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Ben killed time.

First of all, he went back home, and this took almost an hour. He avoided the main roads as much as possible, taking shortcuts through a network of side streets and adjacent neighborhoods. By the time he actually reached his house, the driveway was still empty. His dad had not returned from work.

Go, go, go.

Ben unlocked the front door, dashed across the house, and barged into his own room, feeling like an intruder. He took the baggie of weed out of his backpack, triple-wrapped it in aluminum foil, and stuffed it under his mattress, where his own scent would be strongest. He changed his school clothes into an outfit of dark, neutral colors. He ate a few snacks from the kitchen. Finally, he dashed outside, locked the door, and power-walked down the street, keeping an eye peeled for his dad’s Honda Civic cruising down the road.

He did not see his dad. The neighborhood was quiet. He felt like he was getting away with something, and the thought made him giddy.

Benjamin Phoenix is born.

From there, Ben made his way to the public library, where he killed a few more hours. He didn’t know what Lynn’s plan was, exactly, but he got the feeling it was going to be some serious mischief, if not outright sabotage, and so he did his best to educate himself on the topic, looking through the archives for old newspaper articles on high school pranks and administrative scandals. He also did some light research on modern HVAC systems.

For several hours, he imagined cherry bombs placed into AC compressors, rotten food dumped into intake shafts, water pouring through an exhaust pipe until the entire furnace was flooded and destroyed.

He smiled at the librarian when she asked if he needed any help.

Oh, not at all, ma’am. I’m doing great.

Thank you for asking.

He kept a close watch on the clock. By the time 6:30 rolled around, he logged off the public computer, took a side exit from the library, and began walking back to Saint Carver High. The sun was nearly gone, and the dying light highlighted the leaves of trees against a blackening sky. Ben stared up at them as he walked, losing himself in wild scenarios.

A block away from school, he felt a vibration in his pocket. He’d gotten a text. He felt an immediate surge of excitement—somehow, Lynn had managed to find his number, using whatever hoodrat connections she had available to her, and now she wanted to chat, or even just confirm the details of their operation, and either way the fact that she texted him absolutely proved that she liked him back.

When he looked at his phone, the text was from his dad.

Dad: Hey! Wanted to check in. Hadn’t heard from you. Is the Art essay going well?

“Oh, my God,” Ben said, out loud, still pacing down the sidewalk. He looked around, saw no witnesses other than passing cars, and began laboriously typing on his number pad.

Ben: Essay’s good. Will be a bit longer.

The reply was almost immediate.

Dad: Okay! Are you somewhere safe, at least?

Dad: Have you eaten dinner yet?

Ben made a face at his flip phone screen.

Ben: At a friend’s house.

Ben: It’s fine.

Ben: They’ll give me a ride.

“Yo!”

Ben looked up. He was now standing on the southeastern edge of school, close to the portable buildings. Further along the sidewalk, he saw Lynn poking her head through a hole in the chain link fence, gesturing for him to hurry up. The piercing in her ear glinted with the light of oncoming traffic.

At the same time, he felt his phone vibrate with an incoming message.

Dad: Have fun! Love you!

Ben flipped his phone shut.

“Sup?” Lynn asked, as he walked closer. She was raising the flap of the chain link fence, giving him just enough space to duck and crawl through the gap. “You ready to fuck your chuckles, Mr. Chortler?”

“The chode never chokes,” he replied.

She snickered, waving him on.

He waited for a lull in traffic before crouching down and shuffling below the broken fence. When he got back to his feet, he saw the school portables glow beneath a halo of orange sodium lights, the shadow of their walkway railings stretching across the asphalt. Seeing his own high school at night almost immediately struck him as odd, even though everything was more or less how he had seen it only a couple hours before. The only difference was the darkness.

The only difference is me.

I’m not supposed to be here.

You could say I’ve crossed over into another world. An alternate reality. A singular tear in the dimensions of suburban life. Benjamin Phoenix has slipped his way—

“So,” Lynn said, straightening up. “Meet the crew.”

Ben suddenly realized there were other people around him.

To his right, there was a reedy looking human boy, his face pockmarked with acne, who was currently leaning against a concrete bollard while he smoked a joint. To his left, there was a heavy-set hyena girl, who was wearing a leather jacket, fishnets on her thighs, and a mohawk of dyed black fur, which she had grown long enough to hang across her face, like an imitation of human hair.

The goth yeen folded her arms, looking unimpressed.

“Sup?” the human asked, blowing smoke.

