s funny. You didn’t seem all that interested in what I had to say before…”

“I don’t care about you and Jake!”

“There is no ‘me and Jake’, Tyler, and if you had even a speck of respect for me, you’d take my word for it over an ex-fundie paraplegic with a bitch gripe…”

He grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to face him, “Gemma’s back.”

The low hum of chatter…excited, distressed, giddy and frightened…muted at once. Nina met Tyler’s bloodshot eyes, “Gemma?”

“Turned up last night,” his voice was quiet, deadly serious.

Nina pulled away from him, “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Don’t you think we have enough paper trails, Nina?”

She turned from him, holding up a hand to silence him. She felt short of breath, and her heart was pounding urgently against her ribs.

Stay calm, she told herself, ordered herself, Take it easy. You can handle this. You handled it before. You’ve handled so much before.

“I thought you took care of her,” she said finally, “That’s what you told me. That you took care of her.”

“I thought I had!” he exclaimed.

“Well, you thought wrong, obviously,” she scoffed, holding a hand to her mouth, “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“She was gone when I woke up!”

“She was in the house?”

He held up a finger, a ‘shushing’ noise hissing its way out of his mouth, though it died on his lips when he got a load of her face.

“Yes,” he said finally, “She took advantage of our folks being out of town and moved herself in.”

“You let her in?”

“She’s not a fucking vampire, Nina! I couldn’t just nail some garlic to the door and hope for the best.”

“What are you even doing here? You should be looking for her.”

“Fucking where, Nina?” he demanded, “Any bright ideas?” he waited half a second and, not receiving an immediate answer, nodded as if satisfied, “I figured I’d better let you know. As a courtesy.”

“Thank you kindly,” she said acidly, “If she’s back, you know what she’s after.”

“Do I?” he asked darkly.

“Don’t fuck around with me, Tyler…”

“Ditto,” he leaned in, “I told you last night, Nina, I’m with you. For better or worse. I’m in it now, sink or swim. So if there’s something you’re not telling me…”

A soft screech of tires on asphalt as a new vehicle pulled up a few stops away. Nina pressed her finger to Tyler’s lips, so forcefully he winced. His jawline was prickly with stubble…he’d forgotten to shave, poor baby.

“We’ll finish this later,” she told him, indicating with her eyes the truck that had just arrived on the lot, the word ‘SHERIFF’ printed on its side in huge letters, white on black, “In private.”

Tyler followed her gaze, mouth tightening into a line, “Together, Nina. We’re in it together,” as if he were stating their mission statement or some shit.

“Sure, Tyler,” she turned on her heel, “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours,” her lips curled, “And that’s one to grow on.”

His face slackened at the reminder, anger warring with something like nausea. Nina turned on her heel and continued toward school, clutching the straps of her bag with lethal force and trying with all she possessed not to look back at those girls crying by the bus, grieving and shattered…together in their brokenness, but broken all the same.

---

“Well,” Clark declared with a sort of defeated grandiosity as they glided to a regulation-perfect stop, “This is it.”

Kieran looked out the truck’s driver’s side window at the unforgiving edifice of the high school, not made any cheerier by all the uniformed police milling around in front.

“I know the circumstances aren’t ideal,” Clark was saying, “But you’ll have a good first day. I know it. We’ve got some good folks here,” he must’ve seen Kieran’s expression in his reflection and sighed, “You’ll be perfectly safe. And if you need anything…”

He trailed off, following the persistent clicking sound to the backseat, where Deanna was determinedly struggling with the door. Kieran sighed, reaching over to the lock and undoing it from his side. Deanna promptly opened the door and practically face planted onto the asphalt in her haste to get out into the fresh air.

“What happened?” Clark asked, “Is she okay? I…”

“She has a thing about cars,” Kieran explained evenly. Clark nodded as if he understood, but his brow furrowed, “But you drove her here from Atlanta.”

“I must be a better driver,” he observed, stepping out after his sister, who was waiting a few steps away, looking up at the school warily. He put a light hand on her shoulder, gave her a reassuring smile that she didn’t return, pulling her hood up, despite the climbing heat of the morning.

“Kieran…” Clark moved around the truck to them.

“I’ve got it from here,” Kieran told him.

“I can’t at least show you in?”

He indicated the doors, a few paces away, “I think we can manage the journey.”

Clark deflated, “I’ll be back to pick you up, alright?”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“You can’t walk.”

“If I’d driven my truck, I wouldn’t have had to…”

A car horn blared. A pristine white Mustang had pulled up dangerously short of Clark’s bumper.

“Yo!” the driver, an olive-skinned youth wearing a gold chain, stuck his head out the window, “Nobody blocks the Behem…” he clapped his eyes on Clark and promptly clammed up, “My fault,” rolling up his window and performing the automotive equivalent of trotting off with his tail between his legs, reversing in search of a new spot.

“Perks of the badge,” Clark commented with a dry laugh that dissipated when he realized Kieran was stony as ever, “I understand this is an adjustment for you, son. It is for me too and I don’t want to upset you…”

“Fat chance of that.”

“There is a killer on the loose.”

“Then shouldn’t you be out looking for him?” Kieran cocked an eyebrow, “You do your job…” he rested his hand back on Deanna’s shoulder, “I can do mine.”

Clark opened his mouth as if to rebut, but his attention drifted past Kieran, his eyes narrowing, “Aw, c’mon…”

The new object of his ire was a busty, blazer-clad television personality currently wrapping up an interview with a curly-haired kid who evidently couldn’t believe his luck.

“Alright, kid, good work,” the reporter was saying, “You can catch yourself at 6:00…”

“Sweet.”

“…barring new breaking news, of course.”

“What’s bigger news than four dead people?”

“A fifth,” the reporter smirked, catching Clark out of the corner of her eye, “Howdy, Sheriff.”

“You wanna tell me what…”

“Eliza Taylor!” a voice that could only be described as ‘strident’ heralded the arrival of a compact middle-aged Black woman in a peach-colored pantsuit; she marched out of the school’s front doors, sensible shoes clacking against the front steps, zeroing in on her quarry with the single-minded tenacity of a hungry shark.

“Vice Principal Kellerman,” Eliza Taylor smiled thinly, “Long time no see.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve obtained parental consent to interview this boy?”

“No, it’s cool, VPK,” the kid interjected, “We talked it over…”

“You said you were 18!” Eliza protested.

“You asked if I was ‘legal’, which I am…to get married. It’s true, check Louisiana legal code…”

“That’ll be all, Mr. Gable,” Kellerman said curtly. The kid didn’t hesitate, skipping the school steps two at a time, flashing deuces as he vanished through the doors.

“Next time you’d like to turn my students into media grist, Ms. Taylor, please send an email. You’ll find it’s the same address you remember.”

Eliza shirked her lips, “I’ll keep it in mind. C’mon, Greg, before we get done in for loitering.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” Greg, the cameraman, asked, “What is the marrying age in this state? It can’t be under 18?”

“There isn’t one,” Clark answered.

Eliza gave him a disparaging look as if this was his fault, “It’s a fucked up world, Greg.”

Vice Principal Kellerman watched the journalist and her cameraman pile into the news van parked at the other end of the lot, “She used to write for the school paper. Wrote some scorching exposes on the origins of the cafeteria food.”

“What was wrong with it?” Clark asked.

“I’m not sure that was ever settled,” she looked them all over, appearing to take in Kieran and Deanna for the first time. Kieran, who had begun pondering the merits of just grabbing Dee’s arm and going on inside while Clark was watching the free entertainment, cursed his sluggishness.

“Oh, um…” Clark remembered himself, “Vice Principal, these are…”

“Kieran and Deanna,” Kellerman finished for him, “We’ve been expecting you, of course. It’s not a great day for welcomes, but…” she extended a hand, “Welcome to George Washington High.”

Kieran shook hands gingerly, having accumulated enough life experience to know the local warden when he met them, “Ma’am,” he said, not knowing what else to say, and somewhat relishing the perplexed look on Clark’s face as he apparently exceeded all expectations by not treating this authority figure like stoat stool.

Satisfied, Kellerman turned her attention to Deanna, who eyed her hand as if it were radioactive. Kieran was spared having to explain his sister wasn’t racist, merely suffering from a deluxe undiagnosed PTSD sampler, as Dee defied Kieran’s expectations by very gingerly shaking the woman’s hand.

“I was just showing them in,” Clark began, “To get them all set up…”

“That’s quite alright, Sheriff,” Kellerman interrupted him, “I can take them from here.”

Clark blinked, “Oh. Well, if…if you’d rather.”

“It is good you’re here, however,” she continued in the same businesslike manner.

“Something I can help with?”

She looked him over, “The principal would like to see you,” and turned on her heel before she could see the contortions the sheriff’s face went through, indicating to Kieran and Deanna with a quick flick of her wrist, “With me. Just a few stops and I’ll have you settled.”

She started on through the doors at the same healthy stride with which she’d come out, not looking back once to make sure they were following.

Kieran gave Deanna a shrug, squeezing her shoulder with a sly smile. Deanna met his eyes, her expression darkened by the same haunted uncertainty she’d worn since they’d gotten the call back in Atlanta, that there’d been an accident and they’d have to race to the ER as quick as possible because, well, there just wasn’t a lot of time.

“You two have a good day, right?” Clark asked behind them, “Good luck.”

“Right back at ya,” Kieran replied thinly, leading his sister on inside.

---

Derek’s hand shook on his combination lock. No specific reason this time, except the usual nerves, not at all helped by the extra excitement around school this morning. He’d always been bad with lockers anyway. It had taken him two weeks to open his on his first try back in freshman year.

No knowing what exactly he was supposed to be afraid of, just the sense that he should be scared because there were plenty of people around who’d take great joy in making him so. Self-fulfilling prophecy it may have been, but smart as he may be, he’d never figured out the off-ra…

“Guess who’s famous?”

Derek shrieked at the tap on his shoulder, reeling backward and taking his newly opened locker with him, the metal clanging against its scarlet neighbors. He struggled to catch his breath, shaking his tousled hair from his eyes, “Colin!”

“Sorry, dude,” Colin grinned, “Forgot how wound up you get.”

“What do you mean famous?” he asked, trying to ignore the snickers from his classmates at either end of the hall. Colin, no stranger to snickers himself, nonetheless never seemed particularly bothered by them, despite these all being upperclassmen and, theoretically, more intimidating for a sophomore like him.

Must be nice.

“Just that I’m gonna be on the 6:00 news.”

“Why? What happened? What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Colin snickered, “That chick from the news was outside. She asked me about those kids who were killed. I told her it sucked.”

“Did you know them?” Derek frowned.

Colin shrugged, “No. Still sucks.”

“You’re pretty bold,” Derek smiled guiltily.

“Coping mechanism for the glass skeleton,” he folded his bony arms, propping one red and white skate shoe against someone’s locker.

“I guess I’m jealous.”

“Don’t talk too soon, man, my boundless personality’s bound to cinch my sack eventually. Hey, sorry I lost you at the party last night,” the speed with which he pivoted to this point indicated he’d probably been agonizing about the best way to bring it up and had just decided to rip the rhetorical band-aid off, “Wish I had a cool explanation, but I just passed out. What’d I miss?”

“Not much,” Derek smiled abashedly, “I got wet.”

“My, man!” Colin nudged him in the side, “Take my eyes off you for five minutes and you unleash the beast…”

“From the pool,” Derek clarified, face heating up.

“Skinny dipping?”

“Fully clothed. There was a fight and I got…” he shrugged, “Splashed,” his fingers tapped frenetically against his belt, “Caught in the crossfire, I guess.”

“Story of our lives,” Colin shrugged, “Anybody I know?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Derek looked furtively up and down the hallway, feeling a little silly as he was doing it…like a spy out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Not that he expected anybody to take notice of him. The day’s main characters had already been elected, and they didn’t even have to show up.

Still, his newly minted friendship with Colin made him feel somewhat self-conscious, like a dirty secret.

“I know I wasn’t sure about going to the party, but I’m glad I let you convince me.”

Colin brightened visibly, “Music to my virgin ears.”

“I may not have had fun…”

“To be honest, I don’t think anybody at these things has ‘fun’. It’s like chain-smoking and binge-eating, at a certain point, you’re just trying to silence the voices…”

“I have an idea,” Derek interrupted, feeling that if he didn’t get the thought out, he’d lose courage and, well, silence his own guilty, urgent voice, “I think I know how we can get to her.”

Colin’s eyes widened, a certain feline slyness creeping into his previously slackened grin, “No shit?”

“Not a whiff,” he offered a guilty smile of his own, “It’s actually painfully obvious, it was staring me right in the face. I don’t know why it didn’t click for me before…”

“But it clicked now,” Colin pointed out, “That’s the important part,” he bounced on the balls of his feet, “Think you’re good to share it with the class?”

“I’ve never been a great public speaker.”

“None of that, D,” Colin chided, “I told you, didn’t I, that we’re gonna bring out the best in each other, and look at us us now…” he leaned in conspiratorially, eyes twinkling, “Making splashes wherever we go.”

Derek laughed with him, guiltily, reluctantly…he couldn’t help it. Colin may have been younger than him, shorter and even (if you could believe it) scrawnier, but you couldn’t argue with his enthusiasm, and his belief that, somehow, despite everything, guys like him…guys like them…could still come out on top.

The homeroom bell rang, slicing through the hum of excited chatter. Colin nodded, “Later, okay?”

“Later,” Derek agreed, “Same place?”

“Same Bat-time,” Colin held out a fist.

Derek returned the fist bump, meeting his unlikely friend’s eyes, “Same Bat-channel.”

“Sweet. If we make it quick, you’ll be able to catch my close-up,” he sauntered off backward down the hall, lifting a hand in salute as he shuffled toward the stairs and out of sight.

Derek snickered softly to himself, grabbing his Physics book from his locker and slamming it shut observing that, for now at least, his hand was steady as a surgeon’s.

---

Homeroom had been a predictably dour affair, seasoned with a PA announcement from the Vice Principal providing a dour matter-of-fact assessment of their local tragedy, touching on the profound shared sense of grief they were all feeling at this violent and senseless theft of two peers in their prime, etc. etc.

This profound sense of grief manifested in myriad ways, such as the conferral of celebrity status on anybody with even the barest connection to the two murdered freshmen.

“She was still there?” Jake asked, mouth splitting into a vaguely grotesque leer, “Dude.”

“She couldn’t exactly walk away, could she?” Brooke asked cuttingly, glaring at him across the empty desk between them.

“She was,” Zach clarified from the seat behind her, “I mean, her body. They were carrying her away.”

“What’d she look like?”

Zach gave his friend a look, “I dunno…dead.”

“It was awful,” said Riley, who lived a few doors down from Zach, “They had her covered her up, but you could see her hand…”

“Okay,” Emma interrupted, shaking her head, “We get it.”

“Em, your Mom cuts up dead people, right?” Jake leaned over precariously, “She know anything?”

She gave him a look, “We don’t really talk autopsies over breakfast.”

“I can’t get over it,” Riley said distantly, “They were right there, on our block, and nobody did anything…I was talking to Bridget before, she says her Mom thinks she passed her in her car. She thought she was a squirrel.”

“That’s the Kitty Genovese effect for you,” Noah, sitting two desks ahead of Riley, leaned back.

“Seeing squirrels?” asked Brooke tersely, “Or butting into other peoples’ conversations?”

“Technically, this is more of a forum than a conversation,” he gestured broadly, “Classroom setting. Isn’t that right, Mr. B?”

Mr. Branson looked up from his paperback (Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, a cheery-looking volume) and, without rising from his desk, gestured with a pen to the clock on the wall, “Two minutes, Noah.”

“Thank you, Mr. Branson,” Brooke smiled chummily, turning back to Noah, “I know boundaries are a challenge, but try keeping your butt to yourself.”

“You want to talk about boundaries, Brooke?” Audrey barked from the back row. Brooke looked over her shoulder and painted on one of her trademark catty smiles. Against her better judgment, Emma looked back as well, but Audrey was pointedly not looking her way.

It felt stupid to be dithering about the video now, but she couldn’t shake the weight off. Big shock: all this talk about dead people wasn’t helping matters.

“Kitty Genovese,” said Riley faintly, looking over at Noah, “That’s, like, the bystander effect, right?”

“Exactly!” Noah jabbed an excited finger, “Am I in the conversation now?”

Riley made a permissive gesture. Brooke sighed theatrically, becoming very absorbed with her phone.

“The Bystander Effect,” Noah continued, gesticulating broadly with his hands, “It’s the principle…well, it’s more of a phenomenon, really…that when we see or hear bad things happening to other people, our first tendency is to ignore them as a defense mechanism.”

“Who is we?” Brooke asked icily.

“Everyone,” Noah clarified, “Most people, at least.”

“So you’re saying if you heard some girl getting killed down the street, you wouldn’t do anything?”

“No!” Noah blurted, “I mean…”

“Oh, what, you’re special somehow?”

“I mean, I’m not saying I’m exempt…”

“My Mom was in the tub,” Zach pointed out defensively, “That’s why she didn’t do anything.”

“You tryna talk shit about Zach’s Mom, Foster?” Jake challenged.

“No, I’m not, I’m sure she’s a lovely person…”

The bell rang.

“Longest two minutes of my life,” Mr. B declared.

“Hyperbowl!” Brooke declared with a snap of her fingers, “Exaggeration.”

“Close enough,” Riley smiled as Colin raced over Room 201’s threshold, nearly colliding with the now-standing Mr. B as he did.

“Made it!” he declared, “I did, you all saw. The reverb was still in the air.”

“I’ll allow it,” Mr. B said gamesomely, gesturing with his omnipresent four-color pen to Colin’s desk near the back of the room.

“Alright, that was the bell and you are mine for the next 45 minutes,” kitted out in skinny khakis and a salmon-colored shirt with the sleeves rolled exactly up to his elbows, Branson affected the air of a hip grad student out of some New England coastal enclave, “Now, I know there’s a lot of anxiety today…no, Noah…”

Noah, who had raised his hand, just as swiftly lowered it.

“…and, while those feelings are valid, they shouldn’t supersede…that’s an SAT word, note it…your anxiety about the Gatsby papers which, I have to say…Noah, I know what you’re going to say…”

“Then you understand, don’t you, Mr. B, what an eerily serendipitous moment this is? Like, scarily serendipitous?”

Branson blinked, “The thought did occur to me. But even so…”

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Branson.”

“…no worries, Vice Principal,” the English teacher pivoted on his heel naturally as an actor on a stage, leaning with over-affected ease against the plaster bust of Edgar Allan Poe on his desk, “I’d barely gotten started.”

Vice Principal Kellerman smiled tautly in the doorway, “You’re short a student, and it’s on my account,” she indicated a boy behind her, though ‘boy’ hardly seemed the correct descriptor.

The, er, ‘young man’ behind Kellerman was six feet if he was an inch, with visible facial hair and, if the contouring beneath his rumpled gray henley was any judge, solid pectorals. He looked out over the vice principal’s shoulder with a wary, somewhat detached expression that likely came from nerves, but on a face like his, came off just as well as the detached indifference of a lone gunslinger riding into town at dusk.

“This is Kieran Wilcox,” Kellerman introduced him, “He comes to us from Atlanta…”

“FALCONS SUCK!” Jake bellowed into cupped hands.

“…detention, Fitzgerald,” and, in the same breath, “Impress him with your comradeship…” she looked over at them all, lips pursed, “and surprise me with the same.”

With that, she took her leave. Kieran raised his eyebrows in a halfhearted manner, looking at Mr. Branson, who nodded, “Welcome. Grab a seat anywhere.”

“There’s a free one here!” Brooke declared, too quickly, indicating the vacant desk between her and Jake.

“That’s Will’s!” Jake protested.

“Will isn’t here, is he?” Brooke pointed out, turning to Mr. Branson, “You snooze you lose, isn’t that right, Mr. B?”

Branson grimaced, “So the saying goes. Please, have a seat, Kieran.”

Kieran obliged, appearing gracefully oblivious to all their eyes tracking him to his spot. As he sat, Emma got a faint whiff of tobacco off him…cigarettes. Brooke wrinkled up her nose as well, but her enthusiasm for the coup was undistilled as she shot Riley and Emma a wink.

Kieran sank into his seat, aloof in the face of Jake’s glowering. Behind him, Zach waved, “Hi. You guys really pulled it out on us last month. Not gonna lie. And last year. And the year before that. And before that.”

Kieran looked over his shoulder and Zach’s friendly smile faltered, “The Falcons.”

“Without further ado…” Mr. Branson announced with the zeal of one fighting a losing battle against ado, “Gatsby,” he picked up a stack of essays, the red pen scrawls on them legible from two rows back, “I want to be moderate in my reaction but, seriously, guys, what the heck?”

There was a short, awkward silence. Noah raised his hand and was ignored.

“Riffing off the movie…that, I expected. I’m not a total rube. Calling the protagonist ‘Spider-Man’ was obviously a deliberate provocation…”

Colin shrugged dramatically.

“…but the sheer numbness of this analysis. On a collective level,” he cast his eyes around the classroom in mute appeal, framed in backlight from the touchboard behind him, currently idling on a blown-up JPEG of Gatsby’s iconic weeping blue woman.

“I thought my analysis was pretty good,” said Brooke.

Branson had no comment, “This novel wasn’t written for ivory tower academics, guys. It was written and mass published for an audience of regular people to enjoy. It’s not inaccessible!”

Zach raised his hand, “Um. Maybe it was accessible. 100 years ago.”

“90, and that’s…” he paused, “That may seem like a long time, guys, but it really isn’t. The themes of this novel are still very relevant. I would say, in some cases, frighteningly so, and the fact that a stunning number of you didn’t even begin to approach anything the story was about…Noah?”

Noah, who had for the last few moments, been positioned like he’d been given the charades prompt ‘hail a taxi’, launched into action, “So I have a theory.”

“You have a few,” Branson granted.

“All of which spring from a Grand Unified Theory…” he trailed off expectantly. Branson sighed, “Which is?”

“The reason our generation doesn’t click with the so-called Classics.”

“Because they’re boring,” Jake raised his hand.

“I liked Pride and Prejudice,” Riley commented defensively.

“Interactivity!” Noah announced, “Or a lack of it,” he shrugged, “I mean, yes, Mr. B, it is perfidious and maybe depraved that so many of us based our whole experience of the story off the movie…”

“Depraved?” Brooke echoed, aghast.

“But it’s not that surprising, is it? Through no fault of our own, we’ve been subjected to constant stimulation since before we could talk.”

“Nice,” Colin said languidly.

“Our attention spans have been sandblasted by a lifetime of TV, video games, YouTube videos, and that’s not even getting started on memes. Stacked up against the sound and fury, the old fashioned written word doesn’t stand a chance.”

