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“You ready?”

Further ahead, the open quad of Saint Carver High was still wet from a sudden rain, one of the very few it had received all year. Water dripped from the edge of a concrete bench. A trash can laid toppled in the grass. Leaves scattered and danced. Above, a canopy of clouds hung swollen in the sky.

Ben flipped open his phone. The time read 3:46, nearly twenty two minutes after the final bell of the day. By now, most of the school was empty.

One person remained in the quad.

Hannah.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Lynn peaked out from the corner of a locker, her pink nose catching the smell of wet grass. In the shade of the clouds, her spiked vest was a dull, denim blue. “I’ll bet you half a cock she’s got backup.”

Ben shook his head above her. “Do you own half a cock?”

“That depends. How much you got?”

“Hold on, let me unroll it.”

She snickered.

In the center of the quad, Hannah was pacing through a patch of grass next to a circle of concrete, where all the pathways converged. Her eyes stayed glued to the floor. As her heavy steps raked across the plaza, she swept her gaze over a bed of flowers. She cocked her head at the sound of a classroom door. She went back to pacing. Her steps were languid, but there was a tension in her shoulders.

She kept wiping the sharp prow of her nose with the back of her hand.

No one else was there.

I don’t like it.

She’s up to something.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I agree. She’ll have someone. Either her bitch-ass friends, or, you know, some of her drug-dealing muscle. She always has something up her sleeve.”

Lynn grunted, tapping the locker with her knuckle. “I’ll go the long way around. Scout it out.”

“You do that.”

“Oh, I will.”

Both of them watched the shark. Rain dripped from the edge of a colonnade walkway. Eventually, they peeled back from the lockers. Ben noticed Lynn gripping her skateboard by one of the trucks, holding it like a medieval warrior might carry a shield.

“That your weapon of choice?” he asked.

She grinned, hefting the board into both hands. The grip tape was filthy and peeling. “Sure is, partner.”

“You still got your knife?”

“Always.”

“You gonna use it?”

She raised a brow. “Do you want me to?”

He looked at her. She looked back at him. A gust of wind whispered through the grass.

“No,” Ben said, making a face. “Don’t hurt anyone if you don’t have to. That goes for Hannah, especially. The point of this is to get in good with her.”

“Sure,” Lynn replied, breezily. “Whatever you say.”

They looked at each other.

“Were you going to stab Hannah?” Ben asked, concerned.

Lynn shrugged.

“Is that a yes?”

“Do you want me to stab her?”

“No!” he hissed.

“Cool. I won’t.”

He stared. “Are you sure you’re not going to stab her?”

“Look,” the rat said, “I’m just here for you, man. Whatever you need.”

“I don’t need you to stab someone.”

“Okay, then. No sashimi for the shark.”

“Yeah! Good!”

“Glad you said so.”

“Did I fucking need to?”

She jerked a pink thumb toward Hannah, giving a silent look.

“Yeah, fine.” He waved her off. “Go away.”

She grinned, clapped his arm, and went sprinting across the open corridor next to the quad, her skateboard casting a thin shadow beneath the gloomy sky. She skulked around a corner, and Ben knew it would take a good minute for her to race around the perimeter of the main complex of the school. The last thing he saw was her tail slithering behind her.

For a minute, he was alone with the sound of dripping rain.

While he waited for Lynn, Ben watched Hannah from the edge of the quad. She was still pacing across the grass. Her head was down. Her backpack was slumped beneath the cover of a bench, far out of reach. She was still wearing the same sleeveless rash guard she had worn for first period. It was very tight on the chest.

She does have nice tits.

I’ll give her that.

He watched her some more. The more he did, the more he found himself clenching his fists. Instead of wanting to play nice, he began to remember every time she had bullied him, and teased him, and tricked him, and laughed at his awkwardness, and took advantage of his loneliness, and made all the formative years of his life into a nightmare of dread and shame. All at once, he tried to psych himself up for a confrontation.

When Hannah wiped her nose, he wanted to punch her in the face.

You ruined me, you fucking bitch.

Like a gunshot, his phone pinged with a text.

Lynn: all clear

Lynn: shes alone

Lynn: operation turbo cunt is a go

He took a breath.

Ben: Be ready.

He slung his phone away and stepped out into the open.

The march across the quad was quick. Puddles dripped. A cold wind blasted through his hair, carrying the smell of grass. Above, the clouds were tinged with black.

Let’s go.

Let’s go.

Let’s go.

He moved faster. He came at Hannah like a speeding bullet. He had never been more in control of his body. The second she turned around, the second she tried to greet him like an old friend, he would deck her in the face.