“Uh,” Ben said. “Hey.”

He tried not to pay particular attention to the goth chick, even though she was very spotted, and curvy, and stacked, and giving him the stink eye, and instead he turned back toward Lynn, hoping she would save him from having to talk.

“So,” the punk rat said, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “This is Brittney. She’s a goth, obviously. She’s also a bitch.”

Brittney flipped them off, flicking hair from her eye.

“And this,” Lynn said, “is Dakota, who’s as dumb as a sidewalk, and is gonna OD on pills someday.”

Dakota gave a few finger guns.

Lynn shook Ben’s shoulder, as if displaying him for the group. “So, guys, this is Ben. He’s a teacher’s boy who wants to fight a drug dealer. We’re gonna be babysitting him today.”

“Teacher’s boy,” Dakota said, snickering to himself.

“Just like you, Solcaster,” Brittney said.

“Eat shit,” Lynn said. “Go schlick to MCR, you whore.”

Brittney gave a toothy smile, holding up a peace sign.

While the three of them talked, Ben stood with his back close to the fence, feeling Lynn’s arm still slung around his shoulder. He was already out of his depth. They all clearly knew each other, and they were all very comfortable together, but he didn’t know them at all, and he wasn’t nearly confident enough to join in like he belonged. He ended up standing silently off to the side, his thoughts jumbling in his head like the moths buzzing around the orange school lights. The longer he said nothing, the harder it became to speak.

He had a sudden, sinking feeling in his gut.

This was a mistake.

Christ.

I shouldn’t have expected to fit in with Lynn and her friends. I’m a nerd who plays video games. They’re a bunch of punks having fun on a Friday night.

What am I even doing here?

“Yo,” Lynn said, shaking his shoulder.

Ben blinked, looking around. He got the immediate sense that he had been asked a question. “Uh, sorry?”

“I said,” Dakota said, holding out his joint, “you want a hit, man?”

“Uh, no.” He looked at the burning cherry, the way the paper bent and crooked. The thought of being high gave him a spike of anxiety. “No thanks, man. I’m good.”

Dakota kept the joint extended. “Take a hit.”

“I’m good, man.”

“Nah, dude. Take a hit.”

Brittney gave Dakota a look. Outside, the headlights of a car flashed across the diamonds of a chain-link fence.

“Uh,” Ben said, feeling uncomfortable. “I’m okay. I’d . . . rather keep a clear head.”

Dakota snorted. “Clear head. Who the fuck says ‘clear head’?”

“People with functioning brains,” Brittney said.

“Sounds like narc talk to me.” Dakota fanned out the joint, like it was a magic wand casting a spell. “Might as well say ‘gee wilikers!” and ‘poppycock!’ Like, zoinks, Shaggy!”

“Uh,” Ben said.

“Dakota,” Lynn said, still gripping Ben’s shoulder. “Don’t be fucking weird. I introduce a new kid, and you turn into a spaz.”

Dakota held up his hands. “He doesn’t take a hit, he’s a narc. That’s how it works. They can’t legally do it, man.”

“That’s not how it works,” Lynn said, “and put that shit away.”

“Oooo, testy.” Dakota dropped the joint and squashed it underfoot. “No offense, man. You seem like a mathlete or some shit. Good kid.”

“Thanks,” Ben replied, awkwardly.

“Hey,” Brittney said. “Ben, right?”

“Y-yeah?”

The yeen held out three padded fingers. “Rule of thumb. Don’t listen to Dakota, don’t talk to Lynn about ‘the ethos of punk’, and don’t steal my drinks.”

Ben gave a slow nod, wishing the entire conversation would end. “Steal your drinks?”

“I drink milkshakes,” Brittney replied, “because I’m a thick-ass bitch, and I’m the sweetest girl you’ll ever know.”

Ben could only nod in response.

“Am I a thick-ass bitch?” Brittney asked, casually. Her slitted eye glowed behind the black bang of her hair. “I need a second opinion. Lynn tends to be jealous.”

Ben tried not to stare at her fish-net thighs, or the cleavage peeking beneath her jacket. The word that came to mind was overflowing. “Uh, yeah. You’re very thick. That’s a nice . . . piercing.”

The goth yeen tapped the piercing on her nose and stuck out her tongue, which was also pierced. It was also long, wet, and covered in barbs.

“Yeah, pro-tip,” Lynn said. “Don’t listen to her, either. Also, don’t do drugs. Really, if you ended up with us, rethink your life.”

Oh, I’m starting to.

