

In Your Dreams

A Novel

Amy Martin
In Your Dreams

Copyright © 2012

Smashwords edition

Amy Martin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, with express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover image design by ninjaMel Designs

Other books by Amy Martin:

In Your Dreams (4 book series)

The Perfects (4 book series)

Want to be the first to know about Amy Martin's new releases? Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, check out her website at www.theamymartin.com, or sign up for her mailing list.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Acknowledgements

# About the Author

#  Chapter 1

For as long as I can remember, people have called me "Zip."

And I don't take it as an insult, either. Sure beats my real name, Zara, which my mom thought sounded all kooky and exotic and not like someone destined to spend her life in Titusville, Illinois, after high school. And while I'm grateful for her confidence that I'll one day get out of this lame town, "Zip McKee" fits me better.

"Zip" was one of several goofy nicknames my dad dreamed up, thanks to the fact that when I started crawling, I'd scoot around the house so fast my mom couldn't keep up with me. According to my baby book, "Little Puddin'," "Sweet Pea," and "Motor Butt" were some of Dad's other creations, but fortunately, "Zip" was the only one that stuck, lasting even after my parents split up when I was five. By then, everyone in town knew me as "Zip," and outside of school, where my teachers insist on calling me "Zara," I'm willing to bet most people in town don't even know my real name.

In addition to my nickname, Dad also gave me a love of basketball, the sport he'd played his entire life before he blew out his knee in college. I'm a natural point guard thanks to my speed, but speed alone won't help me lead my team to a championship—I need skills. One of the skills I've been working on lately, beyond the usual stuff like three-point shooting and running the offense, is better court vision. Dad always says solid court vision combined with strong offensive leadership gives point guards a kind of clairvoyance. If I can take in the entire floor and know the set plays as well as my own name—or nickname—then I'll see which of my teammates is open for the best shot almost before she shakes her defender. This ability to read what people are going to do before they do it will hopefully help me perfect the no-look pass—I'll be staring at the girl guarding me, but I'll feel somebody's open and whip the ball over without the defender reading anything in my eyes.

I haven't mastered the no-look pass yet, and when I walk into school on the first day after winter break to find most of my teammates standing in a tight circle having a meeting nobody bothered to tell me about, I'm a little worried about my vision and leadership off the court needing some work, too. All the girls on the team get along, but I'm the only junior on our starting five. So while I'm the leader on the court, seeing everyone huddled around Marcy Gillette, our senior shooting guard, makes me wonder if she isn't trying to pull rank on me or something.

"Lanier," I hear Marcy saying as I approach. Lowering the hood on my puffy coat, I stand at Cassie Newbaum's elbow and listen. "They're both juniors."

"What's up?" I ask, everyone turning to me at the sound of my voice. Maybe my status as team leader isn't under attack after all.

"New students," Marcy says, face flushed with excitement. She may be built like a typical bruiser of a women's basketball player—six feet tall and arms bigger than most people's legs—but give Marcy some gossip, and she turns into one of those cute little girls straight out of a teen movie, all giggly and whispery and wide-eyed. Her mother works in the main office, so Marcy's always the first to know who's been suspended or been chosen for this award or that honor. But after eleven years in school with the same kids, I already know who's probably getting suspended on any given day, and the same group of ten people seems to win all the awards and honors, so most of the time, I don't pay too much attention to anything Marcy has to say off the court. But considering she's filling us in on the first new students to start school here in four years, for once, I'm interested.

Ashley Keep, one of the other juniors on the varsity squad, blurts out the obvious question before anyone else. "They're twins?"

Marcy shakes her head. "No. That's the weird part. Mom said the guy's older, so he should really be a senior."

"Awesome. He's slow," Cassie moans, as if she thinks enough idiot guys already live in Titusville and we don't need one more.

"Or maybe he hates school," I offer, because I think it's unfair to label this guy "slow" when we don't know him yet. Titusville's small enough that if someone decides you're something and can get other people to agree, you're going to have a tough time changing minds later on. "You know, maybe he likes to cut class and get detention or whatever and he got held back."

The other girls nod at my theory because it's just as realistic as Cassie's, although it's probably not any more fair. The delinquents around here usually drop out after junior year and go one of two ways: They either get a job at a gas station or fast food place out by the interstate, maybe getting a GED and attending the local community college later on, or they end up cooking meth in one of the junk rental houses or trailers in the north part of town by the abandoned refrigeration plant and wind up in jail at some point. Given those options, being labeled "slow" might not be the end of the world for this guy, whoever he is. "Or maybe his deal is none of our business," I add aloud, expressing what I hope comes off as disappointment over the fact we're standing here trashing a total stranger. And I laugh to myself that no one's even bothered to say anything about the girl.

"Wait—there they are." Candace Hull points towards the doors from her position next to Marcy, which would allow her to see people entering the school before anyone else in the circle. We all do a lot of not-so-subtle looking at the floor, the ceiling, and the walls as we shift into a semi-circle in order to get a better view of the new kids. By the time they've passed through the second set of glass doors and stopped in the entryway underneath the "Titusville Junior/Senior High School. Truth. Honor. Respect." banner in the school's navy blue with gold lettering, we're all stealing quick glances at them before averting our eyes as if we're interested in something else. I raise my head for a second and notice four other groups besides ours standing around in the entry, all pretending not to care and failing every bit as spectacularly as we are.

"Oh, wow. Check him out," Cassie hisses, but loudly enough everyone in the group can hear. The siblings are talking to each other about something, and the boy points in the direction of the main office.

"He looks like Brad Pitt," Candace mumbles, stealing glances at him through a curtain of red hair.

"Brad Pitt?" Marcy somehow manages to shriek and keep her voice at a whisper at the same time. "Brad Pitt's, like, a million years old."

"Not Brad Pitt now, stupid. Go rent Fight Club and you'll totally get what I'm talking about."

"Well, the girl looks like a nice person, I guess." I say this as Brad—Wallace, not Pitt—approaches the newbies. Brad's our Student Body President, football and track team captain, and the type of all-around decent guy who would do his presidential best to welcome the new students. Burying my hands in my coat pockets, I watch as he shakes the girl's hand first and then her brother's, engaging them in what I assume is a "Welcome to Titusville Junior/Senior High. Let me know if I can answer any questions for you" sort of conversation. The three hold polite smiles, and there's a lot of nodding going on. And I notice Brad can't take his eyes off the girl.

"Well, anyone can look nice," Cassie points out, probably an automatic reflex after years of "stranger danger" lectures before we got to high school. Sure, the girl could seem normal, but in reality, she's probably a serial killer looking to make one of us her next victim. "But I guess she is kind of pretty, though," Cass admits, allowing herself a three-second stare.

As Brad talks to her, the girl fingers the end of a jet-black braid slung over her shoulder, and her eyes—the same deep blue as her ski coat—pop out against her pale skin. Turning my attention to her brother, I decide I have to give it up to Candace, because if you tilt your head just right and squint, the guy kind of does resemble a young Brad Pitt without the tan. His skin is just as pale as his sister's, and his short hair's a little darker than Brad Pitt's, lending some authority to Candace's Fight Club Brad Pitt description because I think his hair was kind of black in that one. While this guy's got a similar square jaw line, his nose shatters the Brad Pitt image as it's bigger and flatter than your average movie star nose. I'm guessing he must have broken it at some point because it reminds me of my dad's nose, which caught an elbow during a pick-up game the summer before he started college.

Brad gestures at the main office and the trio head inside as the warning bell sounds, provoking groans all around from our little group. The seniors among us shuffle out of the lobby toward their first-floor lockers, while Cassie, Ashley, and I walk upstairs to the junior hallway, where I nestle into my favorite seat in the back corner of Mrs. Harvey's Advanced English class. People looking at me without my knowledge is sort of a pet peeve, so I'm a back-of-the-room kind of girl whenever possible.

"Okay, everybody. Settle down." Mrs. Harvey shushes us after the bell. "Over the break, you were supposed to read the first three chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. So for today..."

Someone knocks on the classroom door, and when Mrs. Harvey crosses from her desk to answer, the low murmur of unsupervised students immediately starts to bubble up but comes to a dead stop as the mystery siblings enter the room.

"Class, we have some new students joining us," Mrs. Harvey announces, as if we're too dumb to figure that one out on our own. "This is Kieran Lanier..."

She nods at Kieran, who stands closest to her. On cue, he takes his hand from his front jeans pocket and gives the class a quick wave hello.

"And Kayla Lanier."

Kayla flashes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it smile.

"Well, if the two of you could find seats and we'll..." Mrs. Harvey stops short, realizing the only seat left in what's one of the school's smaller classrooms happens to be right in front of her. "Oh, well, I'm so sorry," she apologizes, blushing a little as if she's an embarrassed hostess and the Laniers are guests in her home. "There's a chair in the back that'll have to do for today, unfortunately. I'll talk to the custodial staff after school about getting another desk in here."

She nods in my general direction at a folding chair leaning against the back wall about a foot from my desk. Without a word, Kayla slides into the front desk and shoves her backpack in the space underneath, while Kieran shuffles along next to the windows, head down and hands in his hoodie pockets, eventually passing next to me and continuing behind. His backpack hits the floor and the low squeak the chair releases as he unfolds it makes me flinch.

"So, To Kill a Mockingbird." Mrs. Harvey picks up where she left off. "I'd like for us to do a think-pair-share..."

Wonderful. The think-pair-share. We'll spend a few minutes writing on some aspect of the reading we found interesting, troubling, confusing, or whatever, and then we'll pair up with someone and talk about what we wrote before Mrs. Harvey randomly calls on pairs to share their discussion with the entire class, getting to as many people as possible before the bell rings. I swear we do this every other day, and I'm starting to wonder if Mrs. Harvey knows any different teaching techniques because she did this a lot in Freshman English, too.

"I'd like you to choose some aspect of the reading you found interesting and write for five minutes, explaining why it was so interesting to you..."

I'm already scribbling my thoughts across an empty notebook page. No sense in waiting for her to finish.

"And then I'll ask you to pair up with someone to discuss. If you finish before time's up, you may sit quietly and read. Kayla and Kieran, I'll bring copies of the book to you while the others are writing."

Mrs. Harvey moves about as we write, retrieving two copies of To Kill a Mockingbird from the metal bookshelf at the front of the room and walking over first to Kayla and then to Kieran, her pumps tap-tapping on the floor as she travels. I finish my response with about a minute to spare and spend the remaining time pretending to read since I've read the book several times already. What I'm really concentrating on, however, is the fact that some guy I don't know is sitting behind me, probably staring at my back, ruining the security I usually revel in when I sit in the back of the room. Reaching over my shoulder, I smooth the strands of my dark blonde ponytail before letting my hand travel to the back collars of my long sleeved shirt and the short sleeved one that I'm wearing over it. Good—my usually wayward hair is as tame as it's going to get and my tags aren't sticking up. I smile at myself for being so stupid. New Guy probably isn't paying any attention to me. If anything, he's reading, trying to get caught up. Part of me wants to turn around, while part of me is afraid that if I do, he'll catch me looking to make sure he isn't looking at me and he'll think I'm totally lame.

"Okay, everyone—pair up," Mrs. Harvey commands.

I hate this part, and today, with two new people to throw off the dynamic, pairing up is more of a pain than usual. Janie Masters, who's sitting next to me, turns her desk away to work with Corey Souther on her other side before I can ask to be her partner. I lean forward to tap Rick Matthews on the back, but before I can, a hand on my shoulder prompts me to turn around. New Guy's smiling at me, and when I glance over at Rick, he's already scooted his desk closer to Debbie Solomon and is lost to me as a partner, at least for today.

"I've read the book a million times. It's one of my favorites," New Guy tells me when I turn my desk around, as if he feels the need to convince me that he'll be a worthy discussion partner. I crane my neck to find he's written a paragraph in his notebook, the margins decorated with several little sunburst doodles, beams snaking from the round suns like Medusa's hair.

"Yeah. I love it, too. I read it for the first time when I was, like, eleven, I think."

"Don't most schools read To Kill a Mockingbird around eighth or ninth grade or something?" New Guy asks, keeping his voice low as if he's afraid he'll be insulting Mrs. Harvey, the school district, and the entire town of Titusville if anyone else hears him.

"Well, that's Titusville for you. We're always at least two years behind on everything, Advanced Junior English included. In fact, our town motto is 'Titusville—just a little less advanced than everywhere else'." I intend to crack a smile so he knows I'm sort of kidding, but he's already laughing before I can, revealing a set of teeth even whiter than his pale skin.

"Good to know. And your name is...?"

"Zip McKee."

His brow wrinkles, forcing his nose to scrunch up towards his eyes. "Zip? Your name is Zip?"

Okay—this is different. With so few newbies around here, I don't remember having to explain my nickname to anyone before.

"It's...it's not my real name," I stammer.

"I figured. Either that, or your parents are really interesting people."

"My parents are pretty interesting, actually," I say, recovering from my embarrassment. "But 'Zip' is what everyone's always called me."

"Because of your great love of zippers, of course."

Now it's my turn to laugh. "No. Because I'm fast."

"So you're a runner?" He leans forward to rest his elbows on my desk.

"Sort of. I play basketball, so I run a lot. I'm not on the track team, though—not that they haven't tried to talk me into it. But I've always been a 'one sport only' kind of girl."

"Kayla's a runner," he says, nodding toward the front of the room where his sister has paired up with Cathy Davie. Their desks are angled sideways just enough so Kayla can keep an eye on her brother. She sends me a forced smile and leans back in her desk to glance at Kieran, her face relaxing a bit once she's caught sight of him.

"Sprint or long distance?" I ask when I turn to him again.

"Distance."

"Cool," I say. "The track team starts working out in late February if she's interested."

"I'll let her know." He flashes a crooked grin, the left side of his mouth slightly higher than the right, and shifts the conversation away from his sister. "So, Zip McKee, what aspect of the reading did you find particularly interesting?"

"Should I just read what I wrote or—"

"Yeah," he says, eyeing my notebook scrawl. "Entertain me."

"Okay." I take a deep breath and begin revealing my not-quite masterpiece. "The aspect of last night's reading that I found most interesting was how Maycomb's educational system fails its students, but in different ways. Miss Caroline shows her inability to understand her students through her dealings with Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell, but her behavior toward Scout also displays..."

Knowing that when you read aloud you should look up every once in a while to gauge your audience's level of interest, I do so and discover I'm failing to entertain him as requested. Kieran's right elbow teeters on the corner of my desk, his head tilted and propped up by his fist—if he's not asleep, he's pretty close, his eyes looking like little more than slits with eyelashes protruding from them.

"Am I boring you?"

He doesn't move. I lean forward and wave my hands back and forth a millimeter from his face.

Nothing.

"Hey? Kieran?" I snap my fingers next to his ear—still nothing. He's a peaceful little oasis, an island of calm, snoozing away as if he's home in bed and not in the back of a classroom filled with the buzz of chattering students.

I decide to try one more thing to wake him up, even though I'll probably piss him off by doing so. Sitting up straight, I draw my right hand back near my shoulder and then push forward, leveling a rough blow against Kieran's left shoulder. But rather than jerking awake and yelling at me, his head slips from his fist to his bicep. Hand shaking, I reach out to his raised upper arm, but instead of responding to my touch, his fingers remain balled into an immovable fist, his skin feeling stiff and cold on my fingertips.

The term rigor mortis pops into my head.

#  Chapter 2

Oh, my God, I think. Way to go, Zip—he's dead. You killed the new kid.

But how? Did I literally bore him to death?

"Um...Mrs. Harvey?"

Mrs. Harvey's standing over a pair of my classmates in the center of the room, and, after hearing my voice, she turns around, instantly springing to my side upon seeing Kieran slumped forward on my desk.

"Okay. Okay," she starts, sounding every bit as rattled as I feel. A slow tidal wave of confusion spreads throughout the classroom, and students start to gather around for a better view of what's going on. Before I'm completely surrounded, Kayla barrels her way to Kieran's side.

"We need to get him to the nurse," Mrs. Harvey announces, shooting Kayla a look that seems to ask Right? We need to get him to the nurse, right?

Kayla bobs her head and glances at our classmates standing around him. "Yeah. Um...we'll need some people to kind of, like, carry him."

Doug Callahan and Cody Hull, both defensive linemen for the football team and the two biggest guys in the room by far, step forward to offer their services. Cody squats next to Kieran and tells Doug "Yo, man—get his other arm," as he reaches out to Kieran's right side. Kayla and I both open our mouths at the same time, but Cody has the pleasure of experiencing the surprise I had a few minutes ago before either of us can warn him.

"Oh, my God." Cody bounces back up to his full height as if touching Kieran gave him an electrical shock. "Dude's totally stiff."

"Yeah. I think you're going to have to lift him out of the chair like he is. So maybe one of you can reach under his arms and the other one can lift at his knees," Kayla suggests in a whispery voice with all the emotion of someone instructing furniture movers on the best way to carry a coffee table. Cody grabs Kieran by his armpits, while Doug bends and grasps him near his ankles and the two of them lift his body as if he's frozen in place, which I guess he basically is. Kayla sprints to the front of the room, and Cody and Doug dodge desks to haul their cargo out into the hallway with Kayla following. Those of us who remain in the classroom stand in silence, exchanging wide-eyed Okay—what the hell? glances.

"Well," Mrs. Harvey breathes. "Let's get this room back together, okay? We'll share what some of you have written while we still have time left."

Sure. Okay. Because whatever happened with Kieran totally didn't happen and this is just another boring day in Advanced Junior English.

My classmates and I robotically arrange the desks back into their neat rows and Mrs. Harvey starts calling on pairs to share, but thankfully doesn't call on me. Of course, I'm no longer part of a pair, or maybe she's ignoring me, the Human Reminder that one of her students just got himself carted off to the nurse for reasons unknown. Either way, I'm more than happy to be left alone to concentrate on wondering what the hell went wrong with the New Guy.

Did I do something? Is he sick? I examine the fingertips of my right hand, rubbing my thumb across the skin near my fingernails. Did he infect me with some virus? Am I going to pass out without warning, too?

"Next two chapters for tomorrow," Mrs. Harvey sings after the bell sounds, pulling me back out of my head. I drag myself to the hall, the noisy chaos between class periods making everything seem normal again. But as I raise my hand to my locker handle, I discover I'm shaking, which isn't normal at all.

After steadying myself and grabbing some books, I stumble downstairs to the cafeteria for study hall, the recalled image of Cody and Doug lifting Kieran as if they were moving a statue clouding my vision. When I blink back to reality, I catch the few people who have already arrived to study hall eyeing me with a strange mix of fear and pity, leaving me feeling like a girl in a horror film who has no idea some guy with an axe is coming up behind her. Part of me can't believe people know already, but most of me realizes that based on the size of our school, news of my lead role in the Kieran Lanier Tragedy could already be Titusville's Big Freaking Deal for today.

No one speaks to me, probably afraid that doing so will cause them to freeze in place and have to be carried off to the nurse. I slink away to a corner table by the windows, hoping to bury myself in some trigonometry review for the next forty minutes. With seconds to spare before the bell, someone slides into the seat next to me so hard that she crashes into my shoulder, and I raise my head to meet Cassie's smiling face.

"Heard you broke the new guy. No one had even gotten a chance to play with him yet."

I'm apparently going to be famous for The Kieran Incident until the next Big Freaking Deal happens, so I surrender and go along with the joke. "Real shame, too." I smirk at her. "He seemed cool. This is why I can't have nice toys, I guess."

"No kidding. But, seriously—I ran into Cody on the way in here and he said the guy kind of passed out or something. When did you develop so much power over guys?"

"I haven't. I'm pretty sure I had nothing to do with it. One minute he's normal and the next he's out cold and all stiff, like he'd been dead for hours."

"So if he wasn't overcome by your stunning beauty, then what do you think his deal is?" Cassie asks as I snort at her gross overestimation of my looks.

"Don't know, but something's definitely wrong with him." My mouth curls into a sarcastic grin. "So he's a hot guy with issues—totally your type."

"Not if he's going to pass out on me all the time." Cassie twirls a brunette lock from her ponytail around her finger. "You can keep him."

"Thanks. You're a real friend."

"No problem. And he's your next door neighbor, anyway, so I think you should go for it..."

My head jerks back involuntarily. "What do you mean, he's my next door neighbor?"

Cassie sighs like she always does when I ask her about something she assumes is common knowledge. "His family bought the McCaffery place. You didn't know?"

My mom and I live in a small house my grandfather built on his land, land which used to be part of the McCaffery farm. Erwin McCaffery sold his farmhouse and a portion of his property to my grandfather about thirty years ago so he could build a bigger house for his growing family on the four acres he had left. Mr. McCaffery died last year, but rather than move his own family out from town, his oldest son Jimmy put the house up for sale and let the fields go fallow. I saw moving vans pull up to the McCaffery place last week, but I just assumed Jimmy had given up trying to sell and decided to move in.

"Marcy mentioned it before you got here this morning. I guess their dad's going to run the counseling center at Sumner College," Cassie says, referring to the liberal arts college located in its namesake town about forty-five minutes away. Sumner has a cute downtown with bars, antique stores, and coffee shops, as well as expensive new houses and proximity to a mall—basically, everything Titusville doesn't have and probably never will.

"So, since he's conveniently located and everything," she continues, flashing a grin drenched with evil, "maybe you should think about hooking up with him. It'd give you something to do at night besides homework."

I groan, sensing another Cassie Newbaum screed over my social life—or lack thereof—coming on.

"I don't get why you have to study all the time." Cassie says study as if it's some nasty rash she's just discovered on her butt. "You've been number one in the class for, like, ever."

"Which is because I study so much. See how that works?"

"Oh, my God—you're such a geek. You know, you need some serious fun before you wake up and high school's over. What's the point of being valedictorian if you didn't enjoy getting there?"

"I'm not a geek," I insist through a breathy laugh. "Making the grades I need to go to a good college and blow off this stupid town doesn't make me a geek. And not wanting to drink beer in somebody's basement every weekend while some loser I've known since we were in diapers tries to paw me because he doesn't have anything better to do doesn't make me a geek, either, contrary to popular opinion."

"Whatever," Cassie says, shaking her head. "It's not my fault all there is to do in this town is hook up, get drunk, and do meth. And I don't do meth, so..."

With a heavy sigh, I turn back to my trig textbook. Cassie pulls her Intermediate English textbook from her backpack and starts struggling through Romeo and Juliet, which I officially read in Freshman English and unofficially read when I was twelve. She rests her chin on her hands and sighs every few minutes, probably bored by the play and frustrated with the language, knowing her. Distracted from cosines and tangents thanks to Cassie's drama queen act, Kieran takes over my thoughts again, the phantom sensation of his stony skin tingling on my fingertips.

Okay. That's it. I have to find out what's wrong with him.

I shove my textbook and notebook in my backpack and stand up. "What are you doing?" Cassie asks. "The period just started."

I answer with "I'll be back soon," before I walk over two tables and plop down across from our study hall monitor, who—lucky for me, given what I'm about to ask—happens to be Mrs. Denton, head coach of the girls' varsity basketball team.

"Coach."

"What can I do for you?" she asks, taping a pile of papers with a red pen.

"I think I need to go to the nurse."

"You okay?" Coach squints, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening as she concentrates on me. I'm guessing I look pretty healthy, but even the suggestion that I might be sick would be cause for concern given that we still have a few weeks left in the regular season. I open my mouth, not knowing exactly what to say, but Coach's eyes spring back open to full size before I can babble out an explanation. "I heard what happened with the Lanier kid earlier. Is that what this is about?"

"Oh, my God. How does everyone know about that already?"

Coach smiles at my frustration and cocks her head to the side, some of the feathered strands of her white-blonde pageboy haircut sweeping across her forehead. "I take it you didn't get the chance to learn much about him?"

"I talked to him for, like, five minutes before he went all horror movie creepy on me. So, no."

She doesn't respond, but instead pulls a square pad of paper from her messenger bag and starts scribbling. "Give this to the nurse when you get there," she instructs me before tearing the paper off and folding it. I take the note from her and stand up as she says, "And don't worry if you don't make it back before the end of the period. You can go straight to your next class."

"Thanks, Coach."

I hitch my backpack up on my right shoulder and once I've rounded the corner from the cafeteria into the main hall, I unfold the paper:

Joyce,

Zara McKee was with Kieran Lanier this morning when he had his episode. She isn't aware of his condition, but she's very concerned. I think she would appreciate being able to speak with him briefly if you feel that's appropriate. I've excused her from second-period study hall to come to your office.

Thanks,

Patty Denton

Seeing words like episode and condition don't do much to calm my nerves or satisfy my curiosity. What's wrong with this guy? Is he dying or something?

Strangely afraid for this person I just met, I pick up my pace toward the front desk in the main office, the first stop for anyone heading to visit the principal, the vice-principal, or—in my case—Nurse Foster.

#  Chapter 3

Mrs. Gillette is definitely the last person I want to show my note from Coach Denton, but since I can't get past the front desk without a reason, I don't have a choice. Showing the note to her means I'm showing it to Marcy by extension, so by lunchtime, everyone in school will know I visited Kieran Lanier in the nurse's office. Although considering most people probably think I tried to kill him in Advanced English this morning, I guess checking on him in the least I can do.

I hand the message over the counter to Mrs. Gillette, and once she's read it, she returns the paper to me and waves me back to the two tiny rooms that pass for Titusville's infirmary. Nurse Foster, a white-haired woman in a baby blue smock and khakis who left retirement age in the dust approximately a million years ago, glances up at me from where she sits at a metal desk scrawling notes on a legal pad. "Feeling ill?" she purrs.

"No...I..." Rather than stand here stammering, I hand over the note from Coach, which she reads before heading to the infirmary room behind her with the paper still in hand. "One second," she tells me, and I rock forward and back on the balls of my feet as I wait for what seems like an eternity for her to return. Once she does, she steps aside from the door and nods over her shoulder. "Go on in."

I turn my head toward the doorway but don't make another move. "He's really okay?" I can't help but ask, not sure what I'm expecting to see once I enter, remembering the word condition from Coach's note. Maybe he's got some weird disorder that causes him to pass out and makes his flesh peel off? Am I going to walk in and discover that he's turned into a drooling, brain-eating zombie, in which case I'm probably safer out here with creepy Nurse Foster, who's about two steps away from zombiefication herself?

"He's fine, Zara. I'm keeping him here through the end of this period, and then he can go back to class."

Taking a deep breath, I decide to stop being a total idiot and go in. I push the door open wide enough to slide my body through into the first patient area, the white sheet on the cot not yet wrinkled by any sick students. To my left in the far patient area, I spy a set of hiking boots at the end of a cot, toes pointed toward the ceiling. Hoping those boots are attached to Kieran's not-yet-zombiefied body, I walk over and stand against the wall next to the curtain. Kieran's lying on his back with his hands tucked under his head, a grin spreading across his still-human face once he sees me.

"Hey," he says, raising himself up on his elbows.

"Hey." I fold my arms tightly in front of me and hunch my shoulders almost up to my ears. Wow—this is awkward. I have no idea what to say. Thanks for scaring the living crap out of me last period, maybe?

His grin widens. "Okay. So people in this town don't bring flowers when they visit the sick?"

My shoulders relax a little. "Well, I am in the middle of a free period right now, but juniors aren't allowed to leave school, so..." I let my voice trail off and since he doesn't stop smiling, I continue with our friendly banter. "Some performance you put on earlier. Really award-worthy stuff."

"Thanks. I wanted to make a big impression on the first day of school."

"Mission accomplished. Everybody probably knew your name ten minutes later."

Kieran rolls his eyes. "Yeah. 'Narco Boy'—that's me."

"'Narco Boy'?" I ask, eyes narrowing.

He shifts his gaze to the chair next to the cot, his gray hooded sweatshirt slung over the back. "Have a seat. Sorry I can't offer you anything to drink. Real lack of amenities around here, and Nurse Foster doesn't strike me as the type who would be willing to fetch us some beverages."

At a loss for a response that seems quippy enough, I silently accept his invitation, sitting down on the cracked cushion and leaning against his hoodie. "Is that in your way?" he asks.

"No. I'm fine," I insist, but he sits up and tries to reach over to the chair anyway. He can't extend far enough, so I sit up and grab the hoodie to hand to him. Kieran balls up the sweatshirt and holds it against him like a stuffed animal as he lies down on his side, facing me.

"I have narcolepsy. I don't know if you know what that is."

"It's a sleep disorder, right?" I ask, recalling something I must have read once. "Like, you fall asleep at random times?"

"Exactly. Had it as long as I can remember."

"So that's what happened this morning." I'm almost overcome with relief that I didn't do something to "break" him, as Cassie so eloquently said.

"Yeah. I was actually awake when you hit me, but I couldn't move."

"Sorry." When you hit me...God, I'm so embarrassed.

"No—it's okay," he insists. "I probably would've done the same thing in your position. By the time they got me out in the hall, I could move again. The paralysis thing doesn't happen to me a lot—only in really extreme circumstances. I guess my brain decided to go all out this morning, first day of school and all."

"Well, I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks. And, look—I'm sorry you had to see that. Kayla kind of filled me on everything. Must've been pretty scary for you not knowing what was going on."

"Don't worry about it," I tell him, because what else are you supposed to say to someone with what I'm assuming is an incurable disorder?

"No, really, I should've warned you." He shakes his head against the pillow. "I mean, my parents told me all the teachers knew, but...well, it's not exactly what you want to open with when you're trying to meet new people. 'Hi, I'm Kieran, and I'm probably going to pass out on you without warning, but don't worry—it's all good.'"

"You know," I start, cracking a smile so he'll hopefully read my idea as the joke I'm intending it to be, "if you get the information to Mrs. Gillette before 1:30, they'll make an announcement to the whole school at the end of the day. Might save you some trouble."

His grin reemerges. "You have an amazing sense of humor, Zip McKee. I figured you'd be pissed as hell over this."

"Nothing to be pissed about," I say. "I was worried. That's why I'm here."

He won't stop grinning, and I feel my face burn on admitting I was concerned. Pretending to be interested in something on the side of my vinyl snow boot gives me an excuse to avoid his eyes.

"So, I didn't get the chance to ask you your real name before I went face down on your desk," he says as I continue my preoccupation with some imaginary whatever on my boot.

"Zara. Zara Elizabeth McKee," I tell him, sitting up and taking advantage of the rare opportunity to use my full name.

"Wow. That's really beautiful."

Dude, you're killing me, I think, as my face grows hot once again. "Thanks," I say out loud, looking down and fiddling with the end of my ponytail since he's probably going to wonder what's wrong with me if I keep messing with my boot. After a few seconds, my cheeks cool to their normal temperature and I'm confident enough to raise my eyes, but when I do, damned if he isn't still giving me The Grin. It's like the boy never stops.

"Seriously, though—if you call me 'Zara,' I'll kill you," I warn, trying to see if I can wipe the grin off his face with an empty threat. "I mean it. Teachers call me 'Zara,' and that's how I introduce myself to people when I go visit my dad, but that's pretty much it."

"A big 'no way' on the 'Zara.' Understood." Nope—still grinning.

"I've always been 'Zip,' you know?" I feel the need to explain. "'Zara' sometimes seems like somebody else."

"That's so cool, though." He squints, his perma-grin fading a little. "You sort of get to be a different person when you want to be, like a superhero. You're lucky. Most days, I don't even like being the one person I am."

Lost as to how to respond to such a frank admission, I change the subject. "Yeah...um...so, where did you move here from anyway?"

My question perks him back up. "North Carolina. Asheville. Ever been?"

"No," I say, shaking my head, the ends of my ponytail brushing either shoulder of my gray Titusville Titans shirt as I do. "I've never been much of anywhere besides Chicago, though—that's where my dad lives."

"Well, you seem kind of familiar, so I thought I'd ask."

I'm not really the "you seem familiar" type. My whole life, no one's ever compared me to any famous singers or movie stars or athletes, although some people say I remind them of my mom, which makes sense. I'm a few inches taller than she is, but we're both slender and share the same green eyes, dark blonde hair, and freckle-covered stub nose, so we definitely can't deny that we're a matched mother-daughter set.

"I've never been anywhere near North Carolina," I assure Kieran. "So whoever you're thinking of isn't me."

"Well, if you get the chance, you should go. Asheville's a cool place. We only moved here because my dad got a job at Sumner College."

"Yeah—I know."

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and he raises his head up off the pillow and gives me the same confused look he had this morning when he first found out my name. "O-kay," he says, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "So you're a mind-reader?"

"No," I say through a slight laugh before offering him an explanation. "Welcome to Titusville. There are about four-hundred students in this school, not counting the junior high, so stuff gets around pretty fast. And there's less than nothing to do here, so people like to talk—including the adults. I found out about your dad from my friend Cassie, who heard it from Marcy Gillette, who heard it from her mom who works in the front office. And, according to Cass, we're next-door neighbors."

News of our neighbor status brings The Grin back again. "I had no idea."

"Yup. My grandparents live in the place on the other side of ours."

Kieran nods slowly, taking everything in. "Okay—what else have you heard about me? I'll tell you if you're right or not."

I think back to what little Marcy said this morning. "Well, you're supposed to be a senior, right?"

His expression darkens, and I immediately regret bringing up his age. "Sorry. If that's private..."

"It's okay," he assures me. "Just kind of sucks, is all. You can imagine that when you randomly fall asleep during the day, keeping up with stuff is hard sometimes. I fell way behind in sixth grade, and people started being really mean to Kayla and me because of...well, because I'm so weird. In grade school, everyone was kind of okay with the whole thing, but when we went to middle school, everything changed."

"Probably because kids suck at that age," I say, although high school kids can suck pretty bad, too. Around here, it seems like the junior high's always having some special program about respecting differences, so apparently there's something with turning eleven and twelve that makes kids want to be completely stupid all of a sudden.

"Anyway, my mom pulled us out and homeschooled us because it was just easier to deal with me that way, but I never got caught up to where I should be. When Dad sat us down and told us he wanted to apply for the Sumner job, Kayla and I said we'd only go along with it if they put us back in regular school after we'd moved. I mean, my condition isolates me enough, and you add in the homeschooling...Mom and Dad gave in because Titusville's so small they thought we'd get lots of attention." He pauses, smacking his lips together. "Attention in the classroom, I mean. Not attention because I'd be passing out every five minutes."

"So, the sleeping's totally random?" I ask. "You can't control it at all?"

"I try to stay on a regular sleep schedule, but other than that, not really. Certain situations seem to bring it on, like if I'm really stressed out about something."

"Like the first day at a new school?" I suggest, and he nods.

"Exactly. I was freaking myself out about having episodes at school and how people were going to react, and stress pretty much guarantees to bring on an episode...it's sort of vicious cycle." I don't know what to say, and he fills the silence with more explanations. "This scar?" He points to a barely noticeable recess above his right eyebrow. "When I was eight, I fell asleep on the couch and caught the edge of an end table when I slumped over. And I broke my nose in fourth grade trying to play soccer. Sometimes I get this thing when I start getting tired that's like my muscles turn to rubber. Usually I can put my hands out to catch myself if I fall, but that time I wasn't fast enough and I took a header right into the field. So no more sports for me—too dangerous." He sits up on the cot but doesn't look at me. "Lucky for me, my mom was a doctor before she started hovering over me full-time, so I've got in-house care unless something major happens. I've tried every drug that's supposed to help, but nothing works. So I just deal. I don't have much of a choice."

Kieran leans forward, elbows on his knees. "It would be one thing if it only affected me, you know? But, like, my parents won't let me drive because they're too afraid of what might happen. I'm too afraid of what might happen. So Kayla chauffeurs me everywhere. My parents pretty much force her into babysitting duties when they're not around, and it's not fair to her."

As he's been talking, I've pulled my knees up to my chin, heels resting on the edge of the chair cushion, arms hugging my legs. "What happens when you leave home?" I ask, so drawn in by his story I don't stop to consider whether my question might be out of line. "You know—go to college? Start your own life?"

"Well, it's funny—or maybe it's not—but my parents and I have never talked that far into the future before. I think we're all pretending that if we don't talk about it, the future's not going to happen. At least, that's my excuse, anyway. I can't even picture anything after next year. Maybe I'll be one of those guys who lives in his parents' basement and plays video games for the rest of his life. Or maybe they're expecting me to follow Kayla around forever, but I don't see how that's supposed to work. She's really smart, so she'll want to go to a good school somewhere. She doesn't need me messing things up."

My ears perk at this tiny bit of information about Kayla. "She's smart?"

"Super smart."

"Like valedictorian smart?"

"Yeah. Probably." I can tell from his smile that he already knows the answer to his question when he asks, "You know someone else who might be in line for that honor?"

"Maybe not anymore," I mumble.