She turned around, hearing his approach.

She was crying.

He paused.

Hannah’s eyes, normally a near-solid black, were scraped through with red. When she blinked, her tears were white with salt. Earlier today, he hadn’t even noticed the makeup she’d been wearing, but now he could see the gloss and foundation and lines of mascara all running into a messy smear across her face, and it made her look so unlike the confident, composed athlete she usually was that Ben nearly stumbled over his feet as he came to a stop.

They looked at each other, surprised and blinking.

“Uh,” Ben said. “Hey.”

Hannah came marching for him.

He flinched. All his momentum was gone. He suddenly realized that he was trapped, out in the open, with a two fifty pound shark who could bend and fold him like a sushi roll. By the time he took a step back, she had chewed straight through the distance. As he raised his arm for a punch, Hannah wrapped him in a tight, binding hug.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Ben blinked. His face was buried in a combination of rash guard, sandpaper skin, and soft, pillowy breasts. He could barely see over the rim of Hannah’s shoulder. When she gave a tight squeeze, he managed to spot Lynn rushing out from a vantage point on the opposite side of the quad, her skateboard held like a club.

She mouthed the words: What the fuck?

He waved her back into cover.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah repeated, pulling back. “God, I’m sorry.” She took a meaty grip of his shoulders, peering down with a face streaked in makeup and salt. Her gills flapped across her neck. “Oh, Benjy!”

“Wh—what—” He had to blink several times. “What’s wrong?”

“I know what you did.”

Ben felt startled, as if he hadn’t known that she already knew what he had already done. Everything now seemed thrown into question.

“God,” Hannah said, wiping her nose, “you really hate me, don’t you?”

Ben stared up at her, completely speechless.

“Look,” she continued, “I get it, you know. I know why you’d want to—” She paused and huffed, sniffling her nose. When she spoke again, it came out in a rapid cadence, like someone stumbling over a speech. “I’m sorry, I know saying sorry isn’t good enough, but I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’m sorry you had to act like that and we have to meet like this and—like—all of this shit seems so stupid when I just—”

“Hey,” Ben said. “Hannah.”

“I need to—”

“Slow down.”

“Like, I just—like—”

He reached up to grip her wrist, which still rested on his shoulder. It was so thick that his fingers couldn’t meet on the other side. “Hey, listen, okay? Listen?”

She took a heaving breath.

“Look,” Ben said, reeling. “Let’s just—I mean, you know, you wanted to . . . turn over a leaf, right? Make a new start?”

“God, I feel hideous,” she said, wiping her face.

He gestured. “Let’s just sit down, alright?”

She nodded, wiping a stream of snot on her shoulder. He motioned toward one of the flat, concrete benches. She stepped aside. He cautiously took the lead. As he stepped forward, she walked so closely beside him that her elbow brushed against his shoulder. His hand whispered across her thigh. He was very aware of her size.

On the other end of the quad, Lynn had disappeared behind the corner of a classroom doorway, presumably to take cover. Aside from her, he had not seen anyone else in the quad. It seemed like Hannah really had come alone.

He felt a cold, whispering wind.

He felt alone, himself.

He felt. . . .

What did he feel?

Hannah sat on the bench, scooting in toward the middle. She looked up at him, tried to smile, exposed a little too much of her sharp teeth, and cupped her hands in her lap. Ben stood where he was. He decided, very suddenly, that he wouldn’t sit down. All at once, he remembered that all of this had been about hurting her in the same way she had always hurt him. He should have wanted her to cry.

She sniveled, rubbing a salty tear from the angled hull of her cheek.

He pursed his lip.

You can’t even give me sweet revenge, can you?

Of course not.

You never make this easy.

“What’s going on, Hannah?” he asked.

“You tell me, Ben,” she replied.

He folded his arms, trying to keep his expression somewhere between tough and receptive.

“No,” Hannah added, quickly. “Sorry, no. I shouldn’t play anymore.” She straightened her posture, rolling the wide muscles of her back. She tried another smile. “How do I look?”

“Hannah,” Ben said.

“God, sorry. Fuck.” She looked down at his shoes. “You spend all your life trying to be pretty, and it feels like the end of the world when you’re not.”

“I don’t remember you wearing so much makeup.”

“Did you try to notice?”

Ben didn’t answer.

“Look, I know I—” She waved a circle around her face, pointing out the sharp nose and black eyes and gritty skin. “I know I’m not pretty. I’m a shark. Right, like, there’s a look that people like, and this isn’t it. I don’t have—like—luscious fur, or colored eyes, or cutesy little ears, or even any hair at all. I’d kill to have human skin.” She flicked away a crust of makeup. “Feels like painting dogshit, sometimes.”