Lynn released her hold on Ben’s shoulder, stepping out to address the group. “Anyway! We’re here. Time is now.” She pulled out a Blackberry cellphone, the screen flashing white. “It’s 7:04. Janitor’s on their break. We’re good to go.”

“Got the stuff,” Dakota said, sniffing.

“Got the motive,” Brittney said, fluffing her jacket.

“Then we got ourselves a mission,” Lynn said. “Let’s hit it.”

They began to walk across the school, moving between the rows of portables and the soccer fields at the bottom of the hill. There wasn’t much of an attempt to hide themselves. Ben followed at a small distance, hearing all their shoes slap across the asphalt, watching for any sign of a cop or security guard emerging from the shadows, even though he knew McNamara would’ve already gone home for the day. The only thing that moved were wild rabbits eating dandelions on the soccer field.

The closer they got to the main building, the more his anxiety began to spike.

It wasn’t just the fact that he was about to break into his own school, though that was certainly a part of it. It wasn’t the fact that his dad might discover what he was doing, or possibly even lose his job. It wasn’t even the fact that he might soon be committing a felony’s worth of crimes.

It was the fact that Lynn had invited her friends.

This is not a date.

You know, girls will do that. They’ll invite their friends when hanging out with a boy. Sometimes, the other friends are only there to make sure the guy is copacetic, as a kind of social proof, and they’ll disappear when the time is right. Other times, the friends are there to steer away any attempts at romance.

I’ve seen movies. I know this happens.

From the back of the group, Ben watched the three of them stroll along the side of the main school building, trying to judge their intentions.

Of course, I’m the outsider here. The late addition. They’ve probably been planning this together, for God knows how long. I shouldn’t take their presence here as a cockblock, specifically.

Still. . . .

Lynn stooped to the side, reaching behind a dumpster. She pulled out her backpack. Dakota unzipped the main pocket and retrieved a small crowbar. Brittney yanked a pair of pliers from the front pouch.

Ben felt his eyes widen.

This is actually going to be a crime. We’re literally breaking in.

Fuck me.

Lynn flicked her head toward a nearby door on the main school building, which Ben recognized as the one leading to the science wing. The rat began to stalk across the quad, cutting across fields of dewy grass. Her friends followed. Ben looked at the dark windows of nearby classrooms, feeling exposed.

“Yo!” Lynn hissed, kneeling in front of the door. She gave Ben a wave. “Little bird!”

Ben did not appreciate that name being used, especially not in front of others, but he came up to her, anyway, slinking passed Brittney as she tapped her pliers against her thigh, and avoiding Dakota as he fingered the head of his crowbar. Across from them, a few cars sat darkly in a mini-parking lot.

“You ready to get the sitch?” Lynn asked, digging through her backpack.

Ben looked around the quad, feeling suddenly put on the spot. He tried to remember this area of the school as well as he could. “A sitch? I mean—sure. Where is it? What does it look like? I don’t know what a sitch is supposed to. . . .”

“The situation, numbnuts. Do you want to know what we’re doing?”

Brittney snickered.

“Narc,” Dakota said, pretending to cough.

Ben blushed.

“Look,” Lynn said, pulling out a screwdriver and a thin, bending wire. She leaned toward the keyhole on the door. “We’re dumping citric acid into the gym concrete.”

Ben blinked. “Citric acid?”

“It’s the shit inside lemons, man,” Dakota said. “You know, citrus.”

“I know what citric acid is,” Ben replied. “I just wasn’t. . . .” He thought about it for a moment, feeling a spark of recognition. “It’ll act as a retarding agent. You want to sabotage the concrete as it sets. Leave it cracked and slurried.”

Lynn glanced at him, still lockpicking the door.

“I took AP Chem last year,” Ben replied. “And I did some—you know—research. Tonight. Anyway, citric acid is an organic compound. It’ll react with the calcium inside the concrete before it combines with water. Done right, you’ll fuck up the entire laying process.”

Lynn stopped jiggling the lock. “Huh.”

“What? Am I being a narc again?”

“Nah, dude.” She turned back to her work. “Well, maybe a little. But I guess that’s your charm.”

Ben glanced behind him. “What’re the tools for?”

“Prying apart the wooden floor,” Brittney replied, snipping the pliers. “If you separate the laminated panels just a little, tiny bit—”

“—they’ll have to realign the entire section,” Ben finished. “Which will be a major pain in the ass, considering the gym is big as shit.”

Brittney flashed the peace sign, grinning wide.

