“We don't have to do a darn thing, sugar,” Reba says with an exasperated little sigh. I glance back at her and see her pinching the scooped bridge of her button nose. She's the perfect Southern belle, Reba is, a Tennessee transplant with a closet-alcoholic mother and a proselytizing father. I'm not judging her or them—I don't have room to judge anyone—but I can sense that this is where the conversation's heading. “We're better than them, than all of that nonsense.”

 “You might be,” I say, giving her one last look before I turn my attention back to the trail, “but I know I'm sure as hell not.”

 I ignore Reba until I finish my cigarette. As much as she complains, I know she wants to be here, too. Everybody else will be. The whole goddamn senior class. She wouldn't miss it for the world. Reba and I might be best friends, but she's also friends with three other girls—Dena, Chardou, and Amiya. She'll want to see them, let them know that even if she hangs out with me, she can just as easily slip into their group and be one of them, too.

 A few minutes later, I'm starting to feel the Jameson in my blood and my steps get a little wobbly, my leather boots stumbling to the edge of the path as I weave my way through pines still green with needles and deciduous trees with sun-bleached leaves. Buzzed like this, the whole landscape looks prettier somehow, less dead and dry and more … I don't know, magical.

 Despite the heat, a chill runs down my spine.

 “Do you hear that?” Reba asks from behind me.

 I do.

 “Music,” I say with a sloppy, whiskey-laden grin.

 The sound of an eighties rock ballad sneaks through the trees, weaves itself into the wind and teases my hair. Johnny R. must be DJing tonight. He's the only person I know under the age of thirty who still listens to Lynyrd Syknrd. But since he's also the only person with a professional DJ for a dad (a dad who lets him borrow his equipment, mind you), he gets to play whatever he wants.

 We hit the edge of the trees and break through to the flickering light of a bonfire, built up and burning in an old swimming pool behind an abandoned country house. According to my mom, the family that lived there lost it to foreclosure in the seventies. It's been empty for so long that even she used to party here.

 There are people everywhere—at least half the senior class and some of the juniors, too—mingling around the edges of the pool, sitting on the weathered old deck with the missing railing, even lounging on the roof.

 I don't wait for Reba—she'll want to check in with Dena, Chardou, and Amiya first—and head straight across the patchy, shriveled stretch of lawn and weeds over to where Johnny K. is sitting, smoking a joint and watching his friends feed wood from a stack of old pallets into the flames. In sixth grade, both Johnny R. and Johnny K. wanted to simply be “Johnny”. Our class organized a fight out on the blacktop, right over the faded mural of all fifty states in bright primary colors. They beat the shit out of each other, so bad that by the time the teachers caught onto us, both boys had to pay a visit to the local emergency room.

 After that, it was pretty obvious that both Johnny Ranier and Johnny Kinner were going to have to settle for sharing the name. It hasn't been an issue since.

 “Mind if I have a drag?” I ask, sitting down next to him and not caring that the school's star quarterback is checking out the low plunging V of my shirt. I wore it on purpose. Not for him, but for me. It's my body and I'll decide how it's dressed. Not my father. Not the club. Not anyone.

 God, if he knew I was here tonight …

 I laugh and Johnny K. gives me a strange look, his blue eyes flickering like he wants to fuck me, but also like he thinks I might be crazy.

 “Yeah, sure.”

 Johnny passes over the joint and then runs his palm over the short, shaved brown hair on the top of his head. He's got a nice wide chest, big arms for a high school boy.

 But I'm not interested.

 I'm ruined for high school boys.

 I think I was born ruined.

 I take the joint from him and pause at the sound of squealing tires, glancing over my shoulder too see our school's running back, Trevone Hundley, coming down the curving dirt and gravel road like a bat outta hell. A plume of dust rises in his wake, highlighted by the two massive floodlights posted near the road. It curves past the collapsed fence of the old house's backyard and winds its way down the hill into town. I have no idea what Trevone and his crew were up to in the woods back there. Frankly, I don't want to fucking know.

 I ignore him as he climbs out of his car with a hoot, dragging his best friend, Kellen Doughty, and the girl they're always fighting over—Tina Flacco—behind him. I haven't seen the three of them at all this summer, but last I knew, she was sleeping with them both.

 Good for her.

 I doubt either of those football douches saves it just for Tina anyway.

 “Whoa, look what the Cat dragged in,” Trevone says, flashing a white-toothed grin my direction, dropping his legs over the side of the pool and reaching for the joint. I take a long, hot drag, smoke burning my lungs as I hold it in as long as I can and then pass it over. “Miss Daybreak herself. Daddy let you out of his cage for the night?”

 “Let's just say I picked the lock, shall we?” I tell him with a smile, leaning back and enjoying the warm summer air on my bare shoulders and arms, the silver bracelets on my left wrist tinkling. Raven-dark hair falls down my back in a silken wave as I look up at the stars, silver pinpricks of light in the navy wash of sky.

 “Good deal,” Trevone says, taking two drags before giving the joint to Tina. He hops down in the pool and within seconds, the bonfire is climbing with orange and red fingers, digging its claws into the darkness and driving it back to the fringes of the yard.

 More people arrive—big groups of them stuffed into cars, bringing coolers and kegs and unbridled laughter. I watch them all, part of the group but somehow still alone, sitting in my red satin halter top and leather pants, kicking the soles of my black heeled boots against the side of the pool.

 For a while there, I almost forget who my dad is, laughing and drinking and smoking until my head feels like it's spinning.

 “Well, somebody sure is havin' a good time,” Reba says, sitting down beside me, proper in all the places that I'm improper. Almost indecent, really.

 Cat would so kill me for this …

 Some people—ignorant people—think that having a dad named Cat is a little weird, especially considering his … chosen profession. But the guys call their president that for a reason. Cats are some of the most efficient hunters on the planet, taking down a wide variety of prey … and also, everyone knows that well-fed housecats kill for fun. Toy with their prey, play with it, torture it before they kill it.

 That's my dad. That's Cat, president of Death by Daybreak MC.

 And sometimes I think he's just as hard on his daughter as he is his enemies.

 “A really fucking good time,” I say, leaning into her.

 The acrid smell of smoke curls around the pair of us, me with my Jameson and Reba with her plain old Coca-Cola. We sit there for the longest time, until Johnny K. asks Reba to dance and she accepts, joining the crowd to the right of the pool and hitting the makeshift dance floor with moves that were probably outdated by the time this old house was built.