“You don’t act like you’re ugly,” Ben said.

“What am I supposed to do? Like, there’s expectations, you know? If I want to be cool, if I want to hang and keep up and all that shit, I gotta—” She rolled her hand around the wrist, trying to wring out the word. “I gotta compensate.” She looked up at him. “I’ve been . . . compensating. You know?”

Ben kept his arms folded.

“I’ve been compensating for a lot,” she said.

He raised a brow.

“Like,” Hannah continued, gaining a quiver in her voice, “I don’t know, I guess I had it in my head that if I went around making other people feel ugly, it would make me feel less ugly. Which sounds like some Sesame Street bullshit, when I put it like that, but I guess that’s what I thought. I don’t know what else to say.”

Ben still had the feeling that something was wrong. There was something in her voice, something about the words she used and the way she said them, that gave him the feeling she was reciting a preplanned speech. Maybe she was genuinely sorry, and she had been thinking about what to say ever since he broke into her locker. Then again, maybe she only wanted to lure him into a trap.

It was hard to tell the difference. Here and now, with the tears on her face, it all seemed genuine enough. Maybe, in the end, he was just being biased against her.

She really has poisoned me.

God.

Ben heard a faint scuffling, off in the direction where Lynn should be. It sounded like sneakers on concrete. Hannah glanced at the sound, nervously.

“I don’t know,” she said, turning around. “I guess I am ugly. I’m always going to be big and scary. That’s who I am. I should just . . . stop pretending.”

Ben looked down at her.

She looked away.

“I think you’re pretty,” he said.

Hannah looked up, immediately excited. “Really?”

“Yeah, well, you know, I. . . .” He opened a palm, gesturing. “I did have a crush on you, way back when.”

She gave a breathless laugh. “Oh, I noticed.”

“Yeah, I knew you knew. I was really awkward about it.” He tried to shrug. “It was my first crush. Like, what am I supposed to do?”

It was his turn to look away. He watched a yellow bag of Lay’s flutter across the grass, lazily scooped by the wind. When he glanced back, he saw Hannah watching him, her long gray arms folded toward her lap.

“What did you like?” she asked. “About me?”

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I thought you were . . . exotic? Is that a good word?”

“That was really not a good word,” she said, snickering.

“Sorry.”

“Like a fetish?”

“Well, you know,” he continued, blushing, “I guess I thought you were different. Like, yeah, the other girls were soft and fuzzy and whatever, but you were big and tough, and you were so, just, confident about everything. You did what you wanted, and fuck everyone else. You know? I thought . . . that was really cool. I really liked that about you.”

Hannah blinked up at him. Her expression went through a rapid, surprised change. Eventually, it settled on a smile.

“That was a while ago, though,” Ben said.

The smile faded.

He looked away, trying to steady his thoughts. After a moment, he saw a bee crawling across the wet concrete beside their feet. It was stumbling, lurching, weakly flapping its wings. With its tiny proboscis, it tried to lick the ground. He thought it might be searching for nectar.

It would find nothing there.

You need to fly, little guy. That’s your only chance.

You need to leave.

He turned his gaze from the bee.

“Ben,” Hannah said. “Hey. Can you . . . sit down?” She patted the open space on the bench. “Next to me?”

He took a breath through his nose.

“Sure.”

He sat down. He made sure there was a foot of space between them. After a pause, Hannah scooted over, bringing the gap down to inches. When he didn’t react, she scooted even further, moving until they were nearly thigh-to-thigh, until he could count all the scales and ridges on the skin of her naked bicep. Once again, he was aware of her size.

He leaned on his knees, looking down at the floor.

“Hey,” she said. “Be honest.”

He felt his heart begin to pulse.

“Did you break into my locker?”

He looked up, over across the quad, where the classroom doors sat empty and dark. The school seemed more quiet than ever. “Why would you think that?”

There was a pause. When he glanced her way, the expression on her face was fragile. Mascara dripped from her chin. “Come on. You gonna be like that?”

“Be like what?” he asked.

“Be like—”

She paused. After a moment, she scooted slightly away.

“No,” she said. “Fine. I get it.”

He kept looking at his shoes.

“You know,” she continued, “I do get it. I’ve been a bitch. I always knew I was being a bitch. I never lied to myself about that.” She dragged a palm across her jeans. “I don’t know. It just surprised me. What you did. I guess I thought, despite everything, we still had something.”

You thought your shit would never roll downhill.

How does it feel? Being a victim?

I hope it hurts.

Ben rubbed his hands, silent.