“Actually,” Ben continued, feeling suddenly able to speak, “this is really good. If you pry apart the wood, and the concrete is still wet because of the citric acid, water’ll get into the sub-floor and trap moisture inside. It’ll get moldy, it’ll weaken the foundation. You’ll make the entire gym a safety hazard.”

“Like, hazmats and shit?” Dakota asked.

“I mean, probably. It’ll make front page news if kids get sick from black mold. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Lynn made a noise in her throat. This seemed to be news to her. “Would the principal go to jail for that?”

“. . . I guess, yeah?”

“Hm. Good.”

“Lynn,” Brittney said, as if warning her.

“Eat my ass, you slut.”

The door clicked open, and Lynn rushed inside.

Ben fell into line as the four of them creeped into a hallway of the science wing, moving like a squad of soldiers. The corridors of Saint Carver High seemed mostly the same. Fluorescent lights burned with white, and the lockers puked with yellow, and the tiled floors glittered with blue lines, golden checkers, and the leafy brown symbol of a beetle eating trees. Even the classroom doors seemed to stand out more, now that the light within them was gone.

They were very exposed. If a janitor came strolling down the corridor, the only place to hide would be the edge of the lockers, or the tiny alcoves around the classroom doors. When Ben tried one of the doors themselves, he discovered it was locked.

Peachy.

I better get ready to run.

Lynn stalked ahead, straddling the walls as she took a few turns through the maze of corridors. She moved with precision, crouching low to the floor. Her backpack thumped against the base of her tail. Ben tried not to stare.

When she stopped at an intersection, Ben pointed at a black dot bulging from the top of a stucco wall, whispering: “Cameras.”

Lynn blew a raspberry. “They don’t work.”

“You sure?”

“Not the first time I’ve broken in.” She peeked around the corner. “And there’s the gym. No cops, no alarms.”

“Easy win,” Brittney said.

“Played ‘em like a vio-Lynn,” Ben added.

All three of them snickered. Ben felt very proud of himself.

Sure enough, when he leaned around the corner, he saw the empty hall right next to the gym, where Hannah had choked him earlier this morning. Flaps of plastic bulged from the open gym doors, and the entrance itself was flecked with duct tape, exposed concrete flooring, and the orange trails of extension cords, like a growing infection of construction equipment.

This feels a little too easy.

Hm. . . .

Lynn walked out into the hall, Brittney and Dakota following close. None of them bothered to hide. The only sound in the long, empty corridor was the gentle sashay of their clothes and the subtle squeak of their shoes, mixed with the occasional echo of distant doors. More than once, Ben thought he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Nothing ever emerged.

I’m just being paranoid.

Keep it together.

The hyena and the human set up at the gym entrance, trying to carefully peel away the plastic. The rat continued on.

“Which one?” Lynn asked, gesturing to the lockers.

“609.”

She walked astride the lockers, peering at each of the copper plates. When she reached the end, she found her target, saw that it was on the highest row, beat the metal door with her fist, and pulled out her improvised lockpick once again, rising up onto the tips of her toes.

“I could give you a lift,” Ben said.

“Eat me.”

She began to pick the lock. Ben kept watch at her back, peering through a darkened window that looked over the front parking lot. He saw a few cars sitting beneath the orange lights. It seemed like more people were at the school than should really be necessary.

For a moment, he could’ve sworn he heard footsteps again, like the ghost of passing period whispering in his ear.

“You sure we’re good?” he asked.

Lynn yanked the bobby pin. “Should be. There’s only two janitors, far as I can tell.”

“Two janitors? Really? There’s, like, a couple thousand kids in this school.” Ben glanced around. “There’s at least thirty bathrooms to clean.”

“You could say it’s a shitty job.”

Back along the hall, Dakota managed to peel the plastic curtain up from the floor, allowing Brittney to crawl beneath. He gave a thumbs up to Lynn as he disappeared into the lightless gym. The plastic fluttered down.

“Hey,” Lynn said, nodding at the locker. “Wanna make a bet?”

“On what?”

“What’s she got, dumbass.” The rat whipped her tail against her jeans. “I mean, drugs, guns, blood money.” She shrugged. “Stolen diamonds, priceless artwork.”

“Maybe she eats freshmen,” Ben said.

“I think she worships an evil god, personally.”

“I think she’s the princess of an alien empire.”

“I think she’s a ghost.”

“I think she’s an undercover CIA agent who sprinkles crack in the water fountains.”