“What about audio books?” asked Riley.

“But that’s the thing! You can manipulate the audio book! You can listen to it at the store, on the bus, when you’re doing homework…you can even make it play faster! Sure, you’re probably gonna miss most of the book, but that doesn’t matter, because the book is still being consumed!” he looked around expectantly, “But that’s not enough, is it? We don’t read because reading isn’t as colorful, it’s not as loud…you can’t game it the way you can game other media.”

“Game it…how?” Mr. Branson cocked an eyebrow.

“The way you can keep Netflix playing in another tab while you’re on Amazon in the next. You can listen to a podcast while you’re playing a video game…speaking of video games…” he leaned forward as if just remembering, “It doesn’t get more interactive, right? You’re in the driver’s seat…or the gaming chair, if you will…guiding the story. I mean think about what games are able to do now…like The Last of Us…”

“Oh, dude, that was crazy,” interjected Zach, “That first cutscene, with his daughter…”

“It’s not a cutscene! It’s playable!” Noah snapped.

“Sorry, I just saw it online.”

“But that’s the thing. It functions the same way as a prologue in a novel, right? Think of A Song of Ice and Fire…”

“Jee-zus Christ,” Jake yawned monstrously.

“…where the prologue in each book introduces you to the world through a character that ends up dying at the end. By the time you get to Book 2, you know the score, but you keep reading anyway, and maybe you even get invested in the character, and then they die. The Last of Us took that convention and made it into a game…they make you play the doomed character. How much more personal can you get? And that’s the thing…” he spread his arms, “A book is static. They can’t be changed, they can’t be influenced, and even though you can interpret them anyway you want…you can’t shape them. We work for the book…”

“But video games work for you?” Branson prompted.

“But you can’t control everything in a video game,” Riley pointed out, “Like, in The Last of Us, yes, you can play the guy’s daughter, but you can’t save her. It’s still the same as the prologues in Game of Thrones.”

“A Song of Ice and Fire,” Noah corrected, “But yes. Sure…but we still have the illusion of choice. And for our pitiful monkey brains…that’s enough.”

He let this sink in for a brief moment. Colin was tapping his desk with his pen. Brooke was twining a lock of hair around her finger, tapping the heel of one strappy sandal against the red-and-white tiles.

“Which brings us to my solution,” Noah continued after a presumably sufficient dramatic pause, “The way to bring books back to the people is by making them interactive. And what’s the best way to do that?” he beamed, quite chuffed with himself, “By making them personal. Taking the book and applying it to the reader’s life…”

Mr. Branson opened his mouth to remark on this, but Noah had gained too much steam to stop for anything now, “Take my Gatsby paper, for example. Perfect synthesis of the novel, applied to my experience to create an analysis both cogent and, given recent events…”

“Scarily serendipitous?” Branson echoed.

Noah spread his arms as if to challenge anyone to declare that it wasn’t which, of course, nobody had the bandwidth to attempt.

“You did choose a…unique reference point,” Branson conceded.

“What, um…” Riley piped up, looking around the room as if to confirm she was seriously the only one engaging with this, “What reference point?”

Mr. B deferred to his star pupil, “Take it away.”

There was a collective sigh and much shifting of bodies in their seats. Noah wresting control of class was hardly unprecedented and, in fact, fairly habitual when it came to English. Emma wasn’t sure if this was because they were uniquely bad (she did read the book, and she personally thought she’d made some pretty cogent points in her paper, but whatever) or if Noah was uniquely…unique.

“So,” Noah began authoritatively, “My analysis…” jazz hands, “Careless People: A Tale of Two Daisies- Violence and Retribution in the The Great Gatsby and the Brandon James slayings,” he paused, adding as if he’d forgotten, “A retrospective.”

For a few moments, nobody said anything. A few people sighed audibly. Jake had already wedged his phone between two pages of a notebook so he could scroll relatively undisturbed.

“Great timing, Noah,” Audrey commented.

“The perils of hyperfixations,” Noah intoned, “Every now and then they become relevant.”

“Wait,” Emma leaned forward, not sure she understood, “You made your Great Gatsby paper about Brandon James?”

“Your incredulity is warranted and even anticipated, but if you’d let me explain…” Noah stopped, “But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot we have noobs…respectfully, Mr. B…”

“No, it’s fine, I think the four paragraphs you dedicated to Chapter 2: Historical Context was sufficient to catch me up…”

“And Atlanta guy!” he whirled around to Kieran in the desk behind him, “You don’t know who Brandon James is, do you?”

Kieran blinked, “Is he from a movie?”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” remarked Branson.

“So Brandon James used to live here,” Noah began, “In Lakewood. He was a student at this school, back in the ’90s. He was an outcast, bullied a lot…”

“Why?” asked Kieran, either invested or humoring Noah, who could say?

“He was retarded,” explained Brooke airily.

“He had Proteus Syndrome,” Noah clarified testily.

Zach frowned, “Isn’t that when the doctor sticks his hand up your…”

“Not prostate: Proteus!” Noah snapped, “It’s a type of facial deformity. Like the Elephant Man.”

Colin laughed unevenly, “Classic pull.”

“Shunned and disdained by his fellow man, Brandon became a ticking time bomb and it was only a matter of time before he made like a bomb and…” he slammed his palm down on his desk. Several people flinched, Emma included.

“Like Columbine?” Kieran asked warily.

“Yes, but we had those guys beat by five years.”

“Hurray for us,” said Brooke flatly.

“On Halloween night, 1994, Brandon had enough. He put on this mask…a plastic mold that the doctors had taken of his face. In costume, he was able to show up at the school Halloween party without being noticed. He killed five people there…the jocks who made his life hell, and their girlfriends. A sixth person was attacked but survived, and the jury’s out whether more bodies would’ve piled up if it wasn’t for the subject of my thesis…Daisy.”

Audrey chuckled humorlessly in the back of the room, “Nice, Noah.”

“It isn’t as superficial as it seems! So, Daisy was this nickname Brandon had, for a girl he was crushing on.”

“Allegedly,” Audrey butted in, without particular zeal, “Nobody really knows if they had a relationship or if it was just him projecting.”

“Daisy helped the police with a sting. She sent him a letter, arranging to meet up with him at the pier down at Wren Lake…so they could ‘talk’. Brandon agreed and walked into the trap. The cops ambushed him, he got shot and…” he lowered his hand over the side of the desk, whistling to approximate a splash, “His body was never found.”

“Probably ’cause his head was so big,” snickered Jake.

“That’s lovely,” said Audrey, “Really classy, Fitzgerald.”

“He killed a bunch of people!”

“People who probably never missed a chance to say his head was big.”

Jake grimaced, turning away from her in his seat.

“He’s sort of a ghost story these days,” Noah continued, “Maybe less so in the creepypasta era, but when we were kids…”

“Okay, Noah, I think you’ve caught us up to speed,” Mr. Branson consulted the clock over the door, neatly sandwiched between two Lakeshore Learning posters about Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather, “So, while we still have time, back to Gatsby…”

“But I haven’t gotten to the point yet!”

“There was a serial killer and you think he’s cool,” said Brooke, “Point.”

“He’s not a serial killer, that’s a common misconception. The victims were all killed in the same night, so he’s a mass murderer.”

“They must be so relieved.”

“The connection between Gatsby, Brandon James…” he paused, “And maybe even us, today, now: Daisy.”

Branson folded his arms, leaning against the desk, “Daisy Buchanan? From the book?”

“And Brandon’s Daisy. Whatever his real relationship with her was, she was to him as Daisy was to Gatsby. It’s in Chapter 4…”

“It was indeed,” Branson smirked a little, as if amused despite his better judgment.

“To Gatsby and Brandon, Daisy represented something bigger than herself. She was the life they could’ve had if things had gone differently. If Gatsby hadn’t gone to war, Daisy wouldn’t have married Tom; and if Brandon hadn’t been born the way he was, if he hadn’t been a pariah, he and his Daisy might’ve had a chance…”

“But Gatsby had a choice,” Riley pointed out, “He could’ve proposed to Daisy before he went to Europe.”

“That’s entrapment,” said Brooke, “SAT word!” looking to Branson as if for validation.

“Maybe, but if he was as serious about Daisy as he kept saying, he could’ve tried.”

“But she married that other dude,” said Jake, “She didn’t want to wait.”

“You read the book?” Branson demanded, “You didn’t even submit a paper!”

Jake ignored this, “Why does the dude always have to step up? If she wanted to wait for him, she could’ve done that.”

“I stand corrected, Jake,” Brooke commented, “No way you hooked up with Nina with that attitude.”

“Thank you…” Jake began before realizing what she was saying, “Hey!”

“What I’m saying is Gatsby had all this privilege,” said Riley, “He had money and power to have whatever he wanted. But Brandon James didn’t have anything.”

“But all Gatsby wanted was Daisy,” said Noah, “And he couldn’t buy her, just like Brandon couldn’t make Daisy return his feelings…”

“But why should she have returned his feelings?” Emma asked more sharply than she’d intended, “She didn’t know him. He wasn’t entitled to anything.”

Several people looked at her with varying degrees of discomfort. Noah cleared his throat audibly, “Well, I didn’t say…”

“No, I think Emma has a good point,” said Audrey coolly, “Nobody owes love to anybody.”

“Except for your kids,” said Zach, “If you have kids.”

“That’s negotiable too,” said Brooke, “If we’re being real.”

“But that’s the main question,” said Noah, “In the book, Daisy might love Gatsby…but she belongs with Tom. Nick says it…he calls them…”

“Careless people,” Mr. Branson quoted, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

“Tom and Daisy are cut from the same cloth. She could’ve been happy with Gatsby…she wanted to be happy with him, but in the end, she was from Tom’s world and she liked it there. It didn’t matter who got hurt…or who died, even…she was with Tom because she was Tom. She was careless and greedy and didn’t mind hurting people so she could feel good. It’s the same with Brandon’s Daisy. Whatever she may have felt for him, even if she pitied him…she couldn’t ever relate to him because she wouldn’t let herself. It was easier to stick with her team.”

“Her team?” Emma asked, “What, you mean her friends who were killed?”

Noah blinked at her, “Well…”

“Just because they were…mean to him or whatever…”

“Or ‘whatever’?” Audrey prompted.

“…doesn’t mean they deserved to be killed!” Emma finished, “So, what, they were cruel, and that made it okay for him to be cruel back?”

“It’s not about what’s ‘okay’,” Noah insisted, “It’s about what happened…”

“What happened was five people got killed, and the sixth was hurt so badly he was never the same,” she was shaking and she hated herself for it, for getting so upset when she really had no right and no business, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” said Brooke tightly, “I don’t think you have anything to apologize for,” she turned accusatory eyes, not at Noah in the row ahead, but at Audrey, well to the back, “Except going too heavy on the apologies.”

“Noah’s not saying anybody deserved anything,” said Audrey.

“That’s right!” said Noah, “I wasn’t. Sorry, I should’ve opened with that…”

“But hurt people hurt people, don’t they, Brooke? You’ve got to have seen an affirmation to that effect on someone’s Pinterest.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes, “I prefer Insta.”

Audrey scoffed, rolling her eyes, “It’s not a bad point, though, is it? It maybe falters near the end…”

“Okay, thanks,” said Noah.

“But when given a choice between building bridges with people or kicking them when they’re down, the kickers are gonna kick. Every time.”

Branson considered, “What this tells me more than anything is that you guys really could be putting more effort into your work, because this…” he gestured broadly around the room, “Whatever it was? I want more of it. Now, please, before the bell, just some notes on the themes of greed and decadence in the novel…completely divorced from any real dead people. If you’d just open your notebooks…”

Emma obliged, thankfully turning to the comparative safety of a blank sheet of lined paper, trying not to think of Audrey’s cold stare at the back of her neck, or the matter-of-fact, urgent refrain echoing in her head…

Hurt people hurt people…smashing then up and then retreating into their carelessness, to the safety of their big comfy houses, be they in East Egg, Long Island, or Lakewood, Louisiana.

---

For all Mr. B’s worrying, Noah’s sideshow spectacular wrapped up with ample time for a lukewarm aftershow to the effect of they really had to get better about engaging with the material because he knew they had the stuff, you guys, and if it did help them to consider their favorite video games or child murderers to bring the heroes of American literature to life, then by gum, give it a shot because, really, I know this is Louisiana, but we have to hold ourselves to some standard, even if nobody else will, right?

As it happened, Brooke quite agreed.

She lingered at her desk after the bell rang, placating Riley’s questioning glance with a pleasant ‘Spell me no questions’ smile which she knew, however well cast, wouldn’t work for long.

None of her other friends paid her much mind. Jake had already bolted for the exit, jumping up so he could slap the top of the doorframe as he went. Emma had her arms folded and head on the floor, like she’d been put into timeout, which was mildly distressing but unsurprising given the inquisition they’d just been subjected to.

She couldn’t say what Zach had been doing, unfortunately; she must’ve been looking the other way.

All this to say that, once the classroom had sufficiently emptied out, Brooke approached the maestro at his desk.

“Still standing, Mr. B?”

Mr. Branson looked up from the couple of Gatsby failures he hadn’t been able to return to their owners (some people must’ve seen the morning news and opted for the savvy route) to offer a wry smile, “Somehow, someway. You guys know how to test me, I’ll give you that.”

“Some of us more than others,” she cocked an eyebrow, “Now, I may not have written an opus about that time a bunch of kids got killed, but surely my analysis wasn’t that bad?”

Mr. B’s smile twitched, “I didn’t say it was bad.”

“I’d say it was very thorough…” Brooke produced her phone and pulled up her photo gallery for a reminder, “Above and beyond, even.”

Branson reddened, slamming his hand down on the phone, which only zoomed in on the picture: a tasteful portrait of Brooke in a Roaring ’20s flapper hat, ostentatious beaded necklaces…and nothing else.

“Brooke!” he hissed urgently, turning fuchsia at the gills.

“You’re not gonna tell me Noah Foster has me beat for creativity?”

He sighed, lifting his eyes to her, “A B is perfectly satisfactory,” slowly, inexorably, the guilty smirk she’d come to recognize so well spread over his face, “But there’s always room to grow.”

“More study help?” Brooke prompted, “Well, if you insist…”

“Brooke,” he interrupted, more seriously, “I’m not gonna hand out an A just because you…excelled on presentation.”

“That’s a fun euphemism,” she pointed, “SAT word!”

“And literary device,” he acknowledged, “You know more than you think.”

“I know I’ve certainly been giving A+ effort lately and, if you didn’t think so, you never showed it…”

“Have you considered, maybe, writing a paper? On top of the…supplementary material?”

“Now, Seth…” she deployed his first name with the disarming ease that always got his hackles up…he really was just like a house cat sometimes: a bundle of hard angles stuffed into JCPenney business casual, with just as much chance of recoiling in electrified shock as of collapsing into a useless heap.

“…with my demanding social life, vibrant extracurricular schedule, and strenuous exercise regimen…” she began dancing her fingers up his exposed forearm, her aforementioned acrylics tiptoing through the sandy thicket obscuring his sun-kissed skin, “How will I ever find the time to do justice to the classics?” she paused, twirling her forefinger through a kinky hair at the juncture where forearm became elbow, “Also, my hands cramp.”

“News to me,” he sighed, “Look, what I’m saying, Brooke, as…elegantly as I can…is maybe, just for now, we…take a step back from the extra help.”

She balked, “Since when?”

“Since half the police department set up shop in the schoolyard.”

“What, them?” she flinched, “Please. They couldn’t find a missing dog. Check the local Nextdoor if you don’t believe me.”

“Something tells me they’re going to be stepping up their game.”

“You would think that, but then you haven’t been here very long.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to see you, Brooke. It’s just…I’m not sure it’s a very good idea at the moment.”

“Oh,” Brooke leaned back, “Well, good news, Seth…” with sudden vehemence, she grabbed him by the necktie, tugging him forward. The air left him in a short, piteous gasp, one she knew all too well by now, as he braced himself against his desk, the Poe bust jostling precariously at the sudden movement.

“The beautiful thing about befriending a Maddox, is you don’t have to have ideas. See, you’re still new to town, but one thing you should know…” with her free hand, she caressed his cheek. Seth, who had been eying the partially open door anxiously, “Maddoxes always get what we want…” she smiled, “And we’re so good at getting that the givers don’t even mind,” she cocked her head to the side, “We’re just quirky like that.”

Seth looked her over, his knuckles white against the desk, eyes bugging from his straining sockets, “…I believe it.”

She beamed, “I thought you would,” and released him. Seth dropped into his desk chair, messaging his neck.

“God, you’re melodramatic,” she rolled her eyes, pulling a Kleenex from the box on the desk and passing it to him.

“That’s the poet in me,” he muttered, his lips tugging into an absurdly boyish yet lascivious smile.

“I’ll text you a time and place,” Brooke declared, readjusting her bag on her shoulder, “Be there or be sorry,” she winked.

“I already am,” Seth remarked and, for a moment, Brooke allowed herself to feel a tiny twinge of something approximating affection.

You did it, she told herself, you’re doing it, without quite clarifying what, exactly, ‘it’ was.

The bell rang for the start of second period.

“Better get to class,” Seth noted.

“I’ll survive,” she assured him, taking her leave, “I’m very creative.”

---

It’d been a long time since Clark had been called to the principal’s office, but he nonetheless felt nervous as a schoolboy as he entered the administrative suite on the second floor.

The receptionist, a portly, bespectacled woman in a violently violet cardigan, lifted her head at his entrance, “Sheriff Hudson!”

“Mrs. Hayward,” he greeted, “Principal Teague wants to see me?”

She nodded that this was so and gestured to the door to her right, whose stenciled glass pane proclaimed in large letters ‘PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE’ and beneath it, in slightly smaller print, ‘Edward Teague, USMC, Ret.’

“He’s got a bit of a cloud over him today,” Mrs. Hayward informed him helpfully, “As you can imagine.”

“Right,” Clark sighed, figuring that was good a warning as he could expect and crossing to the door and giving a quick knock.

“S’open,” came the curt, clipped response.

The principal’s office was spartan: no colorful accouterments, plushy comforts, or private touches, save for the American flag, neatly folded into a triangular case, perched on the file cabinet. The already bleak gray walls that framed so many of GW High’s rooms were especially unadorned, and the fluorescent lighting was no livelier here than elsewhere in the building.

The blinds were drawn over big windows on the left-facing wall, the late morning sunlight slicing through the horizontal plastic blades, creating a grid-like pattern over the floor, the desk, and the face of the principal himself, as he turned from the window to face him.

“Sheriff,” Edward Teague had about 15 years on Clark, but didn’t look it. His face, though lined by age, had a certain soldierly rigidity to it that obfuscated his years, and his hair, always slicked back into a neat cascade about 30 years out of date, was never less than solid black.

One would chalk these little accents up to vanity, but only if they didn’t know him.

“How are you, Ed?” Clark crossed to the principal and shook his hand.

“I’m going to assume that was a rhetorical question,” Teague said flatly, giving Clark’s arm a quick, decisive pump and just as speedily relinquishing him, “You’ve had your hands full.”

“We’ve been busy,” Clark affirmed, “Things are moving quickly.”

“And going where?” he didn’t wait for a response, moving to the opposite side of his desk, “Hell of a welcome for the kids, eh?”

Clark hesitated, “It’s…not what what I would’ve wanted.”

“Welcome to fatherhood,” he sat and indicated Clark take one of the two chairs at the opposite end of the desk, “There’s only so much you can control. Especially when they’re at the age of ‘reason’,” he let out a short humorless chuckle at the last word, “But it’s got it’s moments,” his attention was drawn to a framed photo on his desk of three young women. Had Clark not enjoyed a long and reasonably amicable relationship with the Teague family, he might’ve thought the principal had forgotten to swap out a particularly kitschy stock photo, or how else to explain a nun (habit in all) posing in between a Sears model in a sweater and UGGs and a teenager in a ratty Joy Division shirt.

“How is Jamie?” he asked, indicating the latter girl with his eyes.

“Settling in as best she can,” Teague said at length, “Or she says she is. I get the impression she doesn’t want me worrying. As if I have a choice. But…” he gestured with one hand, repeating, “Only so much I can do.”

A short pause, “Your boy. Has he said anything about…”

“We haven’t spoken much,” Clark interrupted, drumming his fingers against the arm of his chair.

“And what’s been spoken hasn’t been very friendly?” Teague prompted.

Clark thought of Kieran’s manner when they’d arrived: cold and aloof.

“You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

“It’s none of my business,” Teague decided, “And we’ve bigger fish to fry.”

“Kellerman made it sound pretty urgent.”

“Not quite as urgent as two murdered 15-year-olds, but necessary for me to understand what things are going to look like around here from now on.”

“My men,” Clark prompted.

“I put Richard Steele on the hot seat, but he’s a soldier to a fault. Wouldn’t so much as whistle at me without leave from his CO,” his eyes twinkled though his face remained stony, “I can respect that. But I also can’t have uniformed officers trooping through my halls without giving me a reason why. So, CO…” he gestured with one hand, “What’s the plan?”

“It’s early days, Ed,” Clark said at length, “We’re following multiple leads and, the way the evidence is lined up, they could all be solid as each other.”

“Which means you’ve got some pretty flimsy damn evidence,” Teague noted, not meanly, leaning forward, “The girl’s parents…”

“We’re still working to get a cause of death.”

“But it was foul play?”

“It would be very surprising if it wasn’t.”

Teague exhaled, “And you think there’s some threat to other students?”

“The killer is at large.”

“You suspect an attack in this building?”

Clark sighed aggrievedly, “No ruling it out.”

“But that’s not why you have your deputies here,” Teague eyed him searchingly, “Not to stop an attack, but to find an attacker.”

“Winters and Carmichael were students here,” Clark pointed out, “It looks like Stacy’s parents were killed as a…means to an end.”

“To get the keys to the house,” remarked Teague and, at Clark’s surprised doubletake, “I have my sources.”

“The murderer, whoever it is, wanted those two kids dead, and he wasn’t gentle going about it. Which suggests a personal motive…and what’s more personal than the people they see five days a week?”

“That’s a scary thought,” Teague acknowledged, “But a man in your position’s got to think it.”

“10 years ago, I wouldn’t have considered it.”

“I would’ve,” said Teague, “Hell, 20 years ago, and I wouldn’t have been spitballing,” he sighed aggrievedly, pressing his hands together, “But your boys aren’t going to find anything yukking it up in my parking lot.”

Which brought them inextricably to the sticking point. Clark shifted in his seat, “…I’m waiting on a search warrant.”

Teague raised his eyebrows, “Who for?”

“Everyone,” he sighed, “All the lockers, I mean.”