“It’s like,” Hannah said, “when I knew you had a crush, I panicked. Really hard. And I fucked everything up.”

“Why?” Ben asked, trying to control his voice.

“‘Cause, you know, it was the first time a boy had ever liked me, and I didn’t know why you would like me, or if I liked you back, or what other people would say, or whatever else a sixth grade girl will panic about. So I . . . tried to get you not to like me.”

He looked at her legs. One of her sneakers tapped anxiously into concrete.

“But I did want you to like me,” Hannah said. “So I’d try to pull you back. But then I’d get scared again, so I’d push, and I’d pull, and back and forth, and back and forth, and I. . . .” She raised her head, laughing at the clouds. “I don’t know what I wanted. Just not to be scared, I guess.”

“It’s hard to imagine you being scared,” Ben said.

“Everyone gets scared.”

He looked to his side of the bench, silent.

“Did you try to imagine,” Hannah said, “how I felt about this?” He could feel her looking at him. “Did you try to see how I was feeling? I mean, really, Ben, be honest with me—did you try to meet me halfway?”

“Why would I try?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I try,” Ben said, “to ‘meet you halfway’ when you were the one being a fucking bitch? You just said you were trying to scare me off.”

“But you didn’t try,” Hannah said, like she was seizing the point. “I kept trying.”

“You never tried—”

“No, no, no, Ben, look at me, I—oh my God, I kept talking to you, I wore makeup, I worked out, I tried to be your partner for everything, like, shit, we’ve been in the same class since middle school, and you’ve never. . . .”

“Never what?”

“You never asked me out.”

Ben finally looked at her. Her angular face was streaked with makeup, her eyes black and red.

“I kept trying,” she said. “Say what you want about me, but I did.”

All at once, Ben remembered the times she had talked to him in class, and passed him notes, and swapped desks to be near him, and invited him to lunch with her friends, and even ambushed him in the hall, pinning him to the back of a locker, leaning in and breathing out and asking him if there was something he wanted to say.

He felt something twist in his gut.

“You never tried,” Hannah said. “You never asked me out. I would’ve said yes. God, I was just waiting for. . . .”

His face was blushing and hot.

“You know,” she said, “when you followed me to my locker, I thought you were finally taking the shot. I was cheering you on. You have no idea. I broke every rule I had to sell you that weed.” She poked a meaty finger into his arm. “And you fucked me for it.”

He looked at her. She looked back at him.

“That really hurt, you know.”

Ben lowered his gaze, peered at his shoes, looked up at the swollen clouds, feeling the sensations of everything around him at once.

“Talk to me,” Hannah said. “Please.”

He squeezed his hands.

“Ben.”

“There’s something wrong with me,” Ben replied, his voice quiet. “I don’t know what it is, I just—I watch other people talk, and make friends, and be social, and I want to do that too, but there’s just something missing from me, something that makes me different, something wrong, something like—like a puzzle piece, one little thing that never connected right, and it makes me weird, and people don’t like me, and they make fun of me, and, honestly, why should I keep trying to be normal when it never works, when all my life I’ve just been fucking different, and everything I do is wrong.”

He took a breath.

“And the worst part, I think, is that I’m smart enough to realize that what I’m doing is wrong, but I’m not smart enough to know what it is, exactly. And that makes me think I could change, if I can figure it out. And every time I get hurt, it gets harder to expose myself again. It gets hard not to be bitter. And that stops me from trying. And then it just gets worse.”

In the distance, thunder rippled from the clouds.

“And I blame you for some of this,” Ben said. “Not all of it, but some. You made me not want to try.”

Hannah sagged her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

She flinched. It was not much of a flinch, but the recoil was there, visible in the tilt of her body, the flexing of her gills. Above their heads, the clouds were rolling and black.

A rain was coming.

“You laughed at me,” he said. “In sixth grade. When we were presenting together, in front of the whole class, I was—” He shook his head, feeling a bitter laugh bubble from his chest. “You made fun of me, in front of everyone, when I was already so nervous to talk, and everyone laughed, and, holy shit, I wanted to kill myself. I felt like a fucking idiot, thinking you actually liked me.”

“I did like you,” Hannah replied, defensive.

“Why did you laugh at me?”

“Because—” She waved a hand, shifting in her seat. “I don’t know. It was funny. Like, it was a joke. We all knew you were shy, and it was just . . . I blurted it out. I mean, it’s a class project. No one cared. No one was gonna remember.”

“I remember,” Ben said.