Lynn nodded along. “I think she’s a vampire, and she can’t suck any necks ‘cause of her stupid shark mouth, so she hunts down used tampons in the girls bathroom and slurps them like a slushie.”

Ben made a gagging sound.

“Too much?”

“No, no, no,” Ben said. “Look, I got it. The only thing she has is a problem. And that problem is me.”

Lynn gave a low whistle.

“Thank you,” Ben said. “I tried.”

“Just don’t cut yourself on that edge, bucko.”

Feeling a little brave, Ben shoved Lynn in the shoulder, messing up the angle of her bobby pin. She responded by kicking back at his thigh. They pretended to scrabble for several seconds.

“Keep watch, dipshit,” Lynn said.

“Sorry, sorry.”

She gave a sarcastic glare. He pretended to cower. When she turned back to the lock, she gave him a quick wink, complete with a fluttering twitch of her ear.

Ben realized, very suddenly, that his heart was pounding in his chest.

I really do have a crush.

God help me.

A few seconds later, there was a clunk, a whine of metal joints, and the door of Hannah’s locker began to peel open. Lynn kept the door from swinging too far.

“Honor’s all yours,” she said, stepping aside.

Ben stepped forward, took a small breath, and opened the door wide.

He had been expecting a lot from Hannah’s locker. Despite all the jokes, he really was hoping to find something incriminating, whether that be weed, cocaine, sheets of acid, a burner phone filled with clients, maybe even a knife or gun, because every self-respecting drug dealer obviously needed a gun. Instead, when Ben peered inside, he was greeted by the very mundane sight of textbooks, binders, tubs of surfing wax, a sleeveless rash guard, a bag of climbing chalk, and a pink sports bottle filled with Gatorade. It was the typical locker of a high-performing athlete.

His disappointment was palpable.

“What you got?” Lynn asked.

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

She peered over his shoulder. Ben rummaged around a bit, batting aside textbooks and binders, trying to dig into the corners. Nothing appeared. He couldn’t even smell the weed that had been there before. On a whim, he cracked open one of the plastic-lined binders, but it was only notes from her organic chemistry class. He flipped angrily through the pages.

Your handwriting is very pretty.

Unlike you.

You bitch.

“Well,” Lynn said. “Guess it’s bunk, man. Sorry.”

Ben shoved the binder back inside, quickly pulling out another. “I guess, yeah.”

“She wouldn’t leave her shit over the weekend, anyway. That’s asking to get caught.” The rat clapped him on the shoulder. “We can always come back.”

Ben flipped through the second binder, which Hannah used for AP Lit. Most of the pages were filled with bullet point notes, rough draft essays, and book annotations. On one page, he discovered a couple doodles in the margins around an essay, all of which depicted a human sitting at his desk, covered in a rainbow of hearts.

He flipped the page so hard it nearly tore.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Lynn said. “Flip it back.”

“No,” Ben replied.

“Dude, she’s drawing you.”

Ben was so incensed he could barely speak. “She better start drawing straws. When she’s in prison. And getting raped. In the showers.”

“Ooooo,” Lynn said, poking his back, “she has a crush on yooooouuuuuu!”

Ben almost threw the binder at the nearest wall. Instead, as he cocked his arm to throw, something fell at his feet. When he looked down, he saw a plain white envelope sitting on top of his sneakers. For a moment, the only sound in the hallway was a subtle cracking of wood, deep inside the gymnasium.

“Oh, shit,” Lynn said. “That’s, uh—”

Ben picked up the envelope. He could tell, immediately, that it was very full. Whatever was inside, it made the package nearly as thick as his wrist. When he flipped it over, he noticed some of Hannah’s handwriting.

For MC

“Dude,” Lynn said, slightly worried. “Put that back.”

“What’s in it?” Ben asked.

The envelope was not sealed. When he opened the flap, he saw row upon row of cash staring back at him. Some of it was fresh. Most of it was wrinkled and dirty. All of them were big bills. Twenty bucks, fifty, a hundred. . . .

“Oh,” Ben said, surprised.

“Yeah,” Lynn said, nudging him. “That’s her drop.”

“Drop?”

“Dead drop. Cash run.” The rat gestured. “This is how she pays her supplier. It’s her earnings for the week, or month, or whatever.”

Ben began to thumb through the stack of bills. “She’s got a lotta earnings.”

“Put it back,” Lynn said, nudging him again. “That’s serious drug money, man. That’s the kinda shit people get killed for.”