"I'll tell her to go easy on you. And I'm sorry I kind of had a pity party moment there. I'm usually pretty okay with everything, but sometimes I get frustrated."

Nodding, I don't say anything right away. "What are you thinking?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

"Well...it's...I guess I don't understand why you're telling me all of this. You met me, like, an hour ago basically."

He stares away from me at a microscopic piece of fuzz on the sheet covering the cot. "Well, you were the one who was with me when I had my episode this morning. You deserve an explanation."

"That's not what I'm talking about, although I appreciate it. But I could look up 'narcolepsy' in a book or online and learn about it if I wanted to. I'm talking about all the other stuff—you and Kayla and how frustrated you get with things sometimes. And I'm not saying I didn't want to hear that stuff, but I guess I don't understand how you're so comfortable sharing all that with me. I don't trust anyone I don't know."

Kieran pushes some hair up off his forehead. "You've got a trustworthy look about you. And I thought you seemed familiar, remember?"

"Seriously, though."

"Well, seriously—something about you screams 'trustworthy, upstanding citizen'."

"Great." I roll my eyes. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"Well, I meant it that way." He lowers his gaze again and picks at the sheet, his thumb and forefinger grasping the material and letting go over and over. "Maybe I decided to tell you all that stuff because you're here. Most people would've stopped by for a minute to check and make sure I was okay, if even that. I mean, those two guys who carried me in here sure didn't stick around for very long."

"They wouldn't," I tell him. "Cody and Doug aren't exactly known for being caring, sensitive types."

Kieran looks up, and our eyes lock as he breaks into another one of those grins that seems to be his default setting when he's staring at me. "But you came to check on me," he says. "And you stuck around. You have no idea what that means to me." His grin fades and he stares at me so intensely I'm wondering if something's wrong, like maybe I have a booger hanging out of my nose. To be safe, I look down and swipe my hand across my nostrils a few times.

"Just so you know," Kieran begins, finally breaking the silence, "if anyone asks you questions, you can tell them stuff. I'd rather you tell the truth than have people going around making things up about what's wrong with me. It would be awesome if at least a few people didn't think I was a drug addict or something."

"Okay."

Someone knocks on the door and in seconds, Nurse Foster's ancient face peeks around the curtain at us. "The bell's about to ring, so I thought I'd check on you," she says to Kieran. "Ready to go back to class?"

"Can't wait," he assures her, his voice dripping with sarcasm that she doesn't catch.

"Zara, do you need to return to study hall?" she asks.

"No. Mrs. Denton said I could just go to my next class."

Nurse Foster turns her attention back to Kieran. "So I'll see you after the third lunch period today, correct?"

"It's a date." He flashes her a toothy grin, and Nurse Foster opens her mouth to say something but, evidently flustered by Kieran's comment, decides not to and turns on her heel to go out to her desk, but not before I catch a slight blush rising in her cheeks.

"You have to come back?" I ask, stifling a laugh.

"If I can get a short nap sometime during the day, then the episodes don't come as much," he explains. "So while everyone else gets a study hall, I get naptime. Awesome, huh? Like being in Kindergarten all over again." His smirk tells me he doesn't think it's awesome at all.

The bell rings to end second period and Kieran stands, slipping back into his hoodie and zipping it up halfway. "Where you headed next?" I ask, slinging my backpack on my shoulder.

Kieran grabs his backpack from the floor next to the cot and fishes a crumpled schedule from the front pocket. "Algebra," he groans. "The day just keeps getting better and better."

"Math and I don't get along, either. Mr. Wilmstead?"

"Yup."

"His room's here on the first floor. My trig class is in the room next door, so I'll walk you."

We head out of the infirmary, saying goodbye to Nurse Foster and zooming past Mrs. Gillette, who's no doubt thrilled over the gossip she'll have for Marcy. A perverse desire strikes me to reach for Kieran's hand just to give her something really juicy to talk about, but since Kieran would probably freak out, I keep my hands to myself.

Kieran steps in front of me to open the door to the main lobby and I walk out ahead of him. Before us, our fellow students race like confused ants at a picnic, some running upstairs, some rushing to the back hallway by the cafeteria, and some heading to the main hall, which is where we'll need to go to get to our respective math classes.

"Ready?" I smile at him.

"Ready. Lead the way."

I take a few steps forward and merge into the herd, Kieran right behind me. Once again, I'm hit with the urge to reach for Kieran's hand, but this time the sensation is no joke. I want to hold onto him, want to make sure he doesn't get lost in this crowd of strangers. Restraining myself, I wipe my sweaty palms on my track pants and choose instead to plow ahead down the crowded hallway, hoping he can keep up with me and we don't get separated.

"Unfortunately, our rooms are at the end of the hall," I say to him over my shoulder, my voice nearly swallowed up by the noise.

"I'll stay as close to you as I can," he assures me.

Making my way down the overcrowded hallway seems easy compared to enduring the stares I get from walking with The Weird New Guy right behind me, everyone's eyes burning my face with laser-like precision. I almost wish I could burst into flames and leave everyone standing here wondering what happened as I flicker out into a pile of ash. I'm not used to this kind of attention—no one stares at me unless I'm holding a basketball, and I'm usually too preoccupied with setting up plays and smoking defenders to care what anyone thinks. Kieran, on the other hand, must be a pro at being stared at, because when I glance behind me, I find he's giving everyone a dialed back version of the disarming grin he kept flashing at me in the infirmary, the corners of his mouth not quite as wide as they were for me.

After a few minutes of struggling against most of Titusville's teenage population, we arrive at Mr. Wilmstead's room. "This is your stop," I announce, backing up against a locker with chipped navy blue paint.

Kieran leans in so I can hear him over the shuffle of students, although the closer we get to the third period bell, the less crowded the hall becomes as people arrive at their various classrooms. "Thanks for an interesting morning," he says, his lips inches from my ear. "Talking to you was more fun than staring at the ceiling."

"Glad I could be of service, but I should probably be thanking you for the interesting morning," I point out. "Mrs. Harvey's class hasn't been that thrilling in a long time. Or ever, basically."

Something distracts him from my pathetic attempt at banter and he glances down the hall toward the last room on the right, where trigonometry will be starting in less than three minutes. I follow his gaze to see Kayla approaching us from the opposite direction. She gives Kieran a little wave and he yells, "Hey" back at her, but instead of walking over to us, Kayla stops and tilts her head at the door next to her, indicating she's going to be in my trig class.

"I'd better go," he says. "Don't want to make you late. You've had enough trouble from me for one day."

"It's okay, really. I'm glad we had time to talk."

"So when do you have lunch? Maybe we can sit together."

Frowning, I remember Nurse Foster's comment about seeing him after the third lunch period. "Second lunch period, unfortunately. I usually eat with some of the girls from the team anyway, though. I don't know how you'd feel about dining with a group of gigantic Amazon women, with the exception of Yours Truly, that is."

I'm the shortest girl on the team at five feet eight, and judging by Kieran's height, which I can estimate fairly well at the moment since he's practically standing up against me, he'd still be shorter than some of my teammates even though he's a few inches taller than I am.

"Well, dining with Amazonians would be something different, I guess." We're standing so close together I can see the muscles in his neck contract as he laughs. "Maybe I'll see you around this afternoon, though. Or maybe sometime after school, since we're neighbors and all."

"Yeah." I catch sight of the clock on the other side of the hall ticking off the last minute of our time together. "Well, like you said, we should get going."

Neither of us moves, his mouth still closer to my ear than it needs to be, the tip of his left hiker grazing my right snow boot, his scent—not aftershave or cologne but something nearly perfume-free, like soap—tickling my nostrils. I hold my breath, half-afraid he's about to fall asleep and fully afraid that if he does, he'll stumble into my arms and press up against me right here in front of the thankfully dwindling crowd.

"Okay. Yeah. Right. Class," he says, standing up straight and looking through the window of Mr. Wilmstead's room as he reaches for the doorknob. "Later, Zip McKee."

"Later," I say, angling my head to look down the hall, where Kayla's still standing outside the door to our trig classroom, staring at me with a vacant expression. Pushing myself up off the locker, I start toward her. "Hey! Kayla!" I call out, ready to make my second new friend of the day.

Kayla responds by turning away and slipping inside the room, my greeting bouncing off the lockers in the nearly empty hallway and boomeranging back to me where I stand alone.

#  Chapter 4

"So he just, like, falls asleep without warning?"

"Yes, Bill."

"Even after a good night's sleep?"

"A good night's sleep doesn't have much to do with it," I tell Bill Burcheron, co-captain of the football team, as he sits across from me at lunch, piles of cellophane wrappers and paper containers littering his tray. "He can't help it. He has an easier time staying awake if he catches a nap during the day and sticks to a regular sleep schedule, but mostly, it's out of his control."

Over the past few weeks, I've become Titusville Junior/Senior High School's designated Narcolepsy Expert, a title Kieran or Kayla would probably earn if anyone would bother to talk to them long enough. After The Incident, most people seem to be treating the Laniers like zoo animals, observing them from a safe distance and talking about them as they stare.

"Does coffee help?" Lauren Pipher, Bill's girlfriend and my teammate, asks me, the girth of Bill's letterman coat around her so overwhelming, her head seems comically small. "I'm too hyper to go to bed if I drink coffee at night."

"Caffeine can mess with his sleep cycles and make everything worse, so he tries to avoid it."

"Sucks for him," Lauren says, pouting.

A sigh escapes me in spite of myself. I'd been looking forward to a lunch period of ignoring everyone and reviewing my reading assignment on the Reconstruction for American history class, but instead, I'm enduring another round of "Let's Learn about Narcolepsy," courtesy of Lauren and Bill. Tomorrow, I'll probably suffer through this again, thanks to somebody else. And the day after...

"So what happens when you two...you know." Bill shrugs. "Like, does he fall asleep when..." His voice trails off and he puts his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if the gesture is an appropriate substitute for what he wants to say.

"When what, Bill?" I sit back and fold my arms across my stomach. Of course, I know exactly what he's getting at, but watching him squirm is too much fun.

"You know," he insists, which provokes a gasp from Lauren, whose brain apparently just decided to clue her in.

"Bill! Oh, my God."

"Well, I was just curious," he says, as if inquiring about the sex lives of his girlfriend's teammates is no big thing.

"Sooo rude," Lauren continues. "I mean, it's not like people go around asking us about the stuff we do in private."

Ewww, I think, although I'm guessing that most guys in the cafeteria right now—and probably more than a few girls, too—know exactly what Lauren and Bill do in private thanks to Bill's gigantic ego.

"It's okay," I assure her, before turning my attention back to Bill. "To answer your question, we're just friends, so what happens to him in those...situations isn't any of my business."

"Sorry," Bill mumbles. "I mean, everybody thinks you're a couple—just so you know."

If Kieran and I are a couple, then we're having the most boring, chaste relationship this school has ever seen. Besides English and history, Kieran and I pretty much only see each other in the hall on our way to classes we don't have together. Since I have basketball practice every day after school, we've never had the chance to hang out at each other's houses or around town like most people would when school gets out. We text a lot and talk on the phone about class assignments and books we like to read when we're not reading stuff for school, but neither of us has suggested driving to Sumner to catch a movie or to go to the mall or anything else that might resemble something that passes for dating activity around here. So we're not even remotely together, but considering Bill's about the eighth person to ask without asking if Kieran falls asleep on me when we get physical, I'm guessing the truth doesn't really matter because as far as everyone's concerned, Kieran and I have been hot and heavy since he went face down on my desk in Advanced English.

Kieran's had two other "moments" at school since the day we met. The first time, he was in Mr. Wilmstead's algebra class. He told me he dozed off for about thirty minutes and nobody even noticed. I had Mr. Wilmstead for geometry, and I'm assuming nobody noticed because half the room was probably asleep themselves. The second time he passed out, he was in art class and slumped over on the watercolor he was working on, which led to him spending the rest of the period in the bathroom wiping paint off his face. He's also had a few of these kind of waking blackout moments when we're together. We'll be walking down the hall or discussing stuff in English class and he'll seem completely alert. Afterwards, I'll ask him about something and he doesn't remember that we were even talking in the first place, as if he's got some kind of fleeting amnesia.

All I give Bill for informing me that the whole school thinks Kieran and I are Doing It is a "whatever" shrug of my shoulders, so he drops the subject and steers our conversation to Kayla. "So, Kieran's sister's kind of hot."

"Um, Bill...hello? I'm right here," Lauren shrieks.

"Oh, come on—I didn't mean it like that. I meant, like, anyone would think she's hot. Like how people say, 'oh, this movie star's so hot' or whatever."

Lauren pretends to be interested in a French fry left over in the paper container on her tray, rolling it around between her thumb and forefinger, while Bill turns his attention back to me. "So, what's her deal anyway? Her name's Kayla, right?"

Honestly, I don't know what Kayla's "deal" is, because she's barely said ten words to me in the time she's been here. Since we're apparently on track to compete for class valedictorian, we have the same schedule except for electives. Kayla, however, always sits in the front row while I'm in my usual seat in the back corner of whatever room we're in. We ended up next to each other in Advanced Chemistry because Mr. Collins insists we sit alphabetically, but we're usually too busy taking notes to say more than "Hi," and "Later," and since Cassie and I have been lab partners all year, I don't get much of a chance to talk to Kayla during lab, either. The few times we've both ended up walking to class with Kieran, we've only spoken a couple of words to each other about whatever's being discussed at the time. So besides what Kieran's told me here and there—she's a runner, she pretty much looks after Kieran whenever she can, she likes the outdoors—I'm clueless about her.

But I do know that Kayla wears this fake smile whenever she sees Kieran and me together or whenever we're all walking down the hall on our way to class, like she's just barely tolerating my existence. I haven't worked up the nerve to ask Kieran why his sister doesn't seem to like me, mostly because I'm not used to people not liking me and I'm a little afraid to find out what I've done to piss her off.

The bell rings before I can respond to Bill's question about Kayla that I'm lost for an answer to anyway, and everyone stands and files towards the doors like trained monkeys, dumping the remains of our lunches in the garbage cans and recycling bins and leaving the trays on a cart on our way out into the hall. I race upstairs to my history class and take my seat in the back center of the room, and as I pull my textbook and notebook out of my backpack, Kieran slides into the desk in front of me and says, "Hey—I've got news."

Of course, the bell rings before he can tell me. "Give me a minute," he whispers, and Mrs. Denton immediately starts scrawling on the board. I begin writing, as her tests are notoriously based on her notes, but before I've scribbled more than a few lines, Kieran's hand bumps the outside of my left kneecap, prompting me to look up. He's leaning forward and still facing the front of the room, his right arm flexing as he takes notes, but his left arm dangles over the back of his desk chair. My hand closes over his and he transfers a wadded-up notebook page to me, which I lift to my desktop and smooth out.

I think I talked Kayla into taking me to your game Saturday, he's written.

Kieran's wanted to come to one of my basketball games, but they've all been during the week and he and Kayla aren't allowed out on school nights. Considering she hates me for whatever reason, hanging out at one of my games probably isn't high on Kayla's "to do" list, but once Kieran learned our last game of the regular season would be on a Saturday, he's been itching to go.

How'd you manage that? I scribble back and carefully crumple the paper, trying to make as little noise as possible. I tap Kieran on the shoulder with my pen, and the next time Mrs. Denton turns to write on the board, he angles his arm behind his chair, his open palm resting on my knee. Taking a second to bask in the sensation of his hand through my track pants, I slip the note underneath the desk and rub the paper along his fingertips. He grabs the wad of paper and quickly swings his arm over his seat, the feeling of dried sweat on cotton/polyester blend sending a chill through me in his absence.

Less than a month of friendship, and we've already perfected the Crumpled Paper Note routine. But some days—like today, when Kieran's hand lingers on me a little longer than usual—the routine seems more perfect than others.

A few minutes later, Kieran brushes my knee again, but just as I'm about to reach down to grab the note, Mrs. Denton turns away from the board and fires a question at me. "Zara, tell the class what the Fifteenth Amendment did."

I have no idea what she can see from the front of the room, so I swallow hard and pretend everything's normal. "It gave former slaves the right to vote," I say, my voice steady. "People could vote regardless of race, color, or whether or not they'd been slaves."

"Right. Although individual states already had laws and continued to pass laws disenfranchising former slaves..." Mrs. Denton doesn't miss a beat and continues with her discussion, directing her gaze to the other side of the room in order to fire a question at her next victim. While Cassie bungles a question about military control in the Southern states, I take the crumpled note from Kieran's waiting hand.

I think I just wore her down, he tells me in his straight-up-and-down printing style, the curves in his letters more like right angles. He's also drawn some sunbursts in the margins next to his sentences—one of his favorite things to draw, I guess, since he's always doodling them in his notebook in English class. She told me to ask Mom and Dad, and they said it's ok as long as she's with me. I guess she didn't feel like she could fight me anymore, and when I bugged her about it yesterday, she gave in.

Maybe I should be nervous over the fact that for the first time, someone outside my family—and someone of the male gender, no less—will be attending a Titusville Lady Titans game for the express purpose of watching me play, but since I consider Kieran a friend more than anything, I'm not. And once Saturday night rolls around, even after I search the stands during warm-ups and find Kieran and Kayla sitting alone on the top bleacher, Kieran waving and Kayla giving me her usual lukewarm smile, I'm anything but rattled. I'm in The Zone, the headspace of automatic movements and behaviors I've worked on perfecting since my dad first threw me a big orange ball in my grandparents' paved driveway. As soon as I step on the court, Kieran, Kayla, my family sitting in the front row behind our team bench, and everyone else in the gym disappear, my focus solely on shooting layups, firing three-point shots, making expert-if-not-no-look passes, and executing plays.

Right from the start, the Sumner Lady Panthers are no match for us. They should be fired up and ready to avenge a four-point overtime loss to us on their home court last month, but the Panthers come out sluggish, losing the tip to Marissa Keep, Ashley's older sister and our senior forward. Marissa throws the ball to me and I dribble to the top of the key, left arm raised and fingers flexing to signal the play for our first offensive set of the game. Everyone moves into position, defenders giving pursuit, and I lob a pass to Candace just a few feet from the basket. She easily pivots around her defender to lay in a quick two points, and everything goes downhill for Sumner from there. We pull away to a 20-11 lead at halftime, helped along by a combination of four three-pointers from Marcy Gillette and me. Sumner tries to mount a comeback in the second half, but we hold them off to win 41-37, securing our place at the top of our conference. I score an individual season-high thirteen points in addition to notching five assists and two fouls, both frustration fouls in the fourth quarter when Sumner looked like they might come back.

The half-full gym—a sizeable crowd for one of our home games—erupts in applause and cheers at the end of the game. "Look out State—here we come," Marcy belts out as the rest of the team dances around her, all of us screaming, hugging, and pointing solitary fingers to the sky reminding everyone we're Number One, at least until our Regional game next week. In the midst of the celebration, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn to see my mom beaming with parental pride.

"Honey—I'm so happy for you," she yells over the chaos, pulling me into a hug. The giant Booster Club button on her sweater with my name and number grazes my arm, the plastic cold against my skin. After a few seconds, I pull back and notice my grandparents toddling toward us from the bleachers.

"Nice show, Zip-i-dee-doo-dah," Gramps booms, his talent for nicknames only rivaled by my dad's. He also wears a giant "Zip #11" button, but unlike my mother, who can't be counted on to do such things, he's sporting a sweater in the school's navy blue along with khaki pants and a Titusville Titans baseball cap covering his few wisps of white hair. Gram, shorter and rounder than Gramps, wears an almost identical outfit, although since she has a full head of silver-blonde locks drifting down to her shoulders, hiding bald spots isn't a concern and so she's skipped the ball cap. Their School Spirit Twins routine would embarrass me if I didn't love them so much and weren't grateful that they attend every game, both home and away. And I love my mom for being here, too, of course, but I almost have to laugh at how she's dressed more for a day at her arts and crafts store on River Avenue than for a basketball game—oversized forest green sweater, tight jeans, and calf-high black leather boots, her blonde hair back in its usual sloppy style that's not quite a ponytail and not quite a bun. Her Booster button is the only sign of the Titusville school spirit she probably never had herself, even when she was a student here.

"Thirteen points for you tonight, if I counted right" Gram smiles at me, her pale cheeks flushed unusually pink with excitement, the color settling into her wrinkles and frown lines.

"Yeah. Let's hope I can pull that off next week at Regionals."

Mom shakes her head at me. "You. Always thinking ahead. Next week is next week. Let yourself enjoy the win for a minute. This is the biggest thing to happen to this school in a long time."

"As evidenced by the standing room-only crowd," I say, smirking, but Gramps points out "Well, at least the Boosters set up a nice spread for you in the cafeteria."

The Booster Club's been planning a little celebration—basically, sandwiches and sodas for players and their guests—since we clinched the conference title two weeks ago.

"You should ask our new neighbors if they'd like to join us." Gram nods up into the stands.

Everyone else has made their way to the floor or left the gym entirely, but two figures sit alone in the top row, the boy dozing away on the girl's shoulder. I look up at them, and Kayla rolls her eyes and hitches her shoulders in a sort of "Eh. What are you going to do?" resignation over Kieran's current state. I smile and give her a sympathy shrug, and for a moment, we almost seem like friends.

Almost. But not quite.

#  Chapter 5

Kayla scowls, her eyes darting away as if she's just remembered she doesn't like me. She scoots closer to Kieran on the bleacher bench and shoves herself against him to wake him up.

"I guess is the first time you've seen them?" I ask my family. I don't need to wonder how they figured out the kids were the Laniers, since Kieran and Kayla would have been the only two people sitting on the Titusville side of the gym they didn't already know. Plus, I told them about Kieran's condition, so the sight of a sleeping boy in the bleachers would be a dead giveaway.

"It's been so cold I haven't been out much," Gramps says, referring to how he likes to kind of putter around on the porch and in the front yard when the weather's warmer. "I think I've seen him—the father—drive by a few times, probably on his way to and from Sumner."

"We wanted to give them some time to get settled in before we started being all neighborly," Gram adds, "being neighborly" meaning bringing over baked goods and invites to sewing circle, book club, writing group, or one of the other thousands of activities Gram's involved in around town and in Sumner. "Tonight's as good a night to meet them as any, I suppose."

Up in the stands, Kieran's woken up and Kayla's working herself into her coat. My guess is there's no way they'd want to hang out with my family, much less the Booster Club, the team, and team's families, but I can't really say that.

"Sure. I'll ask. Then I'll go clean up and meet you in the cafeteria, okay?"

Gram and Gramps bob their heads and turn to head off the court, but my mom catches me by the arm. "He's cute," she hisses in my ear as she stares up at Kieran. "How come you didn't tell me how cute he was?"

"I am so not having this conversation with you right now."

"Well, I'm just surprised you never said anything. I mean, I kind of wondered when you kept talking about this boy all the time, but I had no idea—"

"I don't talk about him all the time, so calm down," I warn. "Anyway, aren't you always telling me you're cool if I don't date until I'm thirty?"

"Assuming he's a nice guy," Mom starts as the Laniers descend the bleachers, "I'll make an exception for someone who looks like him. That guy just screams 'Hot Prom Date'."

This is an unreal amount of gross even from my mom, whose talent for embarrassing me knows no bounds. "Please stop," I beg. "Kieran and I are just friends, but maybe you should ask him out if you think he's so hot. I'll put in a good word for you."

"Thanks. I think he's a little young for me, though."

"Well, he should be turning eighteen soon. I'll even help you pick out a Prom dress if you want, although I don't know if you're allowed to go to Prom as someone's date when you're older than most of the chaperones."

Mom ignores this last dig. "Shut it, Zip—they're coming."

We flash broad smiles as the siblings make their way to the gym floor. Kayla turns in the direction of the outside entrance, but Kieran grabs her coat sleeve, gently pulling her back as he starts walking toward us.

Mom takes two steps forward and holds out her hand. "Hi. April Shipman. You must be Kieran."

"Nice to meet you. This is my sister, Kayla."

Kieran nudges Kayla forward, and she offers my mom one of her trademarked bland smiles along with her hand. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Shipman," she says in that breathy voice of hers.

"Please—call me April."

We fall into the awkward silence of four people trying to think of small talk subjects until Kieran saves us. "Good game. I mean, what I saw of it was a good game."

"Thanks," I say.

Mom smiles at him and elbows me in the ribs. "Well, Zip's grandparents are probably wondering where I am," she says. "You know, when they walked out to the cafeteria, I said I'd be right behind them."

On her obnoxious emphasis of the word cafeteria, I draw in a breath. "So, there's this...thing. Sort of a party, I guess. The Booster Club's got food and stuff set up for the team, and we can bring people with us if you wanted to hang out for a while."

Kayla opens her mouth but doesn't get a syllable out before Kieran answers for them both. "Sounds great. Thanks."

"Awesome," Mom chimes in. "Well, Zip's got to get cleaned up, so why don't you two come with me?"

Kieran gives Mom one of his crooked grins while Kayla bites her lower lip, and I suspect she'd rather be forced to cut her own leg out of a bear trap than have to spend five minutes with my family.

"See you in a few," I say, turning to jog off to the locker room while Mom steers Kieran and Kayla out the main gym doors towards the cafeteria.

After a brief team meeting to deconstruct the game, I hit the showers. Knowing my family would probably insist on staying for the Booster Club party, I brought jeans and a sweater to change into instead of sweats, although now that Kieran and Kayla are coming, too, I sort of wish I'd packed something a little more glam than an old black cable knit, remembering the pretty royal blue belted cardigan Kayla chose to wear tonight. I get dressed and tuck my damp hair back behind my ears with a black cotton headband before stuffing my sweaty uniform and warm-ups into my gym bag, grabbing my coat, and rushing down the hall to the cafeteria where the party is already in full swing.

Bad pop music blares over the PA system, and the Boosters have strung the white cinder block walls with blue and yellow streamers and balloons, a "Congratulations Lady Titans" banner hanging over the area where students usually stand in line to buy food. About half of the tables that would be occupied by gossiping kids during the week now hold players, families, boyfriends, and, in some cases, random friends who happened to be invited, like Kieran and Kayla. I find my family sitting toward the front of the cafeteria at a table already littered with half eaten food and empty drink cups. Mom and Gram have cornered Kieran, while Gramps finds himself completely mismatched with Kayla, given that he's Mr. Personality and she's apparently trying to see how little she can say to people and get away with it.

"So, given much though to college, Kayla?" Gramps asks as I slide into the seat next to him.

"Some."

"Well, I know you just moved to the area, but you should take a look at Sumner. Great town, good school, strong liberal arts curriculum. I don't know what you're interested in majoring in but—"

"Give the girl a break, Dad," Mom interrupts, rolling her eyes for Kayla's benefit. "Sorry, Kayla. He's retired from the art department, so he likes to talk the place up. I'm sure you're learning everything you need to know about Sumner from your dad."

Kayla shifts her stare to the table, clearly uncomfortable, which I don't get considering she's gorgeous enough that she's probably been the center of attention for most of her life. Tonight, her sweater magnifies the blue in her eyes and makes her black hair seem even darker than usual, but her thin lips hold a tight smile that I've come to recognize as the smile of endurance, the smile of "I'm only putting up with this stupid crap because I have to."

"Zip tells me you're an athlete," Gramps tries.

"Track."

"Running or field events?"

"Running."

"Long distance or sprint?"

"Distance."

I glance over at Kieran. His eyes flutter as he struggles to stay awake in the warm room, but he still manages to give me a sly smile at his sister's behavior. As I wonder when Gramps is going to crack after getting so many clipped responses, my Mom pipes up with "Honey, you should go get some food before it's all gone. I'm sure you're hungry."

My stomach must hear her, as hunger gnaws at me for the first time since entering the cafeteria. "Okay," I agree, standing. "Anybody need anything?" Heads shake all around, and so I head to the food table near the windows, but before I can start loading the plastic plate, my mom's at my arm.

"Hey. We're leaving soon," she whispers.

"But I just got here," I say back at normal volume.

"Not you. I mean Gram and Gramps and me. I put my car keys in your coat pocket and I'm going to ride home with them," she explains, since Gram and Gramps had come to the game from some club meeting or other while Mom and I drove straight from our house. I don't immediately say anything, so she continues, "Go out with your friends tonight. Celebrate. Hang out with this boy and have a good time—he seems like a great kid."

Kieran is officially the first guy to receive my mother's stamp of approval, probably because he's the first guy I've shown an interest in beyond choosing partners for two-on-two basketball games.

"Don't have too good of a time, though," she corrects herself. "You know the rules. No crazy stuff, and call if you're going to be out past midnight, okay?"

"Got it."

She leans in and plants a kiss on my cheek. "I'm proud of you, Zip. Tonight and every night."

"Get out of here before you start crying," I say through a sigh, watching her tear up. She blinks and gives me one last kiss before walking back to the table, where my grandparents are putting on their coats and saying their goodbyes to Kieran and Kayla. After I load up my plate, several boosters and parents of my teammates stop me to offer congratulations and tell me what a good game I had, and rather than waiting for me to struggle through the crowd back to my seat, my grandparents make their way to the middle of the cafeteria to hug me good night as best they can with me holding a plate of food.

Once my grandparents have gone and everyone else has left me alone, I cross the cafeteria back to Kayla and Kieran. Kayla's standing behind her chair, coat on, while Kieran sits picking at some potato chips.

"So," Kayla begins, "we were just about to—"

"We were just about to stay here and talk with Zip while she eats. Right, Kayla?" Kieran interrupts, shooting Kayla a look of fake innocence that she matches with a death glare.

"We told Mom and Dad we'd be home right after the game," she says, her voice hard with warning. "We've probably been out too long already."

Kieran hitches up his shoulders and nods down at the bit of food left on his plate. "Go home then. I'm still eating."

"Kieran..."

"Kayla." He mimics her whine. "Seriously. If you want to leave, leave. I can get a ride with Zip, right?"

"Yeah," I say, not really wanting to get in the middle of this building sibling squabble, but not wanting to be a jerk about giving Kieran a ride, either.

"So what am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad, genius?" Kayla asks, folding her arms across her stomach. "You're out with some strange girl they've never met? They'll love that."

I have to bite back a laugh at Kayla, of all people, calling me some strange girl.

Kieran picks at his potato chips again. "Well, yeah," he tells his sister, not looking up from his plate. "You can tell them I'm out with a really nice girl. Tell them I have a real live friend for once and I actually want to hang out like a regular kid. Tell them I got kidnapped by aliens. I don't know—tell them whatever you want. I don't care. Worry about yourself for once in your stupid life."

Kayla's mouth falls open as if she's trying to swallow the right words out of the hot air of the cafeteria to spit back at Kieran, but she presses her lips together instead, shooting me a look so sharp and severe, I feel like I'm being cut open. She turns on her heel and storms away from us, pushing past a small group consisting of Cassie, Lauren, Bill, Ashley, and Brad Wallace standing near the cafeteria doors. They stop whatever conversation they're having as Kayla whizzes by, her speed twisting them around as if they're weathervanes spinning on top of a barn.

"So, your sister hates me," I tell Kieran, putting my plate down on the table and deciding now is as good a time as any to get Kayla's icy treatment of me out in the open with at least one of the Laniers, if not the one I should be confronting.

"She doesn't hate you," Kieran says through a tiny laugh as I pull out a chair and sit down across from him.

"Well, she sure doesn't like me very much."

Kieran shrugs and proceeds to contradict himself. "Kayla hates everybody. That's who she is. It's, like, a defense mechanism or something."

"Against what?" I ask, shoveling in a few potato chips.

"Everything, pretty much. It's her protector thing, I think. She's seen me get made fun of or ignored enough times she's put up this wall around both of us to keep the haters away. It's like she's so used to being pissed off at people it's her permanent state of existence at this point. Don't take it personally."

"She called me some strange girl," I point out after a bite of turkey sandwich. "Hard not to take that personally."

"Again, Kayla being Kayla. She's probably just having a hard time adjusting to someone being nice to me for once. And, anyway, you are a strange girl." He flashes that grin at me and I almost take pride in Kayla's description. "I mean that in the best way possible, of course. I like strange girls—strange girls with unique nicknames in particular."

"Thanks." On the outside, I'm giving him a snarky smile, but inside, my heart's racing because I'm not used to guys flirting with me.

"You're welcome," he says, stealing a chip from my plate since he's finished all of his. "Seriously, though, don't stress about Kayla. She'll come around. We've never had close friends, and neither have my mom and dad. We don't have one of those houses where people come over and hang out, and my parents don't socialize a whole lot. It's always sort of been us against the world for some reason—my condition, I guess."

Unsure of what to say, I turn my attention back to my food, and Kieran watches me eat in silence. After I'm done, I look around and notice the crowd's thinned out. A few of my teammates stand around in the main hall, probably making plans for the rest of the evening, while several adults linger at the cafeteria tables—Booster Club members, I assume, who would have to stick around and clean up after everyone.

"We should probably go," he tells me, seeing that we're alone with a bunch of adults. "Hanging with you all night would be fun given what's probably waiting for me at home, but I'm guessing I shouldn't push this whole 'Ditching My Sister' thing too hard on the first try."

We put our coats on, and Kieran picks up our plates and cups while I grab my gym bag and sling it over my shoulder. Kieran dumps our trash on the way out of the cafeteria and follows me down a side hallway by the locker rooms, which allows us to avoid the group of girls standing in the front entry—not that they'd invite us to go anywhere with them anyway, since everyone thinks Kieran's creepy and they probably assume the two of us want to be alone so we can run off and get married or something.

At the end of the hall, I push one of the double doors open out into the February cold. "So you think you're in big trouble?" I ask, my words slow and heavy, as if they're struggling against the wind chill to leave the warmth of my mouth.

"No idea," he rasps back. "Never told Kayla to leave somewhere without me before."

After what seems like a miles-long trek through the winter gale batting us in the face, we reach my mom's other baby, a black 1967 Chevy Camaro she and Gramps bought and lovingly restored a few years ago, parked in front of the fence lining the football field. I unlock Kieran's door and head around to the driver's side, starting the engine and cranking the defroster up high once I'm inside. The front window thaws and I pull onto Main Street, making the almost immediate left turn down the county road.

Kieran and I don't talk in the three minutes it takes me to drive to his house. I'm too busy thinking about how guilty I feel that he's probably going to get in trouble for fighting with Kayla and staying at school with me, and he seems preoccupied with unzipping his coat to stick his hand inside, feeling around like he's searching for something in an inner pocket.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" I ask, turning right into the McCafferys'—I mean, the Laniers'—driveway and heading up the slight hill. I'm offering just to be polite because I'm not sure I want to meet his parents under these circumstances. Thankfully, Kieran lets me off the hook.

"Nah. I should probably handle this one myself," he tells me as I pull in behind Kayla's Jeep Cherokee. His hand is still inside his coat, making him look like a modern version of the Napoleon painting reprinted in my world history textbook from freshman year. "Okay. This is dumb," he says, pulling a folded square of paper out to give to me. "But this is for you."

I take the gift and unfold it into a sheet that's about as large as an eight by ten photograph, something sketched across the surface that I can't make out in the dark. When I turn on the interior lights, I discover Kieran's given me a pencil drawing of a single rose with two leaves on its narrow stem, expert shading creating the contrast between the individual petals.

"I drew that during some free time we had in art class," he explains, his eyes not meeting mine when I look from the paper to him.

"It's beautiful," I breathe.

"Well, I wanted you to have it. You know—for Valentine's Day."

My brain races, trying to recall the date. I visualize my basketball schedule in my mind and remember that it's February tenth. "Valentine's Day isn't until Wednesday," I point out.

"Yeah. I know. But your Regional game is Wednesday, right? You're going to be pretty preoccupied between now and then, so I brought this with me tonight in case we ended up alone at some point." Kieran looks out the windshield toward the garage, but I can still see the now-familiar grin. "That's why I started in on Kayla—I wanted to make sure we'd have at least a few minutes alone so I could give this to you."

I give an awkward little laugh, but my heart's freezing along with my brain because I've never been in a situation like this before.

What do I do now? Do I kiss him? Wait for him to kiss me?

"Thank you," I say, wishing I didn't suck at everything not involving school or sports.

Kieran glances at me, face red, and since my cheeks are on fire as well, I turn the interior light off to save both of us. I stare down at the drawing for a few seconds and when I lift my eyes, I see that Kieran's fallen asleep, his body turned toward me in his seat, his left cheek smashed against the black cloth. Slowly, because I'm not sure if I should, I reach out and touch his face, the skin still warm with embarrassment, and he blinks back awake beneath my hand, prompting me to jerk away as if I've touched a hot stove burner.

"Sorry," he whispers, not saying anything about my touching him.

"It's okay."

"So, I should go inside, I guess," he says, whatever moment that may have been about to happen between us now broken thanks to his momentary sleep. "Mom and Dad are probably aching to yell at me. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting any longer."