Teague blinked, “That’s gonna be quite a fight.”

“Ed…”

“You’re welcome to search any locker you want. So could I, if I wanted to…with cause,” he jabbed his finger on the desk.

“Two dead kids sounds like pretty good cause to me.”

“If you’ve got a person of interest, you’re welcome to rifle through whatever of theirs that you like, but you know the law as well as I. The kids are entitled to their privacy. God knows what they do with the damn thing turns my stomach more than I’d like, but you can’t go trampling over their right to it.”

He laughed mirthlessly, “C’mon, Ed, I’m just doing my job.”

“So am I. You think the killer is a student at this school. That’s an extraordinary claim. You’re gonna need some damn extraordinary evidence…”

“Which could very well be stuffed into someone’s locker!”

“The kids were killed after hours,” Teague pointed out, “I’m the last person to vouch for the critical thinking skills of this generation…God knows, Theodora’s been ripping her hair out over last year’s test results for the longest…but what’re the odds they brought damning evidence into school, right past all your deputies, and put it away the same as their Biology textbook?” he scoffed, “To what end?”

“It may not be something as obvious as a murder weapon,” Clark said quietly, leaning forward, “It could be something…innocuous. That nobody would think was suspicious without special information.”

Teague cocked an eyebrow, “Share with the class, Sheriff.”

“Phones,” Clark divulged, “Four of them.”

Teague was quiet for a short time, “Seems like a lot of bloody work to steal some phones.”

“It would be,” said Clark, “But I don’t think the motive was greed.”

“What then?”

“Covering his tracks,” he shrugged, “If he was communicating with his victims.”

---

The morning passed in a hazy blur. Kieran, never much of an A-student, had resigned himself to autopiloting his way through high school for as long as he needed, for his sister’s sake more than his own.

Of course, if Deanna was determined to spend the next four years invisible, there was only so much he could do.

There was a cafeteria at GW High, but when lunch rolled around, most of Kieran’s newly-minted peers took their chances outside. There was a fair-sized green off to the side of the school building, across the walk from the parking lot and not quite as big as it, which some people (perhaps the Mouthpiece of the Generation from English class) might declare was symbolic of something that Kieran didn’t have the desire to parse.

Students sat and chatted on a handful of round tables, stone instead of metal so as not to catch the heat of the sun. Kieran’s eyes passed over these little clutches in a desultory fashion. Any hopes he’d had of the ongoing murder investigation dulling the brightness of the ‘new guy’ spotlight had been swiftly dashed. He was still, for his pains, a shiny new object.

His sister, on the other hand…

‘Where are tyou?’ his fingers flew across his phone screen, errantly striking an extra letter, which he didn’t bother to correct. Dee had been radio silent all morning and while that was probably the expected thing, he’d thought to at least hear from her when they broke for lunch.

Not a peep, though.

‘Let me know if your ok’

Probably he shouldn’t be getting worked up, but Deanna was in such a precarious state lately that he couldn’t help himself. That little display with Clark this morning couldn’t have helped things either.

If he’d just taken what the old man had to dish out, held his tongue at least while Dee was in earshot…if he couldn’t make 24 hours in his father’s picturesque suburban idyll  without making like a caged Rottweiler, how the hell was he gonna keep Deanna in what remained of her senses?

‘Im sorry’ he started out, not even entirely sure what he was apologizing for as he typed it, ‘for acting like an’ he opened the emoji menu to select ‘horse’ for ‘jackass’, given there wasn’t an emoji for donkey. Traditionally, in the Wilcox h0usehold, the little equine was shorthand for ‘Dad’. It might bring a smile to Dee’s face, wherever she was.

Or it could be a kick square in the beehive she was keeping her emotions in.

‘I just want to see’ was the extent he’d been able to get out when he collided with a fellow pedestrian coming from the opposite way.

Kieran lurched with a strangled expletive, reaching desperately to catch his dropped phone and missing…

“Oof!” a hand shot out and caught it just before it could hit the concrete of the path, “Sorry.”

Kieran hesitated to collect his bearings, “My fault. Don’t apologize. I should look where I’m going…” he lifted his eyes, realizing he knew the person he’d walked into.

The girl from his English class…and a couple of others throughout the morning. Not to be confused with the capital “G” ‘girl’ who’d so generously offered him the seat next to her. This was the sandy-blonde in the camel-colored jacket. She smiled somewhat guiltily, “Well…I wasn’t gonna say it, but as long as you’re admitting it.”

“Nice save, by the way,” he acknowledged, accepting the phone, “You have good reflexes.”

“Not really,” she admitted, tinting to light coral as she shrugged, “I just have a really fast panic response.”

“Comes in handy.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” she admitted, “I’m notoriously easy to scare.”

“Well, it worked out for me,” he paused, “I am sorry, I was…distracted.”

“Looking for someone?”

He sighed, “My sister,” and, before he could think better of it, went into the spiel, “Deanna. I don’t know if you’ve seen her. She’s like, this tall, and…” he mimed her height with his free hand before remembering he had access to wallet-sized photo album and pulling up a relatively recent shot of himself and Dee, back in Atlanta, not long after he came home.

In the picture, the two of them are standing outside a corner shop in Hunter Hills, bundled up against the cold. Though his face was half-concealed by a balaclava, his eyes were smiling…no guarantee, not even in pictures. Beside him, Deanna had lowered her scarf, wind-chapped face split into an impossibly sunshiny grin.

She was so happy to have him back. He’d been happy to be back.

It felt like so long ago now.

“That’s her,” he said by way of explanation. Emma smiled politely, “Little sister?”

“Not as little as she looks,” he paused, “She’s a…freshman.”

“Oh,” the girl paused, giving him a look, presumably working out some math in her mind, or maybe clocking his facial hair.

“I’m, uh, repeating 10th grade,” he explained.

“Right,” she nodded and then hastily added, “I’m sorry. That was rude…”

“You’re good,” he assured her, “I’ve been clocking some of the looks today. Half-expected someone to call out ‘stranger danger’,” he paused, “I haven’t repeated any other grades. If that’s what you’re wondering.”

She shook her head, smiling, “Well, we all learn at our own pace.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Would you like some help?” she asked abruptly, “Looking for your sister?”

He doubletaked, “Oh. You don’t have to…I don’t want to keep you from your friends, or…”

“They can keep just fine without me,” she assured him, “Believe me.”

“Big personalities, huh?” he smirked, “ ‘Friends’ wouldn’t happen to include that girl with the bangs?”

“Brooke?” Emma smiled, “Yeah, we’re friends.”

 “So maybe you can tell me if I should be worried. For a second back there, I thought I was gonna be dissected…”

“She comes on strong,” Emma admitted, “Big personality, but um…” she was quiet for a short while, “She’s not bad.”

“If you say so, I’ll take your word for it…” he trailed off expectantly and she smiled.

“Emma,” and, with an abashed air, held out a hand, looking embarrassed to resort to the formality.

“Kieran,” he shook her hand and she giggled, shaking her hair from her eyes as she did.

They walked in companionable quiet for a few moments, “How are you liking Lakewood so far?” she prompted.

“Pretty nice, except for the crime rate.”

Emma’s eyes widened in a sort of guilty shock, as if she’d momentarily forgotten the headline of the moment herself, but she laughed awkwardly, “Well, usually it’s much quieter around here.”

“A nice place to live,” Kieran intoned and, at her questioning expression, “It said that on the town sign.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “See, that tells you how many times I’ve left here to see it,” she twisted her fingers between the straps of her bag, “Has it been tough?”

“Hm?”

“For your sister. Being in a…new place,” she paused half-a-second, “Sorry, that was nosy…”

“No,” he shook his head, “I mean, yeah. Yeah, for her…for us. It’s been a lot,” he stuffed his phone into his jacket pocket with a short sigh, “Her parents died.”

“Oh,” Emma frowned sympathetically, her brow furrowing, “…her parents.”

“Our Mom,” Kieran said tautly, “Her Dad. We’re with my bio-dad now, which…” he shrugged, “It’s what it is.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, “It must be really hard on her,” she added, “And you too,” somewhat carefully.

“No, you’re right. It’s…rougher on her. Deanna’s always had big feelings.”

“Did she know your Dad well?” Emma asked, “Your bio Dad, I mean, before coming here?”

Kieran shook his head, “I barely know him. He’s been out of the picture since before I could talk. Visited once when I was a kid, but…” he shrugged, “We never built treehouses or played Risk or anything.”

“Risk?” Emma laughed.

“Whatever kids do with their dads,” he smiled, “See, I’ve got no clue.”

“Neither do I, really,” Emma shrugged, “I don’t talk to my Dad,” she averted her eyes.

Kieran cleared his throat uncomfortably, “Before, in class, you got kind of…”

“Defensive?” Emma prompted.

“I was gonna say ‘heated’. Not without good reason,” he was quick to add, “That guy was on one…”

“That’s just Noah being Noah,” Emma shrugged, “If it wasn’t Brandon James, it would’ve been the McKinley assassination,” she smiled as if to indicate she wasn’t just pulling that out of thin air.

“When you said the kids that got killed back then didn’t deserve it, I couldn’t help think…”

“My Dad was attacked that night,” Emma nodded, her smile fading to a sort of resigned grimace, “He was the only survivor.”

“Shit.”

“It took a toll on him. And he was so young…practically my age. Everyone says he was never the same after, but I kinda have to take their word for it, don’t I?” she shrugged, “But it was hard for him, being around us and…eventually it got too much and he left.”

Kieran exhaled a short puff of air, “Dads, huh?”

“But it’s good, isn’t it, that your Dad’s stepping up now?” Emma wondered.

“I’m sure he thinks so,” they had reached the end of the walkway. There was still a squad car parked by the exit, a deputy at the wheel, studying his phone. Not exactly a fearsome deterrent against outside dangers…much less a reliable guard against insiders looking to get out.

“I worry about her,” he said at length.

“Your sister?”

“That she won’t be the same. It’s still fresh, obviously, but she’s shutting down. And I want to tell myself she’ll bounce back, but I don’t really…” he stopped himself, “Sorry. I’m unloading my whole life story on you. That’s not cool.”

“It’s alright,” Emma smiled, “I dished out as much as I took,” she folded her arms, “Look, I don’t know your sister…but I think she’s lucky to have you in her corner”

“To talk her off the edge, huh?”

“Well, not in so many…” Emma trailed off, eyes widening at something behind him, “Um.”

“What’s wr…” Kieran followed her gaze, turning around to see what had alarmed her.

There was someone on the roof. And, while it wasn’t ease making out details from three stories below, Kieran didn’t need opera glasses to make out the bulky black hoodie shrouding the tiny figure’s head.

“That isn’t…”

“It is,” he sighed, “I’ll deal with it.”

“Are you sure?” Emma asked urgently, “Should I get somebody? Or…”

“It’ll be fine. Thanks…” he turned back to her, “Emma. For your help.”

“You’re welcome,” she couldn’t take her eyes off the roof, “But I don’t think I did anything…”

“I asked you for help finding my sister,” he was already hurrying off toward the building, “You found her.”

---

In a way, it was comforting that, even when everything was in the shitter, Zach was still Zach.

“I’m open, man, come on!” Jake urged, spreading his arms wide.

Across from him, Zach dithered on the blacktop, palming the ball in his hands. After running an unfathomable mental calculation, he gave himself a short nod and jutted forward, legs springing upward…

…and placing him in prime position for Jake to grab the ball from him, pivoting his heels as Zach floundered forward with an undignified yelp, saving his pretty face from kissing concrete through a quick shift of his elbows in what was admittedly a pretty deft bit of athleticism.

“I’m fine,” he announced flatly, “You cheated.”

“You gotta get your head in the game,” Jake chided, “It’s one on one. Why would I tell you I’m open?”

“That…” Zach blinked, “Wow.”

“Stick to football, man,” Jake grinned, offering a hand, which Zach accepted.

“Just because it’s not my sport, doesn’t mean I’m clueless. I’m just distracted.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake passed him the ball, which he caught unflinchingly.

“You’re not?” Zach frowned, “Yanno, with the…” he lowered his voice, “Dead people.”

“Oh,” he nodded, “Yeah. It sucks.”

“Brock was on the team,” Zach continued, “Slot receiver,” he shifted the ball from hand to hand, “He was a good guy, man. Don’t know what we’re gonna do now.”

Jake feinted to the left and Zach moved right, throwing for the much-abused hoop. The ball pinged off the side, right into Jake’s waiting arms.

“Do about what?” Jake asked.

“On the team,” Zach hesitated, “And, I guess…everything else.”

“You can’t think too hard about that stuff, man. You’ll go bugnuts.”

“Bugnuts?” Zach smiled faintly.

“Postal. Wacky. Loco in Acapulco,” he trilled the ‘L’ in loco unnecessarily, deliberately porking the Spanish in a way that would totally get him a cuff on the ear if his mother was around, “You gotta focus on what you can control, dude.”

“Okay,” Zach appeared to consider, assuming a guard position vaguely approximating the base of a human pyramid, “What can I control?”

“That fuckin’ stance, man, for a start.”

“You wanna talk trash, Jake? I’d like to see you rush the endzone.”

“But you won’t,” Jake lunged, Zach swerved, missed, and the ball sank neatly into the basket, nothing but net, “Because I know my limits.”

“Sure,” Zach smiled earnestly, catching the ball as it bounced back down, “But that’s not true.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Jake asked, brow furrowing, “Man, not you too…”

“Not me too what?”

“You don’t believe that shit too, do you? Me and Nina?”

“You said that,” Zach pointed, “I was thinking how you get wasted really fast and keep drinking. But the Nina thing…”

“It’s not true!” Jake insisted, “I don’t know what crawled up Tyler’s ass, but I’ve been there, done that with Nina, and the Jake doesn’t do rematches.”

“If it was a rematch,” Zach pointed out, “Who won the first time?”

“The Jake doesn’t live in the past either.”

“Dude, look at it this way…” Zach bowed his knees, his arms way too close to the pavement, the ball practically scraping the blacktop, “If it’s really not true…”

“It isn’t!”

“…then soon, everyone will stop talking about it.”

Jake blinked, “That’s not how anything works! People love talking shit that’s not true.”

“But if there’s no, like, evidence, all they’re gonna have is the story! And it’s the same story, so it’ll get old and people will forget about it.”

“Man, you’ve been here. Nobody forgets shit,” he grimaced, “Gimme the ball.”

Zach threw, Jake caught and smirked, “Dude.”

“What?” he paused, realizing, “Oh, come on! I thought you meant we were done.”

“We are,” Jake shifted the ball under his arm, clapping Zach on the shoulder, “Next time someone asks you to hand over your balls, Henderson…put up a fight, yeah? For me?”

Zach nudged him in the side, “Only if you put up less of a fight,” he paused, reddening, “When people spread rumors. About you,” he shook his head, “You know what I mean.”

“Not really.”

They crossed to the bleachers, Jake preemptively crowing, “More where that came from, ladies! Quarter finals: Lakewood vs. Briarcliff, this Friday. Be there or be…”

The ladies, it turned out, were otherwise occupied.

“I mean, this one’s nice…” Riley indicated one of several feathery fascinators Brooke had queued up on her phone, presumably the result of Amazon search query ‘1920s flapper aesthetic’ + qualifier ‘fashion’.

“I thought so too,” Brooke agreed, “But I don’t think I can get this same-day delivered.”

“I thought this was for Halloween?”

“You can never be too prepared.”

“Seriously?” Jake demanded, “You didn’t see any of that?”

Brooke lifted her eyes, “See what?”

“Jake was bullying me,” Zach said genially, retrieving a water ball, the ‘Lancer Athletics’ stencil blaring out red on white, and squeezing a jet into his mouth.

“You monster,” Brooke said flatly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake grumbled, accepting the bottle from Zach and taking a swig himself, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, “Where’s Em?”

Brooke shrugged, “Maybe she got lost.”

Riley shifted uncomfortably, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was avoiding us.”

Jake blinked, “What for?”

Riley cocked her head to the side, “You’re not serious?”

“The video.”

“Whose video?” Jake’s eyes widened, “There was a video? Of what?”

“You know,” Zach looked at him like he’d gone stupid, “the kissing video.”

“Oh,” he paused, “That. Right. Seriously? She’s still on that?”

“It’s only been a day,” Riley pointed out.

“Well, it’s not our fault,” said Jake.

“That’s what I said!” Brooke insisted, “Not so pathetically, mind you.”

Jake mimed ‘blow me’ but Brooke was used to his special brand of ASL (Asskicking Symbol Language) and ignored him, “And that it also wasn’t ‘her’ fault. But there’s no convincing her. She might as well be Catholic, she’s so guilty.”

“Maybe it is our fault,” said Riley.

“Not you too, Riles.”

“A little! Yes, Nina’s difficult to go up against, but…” she looked around, “There’s supposed to be strength in numbers, right?”

“But Nina’s, like…a prime number,” said Zach.

Riley furrowed her brow, “Because…no other numbers fit into her?”

“Well, that’s not true, is it, Jake?”

He spat up his latest drink of water, rounding on Brooke, “Could you not?”

“I meant like ‘prime’ like the leader. Like Optimus Prime!” Zach attempted to explain as Brooke sighed.

“Jake, you can’t be so sensitive all the time.”

“You wanna talk to me about being sensitive? You got makeup on that croptop and cried about it.”

“It was Prada!” Brooke snapped, “And you got makeup on it, with a little help from Captain Cowpie,” she wrinkled her nose up, “There’s someone who could talk some sense into Emma.”

“Who? Will?”

“He’s almost criminally earnest,” Brooke shrugged, “I try to make her feel better, she thinks I’m lying to shut her up.”

“Whaddaya mean ‘earnest’?” Jake grimaced.

“He was honest about the ruined crop top, for starters.”

“I was gonna wash it! You never would’ve known!”

“It was line dry only!”

“Have you ever considered, Jake, that the reason it’s so easy to think you’re lying about hooking up with Nina is because you lie easier than breathing?”

“I do not!”

“Which is also an obvious lie!”

“Honesty is the best policy, man,” Zach came as close as he could to a shit-eating grin.

“I am being honest!” Jake insisted, “About Nina.”

“And I would believe you,” said Brooke, smirking, “if you didn’t act so guilty.”

“Jake!” a voice called across the blacktop.

“Speaking of…” Brooke intoned, “Quick, look innocent.”

“Tyler?” Riley asked as he stormed across the court to them, “Don’t you have class?”

“I have a free,” he paid them next to no mind, eyes only for Jake, “We need to talk.”

Jake bristled, “Look, man…”

“Privately,” his eyes flashed threateningly and, try as he might, Jake couldn’t keep back a wince.

Zach put his hand on his arm, “Dude, do you need…”

“Nah,” he shook his head, standing, “It’s cool,” he nodded, “Let’s talk.”

Tyler drew his lower lip between his teeth, sparing one glance to the others on the bleachers, who were watching with varying degrees of confusion and concern.

“C’mon,” he led Jake a few steps away, pausing by the wire mesh fence at the far end of the court, dividing it from the short path that led to the football field.

“Look, Tyler,” Jake attempted, “I’m sorry about the pool, alright? But you’ve gotta believe me, I didn’t touch Nina…”

“I don’t give a damn about Nina!” he interrupted, lifting a shaky hand, “You can be shagging on the hour for all I care, Jake…I could not give less of a shit.”

Jake balked, taking closer notice of his friend. Tyler was jittery, red-eyed, his usual carefully curated preppy ensemble disheveled.

“Bro, are you okay?” he asked carefully.

“Will.”

“Will what?”

“Where is Will?” Tyler asked, spacing out the words with painstaking deliberation, “I haven’t seen him. Where is he?”

Jake tensed, his fingers twitching at his sides, “What’s this about?”

“What do you think?”

He felt a sharp cold knife through him, “Look, whatever he’s done…”

“Did he do something?”

“…if he has, I’ll handle it, okay?” he lifted his hands, “Look, I promise. You know he listens to me…”

“You haven’t seen him, then?”

“No,” he hesitated, “Not today.”

“Fuck,” he stepped back, running his hands down his face, “Shit…”

“Tyler…” he reached for his shoulder, but Tyler shrank away as though shocked.

“I need to talk to him.”

“If you’re in trouble, man, let me help.”

“If you want to help me, Jake, find Will and send him to me,” he stepped back, “That’s it.”

Jake opened his mouth to say something, but Tyler froze, bright, desperate, angry eyes boring into him and he stopped himself.

“Sure, man,” he said quietly, “Yeah, no worries,” he forced a chuckle, a bit of his usual Jakey charm, “We’re a team, right?”

“Yeah,” he scoffed mirthlessly, “A team.”

He stalked off, leaving Jake standing on the blacktop, alone with questions he hadn’t been able to ask and whose answers he was afraid to hear.

---

It was quieter up here. Lonely, without being alone.

From the roof, the people having lunch and playing pick-up games and hanging out with their friends were so quiet as to be almost mute, their chatter and laughter registering as little more than a faint, almost electrical buzz.

Up here, everything felt remote, distant. She could be on the outside and look in…or down, without feeling that there was something irreparably wrong with her because she really was, for now, separate and apart.

Until she came back down, and her alienness became a her problem instead of just a product of her environment.

“Cops all over the school, and none of them clock the 14-year-old girl on the roof…” Kieran was standing in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his aviator jacket, “Clark’s gotta step it up.”

Deanna turned to her brother, “I’m not gonna jump, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He smiled, “The thought never crossed my mind,” and, as well as she knew her brother, she couldn’t suss out whether that was a lie.

“I like the view,” she said lightly.

“Better than back home?”

“Greener,” she shrugged, “If you care about that.”

“Eh,” he sauntered over to the precipice, setting one boot on the concrete cliff, “Give me urban sprawl any day.”

“What about urban smell?” she gave him a little smile and he chuckled, sinking down beside her.

“Builds character.”

They sat together in companionable silence for a short while, looking out at the view together: the neat rows of shops and houses melting neatly into each other, interspersed with tufts of foliage just beginning to show their autumn tinge and, beyond them, a ribbon of blue that must be the lake the town was creatively named for.

“So how’s school?”

Deanna gave him a look, “Not fun.”

“Was it ever?” but his expression softened, “I know it’s a lot to get used to…”

She shrugged, “I knew it would be. But everybody’s…” she fussed with the sleeves of her hoodie, thinking about the long, agonizing stretch of the morning, and the looming gulf of the afternoon to come.

“Everybody’s sad,” it felt stupid saying it; she felt stupid…nothing more than an insipid, whiny baby, “The girls are all crying…and some of the boys too, and every single class is just everyone talking about how much they’re going to miss them and I’m sitting there the whole time wondering why I’m not sad?”