Ben kept flipping through the bills, feeling like he was always discovering more. “This is, like, a couple grand, actually. Maybe close to ten.”

“Good for her. Put it back.”

“Who’s MC?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

Ben reached the end of the envelope, doing some rough mental calculations. “She’s gotta be moving a lot of product. No way she’s just selling weed. Or, maybe, she’s doing something else. Gambling?”

“Prostitution?” Lynn offered.

Ben stared at the envelope. Something clicked in his head. “Hold on. You said a cash drop? Like, she’s leaving this for someone?”

“Way it goes, usually.”

“I remember. . . .” Ben blinked. “Today, when I was eavesdropping on her, she told Ryan Pressly that ‘tonight’s the night’. She was really serious about it. She must’ve . . . been talking about this cash.”

Lynn stared up at him.

“Someone’s coming to pick this up,” Ben said.

Footsteps echoed down the hall.

Lynn yanked the envelope away, threw it inside, closed Hannah’s locker, started for the gym, decided there wasn’t enough time, and turned for the opposite end of the corridor, grabbing Ben by the zipper of his hoodie. He stumbled as he ran. Meanwhile, the footsteps grew heavier and heavier. There was an audible click along the tiles, in a way that was very unlike the sneakers and soles of a typical high-school student. Somewhere below, he heard an odd kind of rattling, like equipment shifting on a belt.

Cops.

Holy shit.

The fucking cops.

For a horribly lucid moment, Ben imagined the entire school filled with the flash of red and blue lights, the nearby roads barricaded with cars, the night sky ripped apart by the blades of a helicopter. At the same time, Lynn slid around the corner of an adjacent hall, dragging Ben by the scruff of his shirt. He scrambled. Both slammed their backs against the wall.

A second later, the footsteps shot up in volume. They strolled down the corridor adjacent to the gym. By the sound of things, they were not in a hurry. It did not seem like either of them had been spotted.

Ben was not relieved.

He stood there, nerves alight, hearing every click of the intruder’s boots like the pounding of his own heart. They were coming in his direction. He didn’t dare peak around the corner. At the same time, he realized that, if he wanted to leave the school, he would now have to take the long way around.

Lynn held up a hand, as if telling him to wait.

The footsteps grew close. Just before they turned the corner, the intruder stopped walking.

There was a long, drawn-out silence. Ben immediately felt sympathy for every horror movie protagonist he had ever seen, because trying to breathe quietly was almost impossible during a panic attack. He saw Lynn risk a peek around the corner, and he almost yanked her back to safety.

She stiffened.

Very close by, there was a chuff, followed by the sound of a combination dial twisting on a locker. He heard a murmur of electronic radio.

Ben took a peek.

He saw McNamara, the school’s truant officer, the same paunchy middle-aged rhinoceros he had bluffed just a few weeks before when she’d caught Lynn sneaking through the hall. Right now, McNamara was standing in front of Hannah’s locker, still dressed in police uniform. She was dialing in the combination as easily as if it was her own.

There was a pistol on her belt.

She paused, blinking.

Her head turned.

Ben and Lynn snapped back into cover.

There was another long, drawn-out silence. Ben had to swallow his heart. Eventually, there was a grunt, a shuffling of boots, and the sound of a locker door whining along its hinge. A moment later, Lynn glanced back up at him, as if asking whether he was seeing the same thing as her.

He nodded.

Her pink nose twitched. She risked another peek around the corner, looking askew of McNamara. She was staring right at the gym.

Brittney and Dakota.

Shit.

“What the fuck?” McNamara said.

Lynn snapped back to cover, pulling out her phone.

“Who the fuck—” There was a crinkle of paper, followed by the sound of binders and textbooks fumbling around a locker. “Did someone . . . ?”

She started tearing through the locker. Lynn used the sound to cover the clicking on her Blackberry, furiously hitting the keys.

“Teenage bullshit,” McNamara muttered, her voice thick and rough. She threw one of Hannah’s binders clear out into the hall. “Oh, yeah, work the school. Susan said it’s easy. Oh, this is the suburbs, these kids are soft as Twinkies.” There was a loud slam. “Better not have talked.”

Lynn sent the text. She put her phone away and pointed down the hall, as if telling Ben which direction to run.

On the linoleum tile, Ben saw the shadow of a nightstick, clutched tightly in hand.

“Alright,” McNamara said, her duty belt rattling on her hip. “We’ll play it your way. Next time, put the envelope back where you found it, you stupid fuckin’—” The radio gave a choking squawk. “Control, this is unit 7-D at Saint Carver High, do you copy?”