“Well, I didn’t mean it like—”

“I remember,” Ben said, interrupting, “when I came up to you and your friends, afterward, because I was fucking stupid, and I thought I could still talk to you, and you turned around and said: ‘oh, look Gameinformer’s here. Play any cool games?’ And you laughed again, and all your friends did, too, and everyone else seemed to look at me differently afterward, so I spent the rest of the year not talking to anyone, because, clearly, the things I liked were dumb, and no one cared.”

“You like playing games,” Hannah said. “It’s what you always talked about. God, it was the only way I could get you to talk.”

“You think I like having it thrown in my fucking face?”

“I mean—”

“You held that shit against me,” Ben said. “You thought it was the funniest fucking thing. I told you I read Gameinformer, that I had a membership at GameStop, and you’ve brought it up nearly every time we’ve talked. It was the first thing you said to me, this year. You said the exact same thing you always do, like it’s a stupid joke.”

“What else am I supposed to say?” She seemed almost flabbergasted. “You don’t talk about yourself! I don’t know anything else! You don’t say anything!”

“Why would why?”

“Because—”

“You’d use just it against me.”

“Because I want to talk to you!”

“Oh, right,” Ben said. “Remember when you invited me to lunch, only to abandon me in the middle of your friends? You remember doing that a few times?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, incensed. “I did that ‘cause you said nothing. You just watched us talk. And it was weird, but—”

“Oh, it was weird?”

“Yeah, Ben, it was a little weird.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it was weird. Because that means you do think I’m fucking weird, and you were, actually, all this time, making fun of me.”

“Well, fuck me,” she said. “Yeah, I was. A little bit. It wasn’t all I was doing.”

“A little bit? Just a little?”

She tried to choose her words. “I didn’t want to hurt you this much. I wasn’t trying to. I really mean that.”

“Well, good for you.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well, you sure are fucking bad at showing it.”

Her face grew sharp. “I guess I am.”

“I guess you are.”

They stared at each other, a foot apart on the concrete bench, feeling a breeze knife its way across the quad. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the bee still stumbling its way across the wet, empty cement. Its wings flickered and bent. It was clearly not doing well.

Fly away, little dude.

Fly away.

“Ben,” she said.

He looked at her.

“Can we be honest with each other?”

He frowned. “I thought we were.”

“I’ve been trying to be honest. You haven’t.”

“What the fuck do you think I just—”

“No,” she said, standing. Her long tail dragged across the seat as she stepped forward, turned around, and faced him. Her dorsal fin seemed to cut through the clouds. “Look, I don’t think this is entirely my fault. If you think it is—if you think I’m just a heartless bitch—then say it to my face, right now, and I’ll walk away. I won’t talk to you again.”

She was very tall. Standing there, in front of the bench, her sleeveless arms folded beneath her breasts, she was so tall that his head barely reached her hip.

“Speak up,” she said.

He hated how tall she was.

“I don’t want things to be this way,” Hannah said. “Do you?”

He felt trapped on the bench. He had wanted to remain standing, and now he was sitting, and she was above him, and he felt, suddenly, like she was holding him down, pinning him in place, squashing him like a bug beneath her sneaker. Why had he sat with her at all?

Why was he even here?

Why was he giving her the chance?

“Be honest with me,” she said.

He craned his neck to look at her.

“Did you break into my locker?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”

Somewhere, above the red clay tiles of Saint Carver’s roof, the sky flashed with lightning. The rain fell at once. It clumped into Ben’s messy hair. It ran in rivulets down Hannah’s sandpaper skin. It splattered on the concrete, and hissed through the grass, and turned the puddles into a frothing chaos, like a symphony of tiny bombs.

“Okay,” Hannah said. “Thank you for being honest.”

Ben blew a breath through his nose, glaring up at her from the bench. “Look, I know you said you’re sorry, and I can even kinda believe you mean it, but if you think everything between us is just going to be okay because you—”

She held up a finger, cutting him off. He gave a confused blink. With the finger still raised, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out an iPhone. The glass was visibly cracked. It was wrapped in a thick, sandy blue case. Currently, the screen was black, with a red line pulsing and jerking across the center.

“Gotcha, Benjy.”

The line jumped with the sound of her voice.

Ben stared in horror.

“You’re right,” Hannah said, pressing a thumb into a red square on the screen. The recording stopped. “I don’t really wear this much makeup. I almost didn’t, because I thought it’d be obvious. Then I thought—he wouldn’t notice. He never does.”

“What?” he asked, incredulous.

Hannah leaned above him, pressing a finger against the inner edge of her eye. A briny tear bled down her cheek. “Salt glands.”

“What did you do?”

“I recorded you, dumbass.”

The rain fell and poured.

“Before you freak out on me—”

“You fucking bitch,” Ben said.