Kieran frowned sympathetically, “There’s kind of an obvious reason for that, Dee.”

“It’s not just that I didn’t know them. I mean, yeah, sure…that’s part of it, and it’s not like anyone’s looking at me funny because I’m not sad enough.”

“Anybody tried that, you just point ’em to me, huh?” he smirked mischievously and she rolled her eyes, sighing heavily.

“I think I’m all out, Kieran.”

“Out of what?”

“Sadness,” she grimaced at the word on her tongue, “Grief, tears, whatever. I think I’ve used it all up and I don’t know…” she shuddered, “I can’t feel it anymore.”

She looked back out at the view, at the town, at her new classmates all the way down below, with their own sadness, real or constructed, for the two classmates she would never meet.

In homeroom, a bunch of the guys…real bro types, presumably teammates of the dead boy, Brock, had been talking in deathly serious tones about the body. Apparently it had ended up on the local news for a half second before being pulled off the air, which was a quarter second long enough for it to end up all over their socials.

They’d described in disgusted awe what had been done to their friend. And Deanna, listening against her will, wanted to feel disgusted in turn. She knew she should feel it and, on some level, she wanted to. Because feeling it would mean she was like these people…not necessarily that they would like her, but that she was similar to them enough to recoil at the things they recoiled from, and to cry at the things they cried over.

But she couldn’t think of this dead stranger and his cruel collar without thinking of her parents’ car wrapped around a steel pillar beneath the Whitehall overpass, of Kieran’s ashen face as he’d taken the call from the police, of two closed caskets in a nearly empty funeral parlor.

“I think about them all the time,” she continued, “Mom…even Dad,” she paused, “I know you weren’t his biggest fan…”

“He was your Dad,” Kieran acknowledged, “I wish he’d been better at it. If I get sad for him, that’s why.”

“I guess we won’t know now,” she sighed, “But now I think about them and I don’t feel anything. At first I thought that was a good thing but…” she let out a shaky breath, “It’s so empty, Kieran. I’d sooner be crying all the time; at least then I’d know…” she pulled her knees up, resting her chin against the worn black fabric of her leggings, “I’d know I could.”

She felt, but didn’t see, Kieran put his arms around her, “Dee, the rug’s been pulled up from under you. Under us. You’re gonna need time to bounce back. And God knows…it’s probably not ever gonna be the same. I can’t make you any promises.”

“Not even about Clark?”

He was quiet for a short time, “…I don’t know him.”

“You don’t seem to like him.”

“It’s more complicated than that, Dee,” he sighed ponderously, “He’s out of his depth.”

“And we aren’t?”

“You’re telling me I should give him a chance?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “I don’t know anything. I don’t know anyone. Just you.”

His arm tightened around her and she leaned into him, against him, breathing in the soft smell of his jacket, of his truck, of home, such as it was now.

“Well, you’ve got me,” he looked down at her, “One promise I can make: you have me, Dee. Whether Clark shapes up or not, whether it works out here or not…you’ve got me.”

Deanna nodded, pressing into his side, hip-to-hip. She leaned her head against him, feeling her hood slipping off, her hair spilling into her face. Kieran brushed some from her eyes, saying nothing and not needing to.

---

The sheriff’s station wasn’t chaotic enough.

While normally, this was a good thing: evidence of an organized department, well-allocated funding and a certain institutional level-headedness, it was damn terrible for optics when the shit hit the fan.

“Delay the presser, Jackie,” Quinn barked into his phone, charging over the threshold of the station, itself a quick walk across Lejeune Circle from City Hall, saving him gas as it exposed him to throngs of agitated constituents he didn’t have the oomph to tap dance for at present, “I know they’re already there! I haven’t been struck blind, deaf, and Downs since last we spoke. Delay it!”

On the other end of the line, Jackie Crespo, his long-suffering but overpaid assistant, stammered prettily in her flat White House Corespondents’ Dinner-by-way-of Long Island affect, “How? What am I supposed to tell them? They’ve been frothing at the mouth for an hour!”

Quinn mouthed ‘ow-AH’ in his own approximation of her cadence, “You’ve been at this before. Tell them there’s been new developments!”

“There are?”

He rolled his eyes, “There’d better be…”

His determined stride was obstructed by an electrical wand, jutting out to bar his midsection. Pocketing his phone, he grimaced at the deputy manning the metal detectors.

“Sorry, Mr. Mayor,” the fresh-faced guppy smiled abashedly, “Regulations.”

Quinn plastered on his default ‘No fear, citizen’ smile, though judging by the way the kid’s hand was shaking on that wand, he hadn’t been able to tamp the righteous vengeance in his eyes.

“No worries at all, deputy,” he said chummily, “No compromising on safety, yes?”

The deputy nodded, passing the wand over him, “Um, sir…if you don’t mind me saying?”

“Speak your mind, son,” Quinn said absently as the wand beeped shrilly, “Oh, my goodness,” he frowned, “What, is it the cufflinks?”

“It might be sir.”

“Silly of me,” he grumbled, removing the accessories (mother-of-pearl fleur-de-lis in gold settings; a gift from his wife when she’d still been in the business of giving) and setting them down on the linoleum table beside the metal detector.

“I was saying, sir, I couldn’t help but overhear you.”

“Eh?” Quinn prompted, thinking, Shit fuck.

“Talking about Downs, sir. Downs Syndrome.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, as he attempted, “Did I? My goodness…”

More beeping.

“What is it now?” he searched himself, “Oh, my pin…” he removed the American flag pin on his lapel, “At this rate, you’ll have all my bling-bling,” he remarked with a stiff chuckle, setting the pin down with the cufflinks and reminding himself this young man was of African-American decent, “Ahem.”

“Downs Syndrome.”

“Yes.”

“Obviously, sir, you were frustrated, but really…Downs isn’t a death sentence.”

“I daresay.”

“It can actually be very beautiful. My nephew, he has Downs…”

“God bless him…ah!” for the wand had begun beeping again.

“Do you have any metal objects under your shirt, sir?”

“What, like a bulletproof vest?”

“Your tie clip, maybe…” the deputy reached for it. Quinn intercepted him, removing the gold-finished clip.

“…and he’s got so much life in him, sir.”

“What? Oh, your nephew.”

“I tell you, my brother and his wife, they’re so grateful they didn’t get the abortion.”

The detector beeped again. Quinn began laying out his change on the table.

“We always say: ‘Danny’s Downs…’” the deputy smiled, “‘But love is up.’”

“That’s beautiful, why won’t it stop?”

“Oh, sir!” the deputy’s eyes widened, “Well, there it is! I can’t believe I forgot…”

“What? My belt?” he shook his head, “Sure, yes, go on…” he removed his belt (an Armani original, this from his daughter, or more likely Jackie, on Brooke’s surprisingly vital credit line), “Yes, there you go,” he clapped it down next to his other valuables, “Caught me with my pants down, did you? Haha.”

“May I share a Scripture with you?”

Quinn stared incredulously for a moment, holding up his pants with one hand, before being bailed out by a voice from the other side of the detector, “You can wave him, through, Dwayne.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” Dwayne brightened up, “You can go on ahead, Mr. Mayor.”

“Thank you kindly,” Quinn grumbled with less venom than he was entitled to, shoving his shinies into his jacket pocket, and letting his belt hang from his hand like a leash.

Sheriff Hudson had the good grace to wipe the shit-eating smirk from his face as he neared, “He’s a new hire.”

“Where’d you find him? Song of the South?”

“He’s a Jehovah’s Witness,” Hudson said breezily, “Nice kid. Probably voted for you,” he watched Quinn struggling with his belt, “There’s a men’s room, if you need…”

“Forget it. I was gonna be caught with my pants down one way or another. Your man just fast-tracked me.”

They’d paused in the middle of the station’s rotunda: a clean, well-appointed thoroughfare with arteries branching out around its paneled walls, connecting to the building’s various offices. The floor bore an intricate mosaic depicting Wren Lake as it had appeared before the arrival of European settlers…Quinn’s ancestors among them…200 years ago. As designed, the green and blue tiles caught the late afternoon sunshine streaming in through the rotunda’s domed glass cupola…the crown jewel of a massive renovation project Quinn had embarked on right after he’d attained the mayorship three long years ago.

The theory had been that Lakewood would be a crime-free community under his watch, so why not invest in rewarding the boys in blue with a peoples’ palace all their own?

He’d made more expensive cock-ups.

“Now, what can I do you for, Mayor Maddox?” Hudson asked, “Or are you just here to make racialized remarks about my men?”

“That was not a…” he sighed, refastening his belt, “You know I’m supposed to be at a press conference?”

“I’m certainly not stopping you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I can’t go out on the news without news!”

“Sure you can. It happens all the time.”

“Don’t be cute with me, Hudson!” he jammed a finger in his face, “I’m not asking you to trot out a suspect in cuffs. I’m asking for information. A tidbit, a lead…something to placate the quivering masses!”

“We’re working along a few leads.”

“That’s not anything!” he exclaimed, “What about the lockers? You said something this morning, you were going to do a search…”

“Nothing done,” to his credit, Hudson didn’t thrilled about it, “Ed Teague put his foot down.”

“Ed Teague is not an elected official!”

“No, but I think his approval rating’s got us both beat,” he folded his arms, “I couldn’t argue with him on the merits, though. We can’t do a blanket search without a warrant.”

“Then get a warrant! You think there’s a judge in the county that’d put up with this Libertarian circle jerking? Two kids are dead!” he heaved a sigh, “I don’t know why I’m getting so worked up. The lockers were your idea. By rights, I could walk out and say our noble sheriff is working his double-damned hardest to peek at their kids’ Algebra homework.”

“We’ve questioned the victims’ friends,” he shrugged, “Combed their socials. We’re not exactly camped out with our thumbs up our asses, Quinn. But if that’s not sexy enough for you to take to the podium…”

“It’s not about what’s sexy!” Quinn snapped. At the metal detectors, Dwayne turned in surprise and quickly averted his eyes, embarrassed.

“You weren’t here for Brandon James, Hudson,” he continued in a determined hush, “There is nothing…nothing…that gins people up like dead kids. It doesn’t matter how hard you think you’re working, how responsibly you conduct your investigation…to the common citizenry, all that matters is some fresh-faced flowers had their stems snipped prematurely and you’re the sorry putz who happened to be in charge when it happened. They’ll want to clean house.”

Clark sighed heavily, “Not that I don’t expect it, Quinn, but that’s pretty damn cynical.”

“Cynical?” he scoffed, “How do you think I won my first election?”

“Looks different when the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?”

“Watch yourself, Hudson,” he pointed, “The fact was, 21 years ago, this town was caught napping. I called it like I saw it and the people appreciated what I called. Now…”

“…it’s only a matter of time before some young buck gets the same idea,” Clark smiled, “Seems to me, Quinn, the best way to keep that from happening is for you to do your job and leave me to…” he trailed off, “Do mine,” he stepped back, checking his watch, “Dammit.”

“What?” Quinn asked breathlessly, “What happened?” and, as Clark started speed-walking for the metal detectors, “Hudson!”

“It’s 3:30,” he offered by way of answer, “I’ve got to pick up my kids.”

“Since when did you have kids?”

Clark darted through the metal detector, heedless of the resounding alarms, “Breakfast!”

---

The last bell rang and school emptied like a comics panel at a comics convention.

Noah wasn’t keen on lingering himself. While he was accustomed to spending his afternoons off from work camping out in the the Secret Sanctorum that was the AV Room, his heart just wasn’t in it today.

His explanation defied simple diagnosis, but if he were to attempt a synthesis, simply: He Had a Sad.

Or at least a sense that he should have a sad, which was somehow worse.

He spotted his quarry heading out the front doors, alone among the thronging masses of duos, trios, and cliques, respectively goofing or groaning over the misadventures of the day.

Audrey moved with steady deliberation, stumping down the front steps, her eyes fixed on her phone, hammering out a text with a cool single-mindedness that, on most people would be a deterrent, but which Noah chose to interpret as a challenge.

“Texting the girlfriend?” he prompted, jogging to catch up with her.

Audrey gave him a look, “Personal space, Noah.”

“What’s a little boundary-skipping between friends?”

“You don’t think my privacy’s been pot roasted enough?” but she offered him a small, almost reluctant smile, which Noah interpreted as acknowledgment of what a Lovable Scamp he was.

“How are you?” he asked, struggling and (he thought) succeeding in tamping down his cheeky grin, “Seriously.”

“Well, Leslie Adon just cornered me at my locker to invite me to the GSA,” Audrey reached into her pocket and shoved a crumpled up leaflet into his hands.

Noah unfolded it to confirm that it was, indeed, a notice of this week’s Gay-Straight Alliance meeting, “Ooh, there’s a film screening! How to Survive a Plague…that’s fun.”

“It’s about AIDS.”

“I didn’t know Leslie was a lesbian,” Noah commented, “I mean, I guess with a name like Leslie, it’s sort of predictive. In a literary sense…”

“Maybe she’s not a lesbian,” she pointed out.

“Well, yes, but just speaking empirically, Audrey, I’m not sure the there are lots of S’s in the GSA. So are you going?”

Audrey gave him a look, “Maybe I’m not a lesbian.”

Noah was quiet for a short bit, slowing down somewhat, “Okay,” he smiled, “But…you kissed a girl,” he frowned, “Did you not like it?”

“It doesn’t matter if I ‘liked’ it, Noah!” Audrey snapped exasperatedly, “It’s nobody’s business. People acting like I just came sashaying out of the closet…”

“Not to stereotype stereotypes, but I don’t think lesbians sashay anywhere. That’s the other cohort.”

“I wasn’t hiding anywhere,” Audrey insisted, “Nobody did me a favor. The opposite, actually, so pardon me if I’m not ready to wrap myself in a rainbow flag and go to karaoke.”

“Again, not lesbians,” said Noah, “Lesbians…” he considered, “They wear lanyards, I think. Something like that. That’s weird, isn’t it, there’s like a whole book of gay stereotypes and lesbians get a pamphlet. Is that good, or just a different type of sexis…” but he saw Audrey’s expression, “It’s okay if you’re not a lesbian!”

“Gee, thanks, man.”

“You can be bisexual.”

“Mindblowing.”

“Or one of the other ones! Like pansexual or asexual…” he thought about it, “Well, I guess you’re not that one, you seemed to be enjoying yourow!” he winced as she jabbed her elbow into his side.

“That mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble one day, Foster,” but she smirked as she said it.

“Oh, I know it,” he nodded, “But then so did yours…okay!” he whirled away preemptively, though she hadn’t lifted a hand this time, “Sorry. I live dangerously,” he paused, “But, um…” he cleared his throat prodigiously, “What’s she like?”

She didn’t answer immediately, but to her credit didn’t play dumb about it.

“She likes movies,” she said at length.

“So she’s a functioning human being, that’s a great sign…”

“She likes good movies,” Audrey interjected with a smile, “Truffaut and Fellini and Kurosawa…”

“She must love subtitles.”

“And she doesn’t read them aloud during the movie.”

“I don’t do it loudly!” he insisted, “What about genre stuff?”

“Zombies.”

“Romero?”

“Obsessed,” she shrugged, “And those Italian slasher movies with the nonsense plots. She says they’re like Friday the 13th but ‘elevated’.”

“Well, that is a claim that deserves to be evaluated,” Noah declared, “I am, as you know, very skeptical of any and all invocations of so-called ‘elevated horror’…”

“This, of course, being a smooth way of asking when you can meet her?”

“To gauge her film opinions.”

“And give your blessing, of course.”

“Not that you need my opinion,” he shrugged, “But, yanno…in the unlikely event I ever tip my Converse into the cool, clear, corrosive waters of the dating pool, I would want the lovely lady to get along with my friends.”

Audrey was quiet, twisting her fingers around the strap of her backpack, “What if you ended up with a thoroughbred bitch?”

“Well, then I’d need you to save me from myself!”

“But that’s not my job!” she protested, “Maybe you like that she’s a bitch. It’s really not your problem if I ‘approve’ of her or whatever…”

“Hi, Noah!”

Audrey trailed off, looking past him to the petite girl trotting up the path to them, waist-length black hair trailing behind her like a velvet mantel.

Or something.

“Riley!” Noah greeted, maybe too squeakily, lifting his hand in a wave, “Hey. Um…you know Audrey.”

“Yeah,” Riley turned to her, smile straining somewhat, “Of course I know Audrey.”

“You must’ve seen my movie,” Audrey said tautly.

“Heh,” Noah chuckled, strained, “She actually is in movies. Her own! She’s an enterprising filmmaker. A regular…” his throat was rapidly drying and he quickly pivoted to save himself and perhaps all of them, “So what’s up?”

“I just wanted to say…that was really cool,” she smiled, “In English class, with Gatsby and the…”

“Not my best work,” Noah acknowledged, “Dark Phoenixes: Hester Prynne, Jean Grey and the Cult of the Other in American Life is, admittedly, a bit more thematically consistent,” he paused, realizing that, by trying to sound humble, he appeared to be fellating himself (Many such cases!), “But thanks. And, uh, kudos to you,” he pointed out, “For challenging me. That thing about the class difference…I didn’t think of it.”

“It’s okay,” she shrugged, “It doesn’t have to be a one-to-one comparison, does it?”

“Tell that to my autism.”

Riley blinked, “Are you autistic?”

“Maybe, but I never got assessed. Don’t want to break the mystique.”

“Well, it’s cool if you are,” said Riley, “Or if you aren’t! I just mean…you’re obviously very smart.”

“In hyper-specialized areas,” he admitted, “Unfortunately, however, not all-knowing, but I am shooting for it.”

“About that,” Riley smiled thinly, “I watched the video,” she paused, as if realizing what that sounded like, “I mean the He-Man one.”

“Right!” Noah pointed, “Yeah. Cool, right?”

“Really cool,” she admitted, laughing, “Kind of a throwback, gonna be honest.”

“RIP to the decentralized Internet, am I right? Give me lolcats or give me death.”

“The part you told me about, with Skeletor.”

“’AND HEAT RAYS’, yes.”

“So no,” Riley lifted her hand, as if she was preparing to break some terrible news, “That’s not what he says.”

Noah blinked, “…huh?”

“The song in the video…it’s really catchy, so I Googled the lyrics. It’s not an original song.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it’s a one-hit wonder from the ’90s. And the line Skeletor has…it’s not ‘AND HEAT RAYS’, it’s ‘AND HE PRAYS’.”

Noah processed this for a short time, realizing too late that his mouth was open.

“Wow,” he said at length, “You learn something new every day.”

“Don’t feel bad!” Riley assured him, “Easy thing to mishear.”

“Clearly,” Noah chuckled, “Still, consider me humbled. It was bound to happen sometime, wasn’t it, Aud…” he turned to find her and did not, “Um,” he cleared his throat, “Audrey?”

No sign of her.

“I’m sorry,” Riley frowned, “I interrupted you guys. That was rude.”

“No! No, don’t worry about it. She’s doing…” he cleared his throat, “Her own thing.”

Riley didn’t seem thoroughly convinced by this, but she didn’t press, “As long as she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” said Noah, not really believing it but knowing Audrey wouldn’t want him saying anything else, “Thanks, again, for the fact check.”

“Anytime,” she smiled, starting off toward the street.

“So what does he pray about?” Noah asked abruptly, “In the song.”

“Oh,” she paused, considering, “I dunno,” her lips curled, “I guess that depends on your interpretation.”

She turned and headed off for home, leaving Noah with his own thoughts, impressions and…for better or worse…interpretations.

---

Colin bounded out of school with a spring in his step, which was maybe insensitive given current events but which he figured he was still too cultural invisible for anybody to get offended over.

Given he was about to be locally famous for commenting on aforesaid current events, he’d have to watch his skipping in the future, for taste reasons, but until then, he was entitled to his private life.

Detaching himself from the mob of classmates piling into their getaway cars for the afternoon rush (you’d think the deputies that’d been planted all around the perimeter would pull double duty as traffic wardens, but Colin guessed their taxes weren’t that high around here, believe it or not), Colin bounded over the ankle-high curb separated the parking lot from the path that led to the athletic fields, where his accomplice was rocking on the balls of his feet, pencil-neck pivoting at harsh angles like an animatronic owl in a haunted house.

“Ready to testify?” he asked gamesomely, tapping Derek on his left shoulder and, when he turned with a jump, twirling around to his right. Derek whirled, attempting to face him, the toes of his scuffed up Sketchers scraped against the curb.

“Easy, Kemosabe,” Colin propped him up with one hand, “We’ve got to quench that killer instinct, man, before you hurt somebody.”

“You startled me,” Derek panted abashedly, averting his eyes.

“I can tell that,” Colin noted, “What? Nervous?”

“Shouldn’t I be?” he readjusted his (extremely full-looking) backpack, which did nothing for his posture.

“You’ve been around this way before,” Colin reminded him, starting off down the path. Derek kept up, bent at an agonizing angle by the weight of his extra cargo.

“Yes, but…” he hesitated, “I haven’t exactly acquitted myself.”

“You don’t have to acquit yourself. You’re not on trial.”

“You’re the one who used the ‘testify’ metaphor!”

“I just say shit sometimes. You know the silence drives me crazy.”

“I’m just not sure about this,” he admitted.

“You sounded pretty sure this morning,” he pointed out, sighing, “Derek…” he stopped, about midway down the path, at the point where it began to corkscrew around to the back of the school building, “I get it.”

“Being nervous?”

“Being defeated,” Colin clarified, “Because that’s what it is. Guys like you and me, we get kicked around long enough, we forget that there was ever any other way for us. We get so used to being everyone’s punching bag that when a chance finally comes to punch back, we  forget we’re not stuffed with foam.”

“Evolutionary debilitation,” Derek sighed, “Like koalas getting smooth-brained off eucalyptus leaves.”

“Exactly!” Colin declared, not sure how exact that was, clapping Derek on the shoulder, “Now, speaking of smooth brains, you and I have an appointment.”

“I thought the point was to unsmoothen our brains.”

“Don’t make it complicated.”

They continued down the path to the deserted football field, the crown jewel of GW High’s middling athletics program. No afternoon practice today, which guaranteed privacy for those pupils whose extracurriculars lended more toward mental stimulation than physical.

They passed through the wire mesh fence to stand among the brilliant red and white bleachers ringing the school-facing ‘home’ side of the field.

“It’s eerie, isn’t it?” Derek looked up at the stadium flood lights which, though inactive, shone with chromium brilliance in the glare of the late afternoon, “Being down here alone.”

“Try being stripped naked and tied to the goal posts all night.”

“They did that to you?”

“Well, not to me, per se…”

“Welcome, foolish mortals!”

Colin screamed, falling into Derek, who tried to catch him but was hindered by his bag, sending them sprawling on top of each other on the AstroTurf.