"Probably not."

Kieran opens the door, the tension draining from the car out into the frigid air. "So I'll talk to you Monday, if not before," he says, slipping out of the seat belt.

"Sure. Text me if you want to talk about A Separate Peace," I add, referring to our current novel in Mrs. Harvey's class, the rare work neither of us has read before.

"I will. Later, Zip."

He slides out and I call "Later," at his back as he shuts the door. Placing the rose drawing on the seat where he was just a moment before, I watch Kieran as he lopes behind the car over to the narrow concrete walk connecting the driveway and the front porch, his shoulders hunched up against the cold. Once on the steps, he gives me a little wave and, knowing he'll soon be safely inside, I make a K-turn and head back down the drive towards the road, my heartbeat steady for the first time in several minutes.

#  Chapter 6

Regionals are a total disaster, right from the opening tip. Having split our two regular season contests against Tusculum, each team winning in front of their home crowd, our first-round game would not only determine who would play in Friday's Regional final, but would also crown a definitive victor in our cross-county rivalry for the season. Unfortunately, our Regional was long ago scheduled for Tusculum's gym, and they manage to pack an entire side with rowdy fans, the visitors' bleachers consisting of the usual meager Titusville turnout.

Not that the lack of a home court advantage is what ultimately does us in. We sucked so hard our junior high team could've beaten us tonight in Titusville's gym in front of a full house. Marcy and I spend most of the game tossing up bricks from the three-point line, the ball bouncing off the rim with a clunking sound I'll hear in my nightmares for weeks. And even though I'm fouled almost every time I drive to the basket, the refs don't call anything. In the second quarter, after one of the Tusculum forwards pretty obviously hacks my wrist when I blow by her, causing the ball to go out of bounds instead of up to the hoop, I lose my mind and turn to the referee as Coach calls a time out to stop the carnage.

"Come on," I yell, careful not to get in the ref's face. "She's killing me down here."

The ref shakes her head to indicate she didn't see a foul, and I turn away muttering "Okay. Whatever. You've got to be kidding me." Unfortunately, I don't mutter quietly enough, and the ref makes the sign for a technical foul before walking over to the scorer's table to give my number. I jog to the bench, head lowered, never having had a meltdown like that during a game before.

"Grab a seat until you cool off, McKee," Coach tells me as I slink to the sideline and put a towel over my head, listening to her scold the starting five for our sloppy play before reminding us that we've still got two and a half quarters left. The team breaks the huddle and Tori Sandowsky, our sophomore guard, takes over for me at point for the rest of the quarter. I assure Coach at halftime that I can keep it together, so she puts me back in for the second half. But it's too late—despite a surge in the fourth quarter, our season ends with a 32-27 loss.

After the buzzer, we all drag ourselves to midcourt to slap hands and tell the victors "Good game." Back on the bench, the standing ovation we get from our fans doesn't do much to ease my pain, especially considering their applause is mostly drowned out by the celebration taking place on the other side of the gym. I search the crowd for my family and finally find them near the top of the bleachers, their smiles and waves quickly forgotten at the sight of Kieran standing next to Mom, waving at me and grinning like a maniac. I hold out my hands and cock my head in a sort of silent "What are you doing here?" pose, because tonight's a school night and Kayla doesn't seem to be around anywhere. He keeps grinning and shrugs his shoulders as if his being at the game is no big deal, and I have to put the mystery on hold temporarily as I jog off to the locker room to deal with the Most Depressing Post-Game Meeting Ever.

Coach makes the expected speech about how tonight we weren't the better team, but we made a good effort and she's so proud and blah, blah, blah. "Hold your heads up," she says, pointing her clipboard at us in the stuffy locker room, sweat beads standing out on her forehead. "You accomplished more than any other basketball team in Titusville history—boys' or girls'. Because of that, you'll all live forever in the halls of Titusville Senior High School."

Hearing how our first-round loss will live forever doesn't make me feel any better—in fact, it kind of makes me want to throw up. Coach's attempt at a big budget movie-level inspiring speech doesn't seem to be helping anyone else, either. Candace, Marissa, and Kelsey Markey are sobbing their eyes out as Marcy and I hug on a bench in front of the lockers, Marcy crying on my shoulder. None of them has gotten scholarship offers anywhere yet, so unless they decide to try out wherever they end up for college, they've played what could potentially be their last competitive basketball game, which reminds me that next year, I'll be one of the sobbing seniors. My teeth grind against each other, and I make myself a promise: Next year, we're taking everything—we're winning State. And if I'm crying, it'll be because I'm so happy I can't stand it.

My vow for my basketball future steels me until I get to the bus, where I almost break down when I find my mom waiting among the other parents for a quick goodbye before we all caravan back south to Titusville. "Honey, I'm sorry," she breathes, gathering me into her arms. A sob works its way up from my stomach, and I take a deep breath to calm myself. Having never cried in public before, I don't intend to start now.

"It's okay," I mumble, not in the mood to relive the game at the moment, and luckily, I've got the perfect topic change. "Did Kieran come with you?"

"No. He just sat with us. He rode up on the spirit bus."

My head jerks in surprise. "The spirit bus? You're kidding."

"I'll let him explain when we get to town—I'm driving him back," she says, my grandparents once again having taken a separate car since they drove over from Sumner, where Gramps drives Gram to a poetry class three days a week and then hangs around for coffee with some of his professor friends.

"Okay." I nod, looking over my shoulder at my teammates entering the bus. "I'd better go."

Mom smoothes some loose hair behind my ear and presses her forehead to mine, ignoring the gumminess of dried sweat on my face. "I'm proud of you, you know? I don't care how many basketball games you lose. You're still my kid and you rock the free world."

"Thanks, Mom, but any sentence with the word 'lose' isn't helping me right now."

"How about 'No matter how many games you don't win'?"

"Nice try." I smile, reaching out to ruffle her hair.

"I do what I can," Mom says. "See you at home."

I hitch my gym bag up on my shoulder and get on the bus, ignoring my teammates as I head for the back, all of us so trapped in our individual grief that we're taking advantage of the fact the bus is big enough that we don't have to share seats. Once I'm settled in the last row, I put my headphones on and search the music player on my phone for the copy of the Nirvana disc I burned from Mom, the grungy rhythms and angry lyrics the perfect musical accompaniment to my bad mood. The bus groans and shudders, pulling away from the battlefield where we went down to defeat, and in a few minutes, we're on the highway, chugging back to Titusville.

With Nirvana's Nevermind blasting in my ears, I pull my legs to my chest, lower my forehead to the crevice between my knees, and let loose, hoping no one can hear me bawling even though I'm sure most of my teammates are probably doing the same thing. When the bus slows down as it pulls into Titusville, I take several deep breaths and start drying my eyes with the back of my hand, the effort involved in trying to stop crying almost enough to make me cry harder. We lurch over the traffic bumps in the school parking lot as my deep breathing finally manages to slow the flood of tears, and I'm confident I can get off the bus and not look like a total moron. I wait a minute or two after we've parked behind the locker room so I'm the last one off, the crying over but my eyelids swollen, the world in front of me little more than a black nighttime blur.

"Hey." Kieran's voice catches me as I step down and start walking forward, my attention focused on finding Mom's car so I can go home, crawl into bed, and hopefully wake up tomorrow morning to find this whole evening was a bad dream.

"Hey. Sorry—didn't see you." I sniffle, and I hope he thinks it's because of the cold weather.

"It's okay."

Lifting my hand to my face, I wipe some tears away, praying he doesn't notice. "So, um, where's my mom?" I ask, voice shaking.

"She drove me back and went home with your grandparents. She thought you might want to be with a friend." Kieran's brow wrinkles. "Are you crying?"

Another sniffle. I don't know if I'm more embarrassed over the tears or because my mom's engineered this situation in which Kieran and I can be alone. I'm grateful that I have such an amazing mom who wants to look out for me on The Worst Night of My Young Life, but I'm also a little frustrated that she's essentially forcing me to share this occasion with The Guy I Sort of Kind of Think I Might Like, which could potentially make this The Most Embarrassing Night of My Young Life.

"No—it's just..." The tears start again, mostly out of frustration at not being able to come up with a good lie. Kieran responds by stepping forward into the space between us and wrapping his arms around me. My body is so limp and exhausted I can't return the hug, and so I just stand with my arms at my sides, indulging in a long, heavy sob on his shoulder, the vinyl of his coat cold and rough against my cheek. As much as I'd like to over-analyze this moment in which Kieran's holding me for the first time, I'm too numb, too wracked with sobs to think, and my coat's so thick I can barely feel him holding me anyway, both of us in our puffy black winter wear probably looking from a distance like a gigantic burnt marshmallow with two human heads.

"Cry as much as you need to," Kieran says, and I hear his hand rubbing up and down the back of my coat. "Don't be embarrassed, okay? I understand."

I pull away because my nose is starting to run and I don't want to get snot on him. Dropping my heavy gym bag to the ground, I fish around in my coat pocket for a tissue. "We didn't get past the first round," I moan, wiping my nostrils. "I played as hard as I could, but I just couldn't bring us back."

Kieran breaks into that now-familiar grin. "Basketball's a team sport, right? So don't put this all on yourself. I don't know much, but that other team looked pretty good."

"They were. Tonight they were, anyway," I grumble, kicking my tennis shoe against the pavement.

"Well, this was the first time the team had been to Regionals, right? So you guys have already done more than anybody else. That's something to be proud of."

"Thanks," I tell him, allowing myself a little smile at how much better those sentiments sound coming from him than from Coach Denton. "You're a pro at cheering people up, you know?"

"Well, when you've spent most of your life being told to suck it up and get over whatever embarrassing thing you've done this time, you figure out what works and what doesn't."

"Speaking of embarrassing," I start, reaching up to wipe away the last of the tears at the corners of my eyes. "I don't want you to think I do this all the time—crying, I mean. I can't remember ever crying in front of anyone besides my mom. And maybe my grandparents when I was little."

Placing a hand over his heart, he says, "I'm honored. I think. Should I be honored?"

"Go ahead and be honored," I tell him, kicking at the pavement again. "And I'll go ahead and be embarrassed."

Kieran steps forward and puts his arms back around me. "What do you say we be honored and embarrassed in your car? I'm freezing." He pulls away and nods over his shoulder, and I follow his gesture to the Camaro sitting alone in the parking spaces at the edge of the lot. "We should start home because the longer I'm out here the longer I'm probably grounded, so..."

"Yeah," I say, shaking off the sadness long enough to remember my confusion over seeing Kieran standing next to Mom in the Tusculum bleachers. "So what's the deal with you sitting with my family at the game? I didn't think you could go out on school nights. And I hear you took the spirit bus up to Tusculum?"

Kieran takes the keys from his coat pocket and tosses them to me as we start for the car. "I wanted to come and Kayla didn't, so there was no way I'd get permission if she wouldn't go along with it," he says. "So I told Kayla I mouthed off during algebra and had detention, and she waited for me in the library."

"But you never came to get her because you got on the spirit bus," I finish for him.

"Exactly."

"So how did that go?" I ask, trying to imagine Kieran sitting on a bus with about thirty people who were probably freaked out by his presence.

"You know, I was kind of worried at first. But while we were loading up, I found Brad Wallace and asked if I could sit with him."

"Brad's cool."

"Yeah. I mean, I know he's supposed to be nice to everybody since he's Student Body President and all, but he never seems like he's just faking, so I took a chance. And he was totally cool and said he'd look out for me. I slept most of the way, but he woke me up when we got there and when I saw your mom and your grandparents, they insisted I sit with them."

"Of course," I say, as I unlock his door and he gets in. "And was riding back with my mom okay?"

I probably seem calm, but I'm dying inside. Knowing Mom, she'd be blunt enough to pump Kieran for information about any feelings he may or may not have for me, in which case I may have to punish her by running away from home.

"Oh, yeah. She told me lots of embarrassing stories from when you were little." Kieran laughs as I get in on my side and start the engine.

"Great," I mumble, pulling out of the parking space. "Did she tell you these stories before or after she figured out your parents didn't give you permission to be at the game?"

"It dawned on her around halftime that I might be lacking parental consent to travel to the other side of the county. She made me call my mom and explain, and I promised I'd be home as soon as possible after the game ended."

I put the Camaro in gear and steer us out of the parking lot, the school's nightlights all that illuminate Main Street on this end of town. "So how much trouble are you in?" I ask.

"Oh, I'm dead, basically."

"I'll drive slow, then."

We ride together in silence for about two minutes in an almost exactly replay of our trip home after the Sumner game, but when my grandparents' house comes into view up ahead of us, Kieran surprises me by saying "You know what? I don't want to go home yet."

"You sure?"

"Well, I'm in trouble no matter what, right? So who cares? Can we go hang out somewhere?"

"Like, with other people?"

"Alone, preferably."

Allowing myself a quick glance at him, I notice he's all hunched up in his coat, as if trying to hide his face. "I mean, like, alone alone, if possible" he continues. "I...I've got something I need to tell you."

Okay—I'm totally panicking. Today's Valentine's Day. I think of the cherry heart lollipops I bought from the Student Council before first period and slipped into his locker at lunch, the lollipops he enthusiastically thanked me for during another Crumpled Paper Note Passing session in history class. Those suckers probably rank as the World's Worst Valentine's Day Gifts in comparison to the rose drawing he gave me the other night, which I hung above the desk in my room.

And now he's got something he needs to tell me. On Valentine's Day.

Should I take him to the lot at the abandoned Buckley Refrigeration plant out by the interstate, where half the school's probably headed to make out right now? Or I could drive us to the boat launch that's down a gravel path off the road we live on, about four more miles outside town. The boat launch isn't a place people usually go to hook up, mostly because no one knows about it unless they like to fish. And while I definitely don't like fishing, Gramps does, and so I've been there with him several times over the years to keep him company.

"Okay," I tell him. "I know somewhere we can go."

On the outside, I'm calm enough to keep control of the car. Inside, however, I'm about to come out of my skin. I've never hooked up with anyone before—assuming that's what's going to happen—and I've had only one French kiss, which was a total train wreck. Back in eighth grade, Cassie had a party in her basement when her parents went to the Bahamas and her grandmother came to babysit. Grandma Newbaum fell dead asleep upstairs, allowing Cassie to sneak people in. After he asked, I started slow dancing with Billy McCaffery, the grandson of my former next-door neighbors, mostly because he was the only other person without a partner. Billy and I had been rocking back and forth along with five other couples for about a minute when I asked him some question and he used the opportunity to shove his tongue in my open mouth. I was so shocked I couldn't do anything for a few seconds other than concentrate on the icky sensation of an eel-like mass poking my cheeks in search of my tongue, which at the moment was trying to work its way down my throat, evidently willing to risk choking me to death in order to save me. Finally, I came to my senses and pushed him away, but not far enough that I couldn't knee him in the crotch. He yelled so loud Cassie's grandma woke up, and we all had barely escaped the basement through the sliding glass door by the time she came downstairs to listen to Cassie's lie that she was singing along with a song on the CD player.

So, yeah—I'm way, way inexperienced. Kieran and I have never talked about hooking up—with each other or with anyone else—so for all I know, he messed around with every girl in Asheville, North Carolina, before he moved here, assuming he was able to stay awake long enough to do so. Heart thudding with anticipation, I slow the car to make the turn. From the corner of my eye, I see he's sound asleep, but not for long, as our rumbling down the gravel wakes him up.

"Where are we?" he asks. "I remember we passed my house..."

"There's a boat launch down here," I tell him as we bounce down the hill on a tree-lined road barely wide enough for my car. Not too far from the river's edge, the path opens up into a larger gravel-covered area that could hold maybe five or six cars. Just in case someone else decides to come down here tonight, I pull over to the far right side near the trees and ease the car forward until we're a few feet from the water. Before I turn off the engine, I make sure to put on the emergency brake so this evening doesn't end with the two of us rolling into the river.

Kieran takes a minute to look around. "So when I said 'alone,' you took me seriously."

"You were joking?"

"No, but I had no idea places were this secluded out here. I mean, in North Carolina, you can go out in the woods or up in the mountains and get lost for days." He pauses again and I join him in taking in the scene outside the windshield, the river's surface lit an eerie white by a half-moon, the trees and the opposite bank splotchy shadows against the black-blue sky. "I guess I didn't expect this here. And I'm really hoping tonight's not the night I find out you're a serial killer."

I open my eyes wide like a crazy person, take on a blank expression, and dart my face toward his to scare him. He lets out a yelp, and we both have a good laugh.

"So I hope I didn't freak you out before when I said I wanted to tell you something," he says, sobering up.

"Not at all," I lie.

He takes off his seat belt and swivels around toward me. I do the same so we're facing each other, both of us leaning our heads against our seats.

"I've never met anyone like you," he continues. "Anyone I know I can trust with things, I mean. Sometimes it's hard when all you have is your family to talk with about stuff. You feel so bottled up you think you're going to explode."

I wish I could relate, and maybe I kind of do. Other than what my mom's been able to sort of figure out, I haven't told anyone how I think I might feel about Kieran, even though everyone at school assumes we're practically engaged. I don't want whatever I have with him—even if I'm the only one of us who thinks we have it—to be dragged down to the level of cafeteria gossip and study hall whispers. But sometimes, I wish I had someone to talk to, because I'm so unused to dealing with boys as anything other than buddies and pick-up game opponents and I'm totally lost.

"I don't even know where to start exactly," Kieran says. "No one knows about this outside my family, and it's so out there I'm afraid you might not believe me."

My nerves get the better of me, so I try some humor. "You're an alien, right?" I ask, narrowing my eyes. "I knew it."

Kieran grins, willing to play along. "Nope. Guess again."

"Okay. You're a vampire. You're really a hundred years old."

He shakes his head against the seat and says, "Not even close."

"So you're not an alien and you're not a vampire. What's your deal, then, Kieran Lanier?"

"My deal," he begins, his eyelids drooping a little, "is...well...I have these vivid dreams sometimes. Like I'm almost awake."

Kieran snuggles into the seat, and I worry he'll fall asleep before he tells me whatever he's going to tell me and I'll have to wake him up to get the reveal. The boy's basically a human cliffhanger.

"Have you ever had a dream with people you don't recognize or you're someplace you've never been, and later you meet those people or go to that place in real life and you kind of know everything's familiar?"

"You mean like a premonition or something?"

"Sort of."

I shrug my shoulders. "I mean, I've heard about that happening to people, but I don't think it happens to me."

"Well, it kind of happens to me." Kieran sits up again and I sit up also, the two of us mirror images of each other in the moonlight.

"What are you saying, exactly?" I ask.

He looks away. "I'm saying I dream things—vivid dreams about stuff that hasn't happened yet." He swallows hard, letting his eyes travel to mine again. "And then that stuff happens."

#  Chapter 7

I try to wrap my head around what Kieran's said. "So, you dream about the future and it happens?"

"Kind of."

"Do you dream SAT scores?" I blurt out. "Please tell me you dream SAT scores. I'd love to know in advance how I'm going to do on that thing."

I wish my bizarre sense of humor wouldn't kick in when I'm nervous, but relief washes over me when Kieran looks up and grins. "Nope. In fact, now that you bring it up, I'm kind of pissed. Seriously—all the things I dream about, and I can't dream about stuff like that? What the hell?"

"But you said you only kind of dream about the future," I point out.

"Yeah. I guess it's different than having a premonition of something, because from what I've read about premonitions, people dream or get visions of entire scenes or incidents and stuff, and that's not what happens to me at all. I just get little flashes. It's like trying to read a book and finding out pages are missing. Like, I had a dream a few months before we moved here and saw part of our house—the front door and the porch area. But I didn't really dream anything else. I didn't dream my parents picking out the house or anything."

"So did you tell your parents when you came here 'Hey—I've seen our house before?'"

"I mentioned the dream after we moved, but even if I'd said something before they started house hunting, it's not like they would've made a decision based on what I told them. I mean, sometimes I dream things that don't happen at all, so I can't exactly predict the future or anything."

My brow wrinkles as I concentrate. "So you still have free will, basically. You don't dream things completely enough to prepare or try to change the future."

"Exactly. I only saw part of the house, so it's not like I could have led us right to it if I'd come here with them when they were looking for places to live. In fact, after we moved, I'd been in the house for about fifteen minutes before it sunk in that I'd seen part of the place before, because all I get are these little blips. So if I did dream about your SAT scores, I'd probably only dream your math scores or something like that."

I look away, out the windshield and across the river at the outline of the swaying trees, trying to collect my thoughts. "So how are you sure you're really dreaming the future before it happens?" I ask. "Like you said, everybody gets a sort of 'Yeah—I think I had a dream about this once' moment sometimes. How do you know all your dreams aren't random instead of just some of them?"

Kieran folds his arms over his chest, making me worry for a second that he might be mad at me for challenging him, but when he starts talking again, I can see his breath and I realize he's probably just cold. "The dreams sort of come in waves with, like, patterns to them," he explains. "I mean, sometimes, I'll just get a flash of something—like the front door to our house—and I'll see it later. Maybe that's totally random. But other times, I'll dream the same thing or the same types of things over and over, and they'll show up in real life."

"Okay," I say, voice flat, and he gives me an example without my needing to ask.

"I'll tell you about how I first noticed it. My dad's always encouraged me to keep a dream journal. So whenever I dream, I try to write down what happened or draw pictures of things as soon as I can. I've got a whole bunch of notebooks at home going all the way back to when I was eight or so. Anyway, in fifth grade, I started having these dreams about Kayla getting a medal for something. Not too long after, she joined a track club and was starting to race about every other month. When I looked back over my journals after her first several meets, I noticed every time Kayla medaled, I'd dreamt about her medaling a few weeks before."

"How did Kayla react?" I wonder aloud, because I don't think I'd like knowing the outcome of one of my games beforehand.

"Well, at first I didn't tell her, because I wasn't sure what I was seeing. Once I recognized the pattern, I told her after one of her races. And, I mean, in the dreams, she's just getting a medal, but I can never tell what kind, so I don't know if she's actually won the race or if she's getting one of those medals they give out sometimes to everybody who finishes. Anyway, she made me swear never to say anything to her because she didn't want to know about her races before she ran them. So I put everything in my dream journal and we don't talk about it."

Once Kieran's finished his explanation, I wrack my brain for something appropriate to say, but nothing comes.

"It's okay if you don't believe me," he says, cutting through my awkward silence. "If I were you, I wouldn't buy this, either. I mean, I'm not all that sure my parents and Kayla really believe this happens, so I definitely don't expect you to. But they've always told me not to tell people—I guess so people don't get even more freaked out by me than they already are—so it's like this...thing I've been carrying around for so long. Whether you believe me or not, just talking about it is sort of a relief."

Honestly, I'm not sure I believe Kieran dreams the future, but what I believe doesn't matter. He believes, and because he's my friend—and because I'm the first person outside his family he's chosen to trust with this information—then I should support him in that belief. After all, thinking you dream things before they happen isn't actually harmful or anything. If he were sitting here telling me he believed he was a superhero and tomorrow he was planning on Kayla driving him to the Sears Tower so he could leap off the top and soar over Chicago fighting crime, then maybe I'd tell him I didn't believe him. And I'd also suggest he and his dad have a long talk less of the father-son variety and more of the counselor-patient type. But believing you kind of sort of maybe get a small glimpse of the future sometimes? That's no big thing.

"I believe you."

"Really?" he whispers, his eyes so wide I'm a little afraid his eyelids might turn inside out. "Because this is way out there—I get that."

"I don't have any reason to think you're messing with me. So it's cool. Talk to me about this kind of stuff whenever you want."

"Thanks," he says, exhaling as if he's been holding his breath for years. "That means...you have no idea..."

"Kieran, we're friends. You can tell me anything."

On my mention of us being friends, his face darkens a little, and I know I've said the wrong thing. But before I can think of what to do to rewind the moment, Kieran's pulled his phone from his coat pocket to check the time. "Okay. I'm so dead. And I'm freezing." The cold makes his words almost visible as they leave his mouth. "You should probably take me home."

In silent agreement, I start the car, turn the defrosters on, and back away from the water so I can pull forward and around in a semi-circle to drive us up the hill toward the main road.

"I promise I won't tell anyone what we talked about," I assure him as I ease out onto the blacktop and gun the engine.

"I appreciate that. If anybody else knew about this..."

He doesn't continue, but I understand. Kieran's already the school weirdo, fair or not. Some rumor going around that he knows the future won't win him any new friends unless he can prove he dreams about pop quizzes or chem lab results.

We ride along in silence and in minutes, we're approaching the Laniers' driveway. I glance sideways, expecting Kieran's head to be drooped forward, the stress of an almost certain parental confrontation causing him to drift off. But he's sitting up straight, eyes wide open and staring ahead into the darkness.

"Want me to come in with you?" I offer, pulling up next to Kayla's Jeep and cutting the engine. "Maybe they'll go easy on you if I'm here."

Kieran turns to me, mouth scrunched up in a grateful pout. "You don't need to get home?"

"My mom will understand."

"I wish I had your mom," he mumbles, before raising his voice to a normal level. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," I insist, although I'm not really sure at all, but I'm desperate to do something to make up for my "we're friends" comment at the river.

A tiny smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. "Okay."

We get out of the car and walk together towards the house, the moonlight bouncing off the beveled window in the front door, and I wonder whether Kieran viewed this scene in his head for the first time at night as we're seeing it now. I don't get the chance to ask as Kieran pulls a key from a pocket on the side of his backpack and jogs up the three steps to the porch. He unlocks the door and lets us in to a hallway I remember from the million or so times I came over here before Mr. McCaffery's death, the same heavy wooden panel still set into the wall with five coat hooks, three of which are already occupied.

"Here," Kieran offers, holding his hands out to me after dropping his backpack to the floor. I realize he's offering to take my coat, and I wriggle my arms free from the sleeves as he grabs the coat by the collar and hangs it up next to one I recognize as Kayla's.

"Kieran."

A baritone behind me makes me jump. I turn around to find myself a few feet from a man standing just outside the entryway to the living room. And he doesn't look too happy.

#  Chapter 8

Kieran's father appears to be in his early fifties, streaks of gray in the reddish-brown hair over his temples and ears and lines marking the skin at the corner of his eyes and across his forehead. Other than the hair and a few wrinkles, the bifocals pushed up on the top of his head and a slight double chin are the only real signs of age. Even covered up with a heavy knit cardigan over a black t-shirt, he strikes me as being in pretty good shape—Kayla must have inherited her athletic build from him. I steal a glance at Kieran, whose lanky frame makes him seem like a deflated balloon next to his father.

"Dad," Kieran says, voice flat. The two engage in a three-second stare down before Kieran remembers his manners. "Sorry...this is Zip McKee."

Mr. Lanier offers me his hand. "Nice to meet you, Zip. I've heard a lot about you."

I brush off my curiosity at what "I've heard a lot about you" might mean, given that one of his kids has become my best friend while the other one acts like she wants to run me down with her car.

"Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Lanier," I respond, and instantly panic that I've called him the wrong thing. "Dr. Lanier?" I try, which prompts a friendly smile.

"Call me Jim. And thank you for bringing Kieran home."

Kieran opens his mouth, but I cut him off. "I'm sorry we're so late. Totally my fault. We were talking and I lost track of time—"

"And I told her I didn't want to come home," Kieran interrupts, the continued flatness to his voice starting to creep me out a little. My back rises at the tension building in the hallway, and now I kind of wish I hadn't offered to come in with him.

"You told your mother when you called you'd be home as soon as possible after the game," Jim reminds him, and I'm about to apologize again when Kieran pipes up with "And in case you didn't understand me, I told Zip I didn't want to come home. Kayla and I are the only kids in this town who aren't allowed out on school nights."

I bite my lower lip. Kieran's exaggerating a little—I'm guessing more than a few people don't get to go out at night during the week. At the same time, it's not like there's a whole lot of trouble to get into in Titusville, unless you happen to be hanging out at someone's house whose parents run a meth lab in the basement. Rumor has it, only about three families with kids at Titusville Junior/Senior High fall into the meth-making category, most of the cookers around here being too young to have children in junior high or high school.

"I just want to be like everybody else for once," Kieran continues.

"You're not like everybody else."

"So you've mentioned. Repeatedly," Kieran snaps.

Jim Lanier lets out a sigh. "At any rate, you should probably go upstairs and start your homework so you can get to bed at your regular time."

The two males engage in another stare down before Jim jerks his head toward the staircase. Kieran gives him an "Okay—whatever" eye roll before picking up his backpack. "See you tomorrow," he whispers to me. "And, thanks."

I nod, voice stuck in my throat, as Kieran slings his backpack over his shoulder and heads for the stairs.

"You're grounded, by the way," Jim Lanier calls after him, which prompts Kieran to belt out a curt laugh.

"My whole life is grounded," he spits as he jogs upstairs, nearly crashing into a woman heading in the opposite direction.

"Kieran—" she starts.

"Goodnight, Mom," he mumbles, barely pausing. He turns on the landing and disappears up the second flight of stairs, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood floor above. The woman closes her eyes briefly and opens them again, the smile that follows directed at me.

"You must be Zip. Carlie Lanier," she breathes, floating down the last few steps and gliding toward me with her arm outstretched. As I shake her hand, I give her the once-over and determine Kayla didn't get her runner's build from Jim Lanier because Carlie Lanier is Kayla—Kayla with about thirty years on her. The same jet-black hair curls around Carlie Lanier's shoulders and the same blue eyes pierce me as they do almost daily at school, only these eyes are trying to shoot me through with kindness instead of stabbing me with cruelty. Even in baggy gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, "NYU" emblazoned across the front in purple block letters, I can tell Carlie's in shape as well. I think once again of Kieran's skinny build and the t-shirts and hoodies that always appear to be about to drown him, and I wonder how he must feel coming home every day to a family who looks like they just walked out of an aerobics video.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lanier," I respond, giving her an embarrassed smile. "Sorry I brought Kieran home so late."

"Please call me Carlie. And thank you for bringing Kieran home. We're certainly not angry with you. He can be rather headstrong sometimes."

Jim and Carlie stare at me for a moment before glancing at each other. He tilts his head toward the living room, and her shoulders hunch up in response. I, meanwhile, stand and watch like an idiot, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as the realization takes hold that I'm witnessing one of those silent conversations between people who have been married for years and are still very much in love. My grandparents do their version of this in front of me sometimes, and I'm always kind of fascinated by how a few shifts of their eyes and rapid chin lifts indicate things like "I'm bored and we should go home" or, more often, "You tell April. I don't want to tell April."

"After talking to your mother, we gather you've had a rough night," Carlie says.

The game. Hearing Kieran's secret and now enduring this meeting with his parents almost made me forget about Regionals. Incredible. I reach up, pretending to scratch an itch on my forehead, and I feel the sliminess of dried sweat along with some acne bumps along my skin at the hairline. And I bet I probably smell, standing here in the warm ups I slid on after the game without taking a shower. Right now, I'm so wishing I'd dropped Kieran off in the driveway and left.

"We've been eager to meet you," Carlie continues. "Of course, we'd hoped it would be under better circumstances."

"Well, my grandmother's been talking about inviting you over for dinner. She wanted to give you some time to get settled in."

At this news, the silent conversation between the Laniers begins again, Jim pursing his lips and Carlie responding by nodding her head at him slowly. Obviously, I'm not as familiar with their body language as I am with my grandparents', so I'm essentially a foreigner in a strange land with no translator.

"We'd...I think we'd like that," Jim replies, his voice warm and slightly surprised.

"I'll tell her," I say, nodding my head. "Gram loves entertaining. She's a pretty good cook, too."

Jim and Carlie exchange glances as if deciding which one of them is going to speak next, and I'm kind of blown away by the tension of this whole scene. I mean, I get why I'm uncomfortable. I'm a teenager with these mixed up feelings for Kieran and here I am, meeting his parents for the first time. But Jim and Carlie are supposed to be the calm, cool adults taking some sort of twisted delight in making one of their kids' friends squirm.

Then it hits me—Kayla and Kieran are loners, which makes Jim and Carlie new to the whole "meet your kids' friends and make them uncomfortable" routine, and this knowledge alone is enough to help me relax. Some of the stiffness melts from my shoulders and I stop trying to angle my nose toward my armpit to figure out if I reek as badly as I think I do.

"While you're here, we'd..." Carlie starts, before looking back at Jim. "Maybe we should go to the living room and sit for a minute?"

He nods and glances at me, and, as if we're passing the nod around a circle, I tilt my head in agreement toward Carlie and follow them across the hall.

While the entryway looks the same as when the McCafferys lived here, the living room screams to me that I'm in someone else's house, because Mrs. McCaffery's taste couldn't be further from Carlie Lanier's. I remember Erwin and Lottie McCaffery's white couch with the tiny pink flower pattern and baby blue stripes, the matching chairs, and my favorite piece of furniture—a heavy oak coffee table whose legs met the floor with carved wooden bear claws. On the McCafferys' fireplace mantle sat a large textured painting of a barn in shadow against an orange sunset sky that my mom told me had been there at least since she was a little girl back in the Seventies.

The first thing I notice when I walk into the Laniers' living room, however, is that they've replaced the shadow barn with a framed poster print by someone named Kandinsky that's...well...I have no clue what it's supposed to be. The print tells me the name of the painting is Composition VII, which doesn't exactly help me figure out what the jumble of shapes and swirls and colors represents. What I can see, however, is that the moss color in the painting matches the overstuffed couch that faces it, which complements the two easy chairs separated from either side of the couch by glass end tables, tables that match the oval glass coffee table in front of the couch. The McCafferys' living room was a craptastic garage sale next to what the Laniers have done in here, and I tiptoe across the hardwood floor to one of the chairs and ease myself down as if I'm afraid as soon as my butt hits the fabric, everything in the room will be completely fouled thanks to my presence.

"We just wanted to tell you how grateful we are for your friendship with Kieran and Kayla," Jim starts, shifting on the couch so he can put a hand on his wife's knee. "I don't know if they've mentioned that they didn't have many friends in Asheville."

I want to point out that they haven't mentioned anything, but I say "Yeah—Kieran's told me."

Carlie gives me a brilliant smile that I've never seen from Kayla. "People tend to avoid them because of Kieran's condition," she explains. "And they're both sort of quiet and shy to begin with so...anyway, we're thankful they've found a good friend in you."

Kieran's never struck me as particularly shy, given the easy back-and-forth nature of our conversations right from the beginning. Then again, I don't see him talk to anyone else at school, which I'm guessing is mostly because people are too afraid to talk to him and not the other way around. My mind hits upon him telling me earlier how he walked up to Brad Wallace and asked him if they could ride together on the spirit bus to Tusculum, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing a person who wants to be isolated from other people would do. I keep a smile on my face and don't voice any of these thoughts to the Laniers, responding to Carlie with "Well, it's been great getting to know him...I mean, them. It's pretty exciting having new people around here. You've probably noticed Titusville isn't exactly a non-stop thrill ride."

Neither Lanier acknowledges my little joke, and the air pressure in the room seems to grow heavier, as if it's going to squeeze my head until my brain explodes all over the Kandinsky print above the fireplace—not that anyone would be able to tell the difference.

"We're just not used to Kayla and Kieran having people to confide in other than us," Carlie continues. "We're a very private family, and we're quite protective of Kieran. We don't want..." Carlie's voice fades and she brushes whatever she was going to say aside with a wave.

Putting a hand to my chest, I start babbling. "I...I hope you know I would never hurt Kieran or turn on him or anything. He's my friend and..." I swallow hard, unable to imagine what they'd think if they ever found out Kieran had told me about his dreams.

"Really—it's fine. We believe you," Jim says, his voice gentle. "Kieran being so close to someone is new territory for us, I suppose. So, we hoped we'd be able to meet you and..." Jim doesn't finish his sentence, but instead squirms a little on the couch, his hand squeezing Carlie's knee.

"We can't say it enough," Carlie notes, picking up the conversation. "We're so happy Kieran and Kayla can count you as a friend. You're obviously a lovely young woman, and you're welcome at our house anytime."

"Thank you," I eek out.

"We were sorry to learn your game didn't go as you'd hoped tonight," she continues. "Basketball season is over now, correct?"

I nod, a thought popping into my head that allows me to contribute something to the discussion other than variations on "Thank you" and "I'm sorry." "Yeah. Spring sports practices should start next week if Kayla wants to run track. People don't need to try out or anything. They'll just figure out what distances she's good at and she'll train at those."

Carlie leans forward, interested. "Kayla had mentioned something about track season, so we'll remind her."

"They'll make announcements at school, too, so..." Now it's my turn not to finish a sentence. Desperately wishing to end this little chat, I reach for every teenager's last resort. "I'm really sorry, but I've still got a lot of homework and..."