“Shut up,” Hannah said. “You forced me to do this.”

He launched himself from the bench, making a swipe for her phone, but she pushed him back, sending him stumbling over the grass. She was strong. He barely caught his balance.

Movement flashed in the distance.

“Listen—” she began.

“Fuck you!”

Hannah grimaced, still holding out her phone. “I’m not gonna give—”

“You always do this!” Ben shouted.

“Listen!”

“Why am I surprised? What did I expect?”

“I’m not giving this to McNamara!” Hannah yelled back. “Okay? Don’t you get it? I’m blackmailing you! This is my insurance, because you fucked me first!”

“You’ve been fucking me my whole life!”

“No! No, I haven’t been fucking you! That’s the whole fucking problem!”

He went up to her again, his shoes slapping over cement. His fists were shaking and clenched. “You didn’t mean a single thing you said.”

“I did, actually.”

“You didn’t mean shit. You just baited me into saying what you wanted, like you always do.”

“No, Benjy,” Hannah said, her voice rising through the rain. “I really did mean it. I’ve wanted to say this for years.”

He gritted his teeth, breathing hard.

She leered over him, holding her phone out to the side. She was tall enough that she could easily raise it above his head. “If I didn’t want things to change—”

He punched her in the face.

The strike was fast and loose. It seemed to shock both of them. When his fist collided with her chin, her head cracked up, and she stumbled back, and he practically stumbled with her, tripping over his own feet, the air lurching with rain as they went falling across the quad. When he caught his balance, his knuckle was bleeding and raw, scraped against the grain of her scales. It was already so tender he could barely close his hand.

Hannah stood ten feet away, rubbing her jaw. She blinked at him in complete surprise.

They stared at each other across the grass.

“Okay,” she said, her voice low and raspy. She flicked her tongue between the lipless flap of her mouth, licking blood from her gums. “You know what? Okay.”

Ben stepped forward, blood and rain leaking from his hand.

“I deserved that,” Hannah said, slipping her phone into a back pocket.

He dashed in again, aiming a jab at her stomach. She dodged to the side. His fist glanced across her hip, and one of her hands pushed him roughly on the back, throwing him into a different bench. Both of them grunted in pain.

“You didn’t want to listen,” the shark said, wincing. “Did you?”

“Shut up!” Ben shouted, turning around. “No more talk! Go suck your makeup, you fucking whore!”

“A whore would’ve fucked you, dumbass!”

He came charging for her, head down, arms wide, attempting a football-like tackle. Hannah braced. He collided. It felt like slamming into a tree. He dug in, he pushed, he grabbed, he growled, his sneakers dug furrows into the muddy grass, and he barely got Hannah to lose two steps of balance. She stood like a wall, idly watching his effort.

When he tried to yank on her tail, she kicked a knee into his gut.

He fell to the concrete, gasping, limbless, barely able to land on his shoulder, the pain already yawning so far across his stomach that it felt like he’d been injected with lava. Every breath was shallow and reaching. As he scrambled for leverage, a scaly hand gripped his hair, forcing his head to rise, pulling him halfway off his knees.

Hannah loomed above. Her eyes were sharp and black.

“Ben.”

Her voice was falsely sweet.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

“Do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck it. Fuck you.”

“I’m not gonna rat you to McNamara. Alright? I only want—”

He spat in her face.

She closed her eye, flinching slightly back. She looked at him again. Mascara dripped from the gray edge of her chin, like oil from a well.

“Kick my ass,” he said.

“I’m trying not to do that, Benjy.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you, dumbass!” She growled, jerking him by the scruff of his hair. “I wanna date you, motherfucker. I’m tired of waiting. And if you’re not gonna ask me out, then I’ll just have to—”

Lynn came screaming out of the rain.

She had stalked along the side of the quad, trying to escape notice. Hannah barely had time to turn. One second the shark was pulling Ben by his hair, and, in the next, she was getting clocked on the dome with the hard metal truck of a skateboard. There was a dull thump. Lightning flashed the sky. Ben fell back on his ass as Hannah went sprawling across the concrete, her tail flopping like a fish out of water.

A second later, thunder rolled across the school, leaving an echo of silence in its wake.

“Yeah!” Lynn yelled. “Eat it, bitch!”

Ben rose to an elbow, blinking. Hannah was not moving. Her dorsal fin was upturned in the rain, the tip of her snout hanging open and slack. He couldn’t see her eyes.

“Dude,” he said, his voice small. “You killed her.”

“What?” Lynn replied. “No.”

“Dude, you killed her!”

Hannah still didn’t move.

“Oh, my God,” Ben said, freaking out, “dude, you just killed—”

Hannah began to groan, flopping bodily onto her side.