“So much for evolution,” Derek muttered.

“Guess my brain’s smoother than I thought,” Colin admitted, rolling off onto his knees and lifting his head toward the bleachers, “’Sup, Charlie?”

Charlie Hawkins reclined on the bottommost bench, the 6+ feet of him posed like a tracksuit clad Trigonometry diagram, one knee cocked up into a perfect isosceles, head propped up in one hand, neatly scalene as he cracked a lazy grin at them.

No equilaterals for this guy.

“From the way you boys are swooning to see me, I’d say too much,” he flashed his teeth, “And not all of it strictly legal,” he swung his legs outward, at the same time using his elbows to lift himself onto the next bench up, his sneakers splayed out at extreme ends of a self-made canyon pointing right to him, “I knew I was in high demand, but shit…”

“I was nervous,” Derek explained, staggering to his feet and shrugging his bag off as he did, “Sorry. I get jumpy.”

Charlie furrowed his brow incredulously, “And I’m so cuddly and approachable,” he shook his chunky headphones down around his shoulders, “But, if it’s nerves you’re trying to manage, you’ve come to the right place…”

“What happened to business before pleasure, Charlie?” Colin grinned, brushing synthetic grass from his jeans.

“This is business, bud,” Charlie flashed finger guns, “But nice try.”

“What happened to the Bro Discount?”

“It’s a discount, not a giveaway,” he reached into the duffel bag beneath the bleachers and with some theatrical rifling, produced a baggie of fine-ground leafy green, “Your usual, Sir Colin?”

“You’re a cruel capitalist overlord,” Colin grumbled, fishing a wad of bills from his pocket.

“You think I’m bad, you should see the other guys,” Charlie accepted the bills and began counting them, mouth puckered into an infuriatingly theatrical ‘O’ shape as he did.

“That comes out of my Moon Knight money, I’ll have you know,” Colin pointed out.

“What, is it Eid, already?”

“He’s a superhero.”

“There’s a new oneshot out this week,” Derek interjected, “About Karnak. He’s one of the Inhumans.”

“Dude, nobody cares about the Inhumans.”

“But Warren Ellis is doing the art! And he…” he paused.

“Moon Knight run, yes, I know, we’re all unfucked as each other.”

“Speak for yourself, Colingaling,” Charlie pressed a few bills back into Colin’s hand, “For your picture books.”

Colin eyed the extraordinary sum, “Five bucks. Keen.”

“You won’t find a nicer hash-slinger this side of the PNW,” Charlie reminded him.

“For my pains,” Colin grumbled, sitting by Charlie’s right knee and indicating Derek sit by his left.

“Um,” Derek attempted hoarsely.

“Approach without fear, seeker,” Charlie intoned, “You’re making me self-conscious and it’s been so long I might evaporate on the spot.”

“It’s just…” Derek eyed the bag in Colin’s hands, “Respectfully.”

“Derek, we’ve known each other long enough now,” Charlie intoned, “Are you seriously gonna bust out the afterschool special thing on me now?”

“Just with all the cops around…”

“They’ve got bigger bags to chase,” he waved dismissively, “We’re cool.”

Derek’s throat was working as he looked off to the far end of the field, and the distant strip of the street beyond. He sighed, “Alright,” and sat.

“Atta boy,” Colin nodded approvingly, rolling out a joint on the toasty metal surface between his legs.

“I’m sorry,” Derek apologized, “I guess I’m just tense, is all.”

“What?” Charlie prompted, “Not used to me yet?”

“Not about you!” Derek insisted, “Not, um…entirely.”

“That’s fair. I do try to radiate a suitable aura of menace, but that’s as easy as not changing my socks.”

Derek blinked, evidently unsure what to say. Colin chuckled softly, filching his lighter from his pocket (a neat charcoal gray number advising the user to ‘Think Like a Proton: Stay Positive!’, over an illustration of the aforesaid particle; a bar mitzvah gift, from one of his cooler uncles) and lighting up, “Not to fast track your inevitable corruption, Der, but there is a way to overcome your performance anxiety,” he clicked the flame on, touching it to his newly-rolled dub, “But no pressure.”

Derek eyed it the joint, “You’re really gonna keep foisting that stuff on me, huh?”

“It’s premium stuff,” Charlie pointed out, “I make no compromises, as you lucky lads know.”

Derek considered, “What if it makes my brain smoother?”

“Worked out for the koalas, didn’t it?” Colin grinned and was gratified to see Derek laugh, an awkward, gurgling sort of giggle that he couldn’t suppress.

“Fine,” he decided, “One…one puff.”

“You got it, boss,” Colin beamed, leaning over Charlie to pop the bud into Derek’s awkwardly posed lips.

He began to caution Derek to take it easily, but too late. The poor bastard worked the thing like it was a straw, his eyes promptly bulging in their sockets at the belated realization this wasn’t a great idea.

“Oh, dude!” Colin hooted as Derek sputtered wildly, hacking up smoke like a possessed iron, “Fuck, you’re supposed to tap it, not suck it…”

“Hey, if it’s your thing, it’s your thing,” Charlie shrugged, “Judgment free zone, just don’t puke on the DCs,” he wriggled his toes in his sneakers, “They’re vintage.”

Derek coughed dryly, pressing his hand to his chest, “That…wow.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Colin assured him, taking a toke of his own.

“Now…” Charlie folded his arms behind his head, leaning back against the bleachers, “Young Colin has it that you’ve got something to titillate me with, Derek?”

Derek blinked, his eyes still watering from his ordeal, “T-t-titillate?”

“Mind you, if you wanted to suck my cock so badly, you didn’t have to audition for it, but thank you, that absolutely won over my doubting heart…” he drank in Derek’s scandalized expression for a moment before grinning, “I’m busting your balls, Der. But, seriously, if you ever wanted to, I will try anything, and I haven’t been as sorry for it as you’d think.”

Derek wiped the uncried tears from his eyes, “T-that’s alright,” he paused, smirking, “But I’ll let you know if my mind changes.”

Charlie fist-pumped, “But seriously. What’ve you got?” his eyes, which you’d expect to be dull and glassy, given his chosen industry, glimmered with that vaguely feline cunning that, Colin had to admit, had intimidated him when he’d first come to know him.

What a difference a summer makes.

Derek nodded, moistening his lips, “So I haven’t exactly found anything. It’s more of a theory than anything.”

“You bring a slide deck for emphasis, or are we winging it?”

“It’d be a pretty skinny slide deck,” Derek admitted, “Honestly, I feel stupid not thinking of it before this…”

“I’ll decide if you’re stupid, Der,” Charlie pointed out, “Hit me, in your own words: How are we collaring the Big Bad Bitch?”

“Her boyfriend,” he answered quickly, “Tyler O’Neil.”

There was a short silence. Colin finished his toke and passed the joint back to Derek, nodding encouragingly at his skeptical glance.

“O’Neil, huh?” Charlie prompted, “To be honest, I thought he was Neener’s little homunculus, so unless your plan is to trap him in a pickle jar and see if old girl cares enough to get him out…”

“There was a fight,” Derek interrupted, “At a party last night.”

“You were at Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash 2015?” Charlie sounded genuinely surprised.

“Colin convinced me.”

Colin flashed deuces to acknowledge his small but not-insignificant role in these developments.

“I knew we’d get you out of your cocoon sooner or later, kicking and screaming or otherwise,” Charlie folded his arms, “What was the fight about?”

“Something Amanda Steele said,” Derek took another hit, this time working to hold the smoke, making a face like a kid trying not to sneeze as he did, before relievedly exhaling, “You know Amanda?”

“Sure, the Bionic Woman,” he paused, “She has beef with O’Neil?”

“She wasn’t in the fight,” Derek hesitated, “It’s kind of complicated, I don’t really get all the details, but…” he sighed, “This is stupid…”

“No,” Colin prompted, out to steady his shaking hand, which was dangerously close to dropping the fruit of Colin’s hard-earned money on the pavement, “Keep it up.”

Derek met his eyes and nodded, “What she said to him, to get under his skin…” the smoke veiled his face, “How much more are you going to give her?”

Charlie shifted in his seat, “How much more?”

“Like he’d given so much, right? His pride, she said, and his dignity…she made it sound like Nina was cheating on him.”

“Is he?”

Derek shrugged, “He believed she was. And I think the reason he got so angry was that…” he shrugged, “He’s given so much already. If she can’t respect that, what’s he got left?”

He stopped, out of breath, eying the joint and bringing it back to his lips for another drag.

“You think she’s got something on him?” Colin asked.

“That’s old news,” Charlie decided, “Whatever she’s mixed up in, he’s right there with her. He trails her like a dingleberry on a Greek dude’s asscheek.”

Derek retched again, handing the joint back to Colin, “I-I know!” he pressed his hand to his chest, “He’s loyal to her, yes, but…he’s not happy about it. And I thought…” he shrugged, “Is it too big a stretch that she’s burned him somehow? The way she’s burned us?”

Charlie held his hands to his chin, “It’s not impossible. But you gotta remember, O’Neil’s cut from a different cloth than you and me, Der.”

“Not that different,” said Derek, “He’s not just a joke. He’s an Honors kid, like me. Practically speaks Python as a second language.”

“Don’t sound so jealous,” Colin smirked, taking a drag of his own.

“I-if things were a bit different,” he shrugged, “I think we’d have something in common. And if things are getting bad…”

“Are they?” Charlie prompted.

“He skipped class today,” said Derek, “I mean, he was here, and then he skipped. Fifth period, and every one after that. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

Charlie nodded langurously, “Something is in the wind.”

“Maybe the murders?” Colin asked without thinking, shrinking despite himself when the guys looked at him, Derek with mild alarm and Charlie with a somewhat spicier interest.

“Collie, my boy, my lad, my brother, my sweetheart…” Charlie cocked an eyebrow to his buzzed hairline, “You aren’t suggesting…”

“That a couple of dead kids has brought some extra attention to this place,” Colin explained, “The kind of attention our favorite attention whore could do without,” he smiled, “You weren’t suggesting…?”

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting anymore,” Charlie decided, “But good work, Der,” he turned back to Derek, “You think you can work Tyler O’Neil?”

“I can try,” said Derek, “He knows me better than he knows you guys.”

“Yeah, to shoulder-check into swimming pools,” Colin pointed out, “But you’ve gotta start somewhere.”

Derek smiled, gratified, accepting the joint back from him.

“I just want to take her down a peg,” Derek admitted after his steadiest drag yet, “She can’t keep hurting people and getting away with it. I-it’s gotta catch up to her sometime.”

“About that,” Colin interjected.

“What’ve you got for us, Sir Colin?” Charlie prompted.

“Current events,” he held up his phone, “Maybe you’ve seen it?”

Charlie narrowed his eyes at the video, “Sorry, dude. I don’t do girl-on-girl. It’s denigrating to women. Also, fuck, did they film this thing with a potato? ‘Caught in 4K’ my pert porcelain ass…”

“Check the channel,” Colin interrupted. Charlie obliged, “…Lakewood_Eyes.”

“Sound familiar?”

“Huh,” Charlie blinked, “…that’s not like her.”

“Like you said,” Colin lowered the phone, “Something’s in the wind.”

“And it ain’t just the fruits of my sainted labors,” Charlie’s nostrils flared at Derek’s latest puff of smoke, “Lungs getting stronger, Der?”

“Probably not,” Derek admitted, “But I think my nerves are.”

“My man,” Colin reached over and mussed his hair, snatching the joint back from him, “So I’m thinking…” he looked back at Charlie, “The girl in the video?”

“Blondie or Vampira?”

“Audrey Jensen,” Colin clarified, “Vampira.”

“The pastor’s daughter?” Derek prompted.

“Sure,” Colin, who did not, as a rule, follow the Goyische Times, affirmed, “We’re in lots of the same classes. I don’t know her well, but I figure…I could.”

“Think you can work her?”

“She’s got a grievance,” Colin pointed out, “Good enough place to start, right?”

Charlie’s eyes flicked from one of them to the other, “Works for some,” he grabbed the joint from Colin’s hand, ignoring his protest to pop it into his mouth for a quick pull.

“You’ve got your assignments, boys,” he held out his hand, “Go forth and conquer.”

“Hell yeah,” Colin grinned, putting his hand over Charlie’s and looking expectantly at Derek, who laughed softly, adding his hand to the pile.

“All for one and one for all, huh?” he smiled, his newly-red eyes brighter than Colin had ever seen them, “United by common cause.”

“What one can’t do, three should be able to handle just fine,” said Charlie, “Or else we’ll look pretty fuckin’ sad, won’t we?”

“We’ll get her,” Colin insisted, “The walls are closing in on her, I can feel it.”

Charlie made a low noise in the back of his throat, almost purring through the warm haze shrouding them, “Let’s poke Lakewood’s Eyes out.”

---

From this vantage, the little council on the football field might be anything: a trio of beetles…black, blue, and red, gathering on a field of green and brown, conducting their business, and scuttling off.

The peculiar, murky haze visible even from across the field and two stories up might be methane gas, such as that produced by the wads of dung such beetles were so adapt at pushing to their dens, to sustain themselves.

Theodora was sure it smelled, at least, though the stench was assuredly of a very different kind.

She gripped the windowsill with a sigh, weighing her options which, as usual for those who had chosen a life of public service, ranged from satisfactory to slush.

“I know,” she turned with a start the curt, cool voice of the principal, surveying her in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “One of the bulbs on the top right stadium light is busted.”

Theodora followed his gaze to the flood-light in question, spotting the yawning round hollow in the grid of translucent, currently unilluminated roundels.

The field below was deserted now.

“I can hear the irate parents now,” she commented.

“Eh,” Principal Teague shrugged, crossing on into the office proper to come abreast of her at the window, “The team will have bigger problems now.”

Theodora met his eye warily. Judging by the relative silence from the main office outside, the redoubtable Mrs. Hayward had left for the day. She’d done her usual marathon of Irish goodbying on the way, reminding every man, woman, and teen she came across to ‘keep an eye out’ on the way home and ‘lock your doors’, which Theodora supposed was theoretically good advice until you remembered Stacy Winters’ door had been locked, for all the good it had done her.

“We ought to have canceled classes today,” she said at length.

Teague cocked an eyebrow, “Sacrilege, coming from you.”

“I don’t say it lightly,” she folded her arms, “The freshmen ought to have had a half-day, at least.”

“And a whole afternoon at the mercy of the streets?”

Theodora, a Chicago girl, born and bred, smirked, “Strictly speaking, our fine community is composed of avenues.”

“Which are at least as bad as streets,” Teague pointed out, “And less honest about it. The kids were better off here, where we can keep an eye on ’em.”

She thought of the three boys in the bleachers and pressed her lips together, “Any word from our brave protectors?”

“Words, words, words…” Teague quoted curtly.

“Sound over substance?”

“I expect Maddox’s presser will be worse. He’s supposed to go live in a few. I expect if there is anything, we’ll know then.”

“After the squeeze you put on Sheriff Hudson, I’m sure he’ll have let something drip to you if he had it.”

“Might be,” Teague acknowledged, “But then, I could be getting soft.”

She chuckled shortly, “No offense, Edward, but if it came between you losing your touch and Clark Hudson coming up short, I know what’s best for my retirement fund.”

He neither confirmed nor denied this, crossing over to her desk, positioning himself opposite one of the chairs she reserved for visitors (usually disgraced pupils and their indignant guardians; one of the sunnier charms of her calling). Theodora nodded that he could sit, taking her own advice and assuming her own chair.

Teague was quiet for a while, appearing quite interested in the hourglass Theodora kept on her desk: a charming glass flute with lilac-colored sand. In her classroom days, she’d used it to time pop quizzes, and as a visual indicator for bi-weekly study review dressed up as Jeopardy! games.

“It’s different now,” he said at length, “From ’94.”

Theodora, who had been in Lakewood a while, but not that long, nodded, “From Brandon James? Seems I’ve heard that name more today than in the last 15 years.”

“The sorry son of a son’s become a boogeyman,” Teague noted, “Something like this happens, it’s not surprising the kids will start drawing lines. But you don’t need me to tell you how our gang handles pattern recognition.”

“Regrettably not,” she smiled darkly, “What was it like, then?”

“Fast,” he answered at once, “The violence was ugly, it was brutal, and it was done quick. They got him the same night. So in the days and weeks after…we had the sadness, the grief…God, the grief, Theodora,” he shook his head, “I thought I was a hard man, going where I’d gone, doing what I did.”

He did not often speak of his military career, and much less so of his brief but eventful tour in what social studies books (not their own, though, which distressingly marked 9/11 as the end of history) now called the First Gulf War. Theodora knew her colleague enough not to pry overmuch.

“It’s different with kids,” he said at length, “Our kids, at least. They haven’t lived enough to know what they’re grieving, but they have to grieve anyway,” he sighed heavily, “But this…this will be different. There’ll be the grief…”

She nodded agreement, “…and the fear as well.”

“And worse the more time passes without them catching the bastard.”

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, watching the lengthening shadows over her desk, “Hudson really hasn’t given you any indication?”

“About suspects? No,” he shifted in his seat, “But there is something.”

She cocked an eyebrow, “The reason for this visit, at least? And here I thought, you were coming to kick me out.”

“We are supposed to close up shop at 5:00.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I find you sleeping in the library,” she pulled her chair in, “Come, don’t beat around the bush. What’s he told you?”

“Shown me, more like,” he pulled his phone out, setting it down on the desk between them, “To spare you the tedium, Hudson’s team are hunting after the kids’ phones.”

“Phones?”

“They weren’t found at the scene. Ditto for Winters’ parents.”

Theodora shuddered.

“It does paint a sinister picture, doesn’t it?” he shrugged, “Far as I know, they’ve had no luck yet, and Hudson’s no doubt got a bone to pick with me over that account.”

“You wouldn’t let him search lockers?” she smiled knowingly.

“He can come back with a warrant and do it the right way. I didn’t spend my glorious youth taking potshots at Saddam’s sand sweepers so any yacko with a badge can treat a public high school like the Wild West.”

“You won’t hear an argument from me,” Theodora assured him, impressed despite herself, “I had my own suspicions about their motives, but I don’t think my scolding would’ve been received quite as well.”

Teague neither confirmed nor denied this, “They may not have the phones, but they were able to trace the kids’ online activity quick enough.”

“No surprise, I suppose, these days. They spend more time talking to each other through screens than face-to-face,” she sighed, “And don’t I sound like a matron?”

“If they’ve found anything pertinent to the case, Hudson hasn’t said…but something he did figure I ought to know,” he pulled up YouTube on his phone, “This video was put up last night.”

Theodora leaned forward, “Doritos?”

“That’s an ad. Give it a minute.”

Theodora did and almost immediately recoiled, “Good Lord.”

“The comment here…” Teague scrolled through the comment section, “Got a ‘like’ from BROCKMIKEY2000.”

“Brock Carmichael?” Theodora prompted grimly.

“About half an hour before the murders, give or take,” he leaned back, “Latest digital footprint for any of the victims.”

Theodora sighed, rubbing her hands together, “They don’t think that Carmichael had anything to do with this video, do they?”

“Would be a hell of a stretch, wouldn’t it?”

“You and I know that.”

Teague shook his head, “Hudson and I may lock horns, but he’s not a rube. If anything, I think he told me because he figured nobody else had,” he paused the video, “You recognize her, yes?”

Theodora narrowed her eyes, taking her reading glasses from their neat cushioned case beside her hourglass and putting them on, “That music is very distracting.”

“I think they added it for dramatic effect.”

“We’re dealing with a Regular Scorcese,” she muttered, getting a better look, “Audrey Jensen?”

“That was my figuring too,” he sighed, “Only thing stopping me from being sure is Howard Jensen’s a friend of mine. Couldn’t crack why he wouldn’t have given me a head’s up.”

“It might be he hasn’t heard anything yet,” Theodora remarked, “I’m no churchgoer, but I’ve seen those bulletins he puts out. I doubt he spends much time at a computer.”

“Be that as it may,” Teague allowed, “But he knows,” he scrolled through the comments, “These aren’t just shithead kids. Plenty of grown-ups recognized the pastor’s daughter and went right for the fainting couch. Not sure I’ve seen the word ‘sodomite’ so much in my life.”

“I thought sodomy was when men did it?”

“I’m behind on the reading myself.”

“This is terrible,” she leaned back, “We ought to have been right on top of this.”

“On whose advice?” Teague pointed out, “If it hadn’t been for the murder investigation, I’d never have seen the thing.”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” she prompted, “How much goes on under our noses,” a bitter laugh, “Behind our screens.”

“Audrey was in school today.”

“Yes,” Theodora nodded, “I triple checked the attendance with Mrs. Hayward this morning. Felt like a worthy precaution to take, considering,” she shook her head, “Heaven help her, but she must be brave.”

“She’s a tough cookie,” Teague acknowledged, “Jamie always said, and she’s no kitten herself.”

“The poor girl must be going through the wringer,” she pressed her hands together, “The other girl, in the car…she’s not one of ours.”

“Negative,” Teague slipped briefly into military jargon, “You see any of our girls show up in neckties and jumpers?”

“They were in vogue for a hot second a couple years ago,” Theodora remarked, “But no…no, those are St. Mary’s colors.”

He nodded, “I gave Anne a call. Figured she might have this girl in her class or…”

“Edward!” Theodora reproached, “You didn’t.”

“I have a source on the inside! I’m going to use it.”

“And if the St. Mary’s principal phoned one of our teachers to grill them about their students, you would be thoroughly diplomatic about it, yes?”

He bristled, locking his fingers together, “All’s fair. Anyway, it’s a moot point.”

“Anne kept a sensible silence?”

“But St. Mary’s didn’t,” he leaned back in his seat.

“The school called? Mrs. Hayward didn’t say…”

“They didn’t call Mrs. Hayward,” Teague pointed out, “They dialed me direct,” he shifted in his seat, indicating without saying just who it was that had done him the courtesy,  “This fracas was already on their radar, and, to put it politely…” his eyes glimmered darkly, “They’re out for blood.”

---

It could always be worse, Rachel’s father had often delighted in telling her, You could be dead!

It had been a real zinger until a few months ago, at least. Still, sitting here in judgment, Rachel couldn’t help but repeat it to herself: at least she wasn’t dead. Yet.

The principal’s office at St. Mary’s Academy was painted in a cheery periwinkle, with white wainscoting to round out the school colors. Rachel had learned by now that wainscoting was not just something you had. If your wains were scoted, you’d made it.

Rachel was more of a wallpaper girl herself. Just aesthetically.

The rear wall was dominated by a pair of big, thumb-shaped windows with ivory-colored lattices offering a view of the lake. On fine spring afternoons, it was common to see boats dotting the water: yachts from the nearby country club, or the rowing crew from St. George’s Prep down the road.