Jim shakes his head as if I've just woken him from a nap. "Of course. Of course," he says, standing, and Carlie follows his lead, motioning for me to walk ahead of them into the hallway. But Jim sprints in front of me so he can take my coat from the hook inside the front door.

"Well, it was great meeting you," I lie, turning back around to face them after Jim's helped me into my coat. "Again, I'm sorry I brought Kieran home so late."

"Not a problem," Jim says. "Glad we were able to meet you as well. We look forward to hearing from your grandmother."

"Yes," Carlie agrees. "Kieran can give you our number if you don't already know it."

"Okay. Thanks."

Jim reaches past me to get the door, and we exchange goodbyes as I step out into the cold. I bury my hands in my pockets and hunker down into my coat collar, practically jumping off the front porch and flying over to the driveway, eager to get back to the safe familiarity of the Camaro. The frigid air doesn't send a chill down my spine, because the iciness is already there thanks to Jim and Carlie and their strange formality and their...fear, I guess, of my turning on Kieran for some reason. Once inside the car, I crank the heat in an attempt to wipe away both the cold and the several layers of weird I'm drenched in thanks to Kieran's parents. Exhaling as warmth floods the interior, I back the car around into the space next to Kayla's Jeep and ease forward down the driveway toward the blacktop, beyond relieved I'll be in my own living room in less than five minutes.

#  Chapter 9

"The Laniers are kind of weird. Just saying."

My announcement prompts Gram, who's wearing a novelty apron with the torso of a woman in a waitress uniform painted on the front, to turn away from the stove, brandishing a wooden spoon. Mom and I sit on either side of the two-person table up against the wall, watching as my grandparents whip up one of their classic meals—vegetable soup and a romaine lettuce salad to start, marinated pork tenderloin and potatoes with red wine gravy for the main course, and a red velvet cake for dessert. After repeatedly offering to help and getting shut down every time, we've opted to watch the culinary magic happen while sneaking cherry tomatoes from the salad bowl when Gram and Gramps aren't looking.

"They're weird? Well, now you tell me," Gram sighs, waving the spoon.

"Mom, you're getting soup all over the floor," my mom points out.

Gramps takes the dishrag from the sink and crosses to wipe up the splatter from the linoleum. "So the Laniers are weird, are they?" he asks.

"Well, not weird exactly," I hedge, thinking back two weeks to when I met Kieran's parents for the first time. "They're just very private and kind of...awkward, I guess. It's hard to put my finger on."

"And the girl hates you, right?" Mom weighs in, popping a cherry tomato in her mouth.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure."

Gramps drops the dishrag in the sink and spins around to face us. "Now that can't be true. No one hates my Zipperino."

"Well, it is true," I say to his back as he resumes washing utensils and bowls. "She seems, like, jealous of me for hanging out with her brother, like she wants to keep him all to herself or something."

"Okay—now that's weird," Mom mumbles through a mouthful of tomato.

Gram whirls around to ask, "April, what are you eating?"

"Nothing," she lies after swallowing.

Gram shoots her a look before telling Gramps "Larry, put a few more tomatoes in the salad, would you?" And then to me: "If the Laniers were so weird, they wouldn't have accepted our dinner invitation. They're obviously not strange enough to want to stay locked up in that house by themselves."

"They're probably just a little wary of strangers because of Kieran's condition," Gramps says, scooping a handful of cherry tomatoes from a plastic container and dumping them on the salad.

"Yeah," Mom agrees. "Life's tough when you've got a unique kid. I should know." She sticks out her tongue at me, and I grab a towel from the table and zing it at her.

Gram turns down the burner under the soup pot and smirks at my mother. "I know a little something about raising a unique kid myself," she notes.

Once I'm done giggling at them, I draw my knees up to my chin, the heels of my Chuck Taylor's resting on the edge of the chair. "All kidding aside, though—could everyone please try not to embarrass me tonight?" I beg.

Gramps, back over at the sink, rinses a fork and shuts off the faucet. "So don't act like ourselves, in other words."

"Exactly."

"Seriously, Dad—tonight's important," Mom pipes up, and I'm not entirely sure where she's headed until she completes her thought. "Zip's angling for a Prom date with the young Mr. Lanier."

"Oh, my God, Mom. I am not."

"April," Gram warns, and my mom rolls her eyes before Gram turns to me and asks "When is your Prom, sweetheart?"

"Sometime in early May, I think." I roll my shoulders forward as if I don't care about Prom at all, but Mom settles the question for everyone: "It's May eighth."

Unbelievable.

"Mom! Are you kidding me? How do you even know that?"

"I found the date on the school website. What can I say? I'm a little excited for you."

"Apparently." I heave a sigh at her. "But if anyone breathes a word tonight about Prom or pretty much anything having to do with Kieran and me being more than friends—" My unfinished threat hangs in the air because I can't think of a punishment bad enough to hold over their heads. So I raise an eyebrow to inform them they've been warned, and my mom shakes her head in response as the doorbell rings. Gramps slips into "Man of the House" mode, drying his hands on a dishtowel and heading out of the kitchen into the front hallway to answer the door. Gram takes off her apron and places it on the counter, checking her reflection in the window over the sink and running her hands through her hair.

"You look great, Mom," my mom tells Gram.

"Thanks, honey."

Mom gets up and links arms with me as we head into the hall, voices at the door drifting back to us. "Do I have lipstick on my teeth?" she whispers to me before curling her lips so I can get a full view of her chompers.

"No—ewww. Get your mouth out of my face."

She drops my arm and glides forward to greet our guests. Gram comes up behind me and pats me on the head before joining my mom and Gramps in the front entry, which is way too small to hold eight people. I already know everyone, so I hang back a bit from the chaos of introductions and coat removals—lighter coats now, since the temperature's actually staying well above freezing at night—and once Kieran's given his hoodie to Gramps, I pull him aside into the dining room.

"Hey," I whisper.

"Hey." He glances back out to the hallway at his parents. "I really hope they don't embarrass me tonight. We never do stuff like this."

"My family will embarrass me first. Count on it."

He smiles. "Good to know."

"So you're still grounded?" I ask, as his parents had put him on lockdown for a month over our little excursion to the boat launch, which I thought was kind of an extreme punishment for staying out too late. And with end-of-quarter tests coming up next week, we haven't had much of a chance to talk at school because teachers are actually keeping us busy for once.

"Nah. Time off for good behavior. Not like I ever go anywhere, but—"

"Well, maybe Mom and Dad will let us all go out somewhere after dinner," Kayla says, and I flinch as she's slipped up on my other side, surprising me. "I'm sick of hanging out at home on Saturday nights like we're twelve. What do people do around here for fun?"

I'm stunned. I don't think Kayla's ever said that many words to me at one time. "Well...um..." I fumble, but Gramps comes up behind me and reaches his arms out wide, placing a hand on Kieran's and Kayla's backs as if he's about to fold all of us into a giant bear hug. "Why don't you kids sit right here?" he booms, nodding towards the three dining room chairs in front of us, and we do as suggested and take our seats, Kieran between Kayla and me. Jim and Carlie round the table to the other side and sit down just to the right of Gramps, who takes his usual place near the front window. Mom and Gram flit in and out of the room, carrying platters and bowls and filling water and wine glasses before they join us, Mom sitting next to Carlie with Gram at the head of the table closest to the kitchen.

"This is all so lovely, Mrs. Shipman—I mean, Barbara," Carlie corrects herself, taking in the feast. "We do so appreciate being invited over tonight."

I sense a bit of the weirdness from two weeks ago creeping in again and settling over me as I listen to Carlie say things like lovely and We do so appreciate. She's so stilted, so formal—both she and Jim—and I hope the entire night doesn't play out like that evening in their living room. Gramps proposes some toast about home and hearth, and I lift my water glass while glancing across at my mother, raising my eyebrows in a sort of See—what did I tell you? look before shifting my eyes to Carlie and back. Mom glances sideways at Carlie and shrugs her shoulders, as if she's saying she hasn't formed an opinion of our new neighbors yet.

We pass the food around and load our plates, the room quickly separating into two conversational camps. At one end, Gramps and Jim talk about art and artists, and I hear Gramps invite Jim out to the shed behind the house that doubles as an art studio. But I'm paying more attention to the discussion at my end of the table, which revolves around Carlie.

"So, Carlie, I understand you're a doctor?" Gram asks.

Carlie swallows some potatoes, nodding. "I haven't practiced for several years because I've been homeschooling the kids. One of these days, the time will be right for me to go back to work again."

"Thought about opening a practice here?" Mom asks. "We have a lot of empty storefronts in town, and people could always use an alternative to the hospital clinic."

"Down the road, perhaps. Right now, I'm focused on getting us settled and getting the kids through school."

Bored with this particular conversation, I turn to Kieran, but he's fallen asleep. I jab him in the ribs with my elbow and his eyes pop back open and focus on his mother, as if he's just returned to a book to begin reading right where he left off. Kayla, on the other hand, is closer to the art conversation but keeps her attention on her food, which she raises to her mouth on her fork in tiny, almost precisely measured bites.

"Kieran tells me you own a store downtown," Carlie says to my mother, who bobs her head as she lowers the wine glass from her lips.

"Yeah. Arts and crafts and doodads, basically."

"Things you make yourself or..."

"Mostly my stuff," Mom explains. "Other local artists sell through me as well and I take a small commission. You should come by sometime. I may carry some things that would fit in with your décor if you're still decorating the house."

"That would be lovely, April. Thank you."

Mom shoots me a look at Carlie's use of lovely, and I raise my eyebrows at her after I jab Kieran awake once again.

"So, Kieran, I guess you're a bit of an artist as well?" Mom asks.

"Sort of," he tells her, eyelids drooping. "I like to draw."

"Well, you should keep at it. I saw the rose you drew for Zip, and you've got a lot of talent for pencil drawings."

Carlie's face seems nearly paralyzed after Mom brings up Kieran's gift to me, her mouth tightening into a tight, fake smile but her eyes are moving, pupils widening with surprise until they become two big blue pools of confusion, each lined by a raft of perfectly manicured eyebrows. Nice going, Mom, I think, as I slide down in my chair a little to reach my left foot across the expanse underneath the table so I can kick her in the shin.

"Ow," Mom howls, the conversation about Impressionism or whatever at the other end of the room grinding to a halt and plunging us into silence, save for the halting breaths I hear Kieran push out through his nose as he stifles a laugh.

"Just hit my knee against the table leg," Mom explains once she recovers. "I'm such a klutz sometimes. Carry on, Gentlemen."

Gramps shakes his head at her before turning back to Jim.

"Anyway, Kieran," Mom resumes, "Dad and I have sort of a makeshift studio behind the house if you're interested in taking a look later. The place may seem like your average storage shed on the outside, but inside—mini art museum. Trust me."

Kieran gives my mom a heavy-lidded smile. "I'd like that a lot. Thanks."

"Honey, if you need to lie down, you just say so," Gram says to Kieran, seeing him struggle to stay awake. "We have two guest rooms upstairs and I put all my best quilts out for the occasion."

Carlie's expression thaws and softens on hearing Gram's offer. "You know, Kieran," she says, voice low. "Maybe you should—"

"Yeah," he mumbles. "If you'll excuse me, I'm a little..." He pushes his chair back and I scoot mine over a bit so he can get away from the table.

"Do you need any help?" I ask.

"Nah. Thanks, though." He lowers his voice so only I can hear him say "Sorry."

"It's okay," I whisper back.

"First two rooms on either side of the hall at the top of the stairs," Gram calls after him. "We'll save you some cake."

"Thank you so much," Carlie says to Gram, who nods a "You're welcome." With Kieran gone, we turn back to getting-to-know-you conversation, my mom expressing her desire to visit Asheville someday and Carlie telling her how much she'd like it. Sensing the main portion of the meal is winding down, Gram stands and starts clearing the table, and I jump up to help her, taking Kayla's somehow empty plate and sliding it underneath mine before putting Kieran's half-full plate on top of both so I can carry them into the kitchen.

"They're not weird at all," Gram says to me in a low voice at the sink. "A little formal maybe, but they're not—"

"We should get them drunk to loosen them up," Mom hisses, coming up behind us and putting a hand on the wine bottle on the counter.

"April!" Gram scolds, but she's smiling. Mom moves to the other side of the counter and puts some coffee on to brew while Gram cuts the cake and I make deliveries, two at a time, to the dining room. Once we're all seated again, Carlie turns to a mandatory topic of discussion whenever teenagers are in the room—school.

"So I understand you're ranked first in your class, Zip."

"For now anyway." I shoot Kayla a glance from the corner of my eye, and she hunches up her shoulders and takes a miniscule bite of cake as her mother says "So you've given a lot of thought to college, I assume?"

"Northwestern all the way," Mom chimes in. "I can't remember her wanting to go anywhere else."

"Kayla's considered Northwestern, too, now that we're living in Illinois."

At the mention of her name, Kayla places her fork at the side of her plate and raises her head. Somehow, she's managed to eat half her cake even though she seems to be eating a molecule at a time.

"What are you interested in studying, Kayla?" Mom asks.

"Political science, maybe," she breathes. "Or journalism. I'm not sure. Maybe both."

"Journalism or communication," I tell her, referring to my top two major choices. "I'm not sure, either. Maybe both."

Mom scrunches up her mouth. "Interesting. You two should be roommates."

I don't get to gauge Kayla's feelings about Mom's suggestion because I'm too busy trying to restrain myself from kicking Mom under the table again. The conversation turns to the high cost of college and how both mothers hope we can get scholarships to help out, which leads to a discussion about the high cost of everything. Kayla and I continue eating cake while the adults try to solve the world's problems.

"Should we move into the living room where we'd be more comfortable?" Gram suggests once everyone's almost finished with dessert.

"I'll start the dishes," I volunteer, immediately surprised when Kayla jumps in with "I'll help."

"Thanks, girls." Gram smiles.

The grown-ups take their coffees and head across the hall, while Kayla and I clear the table in silence. After about four trips back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, we've stacked up all the plates, platters and utensils next to the sink and are left with nothing to do but get to work. Together. Alone with no one else to talk to.

"So, um, you rinse and I'll put stuff in the dishwasher?" I suggest, leaning up against the counter edge. "Or I'll rinse and—"

"I can rinse. No big deal," Kayla responds, pulling an elastic band from her front jeans pocket and winding her hair into a low ponytail. I move over so she can stand in front of the sink basin, and we begin our mini assembly line—she rinses something, hands the thing to me, and I reach down to put it in the appropriate place in the dishwasher on my other side. We perform this routine in silence for about a minute before Kayla blurts out "I don't hate you, okay?" without stopping her work and without looking at me.

"Okay."

She hands me a fork, but doesn't move to rinse anything else. "I'm sorry for how I've been acting. Kieran and I aren't used to people taking the time to get close to us, so I guess I was...suspicious."

Suspicious seems like a strange word to use, but since it's what she's given me to work with..."You know, I don't have any crazy motives for hanging out with you and Kieran. I just want to be friends."

Kayla braces her hands against the narrow ledge where the sink and the counter come together. "Deep down, I believe you. But nobody's ever really wanted to be our friend before. And we're very private people, so my guard's always up."

We're very private people. It's like the Laniers are programmed to say that. Except for Kieran, of course. I think about him telling me about his dreams and how good he said he felt to be able to tell someone, and I wonder what the deal is with Kayla and her parents that they're so determined to keep a wall around all of them when Kieran just seems to want to tear it down.

"Kieran's never...Kieran tells me everything, you know?" Kayla continues. "It's always been Mom and Dad and me looking out for him and nobody else."

"I'm not trying to take your place," I offer, not sure if that's what I should say or not.

"I know. Really." Kayla resumes rinsing and handing dirty plates to me as she speaks. "I was so shocked when he basically kicked me out of the cafeteria to be alone with you that night after your game, because he's never done anything like that before. But Kieran's obviously comfortable with you, and you and your family seem like cool people, so I'm trying not to be so weird anymore."

I want to tell her she's not totally succeeding, but I keep my mouth shut so I don't kill whatever good will might be building up between us.

"Plus, Kieran straight up told me to stop being such a bitch," she says. "He's my brother and I love him so, you know, whatever he wants." Kayla's smiling, so I relax my shoulders and allow myself a smile as well. "Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't tried harder to be friends," she continues.

"Apology accepted."

Kayla hands me another plate and starts running dishwater as the dishwasher's too full for pots and pans and the larger serving dishes. I reach into the cabinet under the sink for the dish soap and squirt a few streams into the water gushing from the faucet.

"To be totally honest, knowing someone else has Kieran's back sometimes is kind of awesome," Kayla tells me in a low voice, as if her parents could hear us talking all the way from the living room. "I love him, but he's exhausting, you know?"

"I get the sense he's kind of frustrated not being able to be more independent sometimes," I say, handing her the soup pot, which she drowns in the soapy water.

"Yeah. Like when he went to your Regional game? Huge deal for him. Now, don't get me wrong—I wanted to kill him for lying and leaving me sitting in the library waiting for him like a complete idiot, but part of me totally understood. He's almost eighteen and he has no freedom. He's frustrated, and sometimes I'm frustrated over always being expected to be with him so he doesn't get himself into trouble. Plus," she continues, lowering her voice again, "He likes you. I mean, he really, really likes you. So I get that he was willing to do whatever he had to do to go to your game. Him getting all hung up on a girl is a new one for both of us, too."

"Yeah?" I squeak, as Kayla attacks a serving platter with the dishrag.

"Yeah. I mean, he's had crushes on girls before, so that's not new, but the girls have always been totally out of his league. They were, like, older girls he'd see around at coffee shops and stuff, who he wouldn't have the guts to talk to in a million years. He's never liked anyone who was both pretty and was actually an option for him."

My cheeks go up in flames as I pretend to be extremely interested in drying every droplet of water from the soup pot.

"So now that you're totally embarrassed," Kayla giggles, "why don't we change the subject?"

"Fine with me," I agree with a sigh. "How's track going?"

Kayla stands up a little straighter, obviously happy I'm asking about track. "Good, thanks. Our first meet is next week. I'm running the sixteen hundred meters and the four by eight-hundred relay."

"Cassie mentioned that."

Kayla nods. "Cassie's cool. She's got just the kind of twisted sense of humor I like in a person. You guys are friends, right?"

"Yeah. I've known her, like, forever. She can be kind of a ditz sometimes, but she's a lot of fun."

"She's always my warm-up partner before practice, so we talk some. And Brad Wallace is on the team, too, and he's been pretty friendly. Neither one of them treats me like a total leper, so that's something."

I reach over to the cabinet next to the sink and stand on my tiptoes to put the soup pot back in its proper home on the top shelf. "You have to understand about people around here," I start, not sure how to explain what I want to get at. "We don't get a lot of new blood in this town, and Kieran sort of announced your arrival on Day One in this huge way. So kids at school are just...I don't know..."

"Suspicious and freaked out?" she fills in, the corners of her mouth turning up. "Guess it kind of works both ways, huh?"

I shrug, smiling back as I feel the iciness between Kayla and me finally melting away for good. "Yeah. I guess it kind of does."

#  Chapter 10

"Here," Kieran offers, pushing a paper container with a lone French fry swimming in a pool of processed cheese sauce over to my side of the table.

"You're sure?" I ask.

"Yeah."

I pop the French fry into my mouth and slurp down some diet soda. Over the last three weeks, ever since the Laniers came over for dinner, Kieran and I have settled into the same after-school routine. His parents decided to ease up on their "no going out after school" policy, so now that I don't have practice but Kayla does, Kieran and I come to the Downtown Diner every day to study and eat cheese fries until my mom's store across the street closes at five, and then we drive him home.

"So we have a mutual birthday coming up," he points out, wiping a smear of cheese sauce from the corner of his history textbook with a napkin. A few weeks ago when we were talking on the phone, I'd asked him when he was going to turn eighteen and was both shocked and elated to discover we share the same unfortunate birthday, April first. "I assume you'll be getting me an appropriate present to honor my new status as an adult?"

"Which would be what? Cigarettes? A Selective Service form?"

He sits back in the booth, grinning. "No idea. I just said that."

"Seriously, though—is there anything you really want? Kayla and I are going to the mall Saturday to look for stuff. You're not invited, by the way."

Kieran mock-pouts for a second before answering. "I don't know. A halfway normal life would be amazing."

"I don't think they sell that at the mall."

"Ha ha. And I have no idea what to get you, either, so feel free to give me some suggestions."

Sighing, I lean forward and slurp down more soda. Honestly, life is good right now. I have a great family and a guy to hang out with who maybe sort of might be my boyfriend but is, at the very least, someone who's fun to be with. Throw in a shot at a basketball title next year and I can't complain. So maybe what I want is to freeze this part of my life in time so nothing changes.

"I want to be happy," I tell him.

"I don't think they sell that at the mall."

I suck up some soda and pull the straw from my cup with my teeth in a silent threat to spit the liquid at him. "Okay, okay," he laughs, covering his face. When he drops his hands, he asks, "So you're not happy?"

"I'm very happy," I say, giving him a big smile to let him know I'm not kidding. "I guess I want to make sure I stay happy."

Kieran folds his arms over his chest and squints as if he's giving something some serious thought. "I'll have to see what I can do," he tells me, as our waiter, a burly bald guy with eyes so narrow the skin around them almost seems swollen, comes up to the table and asks "Anything else for you guys?" as he wipes his hands on a stained white apron protecting a long-sleeved black t-shirt and jeans. He probably knows our answer before we say it—soda refills and the check—as he's waited on us every time we've been in here lately. We give our usual response and he gathers up our soda cups as Mom walks in.

"Ready to go, guys?" she asks.

"We're waiting for sodas," I say. Burly Bald Waiter comes back with our drinks and the bill, which Kieran saunters over to the cash register to pay because today's his turn.

"Who's he?" Mom whispers after Burly Bald Waiter disappears through the double doors to the kitchen. "I don't remember hearing about anybody else new in town. He seems a little old to be starting a career waiting tables here."

"I asked Dewayne after the first time he waited on us," I say back, voice lowered. "Dewayne" is Dewayne Masters, who's owned the Downtown Diner since before my mom was eating cheese fries here as a teenager. "I didn't get a first name, but he's some cousin of the Dubrows' or something."

"The Dubrows who live out in Rainey?" Mom asks, Rainey being the bump in the road about ten miles up the highway with a church, a gas station, and five houses "in town," the rest of Rainey consisting of farms scattered throughout the zip code.

"Yeah. The guy lost his house and moved in with them, I guess, and he's working here until he gets back on his feet."

"Well, he's lucky in a way. Even food service jobs are getting scarce around here in this economy."

I mentally add "lucky to get a food service job around here" to my list of reasons to get out of Titusville after graduation. Shaking off yet another depressing fact about this town, I elbow Mom in the ribs and tease "Bet he's around your age, too. Want me to see if he's single?"

"Thanks." She grimaces at me. "I'll pass."

"Just looking out for you, Mom."

Mom bumps her shoulder against mine. "What would I ever do without you?"

Kieran joins us near the door, and we head outside to the car and take off for home. When we pull into the driveway to drop him off, Kieran asks, "April, can Zip stay for dinner? My parents said she could come over any time."

Mom glances at me and even though I have no idea what this sudden invitation is all about, I bob my head a little to let her know I'm cool with it. "How much homework do you have left?" she asks.

"I'm almost done. I've got three or four trig problems to finish, but I can do those when I get home or in study hall tomorrow."

"Well, don't stay out too late, okay?"

"Sure. Thanks, Mom."

"Yeah. Thanks, April. I'll make sure Kayla drives her home later," Kieran says, sliding out of the back seat. I get out and round the car to stand next to Kieran in the driveway, waving at my mom as she turns around and heads to the road.

"Your mom kills me," he starts. "I love how she doesn't even think to ask if my parents are home or not."

"Your parents aren't home?"

"Nope. Mom's at the Sumner Relays with Kayla and Dad's never back from work until seven or seven-thirty."

Kieran waves me toward the house, and so we walk up the concrete path to the front porch and go inside. He immediately heads for the stairs, which confuses me, since I assume only bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs. "You coming?" he asks, turning around once he's halfway up the first flight of stairs and seeing me lingering by the door. "I've got something in my room I want to show you."

I put my hand—the one not holding my soda—on my hip in a defiant pose. "You have something you want to show me? In your room?"

Kieran takes a drink of his soda. "Yeah, okay. I guess that sounds a little sketchy, huh?"

I don't move, and so Kieran tries once again. "I promise I won't do anything weird—unless you want me to." His voice rises a bit on the "want," and he sounds almost hopeful.

"I'm not...I mean...are your parents okay with you being alone with a girl in your room?"

"Don't know." He shoots me his trademarked grin, and the mixture of cheese fries and diet soda does somersaults in my stomach. "Never been alone with a girl in my room before."

"I don't want to get you in trouble. The last time I was here you ended up grounded, remember?"

"Come on," he says. "It's okay. I just want to show you my dream journals. That's all."

I let out a heavy sigh, hating myself for being such a raging dork. He takes my free hand once I've joined him on the stairs, and he leads me to his room to peel away another layer of the mysteries that make up Kieran Lanier.

Having never been upstairs when the McCafferys lived here, I have no idea what Kieran's bedroom might look like until I cross the threshold for the first time. And I'm a little confused because the room doesn't seem much like a teenage boy's room—no sports or rock star posters, no pictures of underwear models all over the place. The off-white walls are bare, save for a few pencil sketches I'm assuming are Kieran's work tacked up on a bulletin board over a desk near the window. The furniture is some kind of dark wood, and a comforter in deep navy blue covers Kieran's twin bed, matching the fabric on his desk chair and on the cushion of the window seat. Unlike my room, the place is spotless—no piles of clothes on the floor or on his desk chair, no layers of dust coating the bedside tables. The bedroom strikes me as masculine enough in its dark sparseness, and yet kind of depressing and generic, like a hotel room. Other than the drawings, nothing in here reflects Kieran's personality.

"Nice room," I tell him, unable to stop the involuntary twinge in my shoulders.

"My mother's decorating preferences," he explains, reading my lack of enthusiasm. "I call this style 'Early Twenty-first Century Boring Male.' You've probably noticed the parentals are the neat, clean, orderly types. I'm not even allowed to put holes in the wall to hang pictures."

"That seems a little extreme."

"Extreme is all my parents know." Kieran rolls his eyes, a gesture that appears to be as much resignation as it is frustration. "Take a look around. No computer, no TV. Kayla and I use the computer in Dad's study if we need it for homework. Probably the only reason we have phones is so they can keep tabs on us. Guess they figure if I'm going to be a freak, they might as well help me go all the way with it—and make sure I take Kayla down with me. But at least I control my journals."

Kieran puts his soda on the bedside table and flops down on the floor next to his bed, sticking his hand underneath to pull out a shallow cardboard box, and then another. I join him on the rug and lean up against the comforter, noticing how one box is filled to the brim with spiral notebooks, just like the ones everyone carries around at school, while the other is only about half full.

"Wow," I breathe.

"This is just the last two years' worth. I have more boxes up in the attic. Whenever I finish one, I put the notebook in a box and start another."

I pick up a notebook with a blue cover from the top of the box nearest me. When I glance over at Kieran, he nods and so I turn the pages, not reading so much as just trying to get a sense of how he organizes things. Each journal entry starts with a date and sometimes the time of day, followed by a few sentences in Kieran's angular printing. Occasionally, the words give way to a sketch—I stumble on one entry from early January that contains what looks like a wall with Christmas lights strung across, and a table off to one side with some double doors on the other.

"Do you know what this is?" I ask, showing the entry to him. "I mean, have you seen this yet?"

Kieran shakes his head. "Not yet." He digs in the bottom of the box closest to him and pulls out a red notebook. "This one's from a while ago," he says, moving the boxes aside and scooting over to sit next to me. He hands me the notebook and I start reading the first entry, dated July 12:

A girl. Her face isn't clear. She's sitting at a desk. Maybe in a classroom? She's holding a paperback book.

I glance at him when I'm done. "Should I keep going?"

"Here," he says, taking the notebook from me and flipping some pages before he starts reading aloud. "August 14. 2:30 pm. A girl in a chair. Tennis shoes. Track pants. Long-sleeved shirt. Blondish hair. Ponytail. Green eyes. Legs pulled up to her chest."

He hands the notebook to me so I can look at the sketch he'd drawn as part of the entry, which turns out to be like gazing into a mirror and seeing a pencil-drawn version of myself staring back. I don't know whether to cry or scream or get up and run out of the room, which I don't think I could do anyway because I might be frozen to the floor. So I take in the beginning of the journal entry again, this time with my own eyes.

August 14. 2:30 pm.

"Kieran," I whisper, but he takes the notebook from me and turns a few more pages before handing it back to me so I can keep reading.

September 22.

Same girl again. A doorway, like she's floating off the ground. Black behind her. Black steps. Tears.

And there I am, drawn below the words. The sketch is of me in my heavy black coat, nothing but shadows behind me, black steps underneath my shoes, a pained expression on my face. I'm getting off the bus the night we lost Regionals. And Kieran drew the scene nearly five months before the events took place.

I look up at him, and he breaks into one of his grins. "See? I wasn't kidding when I said you seemed familiar."

#  Chapter 11

"So you..." I stop, unable to put my thoughts into words.

"Yeah," he says, sensing what I can't bring myself to say.

"Why...why didn't you tell me? Like, when we were down by the river, why didn't you say anything? Or since?"

He takes a deep breath. "One thing at a time, you know? Baby steps. I told you I have these little future flashes in my dreams sometimes, and you believed me. So, okay. Now I'm telling you this. I wanted to show you the journals at some point, and there's never been a time I could have you over when no one else was home. And, I mean, come on. What was I supposed to say? 'Guess what, Zip? I dreamed about you and now we're here together'? That sounds like a total line."

It does sound like a total line. I lower my eyes to the notebook in my lap, letting my fingers curl around the metal spiral. The notebook definitely seems beaten up enough to be a few months old, but..."How can I be sure...I mean, why should I believe..."

Kieran completes my thought for me since I can't seem to finish my sentence. "Why should you believe I didn't just write and draw all of these two days ago or something and plant them up here, right?"

I swallow hard, embarrassed at doubting him. "Yeah."

"Keep reading," he challenges.

Starting with a September entry, I read Kieran's description of someone who sounds a lot like Brad Wallace talking to Kayla and him next to a glass door. He writes about a gravel path resembling the road to the boat launch. He details a wind chime with patterns of swirls and stars and suns that reminds me of a project my mom's working on and would have been hanging in her art workshop the night the Laniers came over for dinner. Some of the events are out of order—he describes the wind chime a few weeks before the entry on meeting Brad, for example—but they're all dated at least a month or more before they actually happened.

"Okay," I tell him, looking up from the words on the page. "I guess it would have taken a lot of work for you to do all of this and plant it here."

"Do you want to read any more?" he asks, his voice so eager I have to give in—on one condition.

"Yeah, but not anything too...you know...recent."

He nods. "I know this is all freaking you out, but I wanted you to know that I'd seen you before we met. And I need you to understand it's not like I walked into school on the first day looking for you. I mean, obviously there was a pattern to my dreams for a while, but nothing in those descriptions told me who you were or where you lived, so I had no idea you'd be here. Think about all the things on the first day of school I couldn't control. I didn't make my class schedule. I didn't plan on passing out on your desk—"

"Or maybe you passed out because you recognized me and it freaked you out."

His eyes narrow and he looks at the floor, as if entertaining my theory. "Could be. I guess it's possible my subconscious recognized you first. Who knows how my brain works? I don't think it completely hit me until we were talking in the infirmary that the girl I'd been dreaming about was you. So then I said all that crap about you looking familiar and wondering if you'd ever been to Asheville."

"I thought you were just trying to be smooth," I tease.

"Yeah—that's me. Mr. Smooth." Kieran rolls his eyes and digs around in the bottom of one of the boxes for another notebook. "Here," he says, handing two new notebooks to me and I hand him the one I'm holding. "These are the first ones from this set."

I start reading, and Kieran moves closer to rest his head on my shoulder, a gesture I tell myself is probably due more to exhaustion than affection, but I don't really care. With him warm next to me, his hair rubbing against my neck, I begin exploring what was involuntarily going on in his mind two years ago: A drawing of someone who resembles Kayla in a tank top and shorts, getting a medal for something. Beautiful descriptions of mountains and forests which I'm assuming are places in North Carolina. Doodles of sunbursts, like the ones he's always drawing in his notebooks at school. A shadowy sketch and description of a man in his late thirties. Shadow Man pops up several times, but each sketch is a little more clear than the previous one, and I notice with every subsequent appearance, he's starting to look like Kieran—an older version of Kieran with a goatee.

"Hey, Kieran?" I start, but he doesn't respond. His head is heavy on my shoulder, so I assume he's fallen asleep. I poke an elbow into his side and he sits up, blinking.

"Yeah. I'm here. What?"

"This guy who keeps showing up?"

"You mean the Boogey Man," he says, resting his head against the edge of the bed. "He's a recurring dream. Or recurring nightmare, I guess."

"Who is he?"

Kieran shrugs. "Never seen him in my waking life, so I call him the 'Boogey Man.' Plus, I'm always kind of creeped out when I wake up from a dream about him."

"Well, don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not trying to be weird or insulting or anything, but he sort of reminds me of you."

He gives a little laugh. "Yeah. Dad's theory is that I've got some anxiety about growing up or something, and so I'm dreaming this older version of myself and it freaks me out. And, I mean, Dad unscrambles people's brains for a living, basically, so maybe he's right. I don't know." Kieran hitches up his shoulders as if he's not sure he believes his Dad's interpretation of events before he changes the subject slightly. "I guess I get a preview of what I'd look like with a goatee, though. What do you think?"

He reaches for the notebook lying in my lap and holds the drawing up next to his face. The eyes may be a little further apart and the man's a lot more muscular, but the sketch is essentially Kieran with a goatee, which sort of freaks me out.

"Doesn't work for me," I admit. "Promise you'll never do that."

He tosses the notebook to the floor and leans in until our foreheads touch, his mouth almost on mine. "Promise," he whispers.

At a total loss as to what else to do in this situation, I close my eyes, ready to let nature take its course—whatever nature's course might be. Kieran's fingertips graze my cheek near my chin, and I shiver, the icy stabs of sensitivity shooting up my spine quickly giving way to a warmth that spreads throughout my body. I part my lips to let him in, bracing myself for the moment his tongue will slip into my mouth. With my body so tense and my heart pounding so loudly, I'm surprised I can feel or hear anything, but I can—just as Kieran's forehead grows heavier on mine and his hand disappears from my face, the front door slams downstairs. My eyes flutter open to find his eyes closed, but not because he's experiencing some moment of mad passionate love for me.

"Kieran, wake up," I whisper, shaking his shoulder as footsteps get louder on the stairs. "Oh, God—come on..."

His eyes pop to full size and he sits up, staring at me for a second before looking away towards his open bedroom door. He reaches a hand up to his bed to pull himself off the floor, and he's bending down to help me to my feet as Kayla, in her track sweats emblazoned with the Titusville Titan crouched in starter's position, appears in the doorway.

"Hey, Zip," she sings, leaning against the door frame as her mother comes up behind her. Carlie's expression darkens on seeing Kieran and me together in his room, notebooks scattered around and the Boogey Man staring up at her from a few feet away. Kayla mouths "You are so dead," to her brother.

"I invited Zip over for dinner," Kieran explains, and then lies "I forgot no one was going to be here."

Carlie shakes her head quickly as if she's trying to pull herself together enough to be polite. "Well, of course Zip can stay," she says, mostly to me. "Jim will be home in a while, and we were thinking about ordering pizza, so it won't be anything special."

"Pizza's practically a gourmet meal in my house so..." I let my voice fade away. This whole situation is beyond uncomfortable, and I can't tell if Carlie's mad or mildly surprised or some combination of both.

"Well, then," she breathes in her wheezy voice. "Kayla—you should get in the shower. And, Kieran, please straighten up in here before you come downstairs." Carlie's looking down at the Boogey Man with a face stranded somewhere between fear and disgust as she makes her request to Kieran. Left without an assigned task, I bend to the floor and start putting notebooks away as Carlie disappears back downstairs.

"You don't have to help me do this," Kieran says as he crouches down over the remaining notebooks.

"I want to."

Kayla, meanwhile, walks over and launches her body to the middle of Kieran's bed, propping herself up on her elbows. "Busted with a girl in your room," she comments. "Bet you get grounded for two months for this."

"Bet I don't," he responds, which prompts Kayla to belt out a tiny laugh.

"Okay. Sure."

Kieran stands and kicks one of the boxes back under his bed. "Mom and Dad never laid down ground rules about visitors."

"There haven't been any visitors before."

He ignores her comment and says "Anyway, I'm turning eighteen in, like, five minutes."

