Ms. Keating sees me as I’m going, but she must be able to tell I’m in a mood because she leaves me alone.

I ignore her and head straight for Hael’s basic biology class. I passed the same course my freshman year, and I know for a fact he needs this one to graduate. But he’s in this class not because he’s stupid, but because when I throw open the door to look for him, he’s staring at his phone and he’s nowhere in this realm, torn away by the realities of our situation. Hael is just so … Havoc. He doesn’t live for anything else. It isn’t like Victor with his inheritance, or Oscar shooting for valedictorian. Hael has no reason to be here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just walked off campus one day and never came back.

“Come here,” I tell him, and he looks up at the sound of my voice. Nobody in the class dares complain about my interruption, and we ignore the teacher when he sputters at the two of us to take our asses to the principal’s office. No point in doing that. Vaughn is too scared of Havoc to do anything but heel like a trained dog.

“What’s wrong?” Hael asks as he steps into the hallway, so close to me that the toes of our shoes touch. That’s when I know we’re soul mates for sure. He sees me upset, and then he gets upset for me. I like that. We’re connected in ways that transcend physical touch; this goes bone-deep.

“Sara is in the VGTF,” I blurt, because I’m having trouble keeping this information to myself. I had to tell someone. Hael meets my gaze and then nods, like he isn’t worried. None of them ever are, not really. Well, that’s not true, is it? They get worried; they just try really hard to hide it. “And she knows where Tom’s property is. She followed Neil there at some point.”

“The fuck?” Hael asks, like he can’t imagine how the hell that could’ve happened. His face falls as he makes the same connection as I did. “Ivy,” he says, and I nod. “Shit, we were in a rush that night. If he’d been waiting around the block or something, he might’ve been able to tail us.”

We’re standing in a dark zone, so there are most definitely no cameras here—and even if there were, they take shit video with no sound—but I keep my eyes peeled for Sara or Constantine. I would not put it past them to resort to something as basic as eavesdropping.

“And you came to me first?” Hael asks, seemingly pleased by the idea. I give him a look. “What? I’m just excited, Blackbird.” He grins, but I can tell he’s worried, too. There’s the slightest edge to his smile, like a stained-glass window with a single broken pane. “Okay, okay, we can deal with this. Look, it’s almost lunch. We’ll get some food, and we’ll figure this out together.”

I nod, but I feel uneasy, like I’m just starting to see the beginning of this puzzle being put together. Once I’ve got a full view of the image it creates, I might not like what I find.

“This is bad news,” Vic agrees when the others find me and Hael in the cafeteria, eating pepperoni pizza and sitting across from one another. I want to leave campus altogether, but I think that’ll do more harm than good when it comes to Sara Young. Victor rubs at his chin and then shares a look with Oscar. “We might want to move forward with Pamela,” he says, and Oscar nods, but just barely.

“What does one thing have to do with the other?” I snap, feeling my skin get hot and tight with frustration. I look directly at Vic, but he just shakes his head slightly, warning me off the subject.

“Stacey is here,” he explains, and I pause to look over my shoulder.

Stacey Langford might be the only person at this school brave enough to walk over to our table at lunch and actually sit down. She takes the spot next to me and folds her arms on the tabletop. Her blond hair is twisted into a messy bun on the top of her head; her shoes are designer. Her shoes are also stolen. In fact, her entire outfit screams larceny.

I slip the straw of my chocolate milk between my lips, wondering if Stacey likes my lipstick. I have a huge collection, most of it filched just like her outfit. It looks better that way, when it’s stolen. There’s an edge to the color that you can’t whip up in a factory, something that defies chemistry. It’s the danger of getting caught; it’s the satisfaction of fucking with the establishment.

“You’ve been avoiding us for three fucking weeks,” Oscar purrs, but not in a nice way. No, he sounds like a cat who’s excited by the idea of killing a mouse. Stacey doesn’t miss the dangerous edge in his voice, giving him a look. Her blue eyes are endless, like a lake that’s iced over and seems to go on forever when you stand on the slick surface and stare down.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she hazards with a weak smile. It quickly fades into a frown as she turns around in the seat and curls her fingers around the graffiti-stained plastic. Some of the tables in here are wood, and the splinters are so bad that only the lowest rung of Prescott High society will sit there. All the junkies and the addicts, they crowd around the three wooden tables, exchanging bullshit and narcotics. Well, that’s what they normally do; the campus cop looks the other way for a cut of every sale.

But today, we have ‘real’ cops onsite, cops like Sara Young.

I underestimated her for sure. I did to her what everyone always does to me. I saw a cute, little blond with a soft face and doe eyes, coffee cups with inspirational sayings, and a few carefully selected items from Pottery Barn in her kitchen, and I made a snap judgment.

“It’s your deal,” Vic says, more to himself, I think, than to me or Stacey. He hates that I spent all weekend with Hael; I know he does. But he’ll be the very last person on this earth to admit it. Stubborn fuck. I feel suddenly hot and strip my hoodie off, chucking it onto the tabletop in a black wad. “You’re the one that called us; you have the right to cancel so long as you haven’t accepted our price. What do you want us to do, Langford?”

She nods and exhales, looking over at her usual table. Her girls are gathered there the way they always are. One of them is essentially fucking a guy at the table while the others watch her grind, nice and slow, her tight jeans turning her ass into an apple bottom. The guy can’t keep his hands off of her.

I look back at Stacey, sucking on my milk as I sit there in leather pants and a half-shirt made from my boyfriend’s old t-shirt. Which boyfriend, you might wonder, but the fact that I don’t even know makes it feel edgier, so I don’t bother to think about where the item might’ve come from or who it smells like. I found it in the clean laundry, so it’s mine now.

“Look,” Stacey begins, running a hand covered in rings over her face. They’re not for show, obviously. I mean, this is the girl we paid a menial amount of money to in exchange for a riot. Her girl gang flipped cop cars, set them on fire, looted the entirety of Springfield’s Main Street. I’m surprised nobody got shot. “I’ll never be able to pay the price you’d ask in exchange for what I need.” Her brows knit together as Callum scoots just a bit closer to us, Pepsi clutched in his blue-tipped fingers. The fact that he’s crouching on the tabletop doesn’t seem to bother Stacey in the least; I see at least two other students shudder at the sight of him. “Anyway, I think it might be a bit out of your league.”