The water was empty today. She might as well have been looking out at a still-life: pretty and vacant, signifying nothing.

Her parents flanked her to either side, like gargoyles over a cathedral door. Her father, at her right hand, was still still dressed for the office, in a pressed clamshell suit with a pale blue shirt. Every now and then, he would shoot her a tiny, reassuring smile which Rachel felt obligated to return.

At her left hand, her mother didn’t look at her at all. She’d come straight from work herself and yet was improbably enough decked out in school colors, with a pristine white pants suit and blue chiffon blouse, having presumably made the conscious decision this morning to rep her alma mater for the inevitable summons.

While her father was almost animal in his fidgeting, constantly tapping his foot and shifting his weight in his seat, her mother was ramrod still, radiating a cold sterility, a dismay, disappointment, disgust beyond words.

She’d run out of words last night, and even then, somehow, they’d been mostly for her husband than her daughter. Not to be super emo about it, but it sure was something she couldn’t be the main character of her own catapult from the closet.

Her mother’s eyes kept flicking to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece: a polished Antiques Roadshow piece of white oak, with a silver face, steadily ticking the seconds out. Rachel had the sense she was counting in her head: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

Soft tinkling bells chimed the 4:00 hour, ringing out the familiar tune: ‘Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing/You reign now in heaven with Jesus, our King…’

Her father hummed along with the clock for a few bars, but stopped at a glare from his other half. He cleared his throat noisily, checking his watch pretty unconvincingly since he, of course, had just heard the time.

“Mr. and Mrs. Murray,” the door opened, admitting their host, having presumably decided this torturous preamble had gone on sufficiently, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Sister Alice-Marie was an austere woman of indiscernible age. She carried herself with ramrod rigidity, the black folds of her habit rustling as she moved, the only real indication she wasn’t hovering a few inches off the floor like a ghost.

“That’s alright, Sister,” Rachel’s father began, “Thank you for meeting with us.”

“I never refuse a request,” Alice-Marie assured them, sitting at her desk, hands clasping together with a mechanical immediacy, “And, of course, this being such an extraordinary situation…”

“Extraordinary,” her mother repeated the word sourly.

“Pam,” her father attempted.

“That’s a word for it, Sister,” Pamela Murray was used to projecting her voice to audiences of adrenaline-junkie art lovers in stuffy auction halls; unfortunately, she’d never worked out how to dial it down for more intimate arrangements, “I can think of a couple other ones.”

Sister Alice-Marie blinked, “…such as?”

“What my wife is trying to say…”

“Humiliating,” Pamela spoke over him, “Disgraceful. Shameful…”

“Those are synonyms,” Alice-Marie noted.

“And they’re more polite than you all deserve,” Pamela folded her arms, “Have you found out who put that video online?”

“We’ve made inquiries,” the nun answered, sparing Rachel the briefest glance, “I am sure you remember, Mrs. Murray, that we have a strict no-tolerance policy for bullying at St. Mary’s.”

Her face was stony as ever, “I remember,” in a tone that suggested her memories didn’t instill much faith, “Did you find them?”

“We’ve made inquiries.”

Rachel, who had been made well-aware of these ‘inquiries’ by the inquisitees, all of whom were innocent, for a certain meaning of the word, and none of whom were willing to laugh it off.

Not that it made much difference. It didn’t matter who posted the video, it was still out there, everyone had seen it, and most of the purebred bitches she spent her days with had been yukking it up in the comments section calling her everything but a child of God.

As far as she could tell, the comments hadn’t been a purview of CSI: St. Mary’s investigation.

“So you’ve found nothing?” Pamela scoffed, “The video’s been up nearly 24 hours, it’s been seen by the whole town….I’ve had people I haven’t seen since I was here messaging me on Facebook over it!”

“Nobody’s messaged me about it,” Jason admitted, “But then, I guess men aren’t as likely to admit looking at that stuff, so that doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Do I need to remind you, Sister, of the year my daughter’s had?” Pamela demanded, seemingly oblivious, willfully or not, to Rachel wincing beside her.

“We are very sensitive to Rachel’s situation, Mrs. Murray,”

She wasn’t the only one.

“There goes dead girl walking!”

“So, what happened, Murray? The paramedics brought you back to life, but your face didn’t get the message?”

“Yanno, Rachel, maybe if you got over yourself for once, you wouldn’t have to try killing yourself to get attention.”

In its own way, the video had come as a relief. It would give them all something new to talk about. And why not talk about it? She’d been making out at with a super hot butch in said super hot butch’s car at the same makeout spot where the average St. Mary’s girl surrendered her maidenhood to some brick-headed St. George lacrosse jock with a decent smile and a European convertible.

Better than trying to kill herself, wasn’t it? Sure proved she was still alive and trying new things out. Not down for the count yet!

But high school isn’t a merit based society. It’s an ecosystem, with immutable predators and innumerable prey and never the twain shall switcheroo.

“And obviously, the last thing we want is to put extra stress on her while she’s still recovering from such a traumatic ordeal. But we cannot be everywhere at once.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking so much about what we didn’t do, and more about what we will.”

“That’s beautiful, Jason,” Pamela muttered, “A platitude. Would you like us to take turns reciting affirmations?”

“I’m only saying, Pam, that looking at who did what wrong when isn’t going to help Rachel deal with…”

“They weren’t at this school, were they?”

Alice-Marie turned from Jason, to whom she had at least been pretending to listen, to Pamela at the outburst, “I’m sorry?”

“The person who put the video up. They weren’t a student here,” she paused, “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? Or else how else could you have tried so hard and not found anybody?”

Alice-Marie inclined her head, the brooch on her neck that was her one concession to ornament (a white rose, the symbol of her order) glittering prettily as she moved, “Not to speak too vainly of our school, Mrs. Murray, but I think it’s safe to say the local…public option doesn’t hold its pupils to as high a moral standard as St. Mary’s.”

Pamela made a low noise in the back of her throat but didn’t appear to disagree, “I figured as much. And what are you doing about it?”

“I have just gotten off the phone with the principal at George Washington High,” Alice-Marie answered tartly, “We have collaborated before, and he’s assured me that, if the student responsible for the video attends his school, he will find them.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Pamela nodded, “I’m sure that’ll be his top priority once he’s finished finding which one of his classrooms has a child killer in it.”

“Now, Pam, we don’t know if those kids were killed by another kid…”

“You don’t have to.”

They all regarded Rachel as if she’d started speaking in tongues, which she may as well have. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d got to this office, save for a muted ‘Fine’ at her father’s question if she was alright.

But she felt she couldn’t sit still anymore and take this, not while they were casually discussing the best way to stage manage the rest of her public dismantling.

“I’m sorry?” Alice-Marie prompted.

“You really don’t…” Rachel tried, “You don’t have to ask any questions at the other school, you don’t, you…”

She was curtailed by a familiar, sharp pinching in her arm. Rachel didn’t need to…and knew she shouldn’t…turn to her left to confirm the source of the discomfort. She could see her mother’s thin-lipped grimace without looking, hear it in her voice as she spoke, not to Rachel, but across the desk to Alice-Marie.

“You see what’s happened to her?” she prompted, “They’ve ripped her backbone out and she’s happy to watch them play double-dutch with it! The people behind this need to be punished…”

“It is child pornography, isn’t it?” Jason leaned forward.

“Dad!” Rachel protested and was not silenced by her mother, so make of that what you will.

“I mean, the people who uploaded it, they would be liable for disseminating child porn…”

“We were just kissing!” she protested.

“You don’t have to tell us what you were doing, Rachel,” Pamela snapped, “Believe me, we’re very aware.”

She felt a sharp, ugly recoil, as of being kicked in the gut. The look on their faces when the whole thing had started, the harsh, ugly cry of her name, “RACHEL!” summoning her down to them as she realized, only too late, just what they’d seen and just how badly, how harshly the world she’d just been learning to live with was going to change.

“It’s not for me to decide what is or isn’t against the law,” Alice-Marie noted, “But I’m inclined to agree, I do think a sit-down would be helpful. This girl’s father, he’s…a faith leader in the community.”

“Jensen, the minister at First Lutheran,” Pamela interrupted impatiently, “She’s his daughter,” she laughed bitterly, “And a great job he must be doing, mustn’t he?”

“Pam, it’s not our business how he handles his family…”

“Well, it’s our business now!” she snapped, “That girl of his has wormed her way into our daughter’s head, sunk her claws into her when she was vulnerable…”

Protests rose up Rachel’s throat, but choked away on her lips. She thought of Audrey’s cool assurance on the phone, her insistence that, yes, she knew who was responsible for the video and they’d get theirs.

And maybe whatever inquisition Alice-Marie was about to kick up with their local public option would work…maybe the bad guys would get caught, maybe they’d even be punished.

“I’ve got that ‘sowing and reaping’ thing pretty understood,” Audrey had told her last night,“And these people are staring down a surplus.”

But the damage was already done. Rachel had been outed and humiliated. Everybody around her knew…even if they weren’t outright in talking about it or making fun to her face, she could see it in their eyes.

Chasing down the culprits, dragging Audrey before some kind of tribunal, as if they’d committed some terrible crime…that wasn’t to make Rachel feel better.

“The girl has to answer for what she’s done to my daughter. And if her father won’t come down from his pulpit long enough to check her, I’m happy to pick up the slack.”

“I’m sure Mr. Jensen has his own concerns…”

“And he can bring them to my face. Him and his daughter too…I want her to look me in the face and tell me who she thought she was, dripping her poison into my girl’s ear…”

Rachel opened her mouth, but her arm still stung where her mother had gripped her, and she bit her tongue.

They kept talking around her. Alice-Marie placatingly agreeing that, yes, a nice sit down for all involved parties would be a sound course of action and she was sure that, working together with Principal Teague, they could arrange something between their schools so that everyone had a chance to be heard; Pamela insisting she wanted consequences, that her daughter had been through enough already and might never be right again after this ordeal; Jason nodding along at odd intervals to assert that, after all, the most important thing was that Rachel was alright and could go on with her life.

Rachel sat between them, looking down at the blue and white checks on her uniform skirt, thumb moving in slow, deliberate circles over the scars on the underside of her wrists, casting her ears out beyond the overlapping chatter to the steady, dolorous ticking of the carriage clock on the mantel, the only sound in the room utterly uninvested in what became of her, and so the only one she could reliably trust.

---

It was a decent day for a walk. Kieran pointed this out to Deanna shortly after they’d started and she’d given him a look as if to shove the full force of his bull stool up to his nostrils.

“If you have to walk,” he clarified, “It’s a good day for it.”

She shrugged, gripping the straps of her backpack like twin ballasts, “Do you know where to go?”

“Sure I do,” he pulled out his phone, “Got you there last night, didn’t I?”

“You were driving.”

“I’ve got it,” he assured her, “Just a few blocks. You saw this morning.”

She didn’t affirm that she had and, given she’d spent the entire drive to school staring at her lap, maybe she hadn’t.

“228 Pelletier Place,” he repeated, showing Dee the address on Google Maps, “15 minutes on foot. Piece of cake.”

She made a noncommittal noise at this, not breaking her stride. Kieran eyed her warily and, with a determined lightness, asked, “Who do you think Pelletier was?” at her blank expression, “The guy they named the street after. Some local celebrity, definitely. Probably owned lots of slaves.”

“You should ask Clark,” she smiled slyly, “Maybe he knows.”

“That’ll keep him on his toes,” he couldn’t disguise his relief at any reaction that wasn’t concentrated misery.

“Or you could always ask your new friend.”

Kieran gave her a sharp look, “Who’s that?”

Her eyes sparkled mischievously, “That girl you were talking to at lunch.”

He scoffed, scratching the back of his neck, “Okay, eagle eye. You moonlighted as a sniper while I was away?”

“You’re easy to pick out of a crowd.”

“What, because I’m tall?”

She waved her hand around above her head, in a shape vaguely approximating Kieran’s thick, carefully maintained hair…his one concession to vanity since he’d been back in polite society.

“She must have good eyes too,” Deanna continued, oblivious to Kieran’s self-conscious fussing with his coif, “I saw her see me.”

“Yeah, because she thought you were gonna make a statement on your first day.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Kieran pointed out, “She was helpful. And nice.”

“And pretty?”

He rolled his eyes, “You couldn’t see from up there?”

“Beauty’s subjective.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, miming a noogie with his other hand, the way he’d done when he was a kid and she even tinier, delighting more than anything else in being a nuisance.

She smiled, laughing soundlessly into his side.

Tiny steps, Kieran reminded himself. He could work by turns, in increments. They’d gotten through one day, at least.

There was no reason, was there, to think Dee was fucked up forever. Not as long as he played his cards right. Things would never be the same but, to be honest, they hadn’t been all that great to begin with.

Who’s to say that, being different, things might be better?

Despite Deanna’s token ribbing, they reached their block in due course, Kieran only needing to consult Maps once in the process. The cozy exurb they’d found themselves in may as well have been planned by a second grader with a pack of colored pencils and a pack of Adderall, but he’d been born and raised (for a certain definition of the word) in Atlanta, and so was unintimidated.

“See?” he prompted, gesturing to the pleasant, boxy building, with its white siding and slate roofing, its chunky bay windows offering a glimpse of Clark’s recliner beyond, “Home sweet home.”

Deanna bounded on ahead of him, quickening her pace as she headed up the walkway. Kieran lingered by his truck, in the driveway where he’d left it. The rabbit’s foot hanging from the mirror had a gold cast in the brilliance of the late afternoon, and the red and black checked afghan he’d draped across the back seat for Deanna remained undisturbed.

He’d probably have to wash that thing at some point, but there was no rush. The worn out old thing still smelled like their mother and, while Kieran wasn’t much for sentiment by necessity, he’d seen Deanna fall asleep with her face buried in it enough to have second thoughts.

“Kieran?” Deanna called him from the front door.

“Just a sec!” he jogged the rest of the way up the steps to the porch, where Deanna was leaning against the door with her arms folded.

“It’s locked.”

“Yeah, sure it’s locked. No one’s home.”

She cocked her head to the side, “You don’t have a key.”

Kieran quietly went for his jacket pocket, as if the key he knew wasn’t there would have spontaneously materialized just to fuck with him.

“Shit. I’m sorry, I…” he chuckled mirthlessly, “Didn’t think of that,” he rolled his shoulders, “I could always break us in again.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

He shrugged, retrieving his pocket knife from his jacket, “Worked before.”

“Yeah, it worked, but…”

“If he doesn’t want us to keep breaking into his house, he’ll have to get creative,” he pointed out, getting to work on the keyhole, “It’s not a hard problem to solve, if the will’s th…”

A screech of tires on asphalt ripped up the block. Deanna gasped sharply, gripping him by the arm and dragging him around with her to behold the truck tearing up the road to the house.

The sheriff’s truck.

Gritting his teeth, Kieran withdrew his knife from the loosened lock and pocketed it, feeling Dee’s fingers digging into his forearm, blade-sharp in their own right.

The truck came to an erratic, unaligned stop in front of the house, straddling the curb. The door swung open with a tectonic slam as Clark charged out, coming around the side to them.

“There you are!” he exclaimed, ashen-faced, “Where the hell have you been?”

Kieran furrowed his brow, “We went home,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder on the off-chance the Lone Ranger had forgotten his address.

“I was going to pick you up!” he snapped, heading up the path, “You were supposed to wait at school.”

“We did,” Kieran stepped forward, blocking Clark from mounting the patio step.

“For how long? Five minutes?”

“15 before I decided maybe you’d decided to take my advice.”

“Your advice?” he repeated incredulously.

“I get that this is a lot of responsibility for you, Dad,” he sank his teeth into the title just for the recoil it had on Clark, “You’ve been doing this for 17 hours. I’ve been dealing for 17 years.”

“17 years,” he repeated derisively, “How many of those in Pampers, son?”

“Sorry, I misspoke,” Kieran held up a hand, “17 years without you. I don’t need a chaperone.”

Clark paled, “It’s not about whether you need a babysitter, Kieran. There is a murderer on the loose!”

“And sorry if I thought you were busy tracking him down. I can get my sister home from school.”

“And, what, camp out on the porch until I got back?” he nodded toward the door, “Or bust your way in again like a common criminal?”

“Make me a key and you won’t have to worry about the Neighborhood Watch getting the wrong idea.”

Clark gritted his teeth, looking heatedly up and down the block as if to confirm the neighbors weren’t parked at their windows, popcorn at the ready. A woman was walking her dog across the street, a black lab with its tail in the air, magenta collar a bright pop of color against the sleek shimmer of its dark body. When the woman turned to give them a passing look, the dog did as well, its tongue slopping wetly from its mouth in dumb pleasantness.

“You can’t just take off whenever you like! You have my number, you can give me a call, a text. You can let me know…”

“Give me a call, then, if you want to hear from me so bad. I can manage.”

Clark bristled, “Look, you can think whatever you like…”

“I plan to.”

“…but I’m not unsympathetic here, Kieran. I get you’re used to having a lot of freedom…”

“That’s a hell of a word for it.”

“…and a lot of responsibility, what with your mother’s condition…”

“Her condition?” he spat, hot around the ears, “No,” he stepped down from the porch, unafraid to admit a thrill at the way Clark instinctively stepped back, “You don’t get to do that. Talking down on her all high and mighty like she just up and got sick one day, like you’re any better at your worst than she was at her best…”

“You were very young, Kieran. You don’t remember…”

“I remember you weren’t there!” he snapped, “And I don’t know what you’re telling yourself now…if you think you’re doing right by her taking us in now…”

“You wanna tell me you’d sooner take your chance in the system?” he demanded, hushed and urgent, “Where there’s no guarantee you and your sister would end up in the same area code, never mind the same house?”

“I’m not an idiot, Clark,” he deployed the first name, “You want me to be grateful you stepped up a lifetime too late, fine. But don’t expect me to kiss your ring. You are a name on a sheet of paper. In five months, I’m 18. So I’ll live under your roof and I’ll eat your food, and maybe the day will come when you’ll crack some dipshit Dad joke and I’ll smile like looking at you doesn’t make me sick to my stomach, but don’t you for a minute think that I’m playing along for anything other than my sister’s sake.”

Clark scoffed, shaking his head, “Do me a favor, why don’t you? Like you’re breaking your back living off my paycheck…”

“The job hunt starts ASAP, if you’re worried. Wouldn’t want you cutting into your Cabela haul right in the middle of hunting season…”

“You want to talk to like a big man, Kieran? Fine. I can respect that.”

“I’m so delighted.”

“But if you want to be a big man, you have to face hard truths. Now you want to talk to me that you’re some big provider, that you can look after your sister just fine…now, that’s a pretty sentiment, son, but it rings a bit hollow, doesn’t it?” his eyes hardened, “Or you wanna tell me you were looking after your sister, mother, and Baby Jesus from inside juvenile detention?”

Kieran advanced unthinkingly, fists balled at his sides. Clark moved in kind, hand still raised, finger out…

“No!” and Deanna was between them, hands pressed against Kieran’s chest, as if to push him back. Kieran grabbed her shoulder to steady her and felt her shaking like a threadbare sheet.

Clark froze, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths, “Deanna…” he seemed to become aware of his raised arm and lowered it hastily, “Deanna, I didn’t…I wasn’t…”

“It’s okay, Dee,” Kieran told her, squeezing her shoulder gently, but not taking his eyes off his father, “I’m good. You go on in, okay?”

Deanna turned to him slowly, eyes saucer-wide and shining, begging a dozen unasked questions that he answered with a nod. Not much but, for now, all he could give her.

“The door…” Clark began, “Let me, just…”

Deanna had already opened it. There was a narrow, shallow scrape in the warm beige wood where Kieran’s blade had scratched against it against his will, the result of Dee pulling him away when she’d heard the truck coming.

With a final, wary look, she vanished inside. Kieran could hear her feet on the stairs, and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Across the street, the dog-walking woman was back, coming from the opposite direction now, presumably having completed her quick circuit of the neighborhood. She cast her eyes over to them, the worry lines at the corners of her lips visible even from this distance. Beside her, the black lab licked its nose contentedly, oblivious to his mother’s concern.

Clark looked over his shoulder and lifted his hand in a half-hearted wave, which his neighbor returned, lips twitching into something like a smile before she continued on her way.

“Crisis averted, huh?” Kieran prompted, “Wouldn’t want people to start talking…”

“Kieran,” Clark interrupted, “Before, that was… I don’t want you to think…”

“Neither do I, most of the time, but it’s not like we get a say in that, do we?” he shrugged, turning on his heel and heading on into what passed for home, thumb tracing the scar he’d left in the door as he went.

---

“I’m here at city hall, where Mayor Maddox is expected to address the public on the progress of the investigation into last night’s bloody attack on two teenagers. The presser, originally scheduled for 3:30, has been delayed not once, but twice. Here in the press room, we’re rehearsing our questions, but the big ask of the hour is: will the mayor be serving up some Spin Sorbet or just a good old fashioned nothing burger, medium rare? I know where my money is. Until then, this is Eliza Taylor, Lakewood KLA…”

The feed promptly cut to an ad for Lipozene, but if the Grindhouse’s clientèle were champing at the bit for news on the murders, they weren’t showing it. Emma’s regulars lounged on the cruelty free (marketing-speak for ‘fake’) leather sofas and the three-legged tables that dotted the coffee house with no regard for uniformity, sipping their lattes and cold brews, eyes invariably glazing over screens must more compact than the TV mounted opposite the counter.

Emma wouldn’t be paying it much mind herself, but the stupid thing was right in her line of sight, and her manager was the only one with remote privileges.

She attempted to distract herself in all the usual ways: staring at the faux Art Deco framed posters on the wall, extolling the beauty of stylized Viennese slopes, Venetian gondolas and, somewhat anachronistically, the St. Petersburg cathedral.

No dice. Not even the Grindhouse’s nonstop indie playlist (cutsiely called ‘Grindhouse Groove’ and, again, forbidden for her to tweak in any way) was sufficiently mind-numbing enough to get Emma’s mind off the dreary grimness of her current circumstances. The 1975 would be so disappointed.

It was a quiet shift, at least, but not any quieter than a typical Monday evening, so if recent headlines were compelling the townsfolk to change their habits, it skipped coffee consumption.

Emma lifted her head at the ringing of the delicate brass bell over the door and immediately cursed herself for jinxing a good thing.

Her newest customer beelined for the counter with a single-mindedness that might have come off robotic were it not for the cold fire in her eyes, conveniently accentuated by the double wings carefully applied around her eyes. She crossed to the counter in three quick strides, her white mini-crossbody bag trailing half an inch behind her, the Dolce & Gabba logo on its clasp glinting prettily in the warm orange light of the coffee house.