Kieran's reminder leaves Kayla unmoved. She kicks her feet up and down on the comforter and mumbles "So what?"

"I'm almost an adult is so what."

"Yeah. An adult who needs to have somebody drive him everywhere. An adult who has one more year of high school left."

I'm still on my knees, pretending to put notebooks back in the remaining box when all I'm really doing is shuffling them around so I have an excuse to be busy. Glancing up at Kieran, I see he's mashing his lips together as if he's trying to think of the perfect comeback to Kayla, but ultimately, he doesn't say anything. Since I can't stay on the floor forever, I finally stand up next to Kieran.

"Did he show you all his entries about my illustrious track career?" Kayla asks me.

"I read a few," I admit.

An evil grin spreads across her face. "Tell me," she starts, eyes on Kieran. "Did I medal today or not?"

Kieran shoves his hands in his back jeans pockets. "You did," he answers quietly.

"Silver in the four by eight hundred," Kayla confirms, kicking her feet again and shifting her gaze to me. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Amazing," I say, but my voice doesn't sound too enthusiastic. I don't know if I'm supposed to be excited about this apparent side effect of Kieran's condition or not, so for right now, I think I'll just be confused.

"I wish he would dream of something I actually want to find out ahead of time," Kayla breathes. "Like test questions or whether or not somebody's going to ask me to Prom."

At her mention of Prom, I shoot Kayla a glare that I hope says Don't even go there. She managed to wrangle out of me about a week ago my wish for Kieran to ask me, and I can only imagine what she's been saying to him whenever I'm not around.

"Sorry, Kay," Kieran begins, deadly serious. "All the dreams I have about Prom are of you in a pretty dress, and you're sitting in the bleachers in the gym. Oh—and you're all by yourself. It's kind of sad actually, you being alone on Prom night." He cracks a smile to let her know he's kidding, and Kayla grabs a pillow and hurls it at him, striking him in the torso.

"You suck," she says, the pillow falling to the Persian rug as Carlie's voice floats up the stairs.

"Kayla Danielle! Why isn't the shower running?"

Kayla groans and rolls toward the end of the bed, sitting up before she can fall off. "You two better get downstairs before Mom loses it," she warns, standing. "I don't see either one of you wearing purity rings."

"Shut up, Kayla," Kieran says as she flounces out of the room, while I kick at the carpet with the toe of my Chuck Taylor, a question lingering at the back of my mind. "What are you thinking?" he asks, because he's known me long enough to be familiar with my behaviors when I'm upset.

"Your mom seemed kind of freaked out before."

"It's no big deal," he insists. "You being here, I mean."

"My being here isn't what I'm talking about. She was looking at those notebooks like they were going to jump up off the floor and attack her."

"Well, I'm sure the whole thing was weird for her—I've never had a girl in the house before, never showed my journals to anybody before."

"She probably wishes you hadn't shown the notebooks to me."

"Well, too bad for her. Like I told Kayla, I'm almost eighteen, and I'm going to start making my own decisions about things." He reaches out, grabbing my hands in his and stepping to me so he can lower his forehead to mine once again. "And I've decided you're the only person I want knowing everything about me."

Carlie's voice drifts up the stairs before I shut my eyes. "Kieran? I need some help in the kitchen. Can you and Zip come down here, please?"

"I thought we were ordering pizza," I whisper. "What does she need help with?"

"Getting a life," he groans, moving away from me and tilting his head toward the door in a silent acknowledgement of the end of our alone time. We start for the hall, and he notes, "The women in my family have unfortunate timing, if nothing else."

"Guess so."

"And don't worry about my mom being weird. She was probably just surprised you were here—that's all. There's nothing in those notebooks for her to freak out over."

"Okay," I say, walking into the hallway ahead of him. But as much as I want to believe Kieran's theory that his mom isn't worried about anything in his journals, I can't help but wonder why Carlie seems more afraid of the Boogey Man in the daylight than Kieran is in his dreams.

#  Chapter 12

Maybe it's because I have dreams on the brain lately, but the morning of my birthday, I remember a dream for the first time in a long time. Funny thing is, I'm not even sure the dream is mine to begin with, because what I view in my mind's eye are the forest-covered hills of North Carolina, just as Kieran described and drew them in his journals. Only instead of words and drawings on a notebook page, I visualize trees covered with summer green leaves and distant mountains beyond shrouded in the fog of an early morning. And I see Kieran, standing in front of me in a clearing—or in front of somebody, I guess—smiling as he takes in the scenery.

I wake up, and I'm as calm as the slight breeze that rustled the trees on the mountain in my mind. Because I feel so refreshed and relaxed, I want to make sure I remember as many details as possible so I can relive the dream whenever I want. Before I forget anything, I jump out of bed and go to my desk, logging into my laptop so I can type out everything as fast as I can.

After I record the dream, I practically float down the hall to the bathroom and get ready for the day. Seventeen starts off with Mom serving me pancakes for breakfast—slightly burned, of course—and when I show up at school, I find my locker tricked out with streamers and balloons in Titan navy blue and gold, courtesy of Cassie, Lauren, and Ashley. Kieran gives me a funny card during English, and assures me more surprises are waiting tonight, when we've planned to go to Sumner with Kayla and Brad Wallace—who finally worked up the nerve to ask Kayla to Prom—to catch a late Friday night movie. And even though today is April Fools' Day, my friends and family honor the Prank-Free Zone I've declared around myself and don't do anything stupid. By the time I finish dinner at my grandparents' and duck back over to my house to grab Kieran's present—a sketch pad with a set of colored pencils—I'm convinced nothing could ruin my night. But my good mood evaporates as I approach the Laniers' house, where Kayla's sitting alone on the front porch steps, hugging herself and rocking back and forth.

"Kayla?" I yell, racing across the driveway behind her Jeep. She turns her head slightly and even from this distance, I can tell she's been crying. I sit down next to her when I reach the porch, dropping Kieran's gift bag at my feet. "Oh, my God. What's wrong?"

"Kieran's never going to talk to me again, for starters," she whispers, staring in front of her as if I'm not there.

"What happened?"

Kayla gazes at me, red-rimmed eyes blinking back tears. "We need to go inside," she rasps, standing up. I grab Kieran's gift and follow her into the house. Without a word, we walk to the kitchen where Jim and Carlie both stand against the sink, Jim with his hands behind him on the countertop and Carlie hugging herself as Kayla had been on the front porch.

"Where's Kieran?" I ask, fighting to keep my voice level because something obviously isn't right here.

"Upstairs asleep," Carlie whispers. "He's...he's a little upset."

Jim exhales. "Zip, I think you'd better sit down."

Too afraid to argue or question, I place the gift bag next to the wall and slide down into a chair at the end of their kitchen table. Kayla sits down opposite me, wiping underneath her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"Where to start?" Jim mutters, shaking his head. Carlie places a hand on his arm, and he launches in with "We'd always planned to tell him the truth. So tonight, we did. He's eighteen now and everything's been changing so much lately—there was just no sense in waiting anymore."

"How about not ruining his birthday?" Kayla suggests, her bitterness aimed at the wall as she's evidently too angry to look at her parents. "How about not ruining the first thing I've had resembling a date in, like, forever?"

"Kayla, enough," Carlie scolds, but she sounds more exhausted than anything. "Zip needs to hear this."

I'm so confused I want to scream at them. Where's Kieran? What's going on? Why aren't you crazy people making any sense? But I keep my cool as Jim drags himself to the table and sits in the chair closest to me.

"In another lifetime," he begins after a deep breath, "I served as a consultant to the New York City Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney. You've probably seen people like me on TV shows—the ones who profile suspects and do interviews to determine if defendants are fit to stand trial."

Mom and I have blown enough lazy Saturdays on Law and Order marathons for me to know what he's talking about. "Yeah," I whisper.

"The last case I worked on involved an armed robbery committed by two young men, Morgan Levert and Frank Dozier," Jim continues. "They'd been in and out of trouble as juveniles, but nothing too serious. When I met them, they were alleged to have held up a liquor store in the northern part of Manhattan. Frank, along with Morgan's girlfriend, Jenna Bradley, were supposed to do the job, while Morgan manned the getaway car around the corner. Fortunately, the store owner triggered a panic alarm under the cash register, and police started showing up almost immediately. Jenna fired from inside the store, and she was killed in the shootout. Morgan left before the police spotted him, and at first, they had no idea Jenna and Frank had an accomplice. Frank eventually gave Morgan up and cooperated on possible hiding places, and they found Morgan on an abandoned farm outside the city about two days later. I got involved because Frank claimed he was on drugs when he committed the robbery and that Morgan had been controlling him."

"Controlling him?" I ask, not bothering to mask my doubt.

"Yes. Your reaction is fairly similar to everyone else's, from his lawyers on down to me. Obviously, people lose their inhibitions and can be easily influenced when on drugs, but Frank seemed lucid at the time of the arrest, so he wasn't tested, and investigators found no drug paraphernalia at his or Morgan's apartments. Frank's lawyers arranged for tests later on at his insistence, but enough time had passed that the results came back clear. Frank kept claiming he'd used something for months that he couldn't name or describe beyond it being a liquid, and that Morgan and Jenna had cooked it in their apartment. Morgan talked Frank and Jenna into robbing the liquor store while they were under the influence, and they carried out the robbery while high."

"So this Frank guy was crazy?"

"Not exactly. Morgan claimed he had never manufactured drugs, and no evidence existed to suggest he had. Despite his repeated insistence that he'd been drugged, I found Frank perfectly competent to stand trial. He didn't exhibit true signs of delusion, and I assumed he was trying to talk his lawyers into mounting an 'under the influence' defense to explain why he supposedly couldn't remember details of the crime. He was sentenced to twenty-five years for attempted armed robbery, and Morgan was convicted of conspiracy."

Jim pauses, and I'm about to ask what any of this has to do with Kieran or anything else when Carlie drops a bomb: "Morgan Levert and Jenna Bradley are...were...Kieran's parents."

I open my mouth to say something, but my mind goes blank. "Okay" is the brilliant response I finally squeak out.

"Kieran was almost sixteen months old when his mother died, and as he had no other relatives on either side, the state took custody when Morgan was arrested," Jim explains. "We volunteered to be his foster parents, and once Morgan went to prison, we began the process to adopt him."

"I had a difficult pregnancy with Kayla, and I couldn't have any more children," Carlie says, looking over at Kayla, who's sniffling as she listens to this story for what I'm assuming is the second time tonight. "I wanted Kayla to have a sibling, and when Jim started working on this case and we found out about Kieran..."

"By the time his father went to prison," Jim continues after Carlie's voice fades away, "Kieran was nearly three. I had family and professional ties in North Carolina, and so we moved there for a fresh start. Not too long after, we started noticing Kieran's behavior."

"The sleeping, you mean?"

He nods. "Obviously, we thought he had narcolepsy, although people usually don't exhibit symptoms until they're older. We took him to countless specialists and tried every approved treatment, but nothing helped to keep it under control. Medications, other treatments that help most people wouldn't work on Kieran. No one could tell us why. We've put him through so many tests..." Jim shakes his head, and Carlie sits down in the empty chair next to him. She rubs his back, her action seeming to give him the strength to continue. "We encouraged him to start keeping the dream journals to find out if he noticed anything especially strange or unusual about his dreams, anything that might give us clues as to how his illness works. Kieran was about eleven when he told us of the pattern he noticed with Kayla's races."

"The medals," I say. Jim and Carlie exchange glances, and I wonder if they're relieved or concerned that Kieran had shared this information about his dreams with me.

"Of course, the pattern in and of itself didn't offer any scientific, medical explanation for his condition, but we were so desperate to make sense of things," Carlie explains. "Obviously, we were curious when he told us about his dreams. So we..." She steals a glance at Jim, who tilts his head toward her as if he's giving her permission to speak. "God—I'm not proud of this. We started looking through his journals. He'd shared some things with us willingly over the years, but after he told us about Kayla, we wanted to read everything."

I look over at Kayla, who's gritting her teeth, and when I turn my attention back to Carlie, her hands are over her mouth and nose as if she's trying to hold something in. "He'd described flashes of me wearing clothing I hadn't bought yet," she eventually says. "He'd drawn Jim and me sitting on a beach three months before we announced a family vacation to Martha's Vineyard. And the spider ring—"

Carlie's voice rises as she glances over at Kayla, but Kayla folds her arms more tightly around her ribcage and continues staring ahead at the kitchen cabinets. Realizing she won't get any help from her daughter in telling this particular story, she says "Kayla had a spider ring she'd gotten at school."

"I drew it out of one of those plastic jack-o'-lantern buckets during the class Halloween party," Kayla adds, still gazing in front of her. No one speaks as we wait for her to continue, and when she doesn't, Carlie resumes the story: "She didn't have it on when I picked the kids up from school. Later on, I was making dinner before Jim came home, and Kieran was sleeping in his room. Kayla put the ring on and called me away from the stove, and I just reacted—I'm afraid of spiders."

"It all happened so fast. She rolled up the morning newspaper and started whacking at my hand," Kayla interjects, allowing herself a tiny smile, but still unwilling to meet anyone's eyes. "I'm yelling at her to stop hitting me because the spider's not real. Kieran wakes up and comes in screaming and freaking out until both he and mom realized it was just a plastic spider ring. It was pretty funny at the time." At last, she turns into the table so she can look at all of us. "I hadn't shown Kieran the ring when I got it because I wanted to scare him later. He didn't know about it until we woke him up."

"When we read Kieran's journals, we found a drawing of a hand with a spider. The entry was dated in August," Carlie whispers.

"We didn't know what to think," Jim takes up the story. "We might have just dismissed all of this as selective memory—he remembered times he was right about something happening in the future, but forgot instances of dreaming about something that didn't happen."

"I'm not sure I understand," I tell him, my eyes narrowing as I concentrate.

"Well, for example, have you ever been thinking of someone and they show up at your door or maybe call or text you a few minutes later?"

I search my memory, but nothing immediately comes to mind. "Maybe."

"Selective memory is your brain choosing to remember the few instances in which something like that happens and you're correct. At the same time, your brain dismisses the millions of times you aren't thinking of someone before they call, or those times you're thinking of someone but another person shows up at the door. You recall when you're right, and forget about the times you're wrong.

"Which makes you think you're always right," I say, and he nods.

"Kieran described and drew these things so far in advance..." Jim continues, shaking his head and searching the wall near the ceiling as if looking for the right way to continue. "You have to understand, Zip—Carlie and I have trained as scientists. Even though in our respective practices we've had to deal with the emotional side of people, science is ultimately how we make sense of the world. But even scientists struggle with why things happen sometimes, especially when dealing with the human brain. We didn't have an explanation for Kieran's condition, and I couldn't trust my colleagues to help me come up with one—as you can imagine, claiming my son has glimpses of the future wouldn't have helped my credibility."

"And we didn't want to turn him into some human guinea pig," Carlie adds. "On the one hand, as Jim said, we're scientists. We want to understand why certain things happen. At the same time, Kieran's my son, blood or no blood. We'd already put him through so much—the scans, the tests, the x-rays...there's only so much you can do to someone in the name of science before you start wondering what you're accomplishing."

"So I made a decision," Jim says. "I went back to New York to talk to Morgan Levert about Kieran. In retrospect, I made the biggest mistake of our lives."

"How could Kieran's father have helped?" I wonder aloud.

"Morgan is Kieran's only living blood relative. I thought if I talked to him he could tell me something about his medical history, or his family's, that might explain the dreams, or at the very least, the sleeping disorder."

"And?" I ask, eager for the end of the story.

"I told him about Kieran's condition, and he informed me Frank Dozier hadn't been lying."

"So Frank and Jenna had been on something after all?"

"Yes. Morgan had been...a bit of an amateur pharmacologist, let's say."

"Sort of like the amateur pharmacologists out on the north end of Titusville?" I smirk.

Jim gets my meaning and bobs his head. "Exactly. As you know, some of these people have only a vague idea of what they're doing. They work off a recipe handed down to them from someone and hope the lab doesn't explode before they mix up something they can sell. Morgan and Jenna apparently stumbled upon a formula that produced a powerful narcotic. Under the influence, users would descend into a sort of sleepwalking state, doing things without realizing and remembering little once they sober up—much like a walking blackout after someone's had too much to drink. And just as with most other drugs, users can be heavily influenced by the suggestions of others when they're under."

I've never been drunk before, partially because I try to avoid alcohol as a student-athlete, and partially because I'm afraid I'll get caught—by my mom, by the cops, or by the school. My future's too important to me to do something stupid, so I don't bother, but plenty of other people do. Lauren and Cassie went to visit Cassie's older sister at Northern last year before Lauren started dating Bill, and they snuck into a frat party where some guy put something in Lauren's drink. Luckily, Cass stayed glued to Lauren the whole time, and so Mr. I'm-So-Awesome-I-Have-to-Drug-Girls-to-Get-Some didn't get the chance to pull anything. When she was telling me about the weekend when they got back, Cassie said Lauren was walking around and talking, trying to get Cassie to leave her alone so she could go off with this guy, but Lauren claims she doesn't remember a second of it. She said one minute she was standing against the wall, waiting for the guy to bring her another drink, and the next minute, she was outside leaning over the bushes with Cass holding her hair back as she started to puke. She remembered nothing in between, like watching a DVD and skipping from the first chapter straight to the end without seeing the rest of the movie, even though in reality, an hour had passed between the time the guy left her alone and when she ended up heaving her guts out. So I wonder if the sensation Morgan described to Jim is similar to what Lauren experienced.

But then I think of something even more relevant than Lauren's blackout, remembering times Kieran and I have been walking to class or talking on the phone, and later I'll mention something about our conversation and he has no memory of anything. "So was what Morgan Levert described sort of like when Kieran blacks out?" I ask.

"It sounded similar. And once he realized what the drug could do, Levert overreached—rather than trying to sell his new creation on the street, he decided he and his friends would take their criminal activities to the next level."

"Armed robbery," I fill in.

"He told me he had some pretty grand plans," Jim says, sighing. "The liquor store job was mostly a training exercise for them. He'd hoped to move up to banks, armored cars...and in every situation, he'd be the driver, while Jenna and Frank did the dirty work they wouldn't remember the details of later. Obviously, they didn't plan on the first store having a panic button."

"So why did Morgan risk telling you this after the fact?" I ask. "Wasn't he afraid you'd go to the police?"

"All I had was his word, and he knew it. As I said before, no evidence of drug activity had ever been uncovered. Morgan cleaned out his apartment and destroyed any traces of the drug before he left the city to hide out. He also said Jenna ingested the substance well into her pregnancy with Kieran. We can only assume Jenna's use is what caused his condition—we don't have a better explanation."

"So what's in this...stuff?" I say, not quite sure how to refer to a substance with no apparent name. "Morphine, maybe? I mean, if you've got some idea what's in it then you can break it down and figure out how to help Kieran, right?" Even as I ask the question, I fear the answer must be 'no.' Jim went to visit Morgan years ago, and Kieran's condition apparently hasn't changed.

Jim's mouth spreads into a bitter smile as he tells me what I've already guessed to some extent. "Morgan screwed me," he begins, and my back rises a little bit with the shock of someone as formal as Jim Lanier dropping the word "screwed" in the middle of a sentence. "He claimed he and Jenna had never written the formula down, and he didn't remember how to make it. I should've been smart enough to see that coming, but I wanted so much to help Kieran..." Jim shakes his head and looks away. "I sat in front of this man, a criminal, and told him everything about Kieran. I thought I could appeal to him as a father—a father who wanted to help his son. I showed him pictures, shared information with him about Kieran's life..." Jim draws in a breath and fixes his eyes on me again, as if he wants to make sure this dramatic pause forces me pay attention to everything he says next. "So there's no telling what's going to happen now that he's out."

Panic grips me to the point I can barely open my mouth. "He's out?"

"One of my contacts back in New York told me he was released last week. He's done his time and he's free, and I can't exactly ask the friends I still have in the police department to keep tabs on a free man who hasn't yet committed any further crimes. We've thought about hiring a private detective, but if Morgan has something up his sleeve and he's smart, he probably went off the grid as soon as he could. I wouldn't even know where to tell a private detective to start looking for him—with Jenna dead, he doesn't have any reason to stay in New York that I know of."

"So you think he's going to try to find Kieran?" I wheeze.

"I have no idea what he's thinking," Jim says. "As I said, he had some big plans he didn't fulfill. Maybe he thinks he can connect with Kieran and get him involved in a life of crime somehow. Maybe he thinks he can use Kieran's dreaming abilities to his advantage. Maybe he hopes to find Kieran and give him more of this substance...I don't know..."

"What about Frank Dozier?"

"As far as we can tell from the dream journals, he has no interest in Kieran—unlike Morgan."

"Morgan's why we moved here from Asheville," Carlie says. "Kieran started recording dreams about him almost two years ago, although at first we had no idea he was dreaming about Morgan based on the vague descriptions."

My memory trips back to Kieran's notebooks and Carlie's reaction to seeing them on the floor, Kieran's doppelganger with the goatee staring up at her. "So Morgan's the Boogey Man." I say.

Carlie closes her eyes briefly and opens them again. "We've always been careful not to let Kieran's dreams dictate our behavior, but when we found journal entries that clearly seemed to be about Morgan, we started looking into leaving North Carolina."

A little laugh escapes from me in spite of myself. "So you moved to the middle of nowhere."

"The Sumner job was perfect," Jim adds. "It's within driving distance, and Titusville's at least forty-five minutes from...well, anything."

Kayla sniffles again, and I remember she's still in the room for the first time in a while. "So, how much of this did you know before tonight?" I ask her.

She rests her elbows on the table, hands cupping her chin. "A lot, but not everything. I mean, I didn't want to know too many specifics on the dreams. But I've known about the Morgan Levert stuff since I was eleven so I could help protect Kieran."

I try to wrap my head around hearing this story as an eleven year-old, considering I can barely grasp it at seventeen. No wonder Kayla's outer shell is so tough, thanks to the tremendous sense of responsibility she's had to bear all these years. Turning away from her to glance back and forth from Jim to Carlie, I notice they're both avoiding my eyes, and a thought occurs to me. "You saw me in his journals, didn't you?" I ask, trying to keep my voice level.

"We had no idea what to think when we first found those sketches," Carlie admits, her face stained with a sheepish smile. "Then after we moved here and he started talking about you all the time..."

"Well, you can imagine how shocked we were when you brought him home that night." Jim finishes Carlie's thought. "And that's when we were certain...despite all the micromanaging we've done of his life, finding out you were real told us we didn't have control over the situation anymore. We knew everything had to come out at some point. We couldn't forbid him from seeing you without a good reason, and there's just no good reason—you're a wonderful young woman, Zip, and you come from a wonderful family."

"Thanks," I say, accepting what are, in this context, the weirdest set of compliments I've ever received.

"After Carlie told me he'd shown you his journals, I knew we couldn't avoid telling Kieran—and you—everything, especially with Morgan out there somewhere. You're a part of this."

Sinking down in my chair, I whisper, "Am I in some kind of danger?"

Jim lets out a long, measured breath. "I wish we knew. The best we can tell from Kieran's dreams, Morgan's likely going to try to make contact with him, and we need to assume anyone in Kieran's inner circle could be collateral damage in whatever Morgan's planning. As much as I'd like to believe he'll come out of prison rehabilitated, I know what I saw all those years ago. We're counting on Morgan going to North Carolina to look for Kieran, because as far as he knows, we're still living there. Only my sister in Asheville has any idea we moved here, and she's keeping an eye out to see if he shows up."

Assuming the popular position of the evening, I wrap my arms around myself, gripping my sides so tightly I feel my ribs through my sweater. "Can I see Kieran?" I squeak. "Please?" And although I'm asking politely, I don't care what their answer is. I need to be with Kieran right now, need to put his face and his voice to everything I've just learned. For the last hour, we've been talking about him. Now I want to talk to him, because talking to him is the only way any of this will sink in for me.

Carlie reaches out past Jim, putting her hand on my cheek, her actions and the tears glistening in her eyes speaking the apology for everything I've heard tonight she can't seem to say. "Of course you can see him," she whispers. "He's been upstairs for a while now. He's probably awake."

I stand up but before I can leave the kitchen, Kayla's voice stops me. "I want to come with you," she announces. I'd hoped to talk to Kieran about everything alone, but Kayla's so upset, and I imagine she's thinking Kieran might go easy on her if she's with me.

"Sure," I tell her, and she crosses the room to join me.

Once we're out of the kitchen and halfway up the stairs, she says, "All I ever wanted to do was protect him. Mom and Dad, too."

"I know." My forgiveness extends beyond the present moment back to January now that I understand what Kayla's been dealing with for so long. "Kieran knows it, too."

"I'm not so sure," Kayla insists, walking ahead of me. "You didn't see how angry he got. He was screaming at us after Mom and Dad told him everything, saying he wouldn't trust any of us ever again and once he's done with school for the year, he's leaving and not coming back. He's never been pissed off like that before."

We don't get the chance to find out if Kieran's calmed down, because when we reach his bedroom he's not there, the comforter pulled back and the sheets twisted up as if someone had been in bed recently. Kayla surprises me by crossing the room and knocking on the closet door. "He probably heard us coming," she says to my confused look. "He used to love hiding from me when we were little." No one responds to her knock, and she opens the door just as I come up next to her to find the closet contains Kieran's clothes and Kieran's shoes, but no Kieran.

"The bathroom," Kayla suggests, marching out into the hall to find the bathroom door wide open. We perform cursory searches of her room, her parents' room, and the guest bedroom—Kieran isn't hiding anywhere.

"I guess he slipped out while we were in the kitchen," Kayla says, so far from freaking out right now I'm amazed. She's been dealing with this kind of weirdness full on for years, though, so on some level, tonight's probably just another night in the Lanier household.

I follow Kayla back to Kieran's room, where she walks over to the window and yanks up the blinds. "My car's still here," she reports. "Not like he can drive it, anyway." She sinks to the window seat, the darkness I first noticed on the front porch overtaking her face once again. "So he's run away, and we're out in the boonies, miles from town. He's probably asleep in a ditch, or in the middle of the road."

Sitting down on his bed, I try to think like Kieran would, wondering where I'd go if I wanted to collect myself and feel better, but had no transportation and probably couldn't get far before passing out. I'm guessing he wouldn't go to my grandparents' house or over to talk to my mom, because how would he explain?

I can only think of one other place nearby where Kieran could go to be alone. Raising my eyes to meet Kayla's, I tell her "Get your coat. I think I know where he is."

#  Chapter 13

The wind that cuts across the prairie in April isn't quite the same wind that blows in December or even March. The winter wind in the Midwest slashes through the fields and levels knifepoint stabs against your exposed skin, but by the beginning of April, the wind barely grazes your cheeks, and even though you might shiver occasionally when a real gale blows up, the breeze holds the promise of the warm days to come if you can hang on a little longer. The winter wind blows nothing but decay, but an April wind always brings hope—it even smells warmer somehow.

Kayla, however, seems anything but hopeful as we walk behind my house through the fallow field leading to the art workshop behind my grandparents' place. She buttons up her jean jacket and folds her arms across her chest, a human battering ram forging ahead into the wind. "What do I do if he won't talk to me?" she asks, like I'm some sort of expert in settling sibling disputes. Not only am I no expert, but this particular brother-sister rift also extends into territory that doesn't even seem like part of the real world.

"Then you go back home and wait until he does," I suggest. "I'll make sure he gets home okay."

"You shouldn't have to do that."

My shoulders hunch involuntarily. "Well, whatever. I'm a part of this thing, remember?"

Apparently, I was a part of this thing long before the Laniers told me I was involved, long before I'd laid eyes on Kieran Lanier for the first time standing in the front entry at school. I was a part of this all the way back when he was sitting in his room in North Carolina drawing me in his dream journals. A shiver travels up my spine from something more than the wind, and I mirror Kayla's walking posture of arms folded across my chest. We don't say anything else until we're outside the workshop and my hand's on the doorknob.

"Your grandparents don't keep the door locked?" Kayla asks, as I open the door a crack, rays from the yellow porch light over my grandparents' back door creating a triangle shape on the floor.

"Can't remember the last time someone reported a burglary around here. Tweakers are more likely to steal from their own or from someone in town than to come all the way out to the middle of nowhere. Plus, they'd take one look at the stuff in here and figure they couldn't get anything for any of it."

Kayla stands behind me as I peer around the edge of the doorframe. "Kieran?" I say, my voice only slightly above a whisper.

Nothing. For a second, I debate whether or not to flip the light switch inside the door, but decide not to risk my grandparents' passing by their kitchen window and coming out to investigate lights on in the shed. I pull my phone from my jeans pocket and activate the home screen, which allows us to survey the area in a ghostly white light that only adds to the overall creepiness of the place. My mother's unfinished wind chimes dangle from the ceiling over a workbench like spider webs, and her wire sculpture projects snake up from the floor over by the side wall, in this light looking less like art and more like barbed traps. I shine the light past Gramps' lithography press and find Kieran in the back corner of the shed opposite the wire sculptures, snoozing away against a half-finished wooden bear carving Gramps has been working on lately. Holding the phone off to my side, I cross the distance between us to crouch in front of him.

"Kieran?" I whisper, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him.

"Mmm." Kieran blinks awake, the faint glow from my phone showing me his eyes, swollen and red from crying. He turns his head rapidly from side to side and nods, remembering where he is and, more importantly, why he's here. "Zip," he murmurs. "You came from my house?"

"Yeah. I was downstairs talking with your parents and Kayla while you were asleep. We couldn't find you, and I thought you might be here."

"I needed to be alone for a while," he explains, reaching over and rubbing his hand along the rough stump Gramps will, one of these days, carve into a set of bear claws. "I like it in here. My head's already clearer somehow. I can't explain—it's like my thoughts make more sense or something."

"My mom says the same thing. She always comes out here and starts working and loses track of time. Gram usually has to come out and tell her she should go home and get some sleep. She says sometimes she can sit in here staring at a canvas and even if she doesn't get anything done, she always ends up in a better mood than when she came in. Must be some artist thing you guys have."

Kieran's face glows at my referring to him as an artist, but the moment quickly disappears as behind us, Kayla clears her throat, reminding me she's standing a few feet away in the doorway. Kieran leans to look past me at his sister, but he doesn't say a word to her before he moves back to where I'm blocking her from his view.

"Kieran," she says, and doesn't get anything else out before he starts in on her.

"I can't talk to you right now. Okay? Leave me alone."

"Fine," she snaps. "But you can't stay mad at me forever, you know."

"Bet me?"

Kayla exhales so loudly she sounds like she's kneeling next to me. I twist around to her. "You should probably—"

"Yeah." She cuts me off, voice quivering. "I know when I'm not wanted."  
"I'll text you when we're on our way back to your house, okay?"

Kayla shuts the door so only a tiny sliver of light splits the darkened concrete behind me. I shut off my phone and turn to Kieran, sitting down in front of him with my knees pulled to me. "She feels really bad, you know," I tell him.

"For lying to me for years? She should feel bad."

I don't have any good evidence to plead Kayla's case to him other than what he already knows—that Kayla loves him and wants to keep him safe—so I let my inappropriate sense of humor take over. "Well, anyway—happy birthday!"

Even in the near darkness, I can see Kieran's teeth when he laughs as they practically glow against the shadows. "Yeah. You, too. I keep waiting for someone to jump out and yell 'April Fool!' and we can pretend everything's a total joke."

"Probably not happening," I mumble.

"Nope."

Neither of us rushes to fill the silence, and I decide to get down to the serious stuff. "So, how are you dealing with this?" I ask.

"How am I dealing with finding out my parents and my sister aren't my real parents and my real sister? Or with finding out my real mother was drugging me in the womb? Or with the fact my real dad's a crazy felon?" Kieran's voice grows increasingly bitter as he lays out the evening's revelations. "Or how am I dealing with the fact my not-sister and not-parents have done nothing but lie to me about everything for most of my life?"

"Yeah. Any of it."

Kieran stares down at his hands in his lap. "I'm kind of overwhelmed, to be honest."

"Understandable."

"And I'm pissed as hell, and confused...but at the same time..." He shakes his head. "Well, it's weird, but I've been sitting here thinking—when I've been awake—about how as mad as I am, I kind of get why Mom and Dad...the Laniers, I mean...whatever...I get why they and Kayla did everything they've done all these years, keeping me kind of isolated and cut off from stuff. I mean, what else could they do, right? Even without the whole future dreams thing and the jailbird dad, I'm pretty helpless on a normal day because of the narcolepsy, or whatever it is. So in my head, I understand they've been trying to protect me from myself and from...whatever else. I go over and over things and on some level, everything makes sense. But that doesn't mean I don't still feel like crap."

"Uh huh," I mumble, mostly to tell him I'm still listening because I can't in a million years comprehend his emotions right now.

"And, I mean, I've always told them about my dreams from time to time, but those journals were supposed to be private. They were my place to work stuff out when I needed to. So for them to look through them without my permission, and lie to me about how I was seeing some version of myself and not my real father?" Kieran sits with his mouth open, trying to form an answer to his own question. Apparently, he doesn't get one, because he changes the subject slightly. "My biggest regret in this whole situation is you. You shouldn't have anything to do with this, but thanks to me, my parents had to tell you...both of us, I guess...everything."

My mind wanders back over those descriptions and drawings of me in his dream journals, and I can't help but wonder how much choice I truly had in the matter, which goes against all I've learned about how the world works. People make their own choices and determine their destinies. I woke up today, and I chose to wear a long black sweater and jeans. Kieran invited me to come over after dinner tonight, but the decision about what to do with my evening after considering his invitation was mine. I decided to sit in his kitchen and listen to his parents explain the true story of Kieran's life and illness, when I had the choice to get up and run out screaming at the top of my lungs.

Still, I can't deny everything I've seen in his dream journals. I can't deny the fact that he dreamed of me months before he met me, and I can't deny that almost nothing makes any sense to me anymore.

"Kieran, don't worry about me. I'm fine," I tell him. But I'm lying. I'm nowhere near fine. "Fine" and I aren't even on the same planet right now, and Kieran seems to read the fear in my voice.

"You shouldn't have to be involved in this. If Morgan Levert can find me, it's going to impact everyone around me. I pulled you into this and now I can't keep you safe, if there's even anything to keep you safe from. God, I'm so sorry."

"I'm not," I tell him, meaning what I say. "I'm kind of confused right now, I guess, but I'm definitely not sorry. You didn't pull me into anything. You had no idea sharing things with me would cause any problems, because your parents were keeping secrets from you. And I wouldn't rewind the last three months back to when you weren't a part of my life for anything.

He smiles. "Me, neither."

"And like you said, we have no clue if we should be afraid. Maybe it's like Gram always tells me—we shouldn't be borrowing trouble by assuming something bad's going to happen when we don't know." A thought occurs to me as I'm getting this last sentence out. "Or, I guess we don't. I mean, does Morgan Levert actually do anything in your dreams?"

"No—I just kind of see flashes of his face. So unless he plans to bore us to death by just hanging around, I don't get enough information from my dreams to find out what he might be capable of. All I know is what Dad...Jim...told me." Kieran gathers his legs to his chest and lets out an unsteady breath. Without asking whether he wants me to or not, I get up and slide the bear sculpture over towards my mom's tangled wires so I can sit next to him, our shoulders touching. He brushes the back of his hand against my arm, eventually weaving his fingers together with mine. "At least now I've got an explanation for why I am the way I am, though. Even if I can't do anything about it, I guess we can be pretty sure Morgan and Jenna messed me up," he whispers, resting his head on my shoulder. "So that's something."

"I asked your dad if Morgan had told him how he made this...substance," I say. "He said Morgan basically lied about not remembering. If someone just knew what was in this stuff, then maybe we could figure out how to help you."

"So you're saying I need help?" I can hear the teasing in his voice even though at this angle and in the shadows, his expression is a mystery.

"I think in some areas, you're seriously beyond help." I tell him, making sure to laugh a little so he's sure I'm kidding. "You understand what I mean, though."

"If we knew without a doubt what was in the stuff that caused my condition to begin with, then maybe we could treat it, you mean. No more narcolepsy, or whatever's wrong with me. No more dreams."

Kieran sounds almost regretful at the thought of changing his condition. I tilt my head to rub my cheek along his hair. "You wouldn't want to be cured? Or treated or whatever?"

"Only falling asleep when I really want to would be nice. Then again, I've never had any other life, so thinking about not being the way I am is weird. Like, waking up in the morning and going to bed at night and not having to sleep at some point during the day is a totally foreign concept."

His non-answer answer makes me keep pushing the topic, even though I'm not sure I want to find out his decision. "So if you definitely could, like for real, stop the...stop everything for good, you don't think you would?"

