Akash nodded. "Well, I'm glad they got through. Roads are mostly mud."

"Good timing, then. Is there anything else you need?"

He sighed. "We're short on rope. Someone sent half as much as we were supposed to get." He looked around, then said quietly, "Someone took a bribe, I think, to sign the manifest as 'received in full.'" He gestured at the cases of rations. "Your shipment was intact, right?"

Millie nodded. "Oh, yes. Our people supervised it the whole way."

Akash went back to the tarp-lashing project. Millie walked to the edge of the grove and looked at the rope they were using to tie down the tarps. It was eight-millimeter jute, the same fiber that grew in many of the fields between the ridge and the river.

It was midnight in Michigan and the only rope she found in the warehouse were scraps or in use, but she was able to jump to a still-open Home Depot on Oahu, in Pearl City.

They didn't have raw jute, or even hemp, but she bought ten packets of quarter-inch nylon-and-polypropylene braided rope, one hundred feet each. She transferred it from the store bags to a battered cardboard box and found Akash back in the trees.

"Can you use this? We had extra in our supplies," she said.

He looked in the box. "Bloody marvelous!"

EIGHTEEN.

"Tag, you're it."

I was at school a half hour early and intercepted Grant as he arrived. "Let's talk," I said.

"What about?"

He started backing away and I reached out and snagged his backpack strap and pulled him forward again. He didn't resist but he looked worried.

I said, "Have you spoken to Tony and Dakota about yesterday afternoon?"

His mouth opened like he wanted to say something but nothing came out.

"So you have." I threaded my arm through his in a way I thought of as friendly, but then I remembered Caffeine walking down the sidewalk with Tony and Dakota in much the same way.

Too bad.

I kept my arm linked and led him to the library. Mrs. Bancroft, the librarian, was in the morning staff meeting in the teacher's lounge, but in this cold weather, the library opened early, staffed by student aides. It wasn't a likely place for Caffeine's crew. They would either be in the cafeteria or out by the bleachers, smoking.

I took Grant back to one of the study tables out of sight of the main door. There was one of those antishoplifting mirrors in the ceiling corner, but it was angled to let the guys at the information desk see this area, not anyone passing in the hall.

"Have a seat," I said, pulling out a chair. He stood there, so I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed down.

He resisted, then gave way suddenly, dropping heavily into the chair. He exhaled, loudly. "What do you want?"

I took the chair across from him. "I want to know about Caffeine. I want to know what she has on Tony and Dakota."

The blood drained from Grant's face.

I raised my eyebrows. "You, too?"

He shook his head vehemently.

I pretended to believe him. "Right. Just Dakota and Tony."

"Why?" His voice was a whisper. He looked around but there was no one at this end of the library.

"She's got to be stopped, right?"

He looked away from me. "Not necessarily."

My eyebrows went up. "Really?"

He still wouldn't meet my eyes. "I mean, it would depend on the cost, wouldn't it?"

I sat back and waited. He glanced at me, then away again.

Finally I said, "The cost to who? Caffeine? Her peeps?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no. I don't care what happens to them."

"So the video is that damaging? What did she catch them doing?"

If I thought he looked upset before it was nothing to his expression now. "You know about the video?"

"Of course. I mean, who doesn't?"

He stuck his hand in his mouth and I relented.

"Nobody knows. I only know that there is a video. From Dakota."

"Dakota told you about the video?"

I shook my head. "He mentioned the video when he was talking to Tony. He didn't say what was on it. He just said, 'And when the video is all over school?' That's when Tony shut up."

Grant exhaled and looked slightly less miserable. After a moment, he said. "Oh."

I tried to do that thing Mom does, aiming for stillness yet engaged and nonjudgmental.

He tried to meet my eyes but couldn't. Finally he said, "I can't talk about it."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both." He looked like he was trying to say it firmly, but the underlying desperation was obvious.

I shook my head, got up, and walked away.

We were playing volleyball during PE, and the class neatly broke down into four teams and a few extra. I'd just rotated off to the sidelines when I saw Donna duck into the girl's locker room.

I was sensitized to her because she was Brett's girlfriend, but the thing that made me think twice was that she was also Caffeine's friend. She didn't have PE this period and there was something odd about the way she'd looked around before pushing through the door.

It was egotistical of me to think I had anything to do with her visit, but even if it did, I wasn't particularly worried. My backpack was on top of my PE locker but the only things in it were my art supplies and a few pens. Everything else was either locked in my PE locker or in my hall locker.

I didn't see her leave but there was no sign of her when we went to change before last period. However my backpack was not as I'd left it. Nothing was missing, it was just turned ninety degrees to the left and the zipper on the back pocket was partially open when I remembered zipping it completely closed.