Emma balanced herself against the counter, “Nina.”

“I need to talk to you,” said Nina by way of greeting, propping one dainty porcelain elbow on the countertop.

Emma blinked, somehow more disarmed by her erstwhile friend than usual, “…excuse me?”

“Oh,” she blinked, waving her other hand dismissively, “Right. My usual. No, wait…” she pointed, a bedazzled nail (royal blue, dotted with imitation diamond studs), “Add an extra shot. It’s gonna be an all-nighter.”

“That’s it?” Emma asked tautly.

“Well, that’s my order, Emma. But, like I said, I need a favor…”

“You need a favor?” Emma scoffed, “From me?”

“Girl, I’m as flabbergasted as you. You must really be coming up in the world…”

“What were you thinking?” Emma spoke over her.

Nina’s expression didn’t change, but Emma could hear her sighing mammothly, somehow without appearing to move a single muscle, “Okay, I guess we’re doing this…”

“You guess? What, did you think you could hide out all day and I’d just forget about…”

“So, for starters, Emma,” up went the bedazzled finger, “I was not hiding from you. I happen to have an entirely separate, deeply rich life that has gone on before you and goes on independently of you and, if I should be so lucky, will go on after you. I am not avoiding you, Emma. If anything, I thought you might be taking some precious time to work on yourself.”

Emma balked, “You’re not serious?”

“It’s the only setting I have.”

“You posted that video,” she said urgently.

“Uploaded. You ‘post’ to Instagram; you upload to YouTube. Easy mistake, but Jesus, does it get on Tyler’s nerves…”

“You posted it,” she sank her teeth into the word, “after I asked…begged you not to.”

Nina nodded, “I sure did.”

“You promised me you’d get rid of it!”

“I promised you, Emma, that I would get it off my phone. Which I did. After I uploaded it.”

“I can’t believe you…”

“Wow, girl,” Nina beamed, showing off her pristine teeth, “Same. That double shot’s not gonna shoot itself…”

Emma grimaced, grabbing a cup from the stack behind her and going through the motions of preparing Nina’s order.

“If you want to spit in it, that’s fair, but remember I carry a lot of clout as a local tastemaker, so…”

“Is that what you were doing? Filming two people in a…a private moment and broadcasting it to the whole world? Trendsetting?”

“‘Whole world’, let’s not be crazy now. The thing isn’t even at 10k yet…”

“Our whole world!”

“Oh, sweetheart, your world may fit into a shoebox, but I’ve cast my sights higher…”

“You talk like that, Nina, and then you pull grade school stunts like this…”

“Talking of grade school,” Nina interrupted, “Really upstanding of you, Emma, to be caping so hard for someone you haven’t spoken to since you ditched your training bra.”

Emma froze at the pump, her grip tightening on the cup, “That has nothing to do…”

“Look, the sordid saga of you and Droopy Jowels Jensen, thrilling as I’m sure it might be to middle grade readers ages 10 – 12, is none of my business.”

“If Audrey’s none of your business, why did you film her?”

Nina smiled slowly, pressing her hands together, “I guess I’ve got a problem. But, frankly, Emma, I’m surprised you’re having such a big sad about all this in the first place…”

“Yes, I’m having a big sad!” Emma snapped, “You went behind my back and humiliated my…”

“Your what, Em?” Nina interrupted, “Your friend?” she chuckled, “Okay, so maybe I’m more selfless than I thought, because you, baby girl, need a bitch of a reality check.”

“Me?”

“You,” Nina affirmed, “The thing with you, Emma and…something tells me nobody’s ever told you this…things are easy for you,” she smiled, “Aren’t they?”

Emma opened her mouth to rebut this, but the words wouldn’t come and Nina didn’t need more of an invitation.

“Nobody is going to tell you you’re too mean or too pushy. You can dress in…” she gestured at Emma’s teal uniform tee and navy barista’s apron, “…whatever and people will call you pretty, and no matter what you put on, nobody’s gonna call you a slut. If you don’t like someone, you grin and move on because you know that, even if you’re not gonna check them, someone in your corner is bound to feel the same way with less restraint, and they’ll handle it so you can keep on keeping on, everyone’s favorite sunshine girl!”

Emma winced, “If you feel that way about me, Nina, why do you keep me around? Unless this is just you projecting…”

“It’s not complicated, Emma,” Nina leaned back, “You are not complicated. Hell, you look better in beige than anyone I know…and that is fine,” she nodded, “You don’t know how lucky you have it. You don’t even have to say a word, and the world will move for you.”

“I think you have a pretty warped idea of what goes on in my life, Nina…”

“Then why didn’t you snatch the phone from my hand before I could hit ‘record’?” Nina cocked an eyebrow, “Why didn’t you chase me down after we left the Overlook to make sure I didn’t try anything? Why didn’t you rally the troops for a group guilt trip?”

All of them sitting in the haze of a Saturday afternoon, Will’s fingers in her hair, Nina cooing delightedly from her position of concealment, “Either we just stumbled upon a cannibal colony, or a lot of people are gonna win a lot of bets.”

The rustle of excitement, Tyler and Riley jostled from whatever Geek Squad thing they were poring over as Jake leaned over the hood of his Behemoth, eyes bright, “Yo…Jensen?”

“Shh!” Emma, getting to her feet, “Jake!” and the unspoken reprimand…they’ll hear.

What if they had? Would it have been so bad, as bad, if Audrey and her girlfriend had known, then, that they were being watched, before Nina had gotten her hands on her phone? Embarrassing, yes, and there would definitely be talk the next day…but no footage. No permanent record.

“Could it be, Emma, that you just didn’t feel like it?” Nina prompted, “Which is fine, mind you. It’s not like you and Miss Thing parted on the best of terms…you’re entitled to hard feelings.”

“I don’t have…”

“Audrey dropped you quicker than a frat boy drops a Soundcloud, Em, and you didn’t do a damn thing but decide to grow up. Now, if you ask me…” she held her hands up, “You’re entitled to hold a grudge.”

“Don’t put this on me. I never told you to do anything…”

“But you didn’t stop me,” Nina pointed out, “And if Audrey wants to make this about you when it was me that pulled the trigger, I think the takeaway here, babe, is that I did you a favor,” her glittering nails closed around her just prepared drink, “You can put this on my tab.”

“You’re just gonna walk away?” Emma demanded.

“Hm?” she blinked, as if remembering whatever errand she’d originally dropped by to deal with, “Oh, you’re obviously in no state of mind to help me. I’ll handle it. Wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty…”

“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Emma protested, starting around the counter, “Nina…”

The bell rang: warm and cheery, and Emma stopped in her tracks to behold Audrey in the doorway, bright blue eyes fixed on her, and Nina beside her.

“Audrey,” Emma attempted, taking a step forward, “Audrey, wait…”

But she’d already gone, the door swinging shut in her wake. Emma watched her through the big windows in the front of the shop, storming down Market Street, hands balled at her sides.

Nina sighed theatrically, drumming her nails against her cup, “Looks like she’s already made up her mind,” she met Emma’s eyes, “Your turn, Em.”

She was next to leave, sashaying out of there like she owned the place. Emma watched her chuck her stolen coffee into the garbage bin by the exit and sank back against the counter, tired and angry at something she couldn’t…or perhaps was afraid to…name.

---

The street lamps were glowing to life along Lejeune Parkway, casting overlapping spidery tendrils along the avenue of trees. With the setting sun came a brisk autumnal breeze, scattering a few fallen leaves down the pavement.

Days like today, Noah liked to imagine himself as the central figure of an independent film poster, bathed in golden light, looking up at the lamps with a beatific smile on his face that said ‘Yes, I am young and wise beyond my humble years. Ask me anything about the Big Questions…but those small questions? Oh, you’re in for a ride!’

So maybe he was a bit of a philistine. Everyone’s got a flaw.

Or a few.

His fingers flew across his phone screen as he walked, Googling ‘he man hey yeah yeah yeah song’ and alighting upon the first result which was, indeed, not the video he’d been watching on an irregular basis since middle school.

“Huh,” he paused, “You learn something new everyday,” and, readjusting his ear buds, opened the YouTube link, if for no other reason than to shake a certain other video from the top of his feed.

25 years and my life is still trying to get up that great big hill of hope…

—

…for a destination

Audrey slowed as she neared her house, her combats thudding to a stop at the curb. The light was on in the upstairs window, right over the door…her father’s study.

She didn’t know what she’d expected. Like if she’d just crawled as slowly as possible, he’d somehow zip himself into a cocoon and be done for the night.

She’d had a good run, though. It’d been, what, 24 hours and she hadn’t walked into a Talk. How much more could she conceivably expect to push…

Her phone vibrated in her pocket: a text from Rachel.

‘You OK?’ and, right on its heels, ‘Can we talk?’

Audrey watched the three dots at the bottom of the screen expand and retract in their rhythmic succession for what felt like a while before they just stopped, Rachel having presumably taken whatever she was going to say and decided it not worth saying.

She shoved her phone away and, with a final look at her father’s window, stalked off down the street.

I realized quickly when I knew I should that the world was made up of this brotherhood of man…

—

…for whatever that means

The stain stood out against the clean white wood like a bruise: splotchy and dark, more brown than black, with that tell-tale rusty tint around the edges.

Zach frowned, sniffing experimentally, “Smells like salad.”

Behind him, his Mom smiled apologetically in the doorway, “Good Housekeeping said to try white vinegar.”

“Good Housekeeping talks about this stuff?”

“Well, not in so many words, but all the other websites I tried looked scary. I thought about bleach, but that’s bad for the birds…”

Zach smiled despite himself and his Mom laughed, “I know, I know, I’m a big softie.”

“Nah, you’re alright,” he turned back to the stain, “Well, if we can’t scrub it out, we’ll just have to get creative.”

“What’s the play, All-Star?” the smile lines at her mouth deepened, and more so when Zach picked up the planter to the right of the door (currently hosting a fiery riot of marigolds) and plopped it down a few inches farther down, right over the stain.

“Like it never happened,” he spread his arms.

She laughed, reaching up the considerable distance to muss his hair, “I’ll take it.”

“Mom!” he fidgeted, gently brushing her hand away.

“You think that’s fun for me? I’m gonna dislocate my shoulder, you get any taller,” she squeezed his shoulder, “Pull up Netflix while I put dinner together?”

“Your pick or mine?” he prompted but pivoted, “Actually, yours.”

“You sure? I can never remember…”

“I’m sure,” he assured her, following her back inside and closing the door behind him, getting one last glimpse of the Winters house across the street as he did: dark and deserted.

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed, just to get it all out what’s in my head…

—

…and I’m feeling a little peculiar

Kieran was right. The kitchen of Clark’s house was bigger than their old apartment. She’d since learned the same could be said of just about every room in the place, including her own.

That said, Deanna felt suffocated. The room was simple and almost unadorned…a guest room for a man who didn’t have lots of guests. Kieran claimed his room wasn’t much cozier, but she hadn’t gone to visit yet.

At the moment, she didn’t want to get out of bed at all, not now and not when the sun came up what felt like an eon from now.

She held her phone up, at what was probably a dangerous angle, letting the harsh glow of the screen be her only light against the descending nighttime.

In the picture, she was about 12 and looked it, her gap-toothed smile like something out of a children’s book. She’d been holding her phone out an extreme angle, mostly to terrify Kieran, who’d been giving her a spiel that it was not a toy and it was new and expensive and if anything happened to it, there were no guarantees it could ever be replaced.

At the moment she’d captured him, he hadn’t seemed too concerned, laughing as she thrust her other hand into his still beardless face to keep him from pulling her hand back, inadvertently knocking him into the woman at his side.

Deanna didn’t have many pictures of her mother, and next to none when she looked truly, genuinely happy. When her bright eyes weren’t clouded by sadness and exhaustion or burnt out by anxiety and drugs. Here, laughing at her daughter’s impetuousness, she looked so young…and she was young, really. It never really clicked for Deanna just how much of a girl her mother was until she’d seen the year of her birth carved onto her gravestone.

Here, though, she was unburdened. Even if only for the fraction of a second it had taken Deanna to find the right button on her fancy new toy, she’d been carefree.

If she could only ever remember her mother like this, Deanna would consider it more than fair.

She traced her mother’s face, the one everyone said she’d inherited, with her thumb, blinking away tears that, try as she might, she couldn’t coax out.

And so I wake in the morning and I step outside, and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs…

—

What’s going on?

The upside of teaming up with a pair of like-minded eager-beaver mini-geniuses was the enterprising entrepreneur had no shortage of creative sounding boards off which to bounce his various schemes, rackets, and escapades.

The downside was, oh my God, man, the questions.

‘So I know who I’m going after,’ Derek informed the group text, which Charlie had ingeniously named CCD, a joke which the boys were alternatively too Rational and too Jewish to get, ‘And Colin knows his job.’

‘dude yu cant jus come at him like that’ Colin chided and then, ‘shit this was for only D only sorry im high’ and, after a moment’s consideration, ‘ur fault’.

Charlie rolled his eyes at the capriciousness of youth, not breaking his easy stride as he typed out a reply, ‘Don’t you worry boys. I’m pulling my own weight,’ and, after less than a moment’s consideration, ‘*your’.

He stopped across the street from a low, grungy brick building whose signage proclaimed ‘BIG MIKE’S MECHANIX’ in a combination of sun-bleached graphic designer afterbirth and lurid red and blue neon figured after a revving sports car much nicer than anything serviced on the adjoining lot.

He’d arrived just in time for closing: the sturdily built blonde on wrench duty was just lowering the metal curtain, revealing a mural of a race car with a blue splotch in the background that was either the lake or an antifreeze leak.

Charlie watched as Amanda Steele walked around to the lot, revved up her own trusty truck and peeled off for home before reassuring his dutiful accomplices: ‘Some things require a professional’s touch.’

And I say, hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey! I said “Hey…”

—

“What’s going on?”

Jake stayed in the Behemoth for a while after getting home, top down and playlist blasting. There wasn’t really anything stopping him from taking things inside…his folks were ‘abroad’ and he functionally had the whole place to himself.

Still, he felt weird being alone in the house tonight.

Sighing to himself, he yanked his phone up from the dashboard, lowering ‘Hotline Bling’ just enough to hear an acceptable amount of his own thoughts.

There was a word for what he’d done over the weekend. Brooke would probably know it…one of her SAT words. The word for putting shit off. Photosynthesis or whatever the fuck.

He opened his messages and tapped an icon of a blond towhead in a loose fitting Pelicans hat Jake had forced onto him for the meme. He’d been holding his hand to block his face when he’d taken the picture, a sort of ‘Don’t you put this on me’. His green eyes were still visible in the gap between his fingers, bright with impudent laughter.

Will. His last text, sent two days ago: ‘you have to stop acting like this is a game man’ and, a few minutes later, ‘this is my life’

Jake bit his lip, exhaling heavily as he wrote out, ‘where you been bro?’

He stared at the message for a second after it had been sent and started writing out a second: ‘sorry’, but deleted it with a huff, silencing his playlist and sitting in the dark.

And I try…oh my God, do I try…I try all the time…

—

…in this institution

He’d told himself he quit smoking in Lakewood. Just a little thing, to show he was leveling up as a responsible adult.

He’d have to find another habit to kick.

Kieran clamped his teeth around the cigarette, worrying the edge of it with his tongue. Smoking in suburbia didn’t have quite the same kick as smoking on your fire escape. The air here was too…light. It was harder to imagine you were just contributing to an already toxic atmosphere. That you weren’t just a unique type of pollutant, poisoning yourself and your world with every drag.

He lifted his head at the sound of the door opening behind him, watched Clark’s boots plod heavily across the patio and down the steps.

They met each other’s eyes briefly, Kieran noting his father’s attention lingering on his cigarette, “I don’t do it in the house.”

Clark nodded slowly, “Good to know.”

He noted the badge on his chest, “Working late?”

“Part of the job.”

Kieran nodded, “I’ll leave dinner out.”

“Dinner,” in a tone that suggested he hadn’t thought of it.

“Or in the fridge.”

He watched Clark’s truck peel up the street and blew another jet of smoke, feeling the knot in his shoulders loosen as the one in his chest doubled up on itself.

And I pray…oh my God, do I pray…I pray every single day…

—

For revolution

“So I leave you tonight, with a message that we will catch this killer, and sooner than he thinks. But until then, I ask you, my fellow citizens, to be aware without bewaring, to be alert without alarm, and to keep your eyes on your children and your words in their ears…”

“Great advice, Daddy,” Brooke said dryly, muting the news feed before she could get to whatever rhetorical device Mayor Maddox’s writers were set to torture next and rooting around in the bedspread for her handcuffs.

“Honestly, some people…” she muttered, shoving the cuffs, ball gag, and the cat ears (first time for everything) into her bag, “Can’t even send a text…”

To confirm this, she double-checked her messages from the gentleman her phone recognized as ‘Ponyboy’ (from the summer reading, more or less the origin of their love story, such as it was) and saw, indeed, no new texts since she’d sent him the room number and he’d reacted with a thumbs up.

“He’s paying for the getup,” Brooke decided, checking herself briefly in the grungy dresser mirror, automatically readjusting her newly-arrived flapper fascinator so the peacock feather stood up at the right angle.

Deciding she looked too good for the whole night to be a bust, Brooke took a quick mirror selfie, remembered that her background was a seedy motel room, and decided she’d just do it when she got home.

Pulling her strappy heels on and shouldering her weighty bag, Brooke gave the disreputable den one last once over before heading out onto the balcony and colliding headlong with someone in a maroon hoodie bearing a decal of Bigfoot and the slogan Keep it Squatchy.

“Oof!” squealed the stranger in a harsh, nasally voice, forestalling Brooke from calling out Seth’s name at once, “Sorry, sorry…wasn’t looking where I was going…”

“It’s fine,” Brooke smiled thinly, pulling the strap of her bedazzled flapper dress back up and seeing a pair of glasses on the sticky linoleum floor between them, “Oh, you dropped these,” she picked the lenses up and handed them to her fellow guest.

“Oh, thanks! I was about to have a whole Velma moment,” she shook shaggy brown hair out of her face and set the glasses down over the bridge of an impressive, beak-like nose, which accounted for the voice, “I can’t see without my glasses.”

“Yes,” Brooke nodded, “I saw the cartoon.”

“Which one?” she asked in an interrogatory manner, “They’re very different.”

“Um…”

“Wow! What a get-up,” she looked her over.

Brooke, unable to ignore a compliment, laughed lightly, “Aw. Thanks.”

“You going to a costume party?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s great. I didn’t think there was that much to do around here.”

“Oh, we make our own fun.”

“I bet. Hey, do you know where the ice machine is? I just checked in, and I swear, you’d think this was the Overlook Hotel, the way I keep getting turned around. And all the palm trees on the wallpaper? Major liminal vibes…”

“It’s two doors down that way,” Brooke jerked her thumb over her shoulder, “On the right.”

“Awesome-sauce!” she pumped her first, “Thanks…” she trailed off expectantly, as if expecting an introduction, which she must believe this interaction warranted.

Ruing her charismatic approachability, Brooke gave the first name that came to mind, “Daisy.”

“That’s a nice name. I’m Piper.”

“Oh,” Brooke nodded, “That’s nice too,” which was a lie, but whatever got her out of this faster, “Well, goodnight.”

“Hail and farewell!” Piper waved her off as Brooke hurried down the balcony to the stairs, shooting off a text to Ponyboy as she went: ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Mr’

And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed, just to get it all out, what’s in my head…

—

…and I’m feeling a little peculiar

---

There was a light on in Tyler’s room. He sat the wheel of his car, staring up at it and running through a pitifully short list of comforting lies.

These having been exhausted, there was nothing to do but face the dragon. With a final sigh, Tyler dismounted and headed up to the door, attempting as best as he could to silence the angry, accusatory thunder in his breast.

The door had been left unlocked, and showed no signs of being forced, which was somehow more distressing than otherwise. Inside, things looked much like he’d left them this morning, but for the sound of urgent movement from upstairs.

He gritted his teeth, “Gemma!” starting up the stairs, his feet thudding softly on the maroon pile carpet.

“There you are, busy bee!” her voice answered him as he crested the landing, where his door was indeed the only one open, “Beginning to think you were pulling an all-nighter. And on a school night! But I was the problem, okay, Mom…”

Tyler grabbed onto the doorframe, swinging around into the room and nearly stepping on a displaced dresser drawer.

The place had been turned inside out: clothes littered the floor, flung with no rhyme or reason, the aforesaid dresser had been absolutely gutted, even his PS4 had been opened, its guts exposed to the open air.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, crossing to the console.

“Looking for stuff.”

“In my PlayStation?” he held up a controller, waving it impotently.

“Where I found five spider eggs,” she held up the appropriate amount of fingers, “Which I dealt with, so you’re welcome.”

“You must have been hungry,” he spat, “How did you get into the house?”

“The door, Boy Genius.”

“You weren’t here this morning!”

“And I came back. Jesus Christ, do we have to go over ‘cause and effect’ now…”

“I locked you out!”

“And I had a key made,” Gemma looked over her shoulder, “Not that it bears repeating, Tyler, but you’re not the only person in this family who can think in three dimensions. Now, if you’d just let me get back to work, you can have me out of your hair and I can be out of your gym socks…”

She resumed her ongoing search, rifling through the nightstand drawer. Tyler felt his heart drop in his chest and felt an urgent, almost juvenile surge of fear.

“Gemma…” he started forward, hand out to grab her arm.

She drove her fist into his gut without even turning to face him. The air escaped his lungs in a harsh, protracted wheeze, and his knees quaked beneath him.

Stop, stop, breathe…you’re supposed to have a handle on this. You’re supposed to be better than this.

He could tell himself whatever he liked, but that didn’t change that his lungs were empty and his vision was swimming, but for the wavering image of his sister bending before him.

“Nobody ever told you not to sneak up on a lady, big brother?” she smiled beatifically.

“You…” he spoke haltingly, words scraping against his throat, “See any ladies?”

“Ooh,” Gemma puckered her lips into an ‘O’, “A gendered insult. How original…” she cocked her head, “And hypocritical.”

With frightening forcefulness, she grabbed him by the earlobe, yanking his head forward, oblivious to his strained cry of protest.

“Not to beat a dead horse, Tyler, but the piercing is a choice,” her finger traced the outline of the pinprick in the soft skin, “But a growing boy’s entitled to try some new things, isn’t he?”

“Fuck you.”

“But I guess you’ve ditched the glitz, didn’t you?” with her other hand, she picked a shimmering formica stud from the mess she’d made on the floor, “Now, was that a personal choice, or does the little lady not like her man candy to look prettier than her?”

