Lonny raked his bleached hair back with tattooed fingers and scanned the street to both sides. His eyes skipped over me like I wasn't there. But when he leaned over Oleksa's window, he angled his back to me, blocking my view of the exchange between them. I could see the glint of metal tucked inside his waistband, a reminder to mind my own business.

I turned around and stooped to pick up the overturned cans, crinkling my nose at the scattered debris. A few feet from the cans, tucked just under the lowest porch step, was a small cardboard box. I picked it up, expecting it to be empty, but something shifted inside. It had been loosely taped shut, and a soft scratching sound rasped against the inner walls of the box when I shook it. I held it under the dim porch light, a strange feeling twisting in my gut.

FOR NEARLY, it said in bold blue letters that felt oddly familiar.

I glanced over my shoulder. No one was there except Lonny and Oleksa, still deep in hushed conversation. Pulling at a loose corner of tape, I slowly opened the top.

I dropped the box and clapped a hand over my mouth. The small mound of rotting flesh was stiff with rigor mortis. Her white throat was crusted with blood.

A dead cat.

The words DEAD OR ALIVE were written in blood inside the lid. The letters had dried and crackled like finger paint, but the blocky handwriting was the same as the blue letters on my lab table.

I'd seen the feral calico coming and going from a hole under Mrs. Moates's trailer. I looked down the street at her window but her lights were already off and I didn't see any sense in waking her. The poor thing had probably been a stray anyway.

I held my breath and used the box to scoop up the tiny body, dropping her inside the closest trash can and lowering the lid. I breathed through my sleeve and backed away, eyes blurring and throat working from the smell, and stumbled over the other can. The lid crashed to the pavement and wobbled, reverberating through the alley. Oleksa and Lonny stared with narrow eyes. My neighbor peeled back her curtain again when her security light flashed on, her dog barking and scratching through the window. I untangled myself and raced up my front steps, throwing the dead bolt behind me.

Reaching for the metal bat my mother kept propped behind our front door, I slid to the floor, crouching in the dark until the Mercedes's lights passed over the frayed sofa and peeling walls, tossing the room in one quick pass, then dropping it into darkness. I listened for feet on gravel or a rustle against the window. It was silent except for the cars on Route 1.

Leaving the lights off, I crawled into bed with my clothes on and pulled the blankets to my chin. I lay there, unable to get the smell out of my head. Unable to shake the image of the letters written in blood.

I reached down between the mattress and the box spring for my father's wedding band, one ear alert for Mona coming home. But I knew I wouldn't tell her about the cat. I couldn't let some jerk from school freak her out enough to miss her weekend shifts just to stay home with me. We couldn't afford it. Besides, it didn't matter what Schrdinger thought. I'd opened the box and the cat was dead, and there was nothing Mona or I could do for it now.

5.

I stood on my toes in the crowd clustered by the chem lab. Lab grades were posted next to the door every Monday morning, so we'd all know exactly where we stood. Like I needed any reminders.

There I was.

Boswell, Nearly.

Second place below Bui, Anh Thi. On paper, it was only

a few millimeters of space-one half of a percent between friends-but in my mind those millimeters were miles. I had about five weeks left to narrow that gap, or I'd have to shake Anh's hand and congratulate her on walking away with my ticket out of Sunny View.

Hugging textbooks to my chest, I pushed through the pack of hopefuls, trying not to touch any of them skin to skin. I'd almost made it out of the herd when I tripped over someone's shoe and went sprawling across the hall, colliding into something hard. My books scattered over the floor and a tall guy with messy dark hair and multiple piercings in his eyebrow glared down at me, obviously offended. His cold blue eyes were ringed with shadows, like he hadn't slept well in a long, long time and he was looking for someone to blame.

I backed out of his way as he bent to pick something off the floor. He came up holding a black motorcycle helmet, turning it over in his fingers and checking it for scratches before tucking it into the crook of his tattooed arm. Beside him, Lonny Johnson chewed the barbell in his lip, snapping it between his teeth, and I swallowed whatever I'd been planning to say.

I muttered an apology, but the guy just shoved me aside, growling, "Watch it." Then he kicked my books out of reach with a heavy black boot and walked away.

I watched them go, glaring at Lonny's friend as I plucked my books from the floor. The guy had to be new. I'd never seen him in school before. I would have remembered him. As he walked, students spread away from him on either side, like water from an oil slick.

"People say he killed someone." Anh snuck up beside me, watching him with narrow eyes as she bent to help me collect my books.

"People say a lot of stupid things." I should know. Most of them were about me. Lonny's new friend may have been an asshole, but I refused to feed the West River rumor mill solely on principle.

I hadn't realized I was still staring at him until I noticed Anh staring too. Her hair tipped to the side as she studied his retreating form. "Not exactly prom date material, but I guess he's cute, if you're into that whole bad-boy thing. His butt's not bad either," she said, watching it disappear around a corner.

I shot her a surprised look. "I'm not looking for a prom date." "Well, you're obviously looking for someone." "I have someone," I said with a grin. "I have Albert Einstein." "I hear he's a terrible kisser."

"I wouldn't know."

"What about Jeremy? Has he asked you yet?" I looked at her like she must be joking, but she wasn't.

"I told you, I'm not going. School functions give me hives.

Big masses of stupid people in a low-volume space increase the density of the whole idea."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't calculate the probability of having a good time at a dance."

"Sure I can. Me going to the dance is a singular event. Me enjoying myself at the dance is one of only two possible outcomes of said event. If the event and the outcome are mutually exclusive, it is safe to conclude that there is no possible way in hell I would have fun at the dance." Anh laughed. "You're such a nerd."

"That's why you love me. Since when are you so bent on going to prom anyway?"

"Since my brother decided I don't need to have a life. He won't let me do anything except work at the store and study.

He's got me scheduled to work every Friday and Saturday night between now and the end of the school year. The only reason he's letting me go to the play on Friday is because I told him it was a mandatory requirement for lit class. I figure if I can find a date for prom and buy a dress before he says no, then he'll have to let me go to that too." She slumped against a wall and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "I can't wait until the semester's over and he stops riding me about this stupid scholarship."

The warning bell rang and our smiles faded as our eyes cut to the chem lab door. Monday mornings after rankings were posted were the hardest, when crossing the lab threshold felt like stepping through the ropes to a death match. Students lingered in the hall, waiting for the bell. I braced myself as I walked past Vince where he huddled quietly with a handful of his teammates. He didn't look up, which made me eerily cautious. He'd never passed up an opportunity to humiliate me before. It was like he hadn't even noticed the spectacle I'd just made of myself, even though his blond head stood several inches taller than the rest of his friends' and I was sure he'd had an unobstructed view. Strange. The hallway hummed with a somber intensity, everyone talking in

hushed tones, including Vince, who didn't come with a volume control.

Inside the lab, the air lightened considerably. Oleksa perched on top of a table, one long leg dangled coolly off the side, his red shoelaces grazing the floor. A cluster of boys hovered around him, which was odd. Oleksa was a loner-the kind with a razor-wire wall that said No Trespassing in big red letters. Don't get me wrong, the guy wasn't bad-looking. If he ever smiled, he might even be handsome, with his full lips and sharp cheekbones-but those features didn't necessarily equate to attractive. More like he was good-looking in a dangerous, off-putting sort of way.

Oleksa shrugged off his hoodie. "How much?" His lab partner, a mouthy kid named Eric Miller, whipped out a small stack of dollar bills and slapped them on the desk like some heavyweight high roller.