I wondered what she'd been looking for, then laughed.

I'd pretended to take that picture of Caffeine and her guys roughing up Dakota and Tony the day before. I actually hadn't but Caffeine didn't know that.

I kept my phone in my front jeans pocket most days. We're not supposed to use them in class or even have them on, but most kids did, texting throughout the day. Dad said as long as I was going to have a phone he wanted me reachable in emergencies, so it stayed in my pocket, switched to vibrate.

So the phone had been in my jeans, in the locker, where she couldn't get at it. Normally I would've left my locker open while I showered, but this time I didn't. I'd started out amused by the situation, but the more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. When I finished dressing, I was surprised that I was the last one in the locker room.

Shit. I'm gonna be late for art.

I heard the door and I thought it was just the girls coming in for last period, but then I remembered they didn't have any PE sections for last period. I leaned over to look past a row of lockers to the door.

It was Caffeine and she wasn't alone. Her two large friends from the day before were with her, including the guy who'd hit his head on the windshield. He wore a white dressing taped across his forehead.

I snagged my backpack and she stepped around the lockers into view.

"I'll take that phone, now," she said.

Her friends hadn't come around the corner yet but I could hear slight movements which made me think they were working their way around the lockers to come up behind me. I wasn't feeling kind and I definitely wasn't feeling friendly.

"I know you can't take it from me by yourself." I slung my backpack over my left shoulder, raised my right hand, and pointed behind her. "Can they?"

She frowned and looked behind her. The instant her head was turned, I jumped the distance between us so that when she looked back, I was right there.

She screamed and recoiled away. I heard movement behind me, but it was well behind me, where the two guys had just rounded the row of lockers. I darted past Caffeine and pushed through the door to the gym.

At the far corner of the gym Coach Taichert was leaning out of his office, frowning. "Who screamed? Was that you, Cent?"

I ran toward him and called, "There are men in the girls' locker room, Coach, and I don't think they're students."

Caffeine's two friends came through the door. I saw Caffeine right behind them, but she ducked back as she saw Coach.

Coach Taichert said, "Cent, go see if Deputy Tomez is in the office or out front. If he's not, ask the secretary to call the police." He raised his voice. "You two. Come here!"

I headed for the hallway door but heard feet running away as I did. I glanced back and at the far end of the gym, one of the outside fire exits banged open, spilling snow-reflected light across the floor.

I didn't go to art class.

Dr. Prady, the principle, was out, but Dr. Morgan wasn't. We used Ms. McClaren's office and she was in the room, along with Dr. Morgan, Coach Taichert, and Deputy Tomez. Deputy Tomez asked most of the questions.

I decided not to mention Caffeine, not yet.

"I had just finished dressing when I heard the door open. I went up one aisle of lockers and they came down a different one. When I saw them behind me, I ran out and got Coach."

"That's when you screamed?"

I shrugged. "I don't remember screaming, but I wouldn't be surprised."

Well, actually, I would. Not that I wasn't ever scared, but the first thing I'd probably do was jump, not scream.

They had me look through the previous year's yearbook, especially the juniors and sophomores who were seniors and juniors this year, 'cause "You've only been here a month, right? You might not know all the students."

It was possible, but I'd thought I'd checked out all the boys. I was wrong. One of them was in last year's junior photos, but I let my finger slide past him without pausing. My friend with the bandage on his head was named Hector Guzman. He was a senior this year.

Ms. McClaren said, "Are you sure you didn't know them?"

"She already said, no, Janet," said Dr. Morgan.

Ms. McClaren wouldn't leave it alone. "It wouldn't be the first time that a student was meeting with a nonstudent on campus." She used those words but the emphasis she used on "meeting" made it all too clear what she meant.

My jaw dropped open.

Deputy Tomez took one look at me and said, "Thanks, Ms. Ross. I don't have any other questions. Do you want a ride home?"

I shook my head. "No, thank you."

The bell rang. Dr. Morgan said, "Are you sure you're all right? I could call your parents for you."

"If you want," I said. "But I'll definitely be talking to them." I glanced at Ms. McClaren as I said that and she narrowed her eyes in response.

"Very good. I will touch base with them, myself." Dr. Morgan held the door for me.

I went through to the passageway to the main admin office, but as soon as I was out of sight, I stepped to the wall where I could hear through the partially opened door.

Coach Teichert said, "Really, Janet, she's only been in town three weeks and you think she's meeting men on campus? Fast work for a sixteen-year-old."

"I don't trust her," said Ms. McClaren. "There's something about her-"

Dr. Morgan said, "Let's calm down, why don't we? The last thing the district needs is another lawsuit."

I heard an intake of breath from Ms. McClaren, but before I heard what she said, footsteps approached the passage from the reception area and I jumped away.