“10-4,” the radio replied. “What’s your situation?”

“Possible signs of break-in. Tell all available patrols to keep an eye out for kids walking after dark. Detain and search.” The rhino poked Hannah’s locker with her nightstick. “I think someone’s having fun.”

“10-4. Do you need backup?”

“No. The school is mine.”

There was a crash in the gym, like a body hitting the wooden bleachers. It echoed up to the ceiling. Ben did not see McNamara’s reaction, but he did hear a rough sort of snarl, followed by a pounding of heavy boots. The radio did not speak again.

Lynn peeked around the corner, ready to intervene.

Ben beat her to it.

He dashed out into the open hall next to the gym, his face hidden beneath his hood. McNamara was stomping toward the entrance. Her back was turned. Her horn was lowered and braced. One hand was on her nightstick, and the other was reaching for the curtain of plastic, fluttering above a sea of freshly poured concrete.

Hannah’s locker was still open.

Ben sprinted forward, feeling like his legs were not his own. When he spoke, it did not sound like his voice.

“Hey, fatso!”

McNamara turned.

Ben grabbed Hannah’s sports bottle and chucked it at the rhino’s face.

The bottle split open while sailing through the air. Hannah had not sealed it all the way. The result was the pink bottle striking McNamara directly on the horn, followed by a gush of bright red Gatorade pouring across her face and chest. It splattered like a bucket of blood. McNamara flinched and reeled and spat.

“Who the fuck—”

“You like donuts, bitch?” Lynn shouted.

She came out at Ben’s side, hood pulled over her face, chucking the white ball of Hannah’s climbing chalk. It left a streak of dust through the air. The ball impaled itself on the rhino’s horn, crashing into her snout, exploding with a hurricane of dust, filling the air so completely with powder that McNamara was immediately blinded and choked.

She took a step forward, waving through the dust, trying to wipe the clumping powder from her eyes. Her boot touched the slick tiled floor.

She slipped.

She crashed to the ground.

Her nightstick clanged against the opposite lockers.

“SCATTER!” Lynn screamed.

The punk rat sprinted down the corridor, dodging McNamara’s flailing attempt at a grab. There was a pair of crashing echoes moving through the gym, which sounded like Brittney and Dakota beating feet into the school’s maintenance hall. Ben followed Lynn, sprinting as fast as his nerdy body could go.

Out the corner of his eye, he saw McNamara go for her gun.

Delirious, full of adrenaline, feeling like he might genuinely die, he found himself yelling at the top of his lungs.

“The chode never chokes!”

Lynn laughed like an inmate escaping asylum.

They raced through the hall. They took several turns. The lights burned, the classrooms leered. Ben felt a horrible sense of exposure, a tingling of a bullet to come. But they ran, and their shoes pounded the tiles, and they ran even more, and the hallways stopped, and Lynn was slamming open a door, and they were back outside, racing across the quad, the soft swish of grass the only sound in the empty night, and they were running up the hill to the portables, over asphalt, beneath a fence, straight across the street, dodging incoming traffic, diving headfirst into a row of hedges that marked the boundary of someone’s backyard, and they were now tearing through branches and leaves, heading deep into an unknown neighborhood.

Ben ran until his lungs were burning, until his side was screaming in pain, crossing a dozen backyards at a breakneck pace. There was one moment, halfway across the suburbs, where he had to stop and gasp for air, and Lynn was ahead of him, hopping a fence with all the grace of a fleeing rat. She disappeared. He panicked. He ran and stumbled, gasping, barely able to walk. When he touched the fence, his arms felt like rubber, and he knew he couldn’t climb.

Lynn appeared at the top, holding out a pink hand.

“Come on!”

He grabbed her hand, and she pulled him over.

They ran for hours. It was probably only minutes. By the time both of them felt safe enough to stop, they were deep inside a low-rise apartment complex, which was about a ten minute walk from Ben’s house. Lynn waved him over to a shitty jungle gym sandwiched in the middle of the buildings. They both climbed up the slide.

“Holy shit,” she said.

Ben was breathing so hard that his throat felt like it was bleeding. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Lynn surveyed the empty streets from the top of the playground. There were no cars. The street was empty, the surrounding apartment windows the only sign of light and life. She leaned on top of the monkey bars, catching her breath.

“Okay,” she said. “Look. Game time. Where do you live?”

“Close,” he wheezed.

“Can you get there without hitting the main road?”

