“Sorry, man, I didn’t realize you two were a thing again.”

“We’re not,” I say, trying to smile. “But I’m working on it.”

“Must be hard being sloppy seconds to a terrorist,” Kevin says with a smirk. “Gotta make you wonder what she saw in a dude like him.”

I move before I think. In a flash I’ve got Kevin up against a brick wall, holding him by the arms of his letter jacket. He may be a giant, but I’m fast, and after years of strength training and weight lifting, I’m not exactly a lightweight.

It feels like one of my veins is going to pop out of my head. It’s been a while since I was in a fight—a real fight. Since the Mogs took over the school. And even then, I spent half the time hiding in a classroom with Sarah. Part of me wants to unleash on Kevin, just wale on him until I feel better about all the shit that’s gone down. But I don’t. He may be kind of a douche bag, but even if everything’s changed for me, nothing is different for him.

Kevin’s expression morphs from surprise, to fear, to something else—something friendlier. Something like recognition.

“Check it out, you guys,” he says, turning his head to the others, who are waiting for his instructions. “Mark James is BACK.”

My pulse slows a little, and I suddenly start to feel a little high. I smirk.

“John Smith had my sloppy seconds,” I say. “I’m just reclaiming what was mine to begin with.”

The guys laugh and jeer at me. Someone yells, “It’s Mark James, bitch!” a little too loudly, and we get disapproving looks from other people on the street.

“We’re heading back over to Alex’s to try and finish off what’s left of his keg before it goes flat. You coming or what?” Kevin asks.

“Yeah, man,” I say, not even thinking about it. It feels surprisingly good just to be standing around being bros again.

Then I feel a buzz in my pocket.

“In a little bit,” I say. “Tell Alex I’ll be over later.”

“Right on,” Kevin says, and after another elaborate series of high fives and shakes, they’re gone.

I pull my phone out. There’s a message from GUARD:

Have you ever heard of an Agent Purdy?

CHAPTER EIGHT

I SPEND THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON AT HOME on the computer, talking to the blog editors. Saturday afternoons must be a lazy day for conspiracy theorists, because GUARD and this other editor named FLYBOY are both online and wanting to talk. FLYBOY seems cool but is much more of a skeptic about the stuff that GUARD and I talk about. Which is good, I guess—sometimes I think we need a rational person to keep us from totally going off the deep end.

It turns out that GUARD called the number Agent Walker gave me and got the same voice mail but didn’t leave a message. A few minutes later, his phone rang—even though he’d purposefully blocked his number. GUARD answered because he’s not the type of dude to let a chance like that go by. The person on the other end of the line kept asking him how he got the number, but GUARD played it cool and kept saying he knew what was going on in Paradise and demanded to talk to someone in charge.

Finally, he got on the line with an FBI guy named Purdy.

According to GUARD, Purdy was a huge hard-ass who sounded really annoyed and anxious to get off the phone until GUARD said he knew about the Mogs. This, apparently, got Purdy’s attention. Only then GUARD didn’t want to talk anymore, and Purdy wasn’t giving him any info about what the FBI knew or didn’t know.

FLYBOY says this doesn’t mean anything, but I think otherwise: if this Purdy guy works for the FBI and recognized what GUARD was talking about, it proves that the FBI here know what’s really going on.

The only question then is how much they know. And who they’re trying to help.

We chat online for a few hours as we try to dig up anything we can on Purdy, but all we find is a picture of a piggish-looking man standing in the background at some government ceremony. It’s not much to go on. Not anything to go on.

My phone buzzes constantly with messages from my teammates over at Alex’s. There are more and more typos in them as the hours wear on. Finally I give in and head over once my brain is so full of government conspiracies and half-formed conclusions that I feel like it might just leak out of my ears. When I tell my dad I’m headed to Alex’s to hang out with the guys, he gets a wide grin on his face.

“Good to see you getting out of the house and being a high schooler again,” he says. “I thought you were turning into some kind of loner.”

I shrug and force a laugh, then head out before the conversation gets any deeper than that. I’m almost out the door when he yells to me.

“My truck’s parked behind yours. Just take mine, if you don’t mind.” He tosses me his keys.

“Sure,” I say. Dad’s truck—the thing he likes to drive when he’s off duty and wants to get away from the police cruiser—is a small, single cab. Kind of a piece of crap, but I’m not going far.

I keep an eye out for any cars following me, but I don’t see anyone. Plus, it’s all back roads from my grandmother’s place to Alex’s, which is about as clandestine as you can be in Paradise.

I think about calling Sarah and seeing if she wants to come, but I know she’ll say no. Especially since the FBI’s got eyes on her. (Would the FBI bother with busting a bunch of underage drinkers?) Besides, I know the guys well enough to guess that they’ll start talking about either me and her or her and John, and the last thing she needs is to be harassed by a bunch of drunk football players.