“You bitch!” he attempted to lift himself, but was halted by the throbbing ache in his gut where her knuckles had met him.

“Nuh-uh,” she chided, fingers tightening around his cheeks, “No biting, Tyler.”

Unable to turn his head, he dragged his eyes away from his sister’s satisfied leer, to the ruin on the floor, spilling beneath his bed. All his old earrings: the imitation studs, the little pearl, the gold hoop that, small though it was, had pinned him as good as a collar for a few moments he hadn’t been counting on and would never get back.

No, biting, she’d said, but she couldn’t know, not about that, that had to be an accident, there couldn’t possibly…

“What…” he panted, “What do you want?”

Gemma cooed softly in the back of her throat, “That’s cute. The question you should be asking, brother dear, is what do you want?”

“You out of my house for starters.”

“You’re as deedless as I am, baby boy,” Gemma reminded him, “But, if we’re being cavemen about it, I was here first,” she tightened her grip on him, “And I’m not going anywhere until I get what I came for.”

She let him go. Tyler’s arms buckled beneath him and he bent over, clutching his chest, his nose inches from the floor and the garbage his sister had unearthed to scatter across it. Earrings, chains, cologne and other things, things she would’ve had to dig down deep to get, beneath the false bottom he’d carved out of the drawer to thwart his mother’s snooping.

Say what you will about Gem: she’d inherited all their mother’s nosiness and twice her tenacity.

“Now, you can help me get on my way,” she rose to her full height, casually brushing off her jeans, “Or you can keep caping for the narcissistic bitch using your balls as statement jewelry. No skin off my back.”

She sauntered out of the room, switching off the light as she went and letting the door swing shut behind her.

Tyler hunched up on his hands and knees in the dark, the pain in his gut surging with each staccato breath he forced out. His fingers found the discarded hoop earring closed around it, thinking of choices and sides and the perils of being so fucking smart you forget how to learn.

---

The dead weren’t as scary as they used to be. Maggie wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The legacy of years of medical training, rigorous study, and OR observations of skilled examiners gracefully and methodically conducting their ugly work.

Dead people are only frightening in the poetic sense. If you wanted to get really geeky about it, they weren’t even dangerous. Sure, they might rot and breed illnesses, but those illnesses are made of bacteria which, after all, is a totally different type of living thing. The corpses are just hosts: brittle, hollow, and helpless against the forces exacting their wills upon them.

But no amount of training could make them less sad, and sadder the younger they got.

You had to ignore those things in the name of professionalism, the constant nagging thoughts of the loneliness, the fear, the anger or despair that may have plagued the decedent in their final moments.

Easier in theory than in practice.

Still, Maggie wasn’t new to this work. She’d dealt with violent deaths before: car crashes and medical mishaps, young people who’d gotten careless or just plain unlucky. She may not have been in the literal trenches but, to paraphrase the kids, she wasn’t new to this.

And supposed to be true to it.

The four bodies that had been brought to the morgue at Lakewood General had taken her the better part of the day, one by one. Maggie was the only Medical Examiner on payroll and, apart from one disastrous venture into Lakewood Community’s internship program a few years back, she’d never had an assistant.

Chalk it up to being a woman in a male-dominated profession. Dogged self-reliance, to the point of total seclusion.

But this was lonely work by necessity. Maggie wasn’t sure how you could make small-talk while cutting open a corpse. She was content to work with nothing but her music for company.

Jazz today: Duke Ellington, mostly, and ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ currently. Soft, ruminative, vaguely trance-inducing. High energy soundtracks weren’t exactly conducive to performing surgery, even when the patient had no chance of squirming on the table.

She’d done the parents first, one after the other, taking up the better part of the morning. Robert and Gina Winters: 39 and 37 respectively, in decent health at the time of death which, in their case, had come from asphyxiation.

Blood toxicology would provide exact details, but anybody holding out hope that the happy couple had caught the end of a bad egg roll were about to be roundly disproved.

The method of it…the means and the mechanism…that was for forensics to determine. Anecdotally, Maggie was prepared to suggest they were dealing with a special species of sicko.

Not that she’d give Eliza Taylor a sound bite when she was likelier to come up with a spicier one on her own time. Might as well let her work for her money.

Stacy Winters had carried her through the afternoon. No overt mysteries to uncover here RE: cause of death. The stab wound was plain to see. Not deep, necessarily, but neatly positioned to open the floodgates, creating the telltale ribbon of blood that had spanned Kleinfeld Road last night.

For all of poor Paula Henderson’s fretting, she was dead the minute the knife had gone into her. No ambulance could’ve gotten there in time to stanch the bleeding sufficiently to save her.

15 years old. To even call her a young woman felt sick, wrong. Laid out on the table, she looked like nothing less than a child, unfinished and unformed. Woman enough to have a boyfriend, though, but Maggie knew as much as anyone that wasn’t a solid qualifier for maturity.

The going consensus was that, if this attack had had a central target, it was Stacy Winters. Her parents had been killed first, swiftly and relatively painlessly, so that the perpetrator could get them out of the way. Could, that is, get Stacy alone.

As for the fourth victim…as Clark had succinctly pointed out, he’d been done as he had for Stacy to finish the job.

Maggie had left Brock Carmichael for last. He was the youngest of the victims, beating Stacy by a few months. But she hadn’t put him off on account of math.

The Winters family had died, if not calmly, than relatively cleanly. Even Stacy’s nasty wound wasn’t bad enough to necessitate a closed casket funeral for whichever removed relations were left to organize the proceedings.

The Carmichael family would have to keep their son hidden before sending him off.

The spokes of the bike tire that had been forced around Brock’s head had sliced through  the skin and sinew of his neck like 32 poorly sharpened knives, creating not quite symmetrical canyons that deepened about 90 degrees around his neck, almost but not quite severing it at the 90 degree mark which, Maggie had to assume, was when Stacy realized her mistake.

It was a cruel trick to play on a terrified girl. And to what end, if she was just going to be killed right afterward anyway? The blood splatter at the scene confirmed Stacy hadn’t been attacked until she was right there, at Brock’s side. She c0uldn’t have had more than a minute to sit with the fact of his death before the knife had gone in.

If the show had been designed for Stacy, it seemed fitting her own end be unremarkable in comparison. Perfunctory in light of the ordeal she’d already been put through.

Brock was spread out on the slab, small in death. He was a football player, Maggie understood, and his arms showed the early earmarks of an athlete’s training. The light peach fuzz on his lips, his arms, along the faintly defined ridges of the navel marked him as every bit a boy, though.

Half-formed and forever unfinished.

With a short sigh, Maggie retrieved her recorder from the work bench (call her old fashioned, but the county wasn’t footing the bill for a smart phone, and she wasn’t about to record autopsies in the same place she kept the PTA group chat) and clicked it to life.

“Subject is a 15 year old Caucasian male with no prior medical history,” she walked slowly around the table, looking the dead boy up and down, “EMS responded to a call from a witness and found subject deceased. Presents with clear trauma to the neck, particularly along the carotid artery, which has been severed…” she consulted her notes, “At a depth of 1.5 centimeters, causing rapid bleed-out directly contributing to death.”

She grabbed her tape measure, slightly stained from her previous pass, and held it up to the jagged, eerily clean triangular flap of skin over Brock’s carotid to confirm her earlier assessment.

“Similar trauma occurs around the circumference of the neck, in keeping with the foreign body subject was found…” the tape measure skittered briefly over the front of Brock’s neck. Maggie paused, frowning.

Readjusting her gloves, she traced two fingers along the skin of the neck, directly beneath the serrated ravine and, indeed, felt an irregular hump.

“Obstruction in the esophagus, potentially caused by an additional foreign body.”

Pressing her lips tightly together, she grabbed her penlight and shone it into Brock’s mouth, gently prying the slackened jaw open with her other hand.

“Subject presented to EMTs with a strip of duct tape sealing his mouth. Tape was removed during initial examination, but…” she sighed ruefully, “Nobody looked inside.”

The initial assumption had been Brock was gagged to muffle his screams. But if there was something in his mouth or, indeed, deeper…

The light found something, right at the back of the mouth: a thin, twisted thing, almost like a thorn or a vine.

“There’s something in his throat,” Maggie breathed, forgetting all about her clinician’s tone. She grabbed a pair of pliers from the workbench and reached them into the young man’s mouth, pinching the obstruction and pulling.

It didn’t give.

She pulled harder, feet squeaking urgently against the tiled floor, her mounting struggle dwarfed by Ellington’s mellow horn. There was a sickly, wet squelching from Brock as something began pulling out. It wasn’t some tiny block either. Whatever it was had been shoved all the way down his throat…defying his gag reflex, or perhaps defeating it.

She pulled it out, inch by inch, straining from effort and fear. It came up slick and reddish pink with dried spittle, blood and bile, a pungent tendril, appearing almost as a snake’s tongue due to its violent discoloration.

It wasn’t a tongue, Maggie realized quickly, but it was organic.

Inch by inch, the thing uncoiled, dragging up clotted vital fluids with it. These splashed and splattered on the sterile floor with nauseating forcefulness, but Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off the thing she was pulling from the dead boy’s mouth, something wedged so deep inside him that Brock began to sit up in response to her pulling before with a final, sickening snap, the thing came loose, sending the body plopping heavily down to the table as she fell, hard against the wall, looking down at her wet, dripping treasure.

It was a rope woven of squashed white blossoms, the stubborn petals that had not been scraped off on the journey up stained vermilion by their journey up and out.

A daisy chain.

---

It was past dark by the time Emma got home. From work, she’d had to hit up the store for some essentials, not trusting the fridge to have the elements for a desperation dinner. Or at least not one that her mother would find satisfactory whenever she was able to drag herself away from the dead.

For her part, Emma didn’t have much of an appetite and she couldn’t conceive how her mother would, given what she was spending her day doing, but she managed somehow. It was a nifty trick, and not one in Emma’s arsenal.

She dismounted from her car, her book bag weighing her down on one side, and a grocery tote on the other. Crescent Street was quiet tonight, but for the song of some stubborn crickets.

Crickets always made her think of Charlotte’s Web. They’d all had to read it back in fourth grade. Noah Foster had been in their class then too, but to her recollection he’d never found any relevant true crime headline to wedge into his book report on it.

Emma had devoured the book, to the point if anyone asked her about her favorite book now, she’d probably have to name it by default. Now, years later, she could conjure up whole passages from memory.

“The crickets sang in the grasses,” Emma remembered, “They sang the song of summer’s ending, a sad monotonous song: ‘Summer is over and gone, over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.’”

As a child, it was hard to imagine a melody for the song, much less one that sounded like crickets, but Emma supposed it didn’t need a melody to get stuck in her head, stirred back to the present whenever she heard that droning, deceptively peaceful hum.

She’d done her book report with Audrey. They weren’t supposed to, but Audrey had a habit of peeking at Emma’s work for ‘inspiration’.

It was a long time ago.

Emma fumbled with the keys, having to position herself at an awkward angle due to her burden, to the point she practically fell in after the open door.

Nudging the lights on with her shoulder, Emma dragged herself right into the kitchen, setting the grocery bag on the dining table with a soft grunt of effort. She hadn’t splurged or anything…it was just a very heavy lasagna.

Emma removed the mercifully still frozen tray from the box and, squinting at the instructions printed on the side to confirm there’d been no earthshaking changes in the world of processed food since she’d last done this, set the oven to preheat and, realizing she hadn’t closed the door all the way in her labors, crossed over to close it properly.

A soft whistling sound from her bag, left in a kitchen chair, diverted her attention. She retrieved her phone to check her new texts.

‘Hey, girl, hey’ and ‘Wanna play a game?’

Not a number she recognized. Rolling her eyes, Emma closed the notifications one by one, running through her mind of potential suspects if, of course, this wasn’t just some sort of phishing scam operating out of a Southeast Asian call center.

With the little pop-ups swiped away, her phone screen lit up a degree or two: Emma, Brooke, and Riley at a patio table at the Grindhouse on one of Emma’s afternoons off. The sight of Brooke’s duckface never failed to bring a guilty smile to her lips, and she still wasn’t sure whether Brooke meant it ironically.

A lot of things she still wasn’t sure of.

“If you ask me, Em,” Brooke had told her in that usual world-conquering manner she affected so easily, as if nothing had ever surprised her and nothing ever could, “the best thing to do is let it run its course.”

Well, it was a whole day now and, if things were running, they sure as hell weren’t running out. Not even a double (quadruple?) murder had made a dent where it mattered. Sure, the public weren’t talking about it. Random people who maybe knew the players by names and faces but not really to speak to.

But, bluntly, who cared what they thought? And maybe Brooke was right, maybe they were going to just move on…

But the ones in the middle of it, the ones who’d been directly harmed…

And there was no denying Audrey had been harmed.

The oven beeped sharply, jarring her from her thoughts. Muttering a short, “Okay,” to herself just to be relieved from the hollow silence, Emma slid the lasagna tray in and set the microwave timer.

It would be a while, but she could wait, and maybe it wouldn’t be as cold when her mother got back from the morgue.

She sat at the table for a few minutes, watching the soft orange pulse behind the oven’s glass pane, restlessly toying with her phone as she did. Riley had sent her a text about an hour ago: ‘Are you okay?’, perfect punctuation as usual.

She’d have reason to think Emma wasn’t, that she’d been avoiding them. Was she? And how unfair if she was?

The text went ignored. Farther down and further back, her last message from Will, the day of the Lancers’ last game, the qualifier: ‘Good luck!’ she’d wished him. ‘Thanks’, he’d responded and, later, after they’d clinched the win and the playoffs, ‘Congratulations!’

Which, evidently, he hadn’t seen fit to respond to.

She frowned down at the messages, wondering what degree of desperate it would be to send another. God knows what she’d even done this time. She was clearly more destructive than she gave herself credit for.

Her thumb ended up hovering over the ‘call’ icon at the top of the chat log. More direct than a text. Harder to ignore.

Less dangerous, ultimately, than scrolling down even further and messaging Audrey for the first time in…

Her phone rang to life in her hand, so suddenly she nearly dropped it. Unthinkingly, Emma took the call, body moving quicker than her mind, and her mouth moving still faster than both.

“Will?” she prompted, almost overlapping with the caller’s boisterous, “Hello, Emma!”

She blinked, embarrassment catching up to her, “Oh. Oh wow,” she laughed, “I’m so sorry…”

“Oh no, don’t apologize,” he had a cool, charming sort of affect, “I love a case of mistaken identity as much as the next cold caller.”

She got to her feet, brushing some hair from her eyes, “Cold caller?”

“Ah, I’m dating myself.”

“No, I know what it means…” she leaned against the counter, “This is a cold call, though. And, um…if you’re one of those solar power start-ups, I don’t want to disappoint you, but…”

“Savvy, but, believe it or not, I’m not trying to sell you anything!”

“Oh,” she smirked despite yourself, “Not even religion?”

“I don’t evangelize on the clock.”

“Well, okay then,” she laughed, “So what can I do for you?”

“It’s more about what I can do for you! You, my lucky young lady, are going to play a game!”

“Oh,” she furrowed her brow, “Right…did you text me?”

“I did, but don’t feel bad. Nobody ever answers those.”

“Is this a sweepstakes or something? Because I don’t remember entering…”

“You were nominated.”

Brooke, she thought unflatteringly, “I bet I was. This isn’t some online challenge thing, is it?”

“What, like the knockout game?”

“I hope not!”

“Eh, I pack a softer punch,” he chuckled, “No, it’s a pretty straightforward game. I ask some questions, you give some answers, you win…or you don’t.”

“I’m not very good at games.”

“You may surprise yourself.”

She shrugged, eying the timer over the oven, “Okay. Let’s play.”

“That’s the spirit! Okay, first question: who is the most important person in your life?”

Emma blinked, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

She laughed, “Um. Wow. Alright, um…” she shrugged, reaching out to the overturned sunflower mug in the dish rack, “I guess my Mom.”

“Mom?” he repeated incredulously, “Whatever happened to Will?”

“Nothing,” she reddened, “Will’s…he’s just my boyfriend.”

“Just your boyfriend?”

“Well, I mean…we’ve only been going out for a little while. You asked about the most important person and…well,” she shrugged, “Was that bad? Should I have said…”

“No, no, you do you. Actually, that’s a refreshingly level-headed response. Very mature, I’d say.”

Emma paused, “Really?” her voice squeaking a bit unfortunately on that.

“Lots of young girls, they’ll date a guy for a month or a week and he becomes the center of their universe.”

“I’m not sure I’m very mature, but…” she shrugged, “Thanks,” clearing her throat, she drummed her fingers against the countertop, “So what now?” she prompted, “Do you send my mom flowers or…”

“Flowers are totally part of it,” the voice assured her, “Is she a fan?”

“Of flowers?” Emma eyed the mug, “I mean…I guess. I never really thought…”

“It must be nice.”

“Hm?”

“Having a good relationship with your mother at your age. Like the Gilmore Girls!” a short pause, “You do know about Gilmore Girls?”

“A bit,” Emma admitted, “I never watched it…”

“Aw, man, you are missing out. They don’t do teen drama like they used to,” he sighed wistfully, “Still, kudos to you and your Mom. It’s so important to have someone you can rely on when the chips are down. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Emma straightened up, “…excuse me?”

“That’s just part of growing up, isn’t it? The older you get, the more you learn about people…especially the ones who were always around. Nobody’s ever worth the pedestal we put on them when we’re kids…and it’s just human nature to get disappointed once we’re tall enough to get a look at ’em up there.”

Her grip on the phone tightened and she thought, despite herself, of Nina’s cool dismissals, that she hadn’t done anything to Audrey and, even if she had, didn’t Audrey deserve it, for expecting Emma to be someone she wasn’t anymore?

“Who is this?” she asked coolly, “Really?”

“Who are you, Emma?” the voice hardened, “That’s the whole ball game, kiddo, and the answer may surprise you.”

Her hand was weighty against the phone, “Look. This has been very cute, but I’m really not in the mood to be jerked around, so…”

“Right, right,” the voice said languidly, “We’ve been going on, and I wouldn’t want to keep you away from your Stouffer’s.”

Emma froze, her eyes going to the empty lasagna box on the counter. Her heart heavy in her breast, she crossed to the window and looked out at the seemingly empty street.

“What the hell do you want?” she demanded, attempting unsuccessfully to keep her voice level.

“I already told you,” the voice said patiently, “I’m a friend.”

“I must’ve missed that part,” she crossed to the front door, drawing the brass-tone chain lock above the already fastened latch.

“Well, not in so many words,” the voice conceded, “But I am just offering a helping hand. Providing some much-needed direction, if you will.”

“Is that what you offered Stacy Winters?” she asked boldly, heading down the hall to the living room, where a glass back door looked out onto their tiny backyard, “Direction?”

“Stacy Winters!” the voice gasped, “What a crass assumption to make,” a short pause, “And astute, Emma. I told you, you’d surprise yourself.”

She pressed her hand to the glass, narrowing her eyes as she looked out at the skeletal outlines of the lawn furniture, struggling to keep calm, to slow the frenzied thoughts cycling through her mind.

She was talking to a murderer. More distressingly, somehow…the murderer had her number.

“Now, I tried to give Stacy a fair shake, but she was just the warm-up act. You, Emma, are the main event.”

“Me?” she breathed, double-checking the latch on the back door.

“Believe it or not,” the voice said breezily, “Now, next question…you might find it reveals a lot about you, psychologically…” a theatrical pause, “Why are you so determined to lock yourself in?”

Emma paused, her fingers still on the latch. She stepped back from the door, holding the phone away from her ears as she walked backward up the hallway.

The door was locked when she came home. So was the back. Could there be an open window? She hesitated at the foot of the stairs, fingers closing around the banister, straining her ears. Was that a creaking from above? Footsteps on the landing? In her room?

Most important…if there was someone in the house, upstairs, why was she going up the stairs?

“Made you look.”

The back door burst in a glittering cloud of jagged shards. Emma screamed, throwing her arms to shield her face, losing her footing and falling, hard, against the wall, struggling to catch her breath.

A metal patio chair, part of her mother’s outdoor dining set, lay on its side in the middle of the living room. The intruder was standing over it, seemingly unwary and uninterested in their own exertions.

Emma would say they had eyes only for her, but as she couldn’t see their eyes, the jury was out.

It was that mask: the bleached, twisted visage of the tormented teenager who’d taken out his frustrations on her father and his careless friends 20 years ago.

She dragged herself to her feet and bolted the short distance from the foot of the stairs to the front door, undoing the lock and pulling…

“No!” the chain was still fastened, letting in an infuriating gust of evening air. She reached to undo it but felt a whoosh of air right next to her ear and ducked, narrowly missing the blade of a carving knife which drove into the door, slamming it shut again.

She picked herself up roughly, palms scraping against glass flecks as she hurled herself into the kitchen, which was steadily filling with the smell of cooking lasagna.

The killer’s black raincoat didn’t seem to slow them down much. Emma hadn’t even heard him run up the hall to her, but that might just be the blood rushing in her ears. Having wrenched the knife free of the door, he followed her on into the kitchen, grabbing for her arm and hurling her roughly into the counter. The dish rack trembled at the impact, her mother’s van Gogh mug tipping loose from the wire frame basket.

Emma caught it unthinkingly, her arm buckling from the extra weight. The killer hesitated, staring down at the mug, as if impressed at the feat, which gave Emma enough time to hurl it into his masked face, where it shattered.

The killer staggered, giving Emma time to bolt, opening the oven as she went, in the fleeting hope he might trip in his haste to catch up. She didn’t linger to assess whether this worked, but she was heartened by a harsh metallic thud in her wake.

Faced with the short run to the still latched front door and the newly opened back, Emma chose the longer way, racing across the shattered glass to the living room and the blast of cool night air from the open doorway.

She’d just reached the opening when gloved fingers closed around her ankle, dragging her down onto the glass. She cried out, grabbing instinctively for the doorframe and catching a sharp edge that stubbornly clung on. She screamed at the hot gush of blood, squirming around onto her side and finding the mask looking down at her.

The killer pressed a finger to her lips: shush, grabbing her wrist with his other hand. Emma tried to pull back, but the sight of her own blood dripping down the inside of her arm, splattering her chest and legs stilled her.

From the folds of his black costume, the killer produced a phone…her phone; she must’ve dropped it when the door shattered…manipulating Emma’s fingers, leaving heavy wet smears on the cracked screen as he used her to dial 9-1-1.

This done, he dropped the phone onto her prone stomach and walked out, into the night, leaving Emma lying on her bed of glass, bleeding from her hand and arms, nostrils filling with the smell of burning lasagna, ears choking on the resulting blare of the smoke alarm, piercing but still not loud enough to suppress the crickets’ chorus.