He looked around, gesturing south. “I can—walk along the creek.”

“Good. Keep it low, man. She called an APB. The cops are gonna be out.” She slapped his chest with the back of her hand. “If they stop you, you don’t know shit. You don’t say nothing.”

Ben nodded, feeling utterly exhausted. “You good?”

Lynn pulled out her phone, typing away on the keypad. “Dakota’ll pick me up. He’s driving. He’s high as shit, but the cops won’t look twice if we’re not on the street.”

Ben nodded again. It occurred to him, suddenly, that his dad would be waiting for him when he got home. He was gonna have to talk before he would be safe in his room. He could already imagine the lecture on friends and etiquette.

He suppressed a groan.

“Yo.”

Lynn handed him her phone. He fuddled with the device, his hands slick with sweat. He was barely able to discern a blank contact page staring back on the screen.

“Hurry up,” the rat said, looking around.

“What?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t. . . .”

“Dude!”

Ben stared at her phone, genuinely confused.

“Oh, my God,” Lynn said, “homie, have you fried your brain jerking to Pokémon?”

“No! I played Yu-Gi-Oh!”

“What?”

“The card game! You know, Pokémon! Yu-Gi-Oh! Magic the—” He got mad. “Fuck you!”

“Put your number in my phone!”

“. . . oh.”

Lynn watched him for a moment, her annoyance quickly turning into a grin. “Oh, wait. No. I get it. That’s cute, actually.”

Ben ignored her, typing.

“You’ve never given a girl your number, huh?”

“I don’t know if you count as a girl.”

“Excuse me, little bird?”

He threw the phone back at her.

She caught it, checked the number, typed out a quick text, and sent it away. Ben felt a vibration in his pocket. He flipped open his phone and showed her.

“Cool,” Lynn said. “I’ll text you. We’re gonna talk about this, believe me.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I mean, McNamara’s taking a cut of Hannah’s drug money. That’s pretty wild, man. I can’t imagine what else—”

“We’ll figure it out. Just focus on getting home, dude.”

Ben nodded, sliding his phone away. He looked at her across the shitty apartment playground. Wind blew across the bars and hard plastic floor.

“That means you should leave,” Lynn said.

“Oh, right.”

Ben turned and awkwardly fumbled his way down the kid-sized slide. He jogged across the bed of sandbox woodchips, trying to remember how to get out of the complex and enter the nearby creek. It felt, suddenly, like he didn’t know the city he’d lived in all his life.

“Yo!” Lynn called, still at the top of the playground.

He looked back at her. Her profile cut a silhouette in the halo of a nearby streetlight, her pink tail dangling between the jungle gym bars. He could almost see the green of her eyes.

“We should do this again sometime,” she said.

“Fuck that!”

She snorted.

“But, yeah,” Ben added. “I guess. Maybe.”

She leaned on the railing. “Hey, look at me. You’re in this now. Keep it together, homie.”

“I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Do you? You know you can’t take this back, right?”

The way she said it gave him pause. A chill autumn wind gusted across the sidewalks and empty cars, cutting through his sweatshirt. “What?”

“You’re a criminal,” Lynn said. “You just committed a crime.”

Ben did not know how to answer.

“Not just breaking and entering,” she continued. “Not just vandalism. Man, you assaulted a cop. You attacked a police officer.”

“I . . . threw a water bottle.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s assault, same as if you spit in her face. That’s a felony.” She held up two pink fingers. “That’s two years, minimum sentence.”

Ben felt very cold, all of a sudden.

“You can bet your ass,” Lynn said, “that McNamara’s gonna try and find us. She’s gonna pull some strings. Starting Monday, at any time, you might get yanked from class. You might get sent to the principal. You might just end up expelled, at the very least. You ready for that?”

He gathered himself. “I guess so, yeah.”

“This shit is gonna stay on you like a tattoo, man. It never goes away. You ready to be a criminal, the rest of your life?”

“Sure.”

“You scared about it?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I’m pretty fucking scared. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But that’s not gonna stop me anymore.”

“You regret meeting me yet?” Lynn asked.

He looked her right in the eye. “Not at all.”

She smiled.

There was a long pause. The swings of a playground shifted in the breeze, whining on their rusted hinge. The wind was soft and cold.

“Alright,” Lynn said, still watching him. “See ya.”

“Later,” Ben replied.

She waved goodbye. He turned away, running across the street, hoping to cut through the creek and find his way home.

Somewhere, in the distance, a police siren began to wail.