“See?” Lynn said, unconcerned. “She’s fine. And you wanted me to stab her.”

“I didn’t want you to stab her!”

Lynn came over, offering a pink hand. Ben was pulled to his feet. The two checked each other for injury before turning their attention back to Hannah, who was moaning inarticulate words into the grass. She seemed almost drunk.

“We should bail,” the rat said.

“Get her phone,” Ben said, holding his stomach. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Uh, yeah. Shit. Probably should.” She paused. “What was she doing with the phone?”

“She recorded me.”

“What? Why? What’d you say?”

“Lynn!” Ben yelled, pulling out his flip phone. “Get her phone!”

The rat tucked her board against her hip, running over to kneel at Hannah’s side. She dug a few nimble fingers into the shark’s pockets. Hannah tried to grasp at her, her groans turning to growls, her body regaining strength. Lynn had to keep slapping her away.

Ben was just coming over to help when someone else began to shout.

“Benjamin Finch!”

He stopped. Terror curled in his chest, crawling through him worse than Hannah’s knee. He knew the voice. More importantly, he knew the tone.

“Benjamin!”

Off in the distance, at the very edge of a corridor connecting to the quad, a figure was striding through the rain. He wore a crisp white shirt, rolled up at the sleeve. His black fur puffed from the top of the collar. His loafers clicked across the cement at a rapid, barreling pace.

“Ben!” his dad yelled. “Ben!”

“Aw, fuck,” Ben said.

He was just about to turn, just about to tell Lynn to grab the phone and run, when Hannah punched her in the face.

The strike was fast and loose, catching Lynn square in the nose. The rat squeaked. Hannah lurched. Lynn kicked back, flat on her ass, trying to stop Hannah from rising. There were several sloppy blows. Just when Lynn got a grip on her board, Hannah grabbed one of her legs, yanking Lynn across the grass. Hannah fell on her, punching hard.

“Hey!” Ben shouted.

His feet were running. The rain poured like arrows. Hannah was on top of Lynn, striking and slapping, trying to break through the confused flounder that the rat was raising in defense, and one jab got through, and another, and a hand yanked at Lynn’s whiskers, pulling them like weeds in a garden, and Ben found himself kicking at Hannah’s face, and Hannah dodged, rising up, leaving Lynn entirely behind, taking one of Ben’s punches on the hairless rim of her skull, and she grabbed his shirt, and she pulled, and her face was suddenly above his, and all her teeth were bloody, and she was reeling back a fist with the full weight of her body.

“Wait,” he said.

She decked him in the face.

And he was on the grass, face down, vision filled with tears, feeling like a power tool was digging through the side of his face, it hurt so bad, and he made a guttural sound when he tried to open his left eye, because there was just an awful, drilling pain that seemed to throb straight through the lining of his skull.

Blood.

His tongue felt his teeth.

He might’ve blacked out again.

When things became solid, he tried to flop himself over, and, through the tears in his one good eye, he saw Lynn slam the edge of her skateboard into Hannah’s shoulder, swinging it like a sword. The shark grabbed one of the wheels, yanking hard. A tug of war began.

“Suck my cunt!”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Stop!” his dad roared. “Stop fighting!”

Ben wobbled and tilted until his feet caught beneath him, until he could throw himself back to standing. There was blood on his face, and he could barely see through the rain and tears, and, by the time he stopped wobbling at all, Hannah was already breaking Lynn’s skateboard over her knee. It snapped like a bone.

Lynn pulled her knife, slashing fast. Hannah tried to block. There was a scream.

Thunder roared.

“Hey!”

A black bur came sprinting from the side. Ben had never seen his dad move so fast. On the other side of the quad, Hannah looked at Lynn, looked at the charging adult, threw both ends of the skateboard, and went sprinting in the opposite direction, ignoring the cascade of blood falling down her arm.

Lynn pivoted to face Ben’s dad, her switchblade still extended. Seeing a greater threat, the wolf focused on the rat, letting Hannah escape.

“Put that away!” he yelled.

Lynn flinched, clicking the blade shut.

“Give it to me!” His dad got in her face, tall and bristled. His button down shirt was soaked to the fur. “Right now!”

“No way!”

“Give it to me! Right now!”

“Hey, ease off, dickwad!”

He made a move to grab her. Lynn dodged, slipping through. Ben stumbled toward them, vaguely aware of his own shouting voice.

“What’s your name?” his dad said.

“Kenya Swallow,” Lynn replied, keeping a distance.

“Kenya Swallow?”

“Just ask your son.”