Kieran doesn't say anything, obviously thinking through the possibilities. "The sleep disorder? As much as I can't imagine living without it, I'd figure out how to deal. I think I'd totally end that insanity in a minute." My silence speaks for me, and he responds with "But that's not all you meant, right?"

As if we both sense the conversation has come to some kind of important crossroads, we shift and sit up so we can look at each other directly. "Would you stop the dreams, Kieran?" I whisper. "Knowing what you know now?"

I may have no idea how I want him to answer my questions, but I can't un-ask them. They're floating in the night air between us, drifting in the shadows, waiting for him to shed some light.

"I don't know," is the response he gives me, which may be the best of all possibilities, mostly because the answer's not final and keeps us both in the comforting darkness we've grown used to. "It's scary," he goes on. "Knowing I could get a flash of something I don't want to see, and realizing I don't know enough to stop it? I'd turn that off in a second. But I dream about so many good things, though. The little moments I remember seeing before...when I finally get some context for those moments, I can't describe the feeling." Even though he's turned toward me now rather than sitting up against me, Kieran's still holding my hand. He gazes down at our fingers laced together and rubs his thumb along the delicate skin between my thumb and forefinger. "I mean, I think about seeing you before I met you, and getting to meet you later in real life. I can't even explain what that's like, dreaming about someone and wondering who she is, wishing she'd show up and hoping that she's a cool person. So to actually meet her...you...and find out you're even more amazing than I ever could have thought...these aren't the kinds of things I'd want to give up."

Swallowing hard, I raise a hand to his face, fingers fanning out across his cheek. "Sometimes I wish I'd seen you coming," I whisper.

Kieran lifts his eyes. "So you could've run away screaming?"

"So...so I could've been prepared. So I wouldn't be fumbling my way through this whole thing."

"And so you'd have some idea of what you're supposed to do next?" he asks, unblinking.

"So I'd be sure what you're going to think about what I do next after I do it," I say, confidence coming from a reserve inside me that only opens up when I need to react quickly, like when four seconds are left in the game and we're down by one, and I have to decide whether I can successfully drive the lane for two or whether I should dish the ball to the wing for one of my teammates to take a shot.

In this particular case, I drive the lane. I slide my hand around from his cheek to the back of his head and pull him to me. His hands weave into my hair, and I shut out every nagging doubt threatening this moment, such as whether or not my hands are in the right place or if I'm the World's Worst Kisser. My anxiety fades to static waves bumping up against an invisible force field, just like I'm at the free throw line in a game. When the ball's in my hand, I shut out the crowd and ignore my teammates jockeying for position against the opposing players along the lane. I don't even remember the score when I'm in that moment. It's only the ball, the basket, and me. And right now, it's only Kieran and me—and a half-formed bear I'm trying to forget is watching over us. I refocus on the sensation of Kieran's lips on mine, and all thoughts of the bear, of everything but the physical impulses of what we're doing, fade away. My hand travels to Kieran's chest and clutches at his t-shirt, feeling his heart beating beneath the cotton. He pulls a whisper away from me, and my eyes angle downward to glimpse his mouth widening to a smile.

She shoots. And she scores.

#  Chapter 14

"I was hoping we were going to get around to that tonight," he murmurs. I respond by kissing him again, hard, but we don't last as long this time.

"I'm a little..." Kieran breathes when we part.

"Lightheaded?" I wheeze, because I'm definitely dizzy right now.

He runs an index finger along my lower lip. "Yeah, and kind of sleepy. Sorry."

"No...it's okay," I tell him, caressing his cheek. He leans back against the wall, and I willingly follow, leaning in to rest my head on his chest as he gathers me in his arms.

"I've never kissed anyone before," he admits before brushing his lips across my forehead as if he's trying to make up for his lack of experience. So I chime in with "Me, neither. Not successfully, I mean."

"Successfully?"

I think back to poor, stupid Billy McCaffery collapsing in pain in Cassie's basement almost four years ago. "Let's just say I got ambushed once," I explain. "I ended up kneeing the guy in the junk."

Kieran flinches, which brings the bonus of him holding me tighter. "Remind me never to surprise you with a kiss."

"You can surprise me any time you want." I snuggle into him, a question burning a hole in me. "Hey, Kieran?"

"Mmmm?"

"Did you...did you dream this?"

"Kissing you?"

"Yeah."

"You mean before or after we met?"

I smile. "Both."

"Well, after we met, I dreamed about kissing you all the time. Like, daily, pretty much."

"And before?" I ask.

"Okay—you're going to laugh," he says. "I did kind of get this flash of us here, although no kissing. Guess what I did dream about, though?" He pauses for a beat before answering his own question. "That stupid bear. Not even kidding."

Of course, I start giggling as soon as he mentions the bear. He starts laughing, too, but not for long, as his head grows heavy on mine, but not so much that I'm uncomfortable. To make sure I don't fall asleep as well and we don't end up out here all night, I keep myself awake by listening to his heartbeat before shaking him back to me after a few minutes.

"What? Okay—I'm up," he says, lowering his head and lifting my chin to kiss me.

"You know," I begin when his lips leave mine, "As much as I'd like to stay out here with you forever, I don't think it's an option."

"Which totally sucks."

"Yeah, but if my grandparents find us, I'm not sure you'll want to explain what you've been doing out here alone with their granddaughter."

"Good point," he says. "Anyway, it's still our birthday. We've got a few hours left in the day nobody's managed to ruin for us yet, so we should probably get on that."

"True."

"And while the idea of going to my house doesn't exactly thrill me right now, your birthday present's there. I'd kind of like to give it to you while it's still officially our birthday."

"I left your present at your house, too. So if you want the Range Rover I parked in the driveway with a big red bow, we'll need to go back to your house in this lifetime."

He snorts at my mention of buying him a Range Rover and says "I guess you also bought me a driver to go along with the Range Rover?"

"You already have a driver," I point out, squirming in his arms so I can sit up. "Kayla."

Kieran's mouth twists to a frown at the mention of his sister, but I start defending her before he can say anything. "Look—you said you sort of understand why your parents and Kayla did what they did. Your parents sat her down when she was eleven and told her everything you found out tonight, and then told her she couldn't talk about stuff with you or anyone else. Think about how you're reacting right now, and you're eighteen. She was eleven. That's a lot to lay on a kid, at any age."

"I know," he says, sighing. "I'm so sick of being protected all the time, though. And I get how they think they kept those secrets for my own good, but I wish they'd told me when they told her and gotten everything out in the open years ago. If they thought Kayla could handle knowing, then why couldn't they tell me?"

"I can't speak for your parents," I tell him. "All I know is the one person you shouldn't be mad at right now is Kayla. Be mad at your parents, and be mad at your real parents, but don't be mad at her." I don't want to, but I wriggle out of his arms and stand up, turning to reach my hands down to pull him up. "So get over being a jerk to your sister and let's go back to your house and try out your new Range Rover."

He pops up in front of me, his hands in mine, but when I turn toward the door, he tugs me back. "Wait a minute, okay?"

"Yeah?"

"So," he starts, looking at the floor. "there's this Prom thing all the kids at school are worked up about."

"That's the rumor."

"Well, I was wondering...and, I mean, I've never been to a dance before, and I kind of don't know how to dance, even, and I'll probably end up passing out on you half the time anyway—"

Raising my eyebrows at him, I try not to smile from ear to ear but I can tell I'm failing. "You're doing an amazing job of selling yourself, Kieran."

"Thanks." He smiles back. "I've never asked anybody out, so I'm probably screwing this up royally."

"Well, I've never been asked out before, so you can screw up all you want and I won't know the difference."

His head jerks back slightly. "I have a hard time believing no one's ever asked you out."

"I'm everybody's friend." I shrug. "I've known every guy in this town since about birth, so I either think they're disgusting or they're like brothers to me, and some guys probably kind of forget I'm a girl anyway because of the sports stuff. So I've never been asked out on a date date before. I've just always kind of gone out with guys in big groups and stuff."

"Their loss. Anyone who doesn't realize you're a girl is totally missing out."

I laugh. "Thanks."

"No problem. But, anyway, what I'm trying to say is..." He pauses again and squints at me, pretending to be confused, but his grin gives him away. "Should I be down on one knee or something? I have no idea how this is supposed to work."

"I think the down-on-one-knee stuff comes later," I say with a straight face. "Like, way way later."

"I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, what I'm fumbling around about here is that I really want to take you to Prom, if you'll go with me."

I lean in and wrap my arms around his neck, answering his question with a kiss.

"So, that's a yes?" he breathes when I pull away and rub my nose against his.

"I'll think about it and get back to you."

"You're killing me, you know?" he says, holding me to him.

Raising my lips to his ear, I whisper "That's a yes."

He kisses me quickly and smoothes some hair off my forehead, his smile so full-wattage it could almost power the shed.

"You realize this means I'll be wearing a dress, right?" I warn, as if I need to tamp down his enthusiasm.

"I can't wait to see how amazing you look in a dress."

"Prepare to be disappointed."

Kieran sighs. "We can wear matching tuxedos to Prom and I won't care. I just want to be with you." He lowers his mouth to mine once again, and I press my body against his, half-waiting for him to go slack and collapse with sleep, half-waiting for me to go slack and collapse because my heart's exploded. Thankfully, neither scenario comes true.

He pulls away after what seems like a minute and an eternity all at the same time. "Okay, we really need to get out of here," he whispers. "Or I refuse to be held responsible for what might happen next."

"Me, too." I smile, fighting the urge to kiss him again by heading for the door. "You okay?" I ask, noticing his worn-out look when the porch light hits him.

"Yeah. Little tired, I guess. I think I can get back to the house, though."

"Well, tell me if you need to sit down or something, okay?"

Kieran nods and we step out onto my grandparents' lawn. As I shut the door behind us, I hear a swishing noise, like something—or someone—moving in the low grass. "What was that?" Kieran asks.

I survey the immediate area. "No clue, but I definitely heard something."

Other than the light over my grandparents' back door, their house is dark. Taking Kieran's hand, I lead him around to the back of the shed, but we find nothing but the scrubby grass extending through the darkness and meeting the tree line a few yards away. "Just the wind, I guess," I say, shrugging.

"Yeah. We're both probably a little paranoid after everything those people masquerading as my parents laid on us tonight."

Part of me wants to tell Kieran to ease up on Jim and Carlie, but I figure he's had enough to deal with tonight without me trying to plead their case. So I take one last look into the dark before turning us around to head back to the Laniers' hand in hand, stopping every once in a while so Kieran can rest or so we can get in a few more kisses before we're no longer alone. Eventually, the dirt path between my house and his gives way to his driveway, and we stop to take in the light coming from every window in the house in front of us.

"Guess they waited up," Kieran grumbles as I check the time on my phone.

"Still pretty early," I report, realizing I forgot to text Kayla on the way like I said I would, my brain a little kiss-scrambled right now.

"Can you stay a while?" he asks. "I'm not sure I'm ready to spend quality time with them alone yet."

I squeeze his hand. "Of course. I'll stay as long as you need me."

He smiles and leans into me, his lips brushing across my forehead and down to my eyelids before ending their travels at my ear. "Then you might not be going home tonight," he whispers. "Or ever."

#  Chapter 15

I do eventually leave Kieran's house with my birthday presents—a copy of The Portable Dorothy Parker from Kayla and a silver charm bracelet from Kieran. Back home after Kayla drops me off, I fall asleep with the bracelet still on my left wrist, my thumb rubbing across the flower-shaped beads with my birthstone in the center spaced evenly amongst the plain round beads, the pattern only broken up by one bead with a "Z" etched on its surface and by a silver dangle with a tiny basketball at the end. Sometime in the night, I start dreaming of the sunbursts Kieran always draws, only my sunbursts are a brilliant orange outlined in black instead of the pure black they are when doodled with Kieran's pens. When I wake up, I type out the details in the same file on my laptop as the other dream I recorded yesterday morning, a little disappointed I didn't dream about Kieran and me kissing in the art studio. But I guess we don't control our dreams.

My dreams Friday night don't mean much, but Saturday night, after coming home from my rescheduled movie outing with Kieran, Kayla, and Brad Wallace, I fall asleep once again twirling the beads on my wrist, but this time, I dream about Prom. During study breaks on Sunday, I read and re-read the dream description on my computer, looking for clues, trying to force my brain to remember something else with more meaning than the words already on the screen:

My head on Kieran's shoulder as we dance. Some slow song I don't recognize. White Christmas lights hang from the gym ceiling like a canopy and lit-up clouds line the gym walls. Other couples dance in front of us. The room is a swirl of colors—all the girls' dresses. Everything goes black.

Everything goes black—I remember waking up and feeling vaguely creeped out, but beyond the fact that my description suggests I suddenly stopped seeing the lights and the colors as if someone dropped a curtain in front of my eyes, I have no idea why the dream scares me so much.

And if there's one thing I don't want to be freaking out about with a little over a month to go, it's Prom. I walk into school Monday morning and am instantly greeted by a large banner hanging over the gym doors, giant sparkly blue bubble letters telling me Prom tickets will start going on sale Friday. If I'm remembering correctly from previous years how this works, we'll have three weeks of signs around school reminding us to buy our tickets, accompanied by more signs encouraging us to sign up for the parent-chaperoned After-Party at the Stanley Farm, followed by a week during which only the Prom committee is allowed in the gym for decorating purposes. From now until the first Saturday in May, Titusville Senior High will be all-Prom, all the time, the mania only broken up by boring classes. As a freshman and sophomore, I considered the month of April to be the seventh level of hell because I was so not interested in the whole thing, but there it was in your face every day. Now, as a junior with a real live date and a disturbing dream about the event hidden at home on my computer, I don't know what to think.

"In Your Dreams," Cassie spits from behind me, reading the Prom theme off the banner. "Sooo lame. How do you even decorate that?"

I'd forgotten Cassie was on the Prom Committee, something she also tried to drag me into until I mentioned I'd rather file my fingernails off with a cheese grater than sit around after school discussing themes and color schemes. Judging by her attitude, In Your Dreams wasn't anywhere near the top of her list of ideas for the evening.

"How to decorate dreams," I muse aloud, as we start walking up the stairs to our lockers. "I'm picturing lots of those kind of white Christmas lights all over the place—on the ceiling, the walls..."

"Sure you don't want to join the Prom Committee?" Cass elbows me. "There's still time."

"No, thanks."

I retreat into my head for a minute and think about my dream as the hallway noise of conversation and slamming locker doors vibrates around me. What did I just do here? Did I change the future? Or did I report a future that's going to happen anyway? Is the Prom Committee going to choose white Christmas lights now because I made a suggestion to Cassie, and she'll take the idea to them? Would they choose white Christmas lights anyway, even if I hadn't said anything?

In Your Dreams. No kidding. Three months ago, I don't think I'd ever thought about whether or not I believed in fate or wondered if dreams could determine the future, and now I'm questioning whether or not I can influence the Prom Committee's free will?

Cassie pulls me back to the present moment only to confuse me even more. "Well, at least you're going to Prom," she says.

"Wait—how do you know?" I ask, wondering now if everyone in Titusville is seeing the future.

"You and Kieran were out with Kayla and Brad Saturday night, right? Well, Brad told Ben O'Leary Kieran had asked you, and Ben, I'm assuming you don't know because you never pay attention to anything, is dating Stephanie."

I fill in the rest of the gossip chain for myself. "Stephanie" must be Stephanie Hull, Cody and Candace Hull's little sister. Two weeks ago, Cody asked Cassie out and they're going to Prom together, which marks their fourth try at a relationship since eighth grade.

"About time he asked, too," Cassie huffs. "I didn't think you two were ever going to get past whatever ancient courtship rituals you were engaging in. Please tell me he's at least kissed you by now."

"I kissed him, thank you very much."

Cassie pushes out her lower lip and nods slowly. "I stand corrected, Zip McKee. And it looks like you've already got him trained to wait for you at your locker, so kudos on that."

My eyes shift a few feet ahead of me to see Kieran leaning up against my locker, hands in his front jeans pockets and eyes on the floor. "I'll let you have some alone time with your lover boy before class," Cassie teases before walking up the hall to her own locker, her comment thankfully lost to Kieran in all the noise.

"Hey," I greet him, sliding my backpack off my shoulder and to the ground at my feet. He stands up from the metal door so I can start fumbling my way through my combination.

"Hey, yourself," he says back, moving behind me. He slides his arms around my waist and kisses my neck near my ponytail holder, prompting an almost immediate tap on the shoulder from Mr. Berringer, a Spanish teacher whose unfortunate task this morning is patrolling the junior hallway to prevent any misbehavior—fights, phone usage, and, in our case, hormonal teenagers behaving like hormonal teenagers.

"Hands, Mr. Lanier," Berringer scolds.

Kieran peels himself off me and slams up against the locker next to mine, arms outstretched and hands raised as if he's ready to be frisked by the cops. Berringer grimaces and moves down the hall.

"High school is kind of lame sometimes," Kieran groans, turning towards me. "All I want to do is give my girlfriend the 'Good Morning' she deserves, and they act like it's a crime."

The word "girlfriend" lingers in my ears on this, the first time I've ever heard those words in reference to me. I almost have to convince myself I'm Kieran's girlfriend and he isn't talking about someone else, it seems so bizarre.

"High school is lame all the time," I counter, grabbing books for the morning classes I don't already have in my backpack. "And you can give me all the 'Good Morning' you want after school, by the way." I raise my eyebrow, and he reaches out to grab my hand, risking another warning from Berringer. "Or after detention," I point out, standing on my tip toes to catch the back of Berringer's head still moving in the other direction over the sea of our classmates. "Because we're both headed there if you don't cut it out."

Kieran pouts and drops my hand. "Okay, okay. Anyway, I need to ask you something."

"Yeah?"

"Can we go to the library for a while after school instead of the Diner?"

"Sure. Something you need to work on?"

The warning bell rings before he can answer, and after he glances around to make sure Berringer isn't patrolling the general vicinity, he gives me a quick kiss and we cross the hall to English. After enduring another Think-Pair-Share set-up, Kieran and I are free to pretend to talk about The Natural, a book we've both already read, while we really talk about why he wants to go to the library.

"I think I want to find out about my real parents," he tells me. "You know—look up old newspaper articles online, try to find some pictures."

"You're sure?" I ask.

"Not completely. By this afternoon, I'll probably have changed my mind again. But all that information's out there and I have to look—too tempting not to. I'd do my research at home, but I don't trust my not-parents won't go looking through the computer." He sits back in his chair and stares out the window, his hands gripping the edge of his seat. "Maybe this doesn't make any sense, but they're not real until I actually see them, you know? Even Morgan Levert. I've seen him in my dreams, but I want to find out what he looked like back then." Kieran pauses, eyes still on the gray day outside, the white clouds rolling across the sky as if they're moving out so the darker rain clouds can settle in. "And I want to see my mother—Jenna. I can't help it."

"I don't blame you," I say, knowing if I'd learned I'd never meet my real mother in person, I'd want to go looking for pictures of her, too.

"So, you in?" he asks.

"Of course," I agree, slipping a foot out of one of my sports slides and rubbing my toe along his ankle underneath the cuff of his jeans. He flashes a grin, and so I don't stop. "So what parallels did you find in the reading to mythological sources?" Mrs. Harvey asks as she comes up next to us. I jam my foot back into my sport slide to avoid detention, while Kieran dazzles Mrs. Harvey by outlining some relationships of themes in the novel to Arthurian legend.

English class and the rest of the day drag on the way they always do this time of year, when you know the light at the end of the tunnel is the freedom of summer vacation, but the light's still far enough away to be only a pin-prick against the darkness. After my seventh period Music Appreciation class, I check my backpack to make sure I have everything I need to take home with me. Once I'm satisfied all the necessary materials to complete my homework for tomorrow are present and accounted for, I decide to skip a last trip upstairs to my locker and head straight to the library on the first floor at the rear of the building.

Titusville isn't big enough to support a municipal library, so the five people who actually read in this town either go to Sumner to check out or buy books, or they use the bookmobile the Sumner Public Library sends out around the county every two weeks. The high school library stays open for students until four on weekdays during the school year to accommodate any work students might need to do, so Kieran and I have plenty of time to research his real parents and get downtown to the Diner before my mom's store closes.

Kieran reaches the library doors seconds after I do, apparently not having changed his mind about searching for information. "Ready?" he asks, holding the door open for me.

"Yup."

Lucky for us, unless a big project's due in some class, most Titusville students avoid the library like it's a communicable disease, so we don't have to fight anyone to use the computers. Reading each other's minds, we walk without speaking to the computer furthest away from the circulation desk, where Mrs. Bochine clacks away at her keyboard, barely noticing us as we pass by. After we sit down, Kieran gathers my face in his hands and levels a kiss so crushing I'm afraid he might suck all the air out of my lungs. "God, I've wanted to do that all day," he whispers in my ear as we hold each other, our bodies twisted into unnatural positions since we're sitting side by side. Over his shoulder, I can just barely make out Mrs. Bochine's hands at her computer, most of her blocked from our view by the row of books that hopefully shields us from her eyes.

"No kidding," I gasp, abandoning all caution and kissing him again, my hand traveling to his knee where I hear the faint scraping of my charm bracelet against his jeans.

Cassie, and sometimes Lauren and Ashley, too, have described to me what I'm finally getting to experience with Kieran, the constant gnawing in the pit of my stomach, the painful yet pleasant ache telling me no matter how many hours—days, even—I could spend kissing him, they'll never be enough. There will always be want, overtaking me when my mind wanders off during a boring explanation of the subjunctive in French class, burning through me at night when I can't be with him. I never believed them before, thought they were going on about another one of those dumb girl things that don't seem to be a part of my world for some reason, like picking out the perfect eye shadow to go with that new sweater or finding the right shoes to match that purse. But now, with Kieran's tongue circling mine, I'm convinced I'm experiencing normal, natural, and kind of scary urges, feeling biology do what biology does instead of just reading about it in a textbook and looking at a bunch of diagrams. And biology's telling me what I want to do right now is drag Kieran to the back of the library so I can push him up against a wall and do the kinds of things I've only seen people do in movies, things I wouldn't know how to do in real life without making a total ass of myself.

As much as I want to surrender to biological imperative right here in the library, some part of my brain reminds me of the real reason I'm sitting at this computer terminal, and so I pull away from Kieran ever so slightly, my tongue running along his bottom lip because I don't want to separate completely.

"What were we doing here again?" he breathes, his words practically inside my mouth.

"Research," I whisper back.

Kieran sighs and takes his hands from my face, placing them on the keyboard. I sit up straight next to him, still risking a potential adult reprimand by brushing my fingertips lightly down his inner thigh, my hand coming to rest on his knee. He closes his eyes for a second as my hand moves, shaking his head quickly as he tries to focus.

"Okay," he starts, wiggling the computer mouse. The psychedelic swirls of the screen saver disappear, revealing the school's homepage. Kieran types a search engine address into the location bar, and we're off. Sort of. He drops his hands from the keyboard to his lap, his left hand sliding over my hand on his knee.

"Change your mind?" I ask.

"No. I...I mean, should I just type his name into a search and see what comes up? Start with New York newspapers?"

Sensing his confusion is probably stemming from fear more than anything, I slide the keyboard over in front of me and type "Morgan Levert" into the space with the flashing cursor. "It's not a common name," I tell him. "I think we have a good chance of finding what we're looking for if we go broad and then narrow from there."

I stab the "enter" key to find I'm right—the first four web links that pop up appear, based on the headlines, to be about the Morgan Levert we're looking for. Kieran moves the mouse to click the first link, bringing up a scanned newspaper article with the headline "Guilty Verdict in Washington Heights Robbery." He slowly scrolls through the text, the words telling us little we don't already know. Next to the middle paragraph is a photo, but since we're looking at a scan of an old article, the photo is an even more grainy black and white than it would be on a fresh newspaper page. No matter how unclear the picture, the man standing behind the defense table awaiting his fate, flanked by two men in suits who I assume were his lawyers, is definitely Morgan Levert, only younger than Kieran drew him in his dream journals. This version has more hair, pulled back into a ponytail. A few strands have escaped to frame his stoic face, the locks appearing oily even in the dull flatness of a scanned photograph. And he doesn't have a goatee as he did in the journals, the lack of facial hair combined with his youth giving me an uneasy feeling.

I'm staring at a long-haired version of my boyfriend.

#  Chapter 16

"Wow," Kieran breathes, shaking his head as if he's trying to make the image in front of him go away.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Yeah. Just...it's weird, you know?"

I scroll past the photo so we can focus on the text without Morgan Levert staring at us.

"Says here he's twenty-two," Kieran notes, pointing at the text on the screen. "He was barely nineteen when I was born. Nineteen." He sits back and lets this bit of information sink in. "I can't imagine having a kid a year from now. I can't even take care of myself, much less a baby," he says.

"No kidding," I agree, before clarifying "I don't mean you specifically. I mean anyone who's young."

"I know. I'm kind of a walking special circumstance on most things. But, yeah, it would be pretty hard taking care of a kid as a normal nineteen-year old. My issues would just add an extra layer of suck to the proceedings. Of course, I can't imagine myself committing armed robbery at twenty, either. Or ever." Kieran adds, referencing Morgan's other big accomplishment from that time period. "What kind of messed up do you have to be to try to rob a liquor store when you have a kid to take care of?"

"Maybe they did it because they had a kid," I point out, laying blame on Jenna Bradley as well. "I mean, some people around here start having kids before they're ready and they can't find a job or don't have any skills to get one. They think they can score quick cash making meth, and they end up trashing their whole family in the process. From what your dad said, Morgan had been in and out of trouble for a while, so that kind of life was probably all he knew. I guess if he needed fast money to support you and your mom..."

I don't finish the sentence because I don't need to. Kieran leans forward again and scrolls through the rest of the article. "It just mentions Jenna was killed and Frank Dozier had already been convicted," he relates, although I'm reading along with him. He sits back in the chair once more, arms folded across his chest and a blank expression on his face, and I have to ask him "So, is it real now? Seeing him somewhere besides your journals?"

"Don't know," he says, shaking his head. "I thought it would be, but I guess it's not the same as if he were, like, right in front of me. I mean, you—I can't deny you're real. You're here. I can touch you." As if he needs to prove to me that he can, in fact, touch me, he turns and places a hand on my shoulder, pulling me to him for a brief kiss.

"Have I mentioned I'm pretty happy I'm here and you can touch me?" I say when we part.

"Makes two of us." He grins, but his expression quickly hardens again. "Hopefully, Morgan Levert will never be right in front of me where I can see him as a real, live, three-dimensional human being. So in some way, maybe he'll ever be truly real for me." Kieran turns back to the grainy photo on the screen. "I guess it's kind of interesting to find out what he looked like when he was younger, though. I mean, he's basically a grungier version of me."

"You're better looking," I offer. Kieran gives my knee a grateful squeeze as he grabs the mouse. He clicks back to the search results and scrolls down to an article entitled "Search for Robbery Suspect Continues," which informs us that the police were still searching for Morgan after the robbery, although they had solid leads as to his whereabouts. This article makes reference to Frank Dozier cooperating with police in the search, and notes Jenna Bradley was killed when she fired on police from inside the store. My eye hits upon the sentence "Levert and Bradley's minor child was removed from the home and placed in foster care until other relatives can be located," and I point it out to him. "Yeah. Just read that," he says. His eyes blink at the computer screen, his mouth pressed into a tight line.

I can't tell what he's thinking, and so I flat out ask Levert and Bradley's no longer minor child "So, what's it like, reading about yourself in a New York newspaper?"

"Surreal," is his simple answer. I wait for him to add something else, but he doesn't, instead using the mouse to draw lazy circles with the on-screen arrow over his father's mug shot—from some teenage crime, I guess. While a minute ago I'd told Kieran he was better looking than his father to make him feel better and because to me, he's more beautiful than anyone on the planet, studying Morgan's face in close-up tells me that objectively, Kieran is definitely the handsomer of the two. In this photo, Morgan wears the vacant stare I've seen on the faces of tweakers wandering around the convenience stores out near the interstate when I've stopped to get gas. It's a hollow-eyed, "I've been up for three days and I want to lie down here in the junk food aisle and go to sleep" face, complete with disheveled hair—no ponytail this time—and chapped lips. Even though he's a young man in this mug shot, Morgan's face shows lines and crevices suggesting someone much older, someone who's seen and done things people probably shouldn't have seen and done at his age.

Kieran tires of staring at his father and clicks back to the search results. He pulls up two articles in a row relating the details of the robbery with no pictures, and finds a third story featuring a photo of the liquor store, but none of the criminals themselves. All of the other articles we find about Morgan's trial and conviction only have pictures of Morgan, and when we go back to the list of articles, the linked headlines and their accompanying summaries reference Frank Dozier, but not Jenna Bradley.

"We might not find any pictures of your mother," I point out. "Considering all we've seen of your dad so far are court pictures and mug shots, maybe that's a good thing."

"I don't remember my not-dad saying anything about her being arrested before, either," he adds, clicking on a link titled "Arrest Made in Attempted Armed Robbery." Before we start reading, Kieran leans forward, head in his hands. "Tired?" I ask.

"A little."

"Go ahead and rest," I tell him. "I'll keep reading. If I find anything interesting, I'll wake you up."

Kieran gives in, bending his right arm at the elbow and lowering his head to his forearm. I rub his back for a few seconds before returning my hand to the mouse so I can scroll through the article about Frank Dozier's arrest. Again, I don't uncover anything new. I do learn, however, that Frank Dozier was nineteen at the time of the robbery, and once I've scrolled to the end of the article, I'm treated to a black and white mug shot, the caption telling me I'm staring at Frank Dozier.

Only his shoulders on up are visible, but Frank appears tall and stocky, very little of the wall he's been photographed against showing behind him. His eyes aren't much more than slits, the skin underneath and around his eyelids seeming almost swollen. Frank's a teenager in the shot, but he's already balding, his hair buzzed close to his scalp, the stubble indicating a hairline high on his forehead.

Leaning in closer to the computer, I study Frank Dozier's photo, squinting at his hairline, the shape of his face, his sunken, narrow eyes, all of which look vaguely familiar. Once the recognition of whom I'm staring at sets in, I fall back against the chair as if he had just reached out from the screen and punched me in the face.

"Oh, God," I wheeze, my hand on Kieran's shoulder, shaking him awake. "Kieran, wake up. Wake up. You won't believe this."

Kieran raises his head and glances back at me. I point at the computer screen, and he sits up in the plastic chair, blinking. "What am I looking at here?"

"Frank Dozier," I tell him.

I wait an eternity of seconds for him to put the puzzle pieces together. Just as I did, he leans closer to the screen and squints at the photo. I watch Kieran's expression as he focuses on Frank, staring, staring, his eyes gradually widening, his face registering all the shock I was—am—feeling.

"Are you kidding me?" he whispers, turning away from the computer screen to look at me, his expression wild. "He's been here this whole time?"

And that's when I know for sure he's realized what I have—Frank Dozier's the burly guy who waits on us every weekday at the Downtown Diner.

#  Chapter 17

The library's stifling, as if someone's cranked up the thermostat since we first walked in. "Is it hot in here all of a sudden?" I ask Kieran, who hasn't stopped gawking at Frank Dozier's younger self.

"It's a little warm," he agrees without looking at me.

I lean forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on my fists, joining him in this imaginary staring contest with Frank Dozier. "What do we do now?" I whisper. "I mean, he's here."

Kieran's gaze darts around the area we can see from where we're sitting, almost as if he expects Frank Dozier's lurking in the Titusville library, waiting to jump out and do...whatever...which leads me to ask, "Wait—isn't he supposed to be in jail?"

"Maybe he got paroled?" Kieran suggests, voice unsteady. "Time off for good behavior?"

I shrug, because this is all so weird anything's possible at this point. "Maybe. But at any rate, what are we supposed to do? And do you think Morgan Levert's hiding out here somewhere, too?" I glance around the library just as Kieran had a minute ago. Both Morgan and Frank might as well be in the room right now, I feel so trapped by them already, but Kieran shakes his head with confidence that Morgan, at least, isn't in our general vicinity. "As far as he knows, we're still in North Carolina."

"Well, apparently Frank Dozier knows you're in Illinois." I jab my finger into the table for emphasis. "It can't be some random coincidence he's working at a diner in the town your family happened to move to three months ago." Kieran doesn't say anything, and so I keep pressing. "What should we do? Tell your dad?"

"I don't know," he murmurs.

"We'll need to come up with some excuse for why we're not at the Diner," I say, piling on. "My mom's meeting us there like always. I can text her that we're coming to pick her up from somewhere else, but she'll ask why we didn't go to the Diner after school."

Kieran shifts his attention back to our nemesis on the computer screen, the man who until a few minutes ago was nothing more than some guy at the Diner who served us cheese fries and drinks five times a week. Kieran clasps my hand in both of his and his jaw sets, eyes glowing ice blue with an intensity I've never seen before. "I think we should go to the Diner anyway. Pretend today's a normal day."

My mouth drops open. "Okay—I think we just left normal in the rear-view mirror," I point out, but Kieran squeezes my hand, as if trying to transfer some of his confidence to me.

"He doesn't know that, though. He has no reason to think we wouldn't be there today. We've spent the last six weeks practically ignoring this guy. Now that you know who he is, don't you want to observe him a little, figure out what his deal is?"

"Not if his deal is that he wants to hurt you," I insist.

"Well, first of all, we have no idea if he wants to hurt me. Second, what can he do to me in a public place? Think about it—we're probably safer at the Diner right in front of him than we are anyplace else."

Kieran has a point. At the Diner, Frank could do little to nothing to us without raising suspicions.

"Okay," I say, giving in. "I guess I do kind of want to watch him a little bit now that we know who he is. But then we've got to come up with some kind of a plan for what we should do, okay?"

Nodding, Kieran stands up and I rise with him. He takes a second to lean down to the mouse and close out of our web search before we leave, Mrs. Bochine barely looking up from her computer as we pass by the front desk. Once we're out in the parking lot, the sky unleashes a downpour, forcing us to sprint to my car parked by the football field, the two of us shrieking and laughing the whole way in a much-needed break from the tension of the library. As I start the car and turn on the wipers, Kieran smoothes strands of wet hair behind my ears, the sensation of his fingertips grazing my skin stirring the ache in my stomach. I can't help but think how any other couple at this school with more than an hour of unsupervised time on their hands would be driving out to the Buckley plant right now, but here we are, heading straight into the path of a convict.

I shake off whatever I'd much rather be doing to Kieran and focus on the mission at hand, which is getting us to the Diner. It takes mere minutes for us to drive from school to River Avenue, the six-block stretch of stores and churches that make up downtown Titusville. I pull into a parking space to the left of the Diner's main entrance and at this angle, all we can see through the Diner's plate glass window is the dull glare of clouds and rain reflected back at us rather than getting a good view of anyone inside. After I turn the car off, we get out and huddle together against the drizzle in the few steps we have to take to reach the Diner, and once inside, we slide into our familiar booth near the door, Frank Dozier immediately walking up to the table as he does every day.

"The usual?" he grunts.

"Yeah," is all Kieran gets out before Frank turns and walks back to the kitchen to put in our order. Observing him here in the flesh, although older and more shiny bald than his newspaper photo, confirms what we already know. "It's definitely him," Kieran mutters, voice low enough only I would hear him.

As we have on every other day we've been here together, we start pulling textbooks and notebooks from our respective backpacks, but I'm guessing neither of us will get much studying done. We both concentrate on the swinging double doors leading back to the kitchen, not talking to each other or joking around as we normally would. The second Frank reemerges to fill our drinks at the fountain next to the cash register, we drop our eyes to our books as if someone's just shined a spotlight out from the kitchen and we need to shift our gaze or risk going blind. I stare at some paragraph in my history textbook, the printed words blurring together on the page and creating a haze of black and white nonsense blending perfectly with noise from the soda fountain, the whir and gurgle of plastic cups pressed against levers and drinking up liquid. From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of navy blue tennis shoes approaching the table, followed by the lower half of a drink cup next to the edge of my book seconds later. I fold and unfold my hands in my lap, but find myself otherwise paralyzed, afraid if I twitch too much or make a sudden motion, some kind of hell will rain down on Kieran and me.

"Thanks," Kieran says for both of us, and I can tell from his voice he's looking up at Frank Dozier.

"No problem."

"Hey—got a minute?" Kieran's breezy, "Dude—what's up?" tone prompts me to raise my head. Frank's already turned back toward the kitchen, but he stops, twisting to the table at Kieran's question.

"Whattaya need?"

"Well...it's...we hang out here almost every day, and I feel bad we've never asked you your name before."

I want to kick Kieran or shoot him the kind of teeth-gnashing, eyes flashing Oh-My-God-What-Are-You-Doing expression I'd usually reserve for my mother when she's going out of her way to embarrass me, but I'm afraid I'll give us away. So I plaster a smile on my face, stare up at Frank Dozier, and pretend to be interested in an answer I assume will be a lie.

