Except I’d squeezed my bike into a small space between a couple of cars out front. No reason for me to go out the back door.

Vampire guy had been watching the back door, too. He slung the cape over a chair and spat out the plastic fangs, shoving them into his front pocket. Exiting right behind Jackie, he didn’t seem rushed, but he wasn’t dawdling, either – like he had somewhere to be. Or someone to meet.

6

Landon

The wooden block on the desk read Mrs Sally Ingram – black lettering set into a polished brass plate. It sounded like a nice enough name, and she’d seemed nice from a distance during the mandatory orientation assembly last week. Nice was the first thing my high-school principal seemed to be and wasn’t.

I hunched into a hard vinyl-seated chair in front of her massive desk. The top was a solid slab of wood that appeared built for the specific purpose of preventing someone from lunging across it easily. I couldn’t imagine how they even got a desk that size into this office. It must have come into the room in pieces, because it sure as hell couldn’t have fitted through the door.

Mrs Ingram leafed through an open file, shifting pieces of paper like I wasn’t sitting there, waiting to find out why I’d been called to the principal’s office on my first day of high school. Her glasses sat at the end of her nose, the way Dad wore his when he was reading or updating the books – the only concession to his previous career I’d seen since we moved here eight months ago.

At first, there’d been arguments and accusations – my father spitting out criticisms concerning Grandpa’s lack of business sense or planning or record keeping with the fishing enterprise that had supported him for decades … which was Grandpa’s line of reasoning. Finally, they’d come to some sort of agreement, and my father took over the financial aspects of the business. While entering numbers in the ledgers or transferring them to his laptop, Dad still mumbled the occasional cuss word or yanked his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose as if his frustration might trigger a nosebleed. But he’d ordered the ‘office’ – which consisted of a cupboard crammed into the hallway between the living area and kitchen (which held logbooks instead of dishes), and the built-in kitchen table … over which drooped a single lightbulb on a cord. The work space was a long way from Dad’s office in Washington or his home office in Alexandria.

Mrs Ingram cleared her throat and removed her glasses, staring at me. Her eyes were dark and close set. I would sketch her as a dragon – beady reptilian eyes sizing up her prey and fixing it to the ground, wordlessly taunting it to run. This was the first day of school. I couldn’t have done anything to piss her off already. Not that I ever tried to piss anyone off. I just wanted to be left alone, and for the most part, I’d managed to make that so.

‘Landon Maxfield.’ She said my last name like it was something slimy, and I couldn’t help the defiance that forced my eyes to narrow. Maxfield was my grandfather’s name, and I didn’t like anyone insulting it. Leaning on to her elbows, she steepled her fingers. ‘I’ve heard about you, and I thought we should become acquainted, since you’re in my house now.’

I blinked. She’d heard about me – from who? And what did they say?

‘Your inauspicious academic beginning in this exemplary school precedes you, you see.’ Her fingers tapped at the tips, like we were simply having a constructive first-day chat. ‘And I make it a habit, as the principal of this school, to take notice of all potential … deficiencies, before these defects transmit themselves to the rest of the student body. A bit of preemptive damage control, if you will. Do you understand?’ She gave me a mocking smile, lips pressed tight and barely turned at the ends.

I doubted she expected me to follow a single thing she’d just said. But her patronizing vocabulary was no match for my previous education or the well-read parents who’d raised me. I wished I hadn’t followed what she’d said. I wished I didn’t know what she thought. My heartbeat thumped in my ears, and I dug my fingernails into my palms to stop angry tears before they even gathered. Glassy eyes would make me look weak.

‘You think … I’ll contaminate the other students.’ My voice scraped its way out of my throat, betraying the emotion I’d intended to suppress, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was too startled.

Her eyes widened, but somehow, that didn’t counter the beadiness. She was the scariest woman I’d ever met. Her hands flattened on the desktop. ‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m merely making certain you understand the notion of zero tolerance, Mr Maxfield.’ My back teeth ground against each other. She stood, so I did, too. I didn’t want her staring down at me. ‘Simply follow my rules while you’re in my house … or you’ll be out on your butt, mister.’

My first day of high school, and I’m being threatened with expulsion?

I decided not to give her any more information about what I could or couldn’t follow. She was the type who shot first and asked questions later. If ever.

I nodded once, a jerk of my head, and she dismissed me.

It had been 339 days since my mother died.

It felt like years. It felt like hours.

LUCAS

I stood unmoving, eyes on the back doorway, while my conscience and an obsession I couldn’t seem to bring under control began a throw-down battle in my head.

This might be my only chance to ever talk to Jackie Wallace. I’d not seen her – on campus or off – a single time since she quit coming to class.

But what the hell would I say to her?

And then there was the guy who’d followed her outside. She clearly knew him. Maybe they’d decided to meet up, away from prying eyes. Or he’d been waiting for a chance with her, too, and unlike me, he was taking it – instead of wasting time with pointless internal arguments.

Maybe she’d just decided to leave early, and so did he, with no relation between their actions.

Or maybe I was squandering valuable seconds doing nothing.

My inner adolescent was growing enraged at my reticence. Put that rancid cup of crap down, follow her outside and say something – anything, dammit.

First thought – I could tell her I was the tutor in the class, and I noticed she’d missed a number of class days, including the midterm, but hadn’t dropped. Right after trailing her into a dark parking lot. I’d be lucky if she didn’t knee me in the balls first and ask questions later.