The wolf’s tail straightened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Dad!” Ben shouted.

“If you don’t tell me who you are,” his dad said, making another grab, “I won’t just have you expelled, I will make sure the police—”

“Dad!”

Ben flung himself between his dad and Lynn, feeling like he’d run a marathon. His dad stopped, blinking through the rain.

“Ben,” he said, panting.

Ben breathed equally hard. “Dad.”

Behind him, at the corner of his one good eye, Ben could see Lynn start to hesitate, twisting her head to check the angles and paths. The quad was very open. There were several places to run. It seemed like every instinct was telling her to escape.

Slowly, his dad’s teeth began to bare.

Lynn remained next to him.

“What in—” His dad stopped, looking down at Ben. A furious breath raked through his teeth. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Ben felt blood leaking down his cheek. “I’m just—”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m trying—”

“Answer me!”

Ben flinched, stepping away. His dad stepped forward. Lynn stepped close behind Ben. Around them, the rain whipped and lurched.

“Do you have any idea,” his dad said, “what I’ve been hearing about you? I just got called down to the office, in front of everyone! The police were there! The vice principal told me you broke into the school! Apparently, you told my colleagues to go fuck themselves!”

Lynn blew a raspberry.

“Is that where you were Friday night?” his dad continued. “Did you lie to me?”

“No,” Ben said, his voice small and weak.

Speak up.

Be louder.

“Yes, you did!” the wolf yelled. “You lied to me! God, I was sitting there, right at home, happy that you finally found some friends your age. I thought, for once, you weren’t going to be shut in your room all day, and it turns out you were doing this!” He loosed a frustrated growl. “What is this, Benjy?”

“If you let me talk—”

“You broke into the school! Trashed the gym! For what? Why? What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

“I—”

“Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am? Rosalin told me what you did, in front of everyone! I had to beg her for in-school suspension!”

“Dad—”

“Is this who you wanna be?” his dad said, flinging an angry paw at Lynn. “Huh? This punk? This loser with a knife? Have you spent so long playing your—your fucking videogames that you think this stupid kid is cool?”

“Hey,” Ben said. “Don’t talk to her like—”

“Don’t you talk back to me!”

His dad’s voice roared across the school, pounding down the benches and grass. For a moment, Ben looked away, terrified of the wolf’s snarling face, and he saw the body of the bee that had been crawling along the concrete, floating dead in a puddle.

Should’ve flown, little dude.

Should’ve flown away.

His dad took a hard breath, his voice like a saw. “I thought I raised you better than this.”

“Well,” Lynn said. “At least you know it’s your fault.”

His dad bristled. “What did you say?”

“Lynn,” Ben said, feeling trapped.

“No, no,” the rat said, “this is good, actually. You heard what he said. He raised you. Therefore, he’s a shitty parent who fucked you up.” She gave a polite clap. “Points for honesty. I admire the self-reflection.”

“Shut your mouth,” his dad said. “That is not funny.”

“Neither are you, Doggie Dick.”

“Lynn!” Ben hissed.

“Hey,” Lynn continued, “cuntwipe, are you gonna ask if your son’s alright?”

His dad turned back to him. By now, Ben could feel blood coating half his face. The swelling around his eye was awful. Pain throbbed in huge, aching waves.

“You need stitches,” his dad said. “Of course you do.”

Lynn laughed in disbelief.

“Shut up!” His dad gripped Ben by the shoulder, looking closely at the wound. “Do you have any idea how much debt I’m in? How much overtime I have to work? I am drowning in hospital bills! And you have to do this! Right now! Of all times!”

“Yeah, dad,” Ben replied, his voice quiet. “I’m alright. Thanks for asking.”

His dad tightened his grip.

“Christ, dude,” Lynn said. “I heard you were a tool, but I never thought—”

The wolf dashed forward, pushing Lynn hard in the chest. The movement was so explosive that she went sprawling several feet away, landing flat on the grass. Ben heard a surprised gasp for air.

“Don’t you dare,” his dad said, “talk to my son again.”

Lynn rose to an elbow, breathless, her denim vest flapping open. Ben had just enough time to meet her eye, to see the concerned look on her face, before his dad yanked his arm and dragged him away. They marched out from the quad, through the outer corridor, passed the empty classrooms, towards the flat sea of the asphalt parking lot. His dad’s car sat alone. No one else was there.

His grip was painfully tight.

“Dad—”

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re done talking.”

He was shoved toward the passenger door. His dad made sure he got inside before stepping in himself. The ignition was stabbed, the wheel was jerked, and they went peeling across the lot, the car’s axle clattering as they sailed across the speed bumps.

Ben did not speak again.