"Danny," he rumbles, his voice a gruff baritone. "Danny Dubrow."

Kieran smiles and, drawing upon some reserve of cool inside him mixed with his usual charm, holds out his hand for "Danny" to shake. "Danny" wipes his palms on his apron before giving Kieran's hand a polite pump.

"I'm Kieran, and this is my girlfriend, Zip."

Rather than hold out my hand, I bob my head in a hello, trying to accept that the first time in my life I get introduced as someone's girlfriend is to a convicted felon who's lying about his identity. Lucky me.

"So, Danny," Kieran continues, completely unflappable. "I understand we have something in common."

Rather than dive over the table to clamp my hand over Kieran's mouth, which is what I really want to do right now, I keep my gaze focused on our new friend "Danny," waiting for any changes in his expression, any hints of shock or surprise, any indication his straight-line eyes might pop out from the flesh surrounding them.

And...nothing. Nothing but a frown, a normal facial expression for someone who's just heard a total stranger claim they have something in common. Since Kieran obviously can't admit that they both have a connection to Morgan Levert, I wonder what his next move is going to be in this game of chicken he's playing.

"Really," Frank says, tucking his fists into his long sleeves and folding his arms across his chest. "We got somethin' in common. What's that?"

Yes, Kieran, my eyes scream at him. What would that be, exactly?

"Well, we're both kind of new in town," Kieran calmly reveals. "Dewayne mentioned you moved here not too long ago."

"Yeah," Frank nods, giving no indication he thought Kieran was going to say something else.

Kieran keeps prodding. "So, where are you from? Dewayne didn't say."

Danny/Frank looks down at his apron. If he were anyone else, I'd think he's shy or maybe uncomfortable making small talk with the customers. Being who he is, however, his actions tell me he's buying time to come up with a good story.

"Around Chicago," he says at last. "Lost my job and my house, so I'm stayin' with some relatives 'til I can get back on my feet."

I concentrate on the sound of Frank's voice as he utters the longest string of words he's said in the weeks he's been working here. He's definitely not from Titusville, because he's got some thick accent I can't place, although I'm pretty sure it's not the flat, kind of "I've got something stuck in my nose," accent I've heard from some native Chicagoans when I go to visit my dad.

"Times are tough." Kieran tries to sympathize with Frank's fake drama, while I finally work up the nerve to contribute to the conversation.

"Where around Chicago are you from?" I ask.

Frank's expression shifts just enough for me to tell I've nailed him. His eyes grow to what on anyone else would be normal size, and he clears his throat several times as if he's trying to stall so he can think of the name of a neighborhood or a suburb. In the lull, I roll my eyes toward Kieran, who maintains the pleasant expression he's held since we first started talking to Frank.

"Oh, ya know—the city," Frank responds at last, probably thinking he's dodged a bullet before I take another shot at him.

"Really? What part? My dad grew up in Chicago, so I know a lot of the neighborhoods," I explain, all curious innocence. My dad's originally from Lincoln Park, but I'm guessing Frank Dozier's never heard of it.

"Um...North side," Frank answers after taking a little too long to think. "Near Wrigley Field."

I almost want to congratulate him on the safe response, something anyone could've learned from watching a few Chicago Cubs games. An evil impulse tempts me to push him for a street name, but I hold back, remembering what's going on here isn't playtime.

"I should check on those fries," he tells us. "Nice talkin' to ya, though."

"You, too," Kieran calls after him as Frank motors away toward the kitchen. As I stare at him, Kieran lifts his caffeine-free soda to take a drink, swallows, and sets the cup back down before he starts paging through his algebra book as if we'd just had a pleasant conversation with a new acquaintance, which on some level, I guess we kind of did.

"You any good at factoring?" he asks me.

#  Chapter 18

Sitting back in the booth, I shake my head at him, my mouth open in amazement. "Kieran Lanier, you are so my hero right now. I was totally about to pee myself and you were, like, Zen Master of the Universe or something."

"Not really. I almost lost it a few times there. And you were pretty smooth yourself."

I lean forward so I can whisper to him. "And our new friend 'Danny' isn't from anywhere near Wrigley Field. If he tried to blend in, he'd get run out of the park for being a Mets or a Yankees fan as soon as he opened his mouth."

"Which means what, exactly?"

"It means you need to start watching more sports." I roll my eyes. "And it means Danny Boy's definitely from New York."

"Knowledge that doesn't get us closer to finding out what he's doing here, does it?" Kieran's face falls, and a horrible thought occurs to me as I glance toward the kitchen. As if I've willed it to happen, Frank backs through the door and walks over to our table with a steaming plate of cheese fries he barely sets down before he rushes behind the counter, apparently not in the mood to be Mr. Friendly anymore.

"What if we tipped him off that we know who he is?" I whisper. "Something in his face...he knows I know he was lying about being from Chicago."

"Doesn't necessarily mean he'll think we know who he is. It just means we can tell he doesn't know anything about Chicago. I don't know much about Chicago, either, obviously, so that wouldn't be too unusual for someone who wasn't from around here."

I'm about to open my mouth and say something that ends up lost to history, because Frank/Danny reemerges from the kitchen, sliding behind Dewayne at the cash register before heading to the far end of the restaurant. And in the instant he scoots behind Dewayne, I think I catch him giving me A Look.

Frank shoots me what on his face would be considered a glare, his eyes narrowing until they're almost shut, his lips curled up into the kind of sneer I've seen guys at school get when they're itching to fight in the parking lot after a football game. The Look passes so quickly my eyes can't be sure they've seen what they've seen, but my heart beating in my throat confirms I probably have. I swallow my heart back down into my chest and don't tell Kieran, partially because I don't want to scare him with something I'm not one-hundred percent sure I've seen and partially because when I turn to him, I find he's pushed the plate of cheese fries over next to my soda and has his head down on his algebra book. He snoozes while I munch on fries and drink soda, staring out the plate glass at a couple window shopping in front of my mom's store. Behind the counter, Dewayne loses his footing slightly and drops a stack of plastic cups, their clatter against the tile near enough to us to wake Kieran up.

"Sorry, guys," Dewayne apologizes when he stands.

"No problem," Kieran says, just as Frank passes the table. "Need some help there, boss?" he offers, stopping next to Kieran, but Dewayne waves him off with a "Nah. I got it," and Frank heads back to the kitchen without once again making eye contact with me.

"Okay—now that we know he's here, we need to figure out what we're going to do," I say, keeping my voice down.

"You think we should tell my not-parents?"

"You have any other ideas?" I ask, ignoring his insistence on no longer claiming Jim and Carlie.

Kieran twists around to look at the kitchen doors, whipping back towards me when Frank steps out to fill a soda cup. Once Frank is at the other end of the restaurant again and out of earshot, Kieran gives his response: "No."

"No, what?" I blurt out, confused. "No, you don't have any other ideas or no, we shouldn't tell your parents?

Kieran sits back in the booth against the cracked orange Formica. "They'll just move us away somewhere. If we tell them, they won't think Titusville's safe anymore and we'll run." He shifts his eyes from me to watch a car passing by on River Avenue. "We left New York to start over after my adoption. We left Asheville because they were afraid Morgan had figured out where we were. If my not-parents find out anything at all, I'm gone."

"Things are different this time," I point out, my heart bounding into my throat again when he says I'm gone. "Now you're aware of everything. Before, you thought you were just moving to a new place, and, I guess you were probably too little to realize you were leaving New York..."

My voice fades away as I feel like I'm babbling, and Kieran shakes his head. "Exactly. Things are different this time. This time, I know what's up, and I'm not leaving. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life running when one of these guys figures out where I am. My whole life is already nothing but fear, Zip. Being afraid I might fall asleep at the wrong time. Being afraid I might accidentally hurt myself. Other people deciding what's best for me. I'm sick of being scared, and I'm sick of my life being determined by people who aren't me. I want to stay here and finish high school." He pauses, leaning in to take my hand from the edge of the history textbook so he can lace his fingers together with mine. "I want to stay here with you."

Flattered as I am, flattery will get him nowhere if he ends up kidnapped and forced into a life of crime or dragged off to a lab where mad doctors will probe his brain. Or something even worse. "Don't stay if you think you're going to get hurt," I whisper. "I don't want you to."

And there goes the grin that turns me inside out. "You wouldn't miss me a little?"

"I'd miss you a lot, but I'd rather miss you and know that you're out there somewhere and you're okay. Besides, I thought you told Jim and Carlie you were leaving after the school year was over." I smirk at him, knowing he probably wasn't serious about the threat Kayla told me he made on our birthday.

Kieran squeezes my hand while shoveling in some cheese fries. "I was pretty pissed off when I said that, but don't worry—you're not going to get the chance to miss me. I'm staying. I'm staying for you, and I'm staying for me. For once in my life, I'm going to do what I want."

"And what about our friend 'Danny'?" I ask. "What about Morgan Levert? What if he already knows you're here?"

Kieran lets go of me and wolfs down a few more fries as he considers my question. "Danny Boy's been around for six weeks and hasn't done anything yet. So if he and Morgan are going to come get me for some reason, then they can go ahead and try. I mean, what can we really do until they make a move, right? It's not like the cops are going to arrest someone for something they're just thinking about doing."

As much as I don't like what he's saying, I realize waiting is all we can do. Just like any good Boogey Man, Morgan Levert is still kind of an imaginary creature and will stay that way until he decides, if he decides, to show up. In the meantime, Kieran and I can make sure he's never alone and we'll keep an eye on the other Boogey Man we had no idea we were supposed to be afraid of.

But Danny/Frank makes sure we can't keep an eye on him. When we arrive at the Diner right after school the next day and assume our places in our favorite booth, Dewayne comes over to wait on us rather than Frank Dozier. "What can I get you guys?" he says, pulling a pencil from behind his ear and freeing a graying strand of dark hair from his ponytail as he does.

"Where's Danny?" Kieran asks.

"Didn't show. He was supposed to be here first thing this morning to help me open, and I never heard a word. Called the number he put on his application—out of service."

"Weird," I say to Dewayne, but my eyes are fixed on Kieran. His jaw clenches, and I can tell he's trying hard not to show too much emotion over the disappearance of the waiter we barely knew.

"Yeah. I even called out to the Dubrows' to check on him, you know, thinking maybe something was wrong," Dewayne continues, shaking his head. "Old Man Dubrow told me they ain't seen hide nor hair of Danny in years."

I'm surprised to learn a real Danny Dubrow exists—I guess Frank Dozier did his homework and assumed a legitimate identity instead of making one up.

"I never knew the Dubrows that well," I say, trying to keep my voice level and make normal small talk. "All the kids were a lot older than me, I think."

"Seems I remember a Danny Dubrow from around your mom's time." Dewayne nods. "Maybe a few years after. Thought that when I first hired him, but so many kids come in and out of here, gets hard to keep 'em all straight after all these years. Anyway, whoever he is, he's gone now. Screwed me pretty good, too. I'm doing everything around here today but cooking and dishes 'cause none of my other guys were able to come in on such short notice."

I glance over at Kieran once more, and he's rubbing his lips together, trying not to let his expression give anything away.

"So, what can I get you?" Dewayne asks again, because he doesn't have our order memorized. I ask for my usual diet soda and cheese fries, while Kieran squeaks out a request for a regular soda. Once Dewayne walks away, Kieran exhales as if he's been holding his breath for the last few minutes. "I guess we tipped Frank off like you thought," he says, and for the first time in my life, I wish I hadn't been right about something.

"Yeah. Now what?"

Kieran crosses his arms over his chest, shoulders hitching towards his ears. "Maybe he's gone. Maybe he figured we'd tell somebody he was here and he got out while he still could."

"Maybe."

Staring out the window at the second gray day in a row, I get a glimpse of my mother moving around inside her store, but at this distance, she's only a sort of blurry, colorful miniature. I wish I could tell her everything, ask her for advice, listen to her rattle off a few quips about my predicament that would make it seem less bizarre than it is, but I can't. I promised the Laniers the night of my birthday, after Kieran slipped the charm bracelet on my wrist, that I wouldn't get anyone else involved, not even my family, since we weren't sure what kind of threat we might be dealing with from Kieran's birth father. It's hurt, carrying this secret around with me, but then Mom goes into some meltdown over how we should do my hair and makeup for Prom, and she makes me forget for a while. But right now, nothing could force either Kieran or me to forget about Frank Dozier.

"So you think he might be hiding out here somewhere?" Kieran asks.

I wrack my brain, trying to come up with a place Frank might be if he's still in the area. "Hard to say. I mean, there's a couple of abandoned houses out by the Buckley plant, but I think the county cops check them a lot to keep the tweakers out. So he's camping somewhere, or he could've made friends with some meth heads and he's shacking up with them."

"Or he's really gone," Kieran says as he relaxes his shoulders, his voice full of hope and doubt all at the same time.

"I guess we should keep our guard up for a while until we're sure," I note, no idea what would count as being "sure," much less any idea as to what counts as "keeping our guard up." Looking out the plate glass window once more, I catch another glimpse of my mother—clearer this time, since she's working on a display in the store's front window. I study her as she arranges a lavender and aqua tie-dyed scarf around the neck of a blank-faced bald mannequin wearing a matching aqua sundress. Mom wouldn't be able to see me because I'm too far away and at this angle, my face would be half hidden by the edge of the window and the diner wall. But for some reason, just watching her, just knowing she's nearby, makes me feel better.

"I heard about this sleeping thing he has. Kid gets it a lot, don't he?"

I'm pulled out of my thoughts by Dewayne, who places my drink in front of me and sets Kieran's soda closer to the edge of the table, as Kieran's gone face down on the fake wood plastic table top, his arms folded underneath his forehead like a pillow.

"Yeah. He does." I smile, and Dewayne heads back to the kitchen as I reach out to run a hand through Kieran's hair, wondering if he might be dreaming right now about how this is all going to end.

#  Chapter 19

"That's it. That's the dress."

"Oh, thank God." I exhale, taking in my reflection in the dressing room mirror.

"Well, don't agree with me just because you're exhausted," Kayla snaps, well into our third hour of trying to find a Prom dress that strikes the right balance between gorgeous and sexy while also giving some shape to my sort of flat-chested but lean athlete's body—not an easy task by a long shot. Kayla, of course, found the perfect dress only a half-hour after we showed up at the mall because she has a real eye for what looks good on her, which is everything since she's built like she just walked out of a lingerie catalog. If Kayla weren't here steering me toward outfits such as the knee-length, emerald halter dress I'm wearing right now, I'd probably end up blowing yet another hour of my life on shopping before giving up and going to Prom in jeans and one of my mom's old Pearl Jam tour t-shirts.

"This is your Prom dress we're talking about here," Kayla continues. "You'll be in this thing for hours, so you'd better be in love with it."

I run my hand down the front of the dress and turn so I can view myself in profile. "It's comfortable," I start, which produces an immediate snort from Kayla.

"Comfortable? Who gives a rat's ass if it's comfortable? Do you like the way you look?"

I face myself head-on in the mirror once again, amazed at how the gathers of material—Kayla called it "ruching" earlier, which I'd never heard of before—actually create the illusion that I'm a girl with a tiny waist and something approximating a butt, all without plastic surgery. "Yeah," I admit, allowing myself a little smile at my reflection. "I think I like it."

"Good, because you look amazing." Kayla reaches over and slides the ponytail holder from my hair, standing behind me so she can fluff my thick blonde mop out around my shoulders. "Here," she begins, drawing strands from either side and catching them at the back of my head with the elastic. "You should wear your hair like this, down but swept up at the sides, do some curls—"

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh. Kieran'll pass out when he sees you, you'll be so hot."

"You think?"

"Of course," she says, smirking. "He'll literally pass out. One look at you and he'll fall asleep."

I cover my mouth so I don't laugh too much out loud here in the dressing room, and Kayla joins me. "That was bad," I say, once my giggles subside a little. "Laughing about his condition doesn't seem like a very 'supportive girlfriend' thing to do."

"Sometimes you need to laugh about the whole thing. Trust me—it helps."

I don't have a good response, so I refocus my attention on twisting my body around in front of the mirror, trying to stare at the dress from every possible angle before making any decisions. "Zip, buy the thing already," Kayla goads me. "It's the perfect dress for your build and coloring, and it matches your eyes—really makes them pop. You're going to be the hottest girl at Prom."

"Let's not be delusional," I say, glaring at her. "But, yeah—I think this dress is the one."

"Okay. You get changed and check out, and I'll meet you over in shoes."

Shoes. I guess I need shoes to go with this thing. Will the shopping hell never end?

Fifteen minutes later, my dress in a long plastic garment bag slung over my shoulder, I find Kayla in the shoe department. She's holding up a single black strappy heel and a matching purse so tiny I'm guessing only my phone, car keys, and driver's license would fit inside. "I've already got a guy in back searching for these shoes. You said you were a size eight, right?"

"Yup. And thank you, O Master, for teaching me your ways." I make an exaggerated bow in front of her after resting the garment bag over the back of a chair.

"No big deal," she says, rolling her eyes. "You're a fast learner—you'll be shopping on your own like a grown-up in no time."

A college-aged guy interrupts us, and the shoe box he's carrying contains a pair of size eights that fit me perfectly. I toddle around the seating area for a few minutes, happy I don't have to wear heels and dresses every day. I get dressed up maybe one or two times a year, and usually someone's either dead or getting married when I do.

After I pay for the shoes and the purse, Kayla and I carry my treasures to her Jeep. Feeling around for the hook above the window so I can hang up my dress, I glance down and catch sight of a green file folder in the floorboard stuffed so full with papers they're coming out the sides and experience a moment of panic. "We don't have a big project due in some class I'm forgetting about, do we?" I ask.

"What?" she yells from the back of the Jeep, where she's placing the bag containing my shoes in the storage space behind the seats.

"This folder in the floorboard. Looks like you're doing research for something."

Kayla shuts the back hatch and walks over to my side of the car. She stares down at the folder, her eyes narrowing as if she's thinking, trying to remind herself what it is. "It's...it's something I've kind of been working on for a while," she tells me, glancing around.

"You okay?"

The way she's whipping her head about the parking lot makes me wonder for a second if Kieran didn't tell her about Frank Dozier. We promised not to say anything to anyone, and while I haven't mentioned anything, Kieran trusts Kayla. Or at least he used to—after his birthday, maybe he's not telling her as much anymore.

"I'm good," Kayla assures me, refocusing her gaze on the folder in the floorboard. "Um...do you need to be home right away?"

I pull my phone from my jeans pocket, and the home screen tells me it's just after three, hours before Kieran's supposed to come over and watch movies tonight. "Nope," I respond, and she nods towards a coffee shop named Coffee Time in the strip mall at the other end of the main mall's parking lot.

"Want to hang out for a while?" she asks. "Drinks are on me."

"In that case, lead the way." I laugh as she reaches down past me to grab the folder from the floorboard, clutching the papers to her chest while she locks the car with the push button on her keychain. We don't say anything until we're almost at the coffee shop and Kayla breaks the silence. "It'll feel so good to tell someone else about this," she breathes, holding open the door to Coffee Time so I can walk in ahead of her. I stroll up to the counter and pretend to survey the menu near the ceiling for something I want, but I'm more focused on what's in the green folder and what Kayla's going to tell me about it.

How many more secrets are the Laniers carrying around?

Not a fan of coffee drinks other than first thing in the morning, I grab a bottled raspberry smoothie from the drink cooler next to the counter, while Kayla orders a cinnamon latté topped with whipped cream. After the girl behind the counter makes the latté and Kayla pays for our drinks, we ease into a booth of Kayla's choice in the far back corner of Coffee Time, this whole deal seeming more and more like some kind of international spy game by the minute.

"Okay, what's up?" I come out and ask as soon as my butt hits the vinyl seat. "You're freaking me out here."

"I don't mean to," she says, resting an elbow on the green folder as if she's trying to protect it. "I'm probably just crazy paranoid."

"About what?"

Kayla takes a deep breath before launching into her story. "Well, a few years ago, Mom did this home school environmental biology unit with us, and we were reading stuff about companies polluting drinking water and cancer rates spiking in places. I guess I started thinking...God, you're totally going to think I've gone outer limits."

I shake my head after gulping down some smoothie. "I won't. Promise."

"Well, I'd known the truth about Kieran for a while at this point, and I thought, why would Morgan Levert want to track Kieran down when he'd barely been a part of his life in the first place? I mean, he and Jenna Bradley didn't give a crap about him before everything went down, or they would've cleaned themselves up and tried to make a better life for him."

"Could be like your dad said," I offer. "Maybe Morgan thinks if he can get his hands on Kieran, he can make him commit crimes with him or something. You know—control him like he could sort of control Jenna and Frank Dozier."

"Or maybe he wants to control all of us." Kayla pushes the folder toward me, which I take as a signal to open it. I do so, slowly, as if I'm afraid creatures will come flying out at me like Pandora's Box. But all I find is article after article on terrorist plots to poison U.S. water supplies and a bunch of articles about cults—some on a group named the People's Temple, and a few more about some Marshall Applewhite guy and something called Heaven's Gate.

"So you think Morgan Levert wants to poison water systems with this stuff?" I ask, careful to keep any note of doubt out of my voice.

"No clue. But think about it, though—he knows what the drug did to Kieran, and he knows what he was able to get Jenna Bradley and Frank Dozier to do when they were messed up. Dad said he wanted to pull off something bigger than robbing a liquor store. Maybe this is it."

I tap my fingers on the smoothie bottle, trying to straighten out my thoughts. "You think I need to be committed," she says, shifting her eyes to my fingertips on the glass.

"No. Just trying to get my head around everything. You think Morgan's been sitting around in prison all these years plotting ways to turn people into living zombies?"

"Well, I can't see inside his head, obviously, but I wouldn't rule anything out. Even if he's not planning something himself, he's been locked up for years with people who might be willing to pay a lot of money for a substance that basically allows you to control people and might help some people get glimpses of the future. Or these people would know someone who would pay for something like that. I mean, Morgan's a guy who's never had a real job and spent his twenties and thirties in prison. Unless he picked up some amazing life skills while he was behind bars, he'll probably be interested in an easy way to score some cash."

I swallow some more smoothie, but the mixture becomes sludge in my throat and I need to cough a little to help it go down.

"Think about what someone could do with this stuff," Kayla continues, thumbing through the articles and pulling out ones on Heaven's Gate and the People's Temple. I only skim the readings, but I get the general idea—the leaders of these two "churches" could talk their followers into doing anything, including committing suicide. "This Jim Jones guy?" Kayla says, pointing at one of the People's Temple articles. "People first started following him because they thought he was a faith healer and had visions. Imagine how easy it would be for someone to convince you to follow him if he were actually having flashes of things that happen in the future. And then he could just start dosing you to get you to do whatever he wanted? I mean, if this stuff fell into the wrong hands—some crazy person or someone bad in the government or something—that's some major scariness, Zip."

"Yeah, but nobody really understands what this stuff can do," I point out, thinking back over years of science classes and lab experiments. "Morgan was able to observe how it worked in two people besides himself. Kieran's the only person who's been exposed to it in the womb and has the sleeping issues. That's only four people total, and their symptoms aren't even consistent."

Kayla stares down at the table, curving her hand around her cup, and I'm guessing she's not thrilled about my trying to blow a hole in her conspiracy theories. So I do my best to travel a middle ground. "I'm not saying you're wrong about any of this, but all we know is what one convicted felon told your Dad," I tell her. "Nobody's done a study or tests to find out what happens when you replicate exposure among a wider group of people. I mean, could be this stuff has absolutely no effect on some people, and then what good would it do to make a bunch of people drink it?"

"When was the last time you saw an evil scientist in a movie doing a clinical drug trial?" Kayla counters. "Morgan, or whoever he might be working with, probably isn't going to care what this stuff does to some people but might not do to others. I think when you're looking to cause a whole lot of mayhem, you just kind of jump in and cause it and watch what happens. This stuff obviously does something to some people—we know that much, and so does Morgan Levert."

Now Kayla's got me paranoid, and I start looking around the coffee shop in the same way she was checking out the parking lot earlier. No one else is here, save for the employees and a young couple at the counter buying frappuccinos for their kids. Feeling dumb, I stare at my smoothie bottle and start picking at the white label right below an orange sunburst logo, both the sun itself and the rays extending from the sphere like octopus tentacles outlined in black. It takes me a minute to realize I've seen the symbol before, but when I do, I set the bottle down and push it away from me as if I've been drinking from a vial of poison.

"Something wrong with your smoothie?" Kayla asks.

I place my fingers on the edge of the table, not sure how to proceed with what I want to say, almost laughing inside at the strange role-reversal Kayla and I are undergoing—now I'm the one who's hoping she'll believe me. "Kayla, what if I told you I'm having dreams?" I ask.

"Well, everybody does," she breathes through a slight laugh.

"I know. But I'm not one of those people who remembers a lot of my dreams. On the morning of my birthday, though, I woke up and remembered this really vivid dream about Kieran—"

Kayla presses her palms to her eyes and cuts me off. "Oh, my God. No details. I almost can't believe someone's dating my stupid brother in the first place, so I don't want to hear any disgusting fantasies you're having about him, okay?"

After she drops her hands, I wad up a napkin and zing it at her, the paper striking her nose and falling into her lap. "Not that kind of dream, you big perv. I saw him standing in this clearing in the woods, looking out at some mountains, and he was up high, like on another mountain or a hill or something. I thought it might be somewhere in North Carolina, because it seemed like descriptions I'd read in his dream journals and things you guys have said."

"Okay," she prompts, sensing I'm not finished.

"I've read how sometimes stuff in your waking life influences what you dream, so I thought I was dreaming about North Carolina or wherever because Kieran had shown me his journals, you know? But then I started having these dreams about Prom," I continue, using the plural because I've had four of them now, all of which I've meticulously recorded on my computer. "Kieran and I are dancing, and I'm looking out at everyone else having a good time. Then everything goes dark, like I'm watching TV or something and the power cuts out."

Kayla leans forward, folding her arms across the articles we've spread out between us. "I get what's happening. I did this, too, when I first found out about Kieran," she tells me, voice comforting. "You start thinking you're having dreams like he is, even though you know it's not possible. You think every dream means something."

I'm moving my head back and forth almost before the last sentence is out of her mouth. "This logo?" I say, grabbing the smoothie bottle and turning it around so she can see the sunburst. "I dreamed about it three weeks ago."

Kayla's eyes shift toward the sunburst and back to me. "You're sure?"

"Like I said, for three weeks, I've been remembering everything I dream about like I never have before. I wrote everything out on my laptop."

Kayla squints as if she's thinking something through. "No—wait a minute," she says, eyes blinking back to their normal state. "This is all coincidence. I mean, Kieran's not contagious. What you think is happening to you doesn't make any sense."

I exhale, ready to lay my last surprise on her. "Frank Dozier's in Titusville," I say, shutting my eyes.

"What?" Kayla shrieks so loudly that when I open my eyes and turn around, I see the young couple from the counter looking back at us from their table just inside the front door. I'm guessing that to them, we seem like two teenage girls gossiping and nothing more.

"At least he was in Titusville," I tell her. "Kieran and I think we might've scared him off."

"Kieran's seen him, too?"

"Yeah. He was working at the Downtown Diner. Big guy waiting tables. I'm not sure when he started working, but Kieran and I always sat in the same booth, so he would wait on us every day."

"I've been to the Diner a few times with Brad on weekends, but I'm not sure I saw him," Kayla says, cocking her head as she tries to remember. "I never paid much attention to who was waiting on us."

"You know what Frank Dozier looks like?" I ask.

"Sort of. I found pictures of Morgan and Frank on the web years ago, but I don't think I'd recognize either of them right away now."

"Well, Kieran and I looked them up, too, once your parents told us everything," I tell her. "Pretty much the second we saw Frank's picture, we knew who he was. So we went to the Diner and tried to get him to talk a little bit about his background, you know, just to find out what he'd say, and..."

"And you tipped him off with all the questions." Kayla sighs as she finishes my thought for me.

"We think so. We went back the next day and he was gone. Dewayne said he didn't leave a trace. So we've got no clue whether he really left or if he's hiding out somewhere. Kieran didn't want to tell your parents anything because he's afraid they'll make you move again."

"He's right. They'd pack us up in a second if they found out." Kayla glances up at the ceiling for a moment as if the solution to our predicament lies somewhere in the white tiles. "I don't know what the point would be in leaving now, though. My parents lied to people around Asheville about where we were going when we left, so my aunt's the only person in North Carolina who knows we're here. But Frank Dozier was obviously able to track us down somehow. What would stop him or Morgan Levert from figuring out where we've gone if we run again? If they can find us once, they can find us twice."

I watch as Kayla drains the last of her latté, her expression mildly panicked when she puts down the cup as if she's just thought of something. "So you think your dreams and Frank Dozier being in Titusville are connected?" she breathes.

"I don't know, but your poisoning theory makes more sense to me now. Frank Dozier waited on us every day, Kayla. Every day, I sat there and drank, like, two or three diet sodas. Sometimes we'd get refills to go, too." I shut my eyes in order to concentrate and do the math out loud. "About four sodas a day every weekday for six weeks, so...four times five is twenty, times six is...one-hundred and twenty times he could've slipped me something." Slumping back against the booth, I feel my body deflate like a beach ball losing air as reality sets in. "Oh, my God," I whimper. "What if Frank and Morgan are using me as some kind of human guinea pig to see how this stuff works?"

"Okay, okay. Wait a minute," Kayla says, her voice completely calm. "Don't panic. Let's be cool about this and think everything through."

I breathe, mouth fully open, lungs gasping for air. Bobbing my head up and down, I'm grateful Kayla's here to talk me down. "Anything else happening besides the dreams?" she asks. "Anything weird with your sleeping patterns? Or have you been really tired lately?"

"No."

Kayla's questions make me feel like I'm having the most bizarre doctor's visit in history, although anyone listening in with no context for what we're talking about might wonder if we're speculating on some everyday illness or a reaction to a new medication I'm taking.

"Blackouts?" she asks.

"No."

Kayla's nose scrunches up as she thinks. "You're sure? Kieran describes his blackout moments as being like he's watching a movie with the scenes messed up. One second he's somewhere and the next he's somewhere else, but with no logical movement from Point A to Point B."

"Nothing like that's happened to me." Yet, I end the sentence inside my head. Nothing like the walking blackouts or sleeping at strange times has hit me so far, but who's to say something won't start later? Who knows how this stuff works in my body, in anyone's body, really?

What's going to happen to me?

Leaning forward, I lower my head, the chill of the fake marble table top against my cheek tempering a bit of the fire I feel spreading throughout my body. I'm nauseous, but running to the bathroom and throwing up won't do anything but bring up my smoothie and some bits of the turkey sandwich I ate before Kayla picked me up to go shopping. What I really want to force out of me won't leave. It's probably surging through my bloodstream right now, changing me forever.

"Zip? You okay?" Kayla whispers.

"No. So not okay."

I lift my head enough to rest my chin on the faux marble. As if she's trying to sympathize with me, Kayla leans down and mirrors my posture, the two of us headless bodies on either side of the table. Anyone watching us would think we're insane.

"So nothing's out of the ordinary besides the dreams?" she asks.

"No."

"Then this could be coincidence," Kayla pronounces, sitting up. "We don't have any proof Frank Dozier was slipping Joy Juice into your sodas. He may not even be able to make the stuff. And your dreams...that could be Kieran's influence."

"What about the Prom dream?" I ask.

"You're probably just nervous about going," she points out. "Your brain's trying to convince you something bad's going to happen."

"Okay," I say, willing to follow her line of argument—to a point. "What about the sunbursts, though?"

"Kieran doodles stupid crap like that almost every day. That's where you've seen them before."

I grab the bottle again and tilt it toward Kayla. "But they're never like this when Kieran draws them, and I dreamed them exactly like the one here—orange with a black outline."

Kayla takes the bottle from me and studies the symbol. "This is the Malsun Foods logo, Zip." She sighs so hard, I'm surprised she doesn't add You dumbass on the end of her statement. Leaning across the table, Kayla extends the bottle toward me, her thumbnail below some tiny orange print next to the sunburst, and I reach out and pull the glass cylinder close to my face so I can read the words Malsun Foods.

"You probably see this everywhere and don't realize you do," Kayla continues. "They make, like, everything—NutraSmoothie, NutraWater, NutraNut Bars, Cinnamon Puffy Os, Shock! Sodas..."

That explains it—I eat NutraNut Bars in the morning sometimes, and my mom always makes sure we have a box of Cinnamon Puffy Os in the house. And both Mom and I have been known to chug a Diet Shock! Soda or two in the mornings when we're out of coffee, thanks to the fact Shock! has twice the caffeine of other sodas.

"Frank Dozier didn't drug you," Kayla insists. "You're dreaming of things you've already seen or that you're anxious about. And however Frank Dozier figured out we're here, hopefully you and Kieran spooked him enough that he's gone."

"What if he's not?" I whisper, as if I'm afraid Frank Dozier can hear us.

Kayla swirls the last few droplets of latté around in the bottom of her cup. "Then we keep our eyes open and live our lives until he decides to show up again. And we're going to go to Prom and dance like nobody's watching."

#  Chapter 20

Before I met Kieran Lanier, I didn't care whether or not I ever went to a school dance, much less Prom. But since the night of our mutual birthday, the only thing I've wanted as much as walking into the Titusville gym hand in hand with him on Prom night is a State Championship. With the State Championship out of the question until next year, I should be focusing all my energies on Prom.

And I am. I'm focusing on the fact that now, I don't want to go at all.

For the last two weeks, I've been a bundle of nervous energy, but not for the reasons most people would suspect. Every time someone comes up behind me at school, whether that someone is Kieran or somebody else, I jump out of my skin, thinking Frank Dozier's come back or Morgan Levert's finally shown up. In the meantime, I've had two more dreams, both repeating the familiar pattern—I'm dancing with Kieran, I'm watching everyone around us in the gym, and then the curtain of darkness comes down.

Whenever Kayla and I get a second alone, she assures me I'm just nervous about the dance and we don't know whether or not Prom night will end in some sort of lights-out horror like something out of a disaster movie. I tell myself she's right, but I can't help wanting to end the torture and just skip Prom, locking myself in my house until Frank and Morgan are no longer a threat—whenever that will be. But I've got the dress, I've got the shoes, I've got the purse, and I've got a boyfriend who, in spite of whatever danger might be lurking, is so excited to take me to what is, for both of us, our first dance, that I can't bear to let him down. So I suck it up and start getting ready at about four o' clock on Saturday, May eighth, instead of calling Kieran and lying about having a raging case of menstrual cramps.

I sit at the dressing table in Mom's room engaging in some final primping, the giant knot in my stomach dragging my shoulders forward and down. Exhaling a choppy breath through perfectly lined and glossed lips, I force myself to sit up straight, fluffing the curls lying against my collarbone. Fidgeting gives me something to do while Mom searches the jewelry box on her night stand for the earrings she's sure will be the perfect complement to my ensemble.

"Got 'em," she announces, walking over to me with a pair of black beaded things that look like tiny chandeliers. "Lacy Donaldson made these for the store and gave me a free pair. Glad somebody's finally going to have a chance to wear—"

She stops short, and I'm afraid she's about to get all blubbery again, just as she did when she was doing my hair, just as she did after I put on my dress and she saw me in it for the first time. I ready myself for another round of "Boo hoo—my baby's all grown up," but she surprises me instead with "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" I echo.

"Yeah. You haven't looked this terrified since that time you got lost in the Murray Farms corn maze when you were seven."

I brush her off with a wave of my hand, but something inside me pushes things a step further, and the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. "I've got a really bad feeling about tonight," I tell her.

Mom leans down so she can stare at both of us reflected in the round mirror framing the dressing table. "I knew I shouldn't have let you watch Carrie so many times," she says, shaking her head.

Her joke calms me a little, as I guessed whatever she'd say probably would. "I'm not talking bucket-of-pig's-blood-on-your-head bad feeling," I explain, rolling my eyes. "And I'm not even up for Prom Queen, so a whole Carrie scene wouldn't happen anyway. It's just that..." My voice evaporates because I don't know how I'd explain what's really going on even if I could. "Well, this is my first real dance, you know?" I lie without really lying, because I'd be nervous about tonight even without all the convicted felon drama hanging over my head—whether or not I look okay, whether or not I can fake my way through knowing how to dance... "I'm not used to getting all dressed up like this. I feel kind of weird."

"You look anything but weird. You're beautiful."

"Okay, but what if I fall, though?" I ask, determined to sketch out some doomsday scenario for my mom, even if it's not the one I wish I could share. "I can barely walk in these stupid shoes. I'm probably going to break my ankle and I'll have to spend the whole summer rehabbing instead of training for next season."

"You're not going to break your ankle," Mom says, her voice somewhere between comforting and condescending. "You fall, you get back up. Or you let Kieran help you get back up. Trust me, once he sees you in this dress, that boy's going to do whatever you want." I cock an eyebrow after her last statement, and she quickly adds, "Whatever you want, of course, that doesn't involve drugs, booze, or any kind of behavior that might make me grandmother at forty."

"That's what I thought."

Mom stands back from the dressing table. "Well, put the earrings on and let's see how it all looks, shall we?" she commands.

I slide the hooks at the backs of the chandeliers through my lobes, the tiny beads rustling as they swing against my hair, and I stand up, placing my hands on my hips to strike a supermodel pose for Mom's benefit. "Oh, my God," she whispers, folding her hands over her chest as she starts to tear up.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your little baby's all grown up. Got it."

"Stop making fun of me. I just can't believe you're such a...woman. Next year, you're going to be leaving for college and it all happened so fast. It was, like, only yesterday you were throwing up strained peas all over your dad and—"

I hold out a hand to stop her before she runs my entire childhood highlight reel. "How about we take the fashion show and nostalgia trip in to Gram and Gramps before you completely melt down. And what time is it anyway?"

"Five minutes 'til six."

"We're supposed to be at the Laniers' at six," I huff. "Get your shoes on."

Mom slips into her Birkenstocks while I grab my purse and teeter down the hall to the living room, still unsteady on my high heels. I do a few awkward pirouettes for my grandparents, who applaud as I twirl, before I shoo everyone out of the house and into the Camaro for the seconds-long trip to the Laniers', where Brad Wallace's truck, washed and waxed for the occasion, sits in the driveway behind Kayla's Jeep.

Kayla and Brad emerge from the shadows on the front porch as I'm making my way up the walk. The two of them could pass for dark-haired Barbie and Ken Super Special Prom dolls, Kayla in her body-hugging midnight blue strapless gown, her hair swept up and gathered into a knot of curls at the back of her head, and Brad in a tuxedo with a midnight blue vest, tie, and pocket square that perfectly match Kayla's dress. As I get closer, I see a hand grasp Kayla's bare shoulder, and Kieran steps out from behind her, walking to the edge of the porch and watching me with that grin as I approach. He's opted—with Kayla's guidance, no doubt—for a black tie ensemble with a vest instead of a cummerbund, and he's holding a plastic container with a corsage of emerald-tinted white roses inside. When I stop at the foot of the porch stairs to take him in, he places the flowers on the railing and clutches his hands to his chest, staggering backwards past Kayla as if he's having a heart attack.

"Oh, whatever," I yell up at him, any nerves about the dance or other potential disasters miles away at the moment. "Cut it out."

"I'm serious," he says, walking forward and down the stairs to me, taking my hands in his. "You're stunning. I have no words."

"Well, thank Kayla. My mom, too. They did all of this."

"They had an amazing canvas to work with," he whispers in my ear, as my mother and my grandparents lurk a few feet behind us. Kieran turns, linking my arm through his and nodding towards the stairs. "Shall I assist you to the front porch?" he asks, all fake stiff formality.

"Why, how polite of you."

"Dad's been giving me chivalry lessons all day since I'm kind of new at this," he explains as we climb the steps to join Kayla and Brad.

"So I guess you'll be slaying a dragon for me later?"

"Probably. I've got a collapsible sword inside my jacket. You'd be surprised how roomy the pockets are in this thing."

Jim and Carlie come out on the porch and offer compliments on my dress before joining my family down on the front walk. Kieran slips the corsage on my left wrist—I've switched the charm bracelet to my right wrist for the occasion—and the picture assault begins: The couples standing together on the front porch steps, the couples each standing alone on the steps, the two girls alone in front of a rose bush at the edge of the house, the two guys alone on the front walk. After every few shots, we all huddle up to view the results, and I'm surprised how relaxed and happy I appear in the photos, any anxiety about the evening apparently buried far below the surface.

"Brad, I'll email these to your parents," my mom offers.

"Thanks." Brad smiles at her, revealing a chipped incisor I remember him getting in a football game against Tusculum his sophomore year when he took such a hard hit his helmet came off. I can't help but dig an elbow into his ribs, seeing him all dressed up in a way he's never been, at least not around me. "You clean up real nice, Wallace," I tease him.

"You, too, McKee. Didn't think it was possible. I figured you'd show up to Prom in sweats."

"Don't think it didn't cross my mind."

Kayla checks the time on her phone and leans into Brad. "You know, if we don't get going, we'll miss the start of dinner," she points out, so the four of us say our goodbyes to the adults and head for the driveway, our elders calling out commands of "Have fun" and "Be safe" to our backs.

We'd worked out beforehand that Kayla and Brad would drive separately from Kieran and me, so I can bring Kieran home if he's too worn out and decides not to go to the after-party at the Stanley Farm. Plus, with Kieran and me in a separate car, we get the added perk of having at least a few minutes of alone time as we drive from place to place. Once we're almost at the Camaro, Kieran races in front of me and opens the driver's side door. "Your chariot, Miss," he says, welcoming me to the car with a sweep of his hand.

"Totally unnecessary," I tell him, practically falling into the seat as I'm not used to sitting down while having to keep my knees together at the same time. I can't believe some women dress like this on a regular basis.

"It's bad enough I can't drive my girlfriend to Prom. The least I can do is open doors for her," he explains.

He walks to the other side of the Camaro and gets in, and once he's settled, I warn "You know, a girl could get used to all this special treatment. You might need to keep it up after tonight, I'll be so spoiled."

"I'll spoil you for as long as you want." He puts a hand on my bare knee. "Trust me—it's not hard."

He leans in and gives me a quick kiss, and I resist the urge to take his face in my hands and kiss him over and over right here in the driveway, our families just a few feet away. But since our parents probably don't want to watch us make out, I pull myself together and start the car, backing down the drive ahead of Brad.

Our Prom night is officially underway, for better or worse.

#  Chapter 21

Titusville does Prom a little differently than most high schools, and for the worst of reasons. The tradition used to be that before the dance, couples would drive all the way to Sumner for dinner at one of the decent restaurants there or out by the mall before making the trek back to Titusville for the actual Prom. But three years after my mom graduated, two couples died in a single-car drunk driving accident on their way to Sumner. In response, the school instituted a catered dinner in the cafeteria before the festivities so people wouldn't feel the need to drive forty-five minutes away for a meal that doesn't involve sitting down for burgers at the Diner or a trip through a drive-thru out near the interstate. To add to the alcohol-free theme for the evening, the Stanleys, whose eldest daughter was one of the kids killed in the accident, began offering their barn for an after-party, which essentially ends up being a mini-Prom out in the boonies about fifteen miles from town. Obviously, the school can't control whether or not students go to the Stanley Farm, so a small percentage of kids still sneak off to wherever to do whatever. But since the Stanley Farm After-Party is the parentally-approved venue for post-Prom activities, Kayla, Brad, Kieran and I will end up there, assuming Kieran has energy left after the dance.

Once the four of us arrive at school, we walk through the main lobby and glance inside the gym, the otherwise darkened space lit up by thousands of tiny white Christmas lights strung low from the ceiling, creating a canopy effect. The Prom Committee has also draped lights across the walls, mingling them with giant cotton ball clouds in order to construct a sort of "heaven on earth." The sight of the Christmas lights stirs my anxieties once again and my knees buckle, forcing me to slump a little against Kieran's side. "You okay?" he asks, putting his arm around my waist to support me.

I give him a weak smile. "I think it's the shoes. I wanted to wear my Chucks tonight but they didn't exactly go with the dress."

"Well, I'll hold you up if you hold me up. Deal?"

"Deal."

He gives me a little squeeze, and we follow Brad and Kayla into the cafeteria, transformed for the evening into a pale imitation of a classy restaurant, white tablecloths hiding the drab brown table tops and still more Christmas lights strung about the room. Other than the set of overhead lamps on back near the kitchen and the orange plastic cafeteria chairs decorated for the occasion with white and light blue streamers taped to their backs, we could almost forget that we eat cardboard-flavored pizza slices and soggy tater tots in this room five times a week. Almost. As if we're programmed, we head straight for the usual Jock Table in the back corner where Kayla, Brad, and I eat lunch every day, and we're soon joined by Cassie and Cody Hull, Lauren and Bill Burcheron, and Ashley and her date, Rick Matthews.

Leaving Kieran's side for a moment, I slide up to Cassie and link my arm in hers. "My compliments to the Prom Committee," I tell her.

"Thanks. Hung all the lights myself," she jokes. "Seriously, though—I took the Christmas light idea you had to the committee and they loved it, obviously. But you'd be surprised how hard it is to get this many Christmas lights in May. Lucky for us, we got people to donate a bunch so we didn't need to buy them all. There's probably not a set of white Christmas lights left in the whole county."

My stomach starts churning again, but I stuff the fear down and sense it evaporate completely when Kieran comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. The calm lasts throughout dinner, which passes uneventfully—or uneventfully for us, anyway. Kieran falls asleep twice, once during the salad course and again right before dessert, but his behavior is so ordinary now everyone just ignores it, and I'm able to shake him awake by jostling his leg with my knee. But once dinner's over and we all head into the gym for the dance, the panic rises in my stomach again, as I'm aware that what I saw in my dream happened while Kieran and I were dancing. For completely different reasons—me with my fear of the lights going out, and Kieran with his fear of passing out—we head together to the first row of the bleachers and sit down, laughing at Kayla and Brad as they flail around on the dance floor, their limbs seeming almost disconnected from their bodies.

"I don't see a professional dance career in either of their futures," Kieran says in my ear over the music. "They kind of look like they're in pain, actually."

"I'm in pain just watching them."

Kieran laughs, and a few minutes later the beat gives way to the strings and piano of some slow song I don't recognize. Couples stop jumping around and melt together, foreheads pressed against foreheads and arms wrapped around shoulders and waists while chaperones circle the gym to make sure the hands attached to those arms don't wander anywhere rated PG-13 or worse.

"Should we dance?" Kieran asks, and since I don't want to tell my boyfriend "No, we can't dance because something bad might happen," I let my sense of humor take over. "Well, it is what people are supposed to do at these things, from what I've heard. Doesn't seem too hard." I sound like a creature from another planet describing human behavior to one of my alien buddies. "I guess we just put our arms around each other and kind of sway back and forth to the rhythm."

"I think I can do that. The part about putting my arms around you I've definitely got down. Maybe the rest will come to me."

"Well, how about we stay close to the bleachers? If you need to sit down or if we feel like we look as stupid as Kayla and Brad, then we won't have far to go to get off the dance floor."

"Sounds good."

Kieran stands and pulls me up. We cling to each other and start swaying to the music, and within seconds I'm comfortable enough to rest my head on his shoulder as I stare out at the gym full of couples, the girls' dresses a rainbow of primary colors and pastels swirling in the shimmer of white light.

My heart stops, and I'm thankful the music is loud enough Kieran can't hear me breathing, his hands so low on my waist he wouldn't sense the unsteady gasps forcing my back to spasm. I close my eyes for the briefest second, and when they flutter open again, the lights still shine, the dresses still swirl, the music's still loud.

Nothing strange or tragic has happened. I'm here, dancing at my Prom, safe in the arms of my boyfriend, to whom nothing bad has happened as well.

Kieran and I repeat this scene five more times throughout the evening—the two of us pressed against each other, my head on his shoulder as we sway back and forth as couples have done at Proms for...however many years people have been going to Proms—and the result is always the same in that nothing strange happens. We never quite work up the nerve to venture out on the floor for anything but slow songs, choosing instead to sit on the bleachers so Kieran can doze off or, when he's awake, so we can make fun of people's seizure-ific dance moves. By the time the harsh fluorescent gym lights buzz on to indicate we all need to move the party out to the Stanley Farm, I'm convinced my dreams, my nightmares, are nothing more than what Kayla said they might be—a symptom of my nerves about Prom, nerves that were apparently pointless.

My final anxieties defeated, I resolve to let go and enjoy the rest of the night. Thanks to a marathon kissing session I initiate in my car while still in the school parking lot, Kieran and I are among the last of the caravan of cars out to the Stanley Farm that I've watched from my living room window in years past, witnessing the closest thing Titusville will ever have to a parade. When we finally arrive to the after-party, we're forced to park in the grass near the road at the edge of the property, the fifty yards or so separating the barn from the road already overrun with cars.

After I shut the engine off, I lean in for one more kiss. "Kayla's never going to let us live this down," I murmur against Kieran's lips.

"Kayla can suck it," he says when we part. "I'm almost never alone with you when we're not in public. I like having you all to myself for a change."

"Me, too."

His lips meet mine again, and the stirring in my stomach is far from fear. What I'm feeling is the ache that takes me over when Kieran kisses me, the want I know will never quite be satisfied. The sensation was moving in me a few minutes ago in the school parking lot, before we stopped kissing long enough to notice almost everyone else was gone. And now, the ache threatens to drown me in its comforting warmth, so I slam on the brakes before we end up in the position of having to explain to people Monday morning why we never made it inside the party. "Kieran," I breathe against his mouth, my voice a whine sending the contradictory messages of "Stop" and "Don't stop" at the same time.

"Yeah. I know," he grumbles, pulling away just enough to press his forehead to mine, his hand caressing my bare shoulder. "We should go. Otherwise, we'll have some explaining to do."

"I don't want to, but..."

He moves his hand from my shoulder to brush his thumb across my lower lip. "Hey—it won't be a total loss, right? At least we'll get to slow dance some more."

We climb out of the car, the night air cooling us off as we trudge up the slight hill. Once we've reached the barn just across the lawn from the Stanley's ancient farmhouse, I slip ahead of Kieran through the slightly opened barn door and find the evening's decorating theme has carried over to the after-party. White Christmas lights hang in a canopy across the ceiling, and a few sad looking cotton ball clouds are tacked up on the walls. The decorations don't quite convey the heavenly effect of those back at school, but the crowd, sweaty and disheveled as they bounce around to music playing over a stereo system in the corner, doesn't seem to care.

My eyes immediately find Kayla and Brad pressed against each other at the edge of the crowd. "Kayla," I yell, waving, and at the sound of my voice, she lifts her head from Brad's chest and turns in our direction. Grabbing Brad's hand, she bounces over to us with him trailing behind her, the two of them flushed red from dancing in the hot, cramped space. As they approach, I see Brad's bangs have stuck to his forehead with sweat and Kayla's up-do has become more of a down-do, her curls gradually slinking their way toward the nape of her neck. "So nice you could finally join us," she screams over the music.

"No problem," Kieran shouts back, and Kayla breaks away from Brad so she can speak into my ear without yelling at me. "Everything okay?" she asks.

"Yeah. It's been an awesome night."

"I know, right?" Kayla shoots me a look that says, What did I tell you? Nothing's going to go wrong tonight.

Brad grabs Kayla's hand again and pulls her back towards the dancing throng. Kieran and I, meanwhile, lean up against the wall next to the barn door and survey the scene—perfect hairstyles wilting and frizzing in the heat, tuxedo jackets and vests dumped in a heap over by the refreshment table, curled petals from corsages trampled under high heels and dress shoes. "You should go dance with your friends," Kieran tells me. "I won't mind. Don't wait around with me until another slow song comes on."

Pushing myself up off the wall, I grab his hand and turn to him with an idea. "You know, there's no rule about slow dancing to fast songs," I point out, pulling him to the edge of the crowd where we slide our arms around each other. He kisses me, the two of us swaying together, our movements almost slow-motion in contrast to the spastic horde jumping around next to us. After a couple of minutes, the music switches to a more relaxed tempo and everyone else joins in our rhythmic rocking back and forth. We sneak a few more kisses past the eyes of the parent chaperones gathered on the other side of the party, and as the song winds down, I rest a sweaty cheek on Kieran's shoulder. The hypnotic glow of twinkling lights bouncing off the shimmery dresses combined with the temperature inside the barn and the warmth in my stomach are almost enough to make me fall asleep against him. My eyes droop a little, my body still swaying with Kieran's even after the last notes fade out and a tiny lull settles over the party as we wait for the next song.

And that's when the lights go out.

#  Chapter 22

A few girls scream in surprise and I hear some laughter that sounds like it's coming mostly from the guys. "Everybody start making out!" a deep voice yells, prompting giggles and whoops from the crowd.

"No, everybody don't start making out," threatens an exhausted and parental-sounding female, followed quickly by an adult male voice: "We blew a fuse, folks. We'll get a generator going in a few minutes."

But everything's already falling apart. Several couples head toward the moonlight streaming in through the half-open barn door, not willing to wait until the lights and music come back on. Me, on the other hand, I'm just terrified, the only thought running through my head being It's happening...It's happening...It's happening.

"Kieran?" I whisper, panic spreading through me, taking over my voice and forcing my arms to grip him more tightly.

"I'm right here," he says, because I'm acting as if I can't tell he's still holding me.

"Don't let me go, okay?"

"Not a problem." In the faint light, I can see his eyes constrict with confusion. "Are you okay? You seem kind of scared all of a sudden."

"I'm...I'm good." I force a smile. "The lights...just caught me off guard there, I guess."

"Should we leave, you think?"

Yes. Yes, we should, because I don't know what's going to happen if we stay inside this dimly-lit barn—I never dream about what happens after the darkness falls, so I want out into the moonlight as soon as possible.

"Yeah," I breathe, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the light and outside. As we walk down the hill, a line of cars passes us on their way to the main road, people honking and waving at us even though we can't see who's inside. A Malibu pulls up next to us as we're about to turn off from the gravel drive to walk the several yards across the grass to my car, and Lauren's head pops out the lowered window. "Hey—a bunch of us are headed out to the Burger Barn if you guys want to come," she yells, the Burger Barn being the only place around Titusville open twenty-four hours.

"Thanks," I yell back, and Bill accelerates down the drive, Lauren's arm waving to us as they continue to the blacktop. I slip off my heels so I can better walk through the high grass, dropping them next to my rear tire as Kieran leans up against the passenger door. "So, do you want to go meet up with everybody?" he asks, voice low.

Once again, my fear melts into oblivion. I step forward, the ache gnawing at my insides even though I'm not yet touching him. My mind tells me we'd be safer from...whatever's out there if we were with other people, but my heart reminds me the lights went out several minutes ago, and just like at school, nothing's happened. So given the choice between eating burgers and fries with most of the junior and senior classes or taking advantage of some rare alone time with Kieran...

"No," I say, pressing against him. We watch the line of cars until the last one pulls out on the main road. The lights flicker back on in the barn and in seconds, the faint sound of music drifts down to us over the several cars still parked around the property. Whoever's staying is staying, and whoever's decided to leave is gone. I move back from Kieran as far as I need to so I can reach into my purse for my keys.

"I'll get your door for you," Kieran says, but I grab his wrist, stopping him before he can start walking to the driver's side.

"I've got a better idea." I open the passenger door and fling my purse over to the driver's seat before folding the backrest forward. Kieran follows me to the back, shutting the door behind him.

"So," he says, flashing me that grin. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"

"Yeah," I respond, willing to play the "No—I'm not nervous at all" game he's started. "Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect weather for this time of year, really."

"But I'm guessing you didn't crawl back here so we could talk about the weather," he points out, reaching out to caress my knee.

"Not exactly." I start giggling, but Kieran's mouth finds mine and the ache pulls me under, my hands moving up into his hair, the two of us sinking down so his body is mostly on mine, his legs in the floorboard. My back arches, molding my torso to his.

"Just so you can't say later you weren't warned," he murmurs against my lips, "I really don't know what I'm doing." He stops kissing me altogether and raises his head, his eyes shifting away from mine in embarrassment. "Like, I really, really have no idea, if you get my meaning."

"Me, neither," I say, touching his cheek. "But I'm willing to figure it out as we go if you are."

Kieran exhales, seemingly relieved, and I pull him to me once again. Maybe I should be nervous or scared or something over what might happen here, but my want for him controls me to the point that I'm not aware of my emotions at all, the only thing I feel besides Kieran's hands moving on me being a breeze blowing through the car, as if the door's still open or the window's rolled down. The chill lifts me from my trance in time to open my eyes and notice a hand on Kieran's shoulder, yanking him backwards. My body involuntarily follows his at first, but whoever or whatever wrenches him off me with such force that I fall back on the leather seat, and his eyes wide with terror are the last things I see before he disappears.

The door slams, shaking the car, and I'm so in shock I let a few precious seconds pass. My first thought—a totally irrational one—is that my mom found us and at the moment she's threatening Kieran with the full force of her maternal wrath. My mom being here, however, makes absolutely no sense.

But I know what does make sense. I know what could be happening right now that would awaken every fear I've stuffed down inside me all night long.

I climb out of the Camaro, my head whipping around a few times before I catch sight of a man in the near distance sprint-walking away from the barn and the house in the direction of the Stanley's cornfield. Moonlight bounces off his shiny bald dome, and Kieran's slung over his shoulder like a wet towel. "Kieran!" I scream into the night, but he doesn't raise his head, which I take to mean he's passed out. Frank Dozier's pace picks up slightly as I turn toward the barn and yell "Help!" at the top of my lungs. Even as my voice echoes back to me, I realize the barn's too far away and the music's too loud, and I don't want to risk Frank disappearing with Kieran while I run up the hill to get help.

I've got to handle this on my own.

Frank and Kieran are turning into human specks against the night as Frank trudges further away through the ankle-high plants, so I take a deep breath and break into a sprint even though Frank Dozier's got a pretty good head start on me.

But people don't call me "Zip" for nothing.

In seconds, I've made up half the ground between Frank and myself, my feet barely registering on the grass and the dirt of the Stanley's recently planted cornfield. Once I see that he's headed for an old Dodge Charger parked at the edge of the field bordering the county road, I will myself to speed up. By the time Frank hears the sound of my footsteps in the dirt, I'm almost on him. He whips around, one arm holding Kieran's legs to his chest, and he gives me that sneer from the Diner, stopping short of a laugh as my momentum nearly causes me to crash into him.

"Whataya think you're doin', little girl?" he taunts in his New Yawk accent, extending his free hand toward me to do...to do...what?

I don't plan on finding out. My adrenaline, already spiking after my run, kicks up another notch and before I realize what I'm doing, I've reared back, hand balled into a fist, all the strength in my body propelling my arm forward. The knuckles of my right hand strike Frank's nose with such force I crumple to the ground as he does, Kieran sliding to the dirt in a heap next to him. Tears spring to my eyes as I try to shake the sting out, but the action just makes the pain worse, and I can already feel the throbbing sensation that means my hand is starting to swell. I get up from my knees and stand over Frank, his face a bloody mess, what consciousness he has only allowing him to moan and roll his head back and forth in the dust. Kieran, meanwhile, shaken awake from the fall, pushes himself up on an elbow and looks around, confused. "Zip?" he asks.

I reach down with my good hand to help him up as Frank raises his left hand to his nose to wipe away some blood, revealing a sunburst tattoo on his inner wrist I've never noticed before, an orange circle with matching orange squiggly rays, all outlined in black. Shifting my eyes to Kieran, I can tell by his bewildered expression he's seen the tattoo as well. Frank continues to brush his bloody nose and struggles to sit up, while I figure we probably shouldn't be standing around waiting for him to come to his senses. "Run!" I yell.

Kieran and I take off in the direction of my car, Kieran panting as he tries to keep up with me. I stop about halfway and look behind us, both so Kieran can rest and so I can see what Frank's up to, which isn't much. He struggles to his feet and takes a few steps forward, bobbing and weaving like a punch-drunk boxer before crumpling to the dirt again. I surrender some precious seconds waiting for his next move, but when he begins crawling toward his car rather than heading in our direction, I elbow Kieran and the two of us speed-walk the rest of the way to the Camaro.

Once at the car, I yank my purse from the seat where I'd thrown it what seems now a million years ago and slide behind the wheel. Hands shaking, I reach for my keys and fling the tiny bag behind me while Kieran buckles himself in. "What now?" he wheezes, as I start the car and back out of the grass to the gravel drive, the barn on the hill behind us lit up and oblivious to all we've been through.

I cast a brief glance over at Kieran shaking in my passenger seat, arms crossed around himself. Obviously, any romantic spells we were under were broken long before my fist connected with Frank's nose, so hooking up is out of the realm of possibilities for the night. "I don't know what we should do," I answer, eyeing the swollen hand I have no idea how I'm going to explain to my Mom. When I take my hand from the steering wheel and try to flex at the knuckles, the pain from the tiny bit of movement I'm able to muster makes me wince. "Maybe...maybe we should drive around for a while, clear our heads," I suggest. "We need to figure out our next move." I look sideways at Kieran again, his tuxedo coated with a light sheen of dust, sweat mixing with the dirt on his cheek to create a muddy smear. "You're a mess, my hand's swelling, and I don't think Frank's leaving town. We need some kind of a plan."

I have no idea how right I am until I reach the blacktop and accelerate, checking my rear view mirror to find a Dodge Charger gaining on us. In seconds, the headlights are practically in my backseat, lighting up the Camaro's interior. I floor the gas pedal, thankful I know every twist and turn in these country roads but not convinced I can keep control on them at over eighty miles an hour. The headlights behind us recede a little as we pick up speed, and I draw upon every action/adventure movie I've seen in my lifetime to try to come up with a plan.

Right now, we're headed back toward town. Two cars racing through downtown Titusville at nearly four times the speed limit would definitely draw attention, but I'm not sure I trust the county cops to get out here fast enough to be of much help. Plus, I can't stomach speeding through Titusville and hitting someone else's car, or worse. In the movies, people are always jumping out of the way or cars not involved in the chase end up crashing into buildings or into each other, but the movies never show what happens to the people on the sidewalk or in those anonymous cars. Does anyone care about the hero causing multiple injuries, death, and destruction before conquering the bad guy? No. Not in the movies. But here, in real life, I care, so leading Frank Dozier to town is out.

My mind races with possibilities. I could get on the four-lane state highway near school and call the cops from there. There won't be too many people out this time of night, so I can drive like a maniac without causing much damage. I glance into my rear view mirror to see Frank's lights on my tail, and I decide we should call the cops, tell them we're being chased to the highway, and they can intercept us out there somewhere.

But I can't reach my phone because it's in my purse—in the backseat.

"Kieran," I yell, but all I get in return is a faint moan telling me he's out of it. "Kieran!" I shriek louder this time, and he snaps awake.

"Yeah?"

"Call the cops. Tell them we're headed for the highway—exit nineteen."

A billion seconds go by and I don't hear Kieran's voice, don't see anything reflected in my windshield resembling light from a phone screen. "My phone's gone," he tells me finally. "It must've fallen out of my jacket back there."

"Okay," I say, amazed at how calm I am right now. "My purse is in the backseat somewhere. Do you see it?"

He lifts up and twists his body around as much as he can with his seat belt still on. "No."

Okayokayokay. A microscopic black purse against black leather seats—of course, he can't see it. And with our luck, the tiny bag's probably in the floorboard somewhere or stuck under one of our seats, and I'm not going to ask Kieran to go fumbling around without a seat belt on while I'm busy re-enacting scenes from The Fast and the Furious movies. I'd really like to get out of this evening without either of us getting killed.

I've got almost a full tank of gas. Wonder how much Frank has? Maybe I can get on the highway and just drive until one of us is empty? But that never happens in the movies. Somebody always crashes into something or the car blows up or goes off a cliff or...

No. I'm not getting on the highway. I'm ending this. Right now. And I think I know how I'm going to do it.

#  Chapter 23

Even at night, I'm familiar enough with this road to know the turnoff for the boat launch is coming up on my right. Heading to the river is a long shot, but one I'm willing to take with Frank Dozier practically in my backseat and no guarantee of what might happen if I get on the highway or continue racing around out here in the country. So I hope, with my bare foot pressing down on the accelerator and my speedometer still hovering in the eighty mile-an-hour range, that my knowledge of the area and of the gravel road down to the river trumps Frank's. Praying to the gods of Jason Statham and Nicolas Cage and every other actor who's ever filmed a high speed chase, I tap the brake just enough to turn off the county road, the back end of the Camaro fishtailing and clipping a tree.

Kieran allows himself a mild freak-out once he realizes where we are. "You know there's a river down here, right?" he yells over the roar of the engine and the crunching of gravel.

"Yup," I say, not taking my eyes from the darkness in front of me flanked by trees. "But I'm hoping our friend behind us doesn't. Hold on."

We're going so fast I can barely control the car, my foot leaving the gas pedal several times as the ruts in the gravel bounce us around, the seatbelt squeezing me as if it wants to slice me in half. From the corner of my eye, I notice Kieran's taken my "Hold on" command literally, both hands grasping his seatbelt harness above the shoulder. Despite the blinding lights from Frank's car shining in my back window, I'm able to make out one final dip coming up in the path ahead, right before the road widens out into the boat launch area. The Camaro rumbles over the rut as I slam on my brakes, and my seatbelt tightens against me as I turn to the right to keep us from launching into the river before I yank hard left to avoid going into the woods. The car fishtails once again and the brakes can't slow my speed enough to prevent the back end from smashing into a tree, the crunch of metal and shattering glass deafening me before fading out for a moment as momentum jerks my body sideways, my temple slamming into the still intact driver's side window. I snap back, the only sound in my ears the protesting moan of the engine after being put through so much work. As if to reward the car for a job well done, I reach forward and click the key to the "off" position, the atmosphere eerily silent once I do.

"Zip?"

Kieran's voice seems far away, and when I turn to look at him, my vision blurs and all I can see is a black blob and something that sort of looks like a face, but I can't be sure the blob is Kieran. "Whoa," I whisper, my head lolling around on my neck as if it's no longer completely attached...

Next thing I know, I'm sitting on the gravel beside the car, Kieran's tuxedo jacket slung over my shoulders and my head resting on his chest, his palm a dull thud against my cheek. "Stay with me, okay?" he begs. "Okay? Zip?"

"Wha..."

"I think you might have a concussion," he says, although his voice sounds like it's coming through a tin can. "We need to keep you awake."

"Who?" I mumble, my mouth feeling as though it's lined with fur. After I swallow, I try once more to form words. "Who gon keep you wake?"

"Who's going to keep me awake?" Kieran translates. "Good question. At least you've still got your sense of humor, so that's something."

Kieran lifts my body off the ground, my limbs limp as snapped rubber bands. I'm not sure what's happening, but something triggers the muscle memory of putting one foot in front of the other in order to walk. The world swims before me in hazy ripples of darkness, my head floating around on my neck. "Okay, you're doing great," he tells me. "You're—"

My knees hit the ground. Hard. I collapse on my side, moaning, before my stomach lurches and I throw up.

"Oh, God. Sorry. Sorry. My body gave out on me for a minute," Kieran's voice says from somewhere far away. "Look, I'll be back soon, okay? I'm going to try to find your phone." He sits me upright on the rocks and drapes his jacket around me once again. My head throbs, and in an effort to keep it attached to my body, I lean forward and pull my legs to me, Kieran's jacket sliding from my shoulders. My arms and chin come to rest in some kind of hot, slimy wetness I can't really see, but I can smell it—blood, maybe?

My stomach empties out again, and all I want to do is lie down here in the gravel and...and...

After I'm not sure how long, I awake to rocks digging into my cheek and a firm hand shaking me back to consciousness. Kieran sits me upright once again and places cold hands underneath my arms so he can pull me off the ground. "We need to walk, okay?" he says, my head so foggy he sounds like he's talking to me underwater. "Keep your arms around me."

I lean into his chest, his shirt wet and cool and welcome against my face as we begin to move, my forehead grazing the prickly damp hair on his chin. The sensation of stubble against my skin sets off a brief chain of logic in my addled brain—Kieran's always clean-shaven, and he definitely would be tonight. Even in my altered state, I'm shocked and scared enough that instinct tells me to pull away. As soon as I do, the world spins in front of me, my legs buckling. "Whoa, there," says the voice I thought belonged to Kieran, but now I'm not sure. Maybe I'm still passed out. Maybe I'm dreaming this.

Maybe I'm dead. And if I am and this is heaven, consider me so not impressed.

"Kieran?" I whimper, trying to make sense of what's happening. If Kieran isn't the one holding me up, then who is? Frank?

"Hang onto me and keep moving," the voice orders. "You need to stay awake until help gets here."

I'm in no condition to argue and definitely in no shape to fight this person, whoever he is, and as he doesn't seem to have any immediate intentions of killing me, I lean in again and let him steer me around, the rocks stabbing into my feet and his Kieran-like voice tethering me to consciousness. "Okay. You're doing fine. Just a little bit longer. I can hear the sirens now..."

Someone yells, but I can't make out what he's saying. "No—I swear," my rescuer calls out into the darkness. "I'm not going to hurt her. Or you. I've called for help. Don't you hear the ambulance?"

A muffled voice responds, too far away for me to understand anything, and my rescuer again claims he's trying to help. "I'm serious—I'm not here to hurt either of you. I just want to do right by you for once. Why would I have called for help if I wanted to hurt you?"

The other person doesn't say anything—nothing I can hear, anyway. "Here," my rescuer begins, nudging me forward. "Take her. Keep her moving if you can until the ambulance gets down here. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm supposed to believe that?" the other voice responds, sounding an awful lot like Kieran—Kieran at the bottom of a well.

"I'm unarmed and I don't want to hurt you, I swear. Take her," my rescuer insists, also sounding a lot like Kieran at the bottom of a well.

Okay—I'm obviously brain-damaged. These guys can't both be Kieran. I try to shake the confusion out of my head, but the motion only makes the wooziness worse. For a second, I sense two pairs of arms on me, then only one pair circles my waist and I feel the light brush of lips grazing my forehead.

"See? I'm unarmed. Frank's gone. I don't want anything bad for you kids. I'm trying to set things right here."

I'm aware of the low whine of a siren coming from somewhere, and the voice of my rescuer—I think it's him, anyway—sounds even further away. "I don't have time to explain right now. Just check your jacket pocket later." The voice keeps fading, but I hear him say something like "Take care of her—she's a good one."

"Yeah," Kieran says against my ear, before the quiet gives way to the bleating ambulance pulling into the boat launch area.

#  Chapter 24

I wake up, blinking at the harsh lights stinging my eyes. An antiseptic smell tickles my nostrils, threatening to make me sneeze, and a persistent beeping noise is coming from somewhere above my head. Someone's fingers are curled around mine, and I shift my eyes to the left to find Mom staring at me, tears staining her face as she squeezes my hand.

"Oh, Zip. Honey—" That's all she gets out before I start bawling, mostly out of relief. I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing here, but I know right this minute, for whatever reason, I've never been so happy in my life to see my mother and so I don't care that I'm blubbering.

"Mom." I sniffle, and she brushes some hair off my forehead, pain shooting through me. "Sorry," she says as I wince. "I forgot. Habit."

I raise my hand to my temple to find a quarter-sized knot, and as if pressing on the spot jogs my memory, I picture my head hitting the driver's side window as the car skidded to a stop next to the river. Lifting myself up on my elbows, I find my beautiful Prom dress replaced by a cotton hospital smock that barely falls to my bruised and scraped-up knees. My shins, calves, and feet are a maze of cuts and scrapes, and I realize the antiseptic scent making my nose itch must be coming from me. Wires trail from underneath the smock, and my eyes follow them behind and above me where they end at a heart monitor, the jagged lines on the screen telling me that—for the moment anyway—I'm still alive.

"Lie down," Mom gently commands, touching a button on the wall next to the bed. "You've got a concussion from the accident."

The accident. My mind rewinds through the high-speed getaway from Frank Dozier, to Kieran and me running to the car, to Frank's sunburst tattoo, and to me punching Frank in the nose...

I shift my gaze to my right hand but find only fingertips, my fingers taped together and the hand itself buried under an ice pack, all that looks remotely familiar the charm bracelet around my wrist. "My hand," I almost scream, sitting all the way up this time, but a searing pain in my chest knocks me back.

"It's probably not broken." Mom reads my mind. "Just bruised up. They were waiting for you to wake up to take X-rays, but unless they find out it's worse than they think, you'll be shooting baskets again in a week or so. We'll probably have to keep the fingers taped together and ice it every once in a while after we get home."

The curtain parts and Dr. Partchett, who's been with the hospital for years and went to high school with my mom, comes in and asks me how I'm feeling. "Groggy," I tell him.

"That's normal," he says, mostly to Mom. "After we send her down for X-rays, we'll keep her overnight to be safe, but I don't see any reason why she shouldn't be able to go home sometime tomorrow morning."

Mom nods as Dr. Partchett shines a pen light in my eyes and pokes and prods around on me a bit before leaving us alone again.

"Where's Kieran?" I ask.

"He's here," Mom assures me, and before I can interrupt her with my next question, she adds, "And he's fine. He's got some cuts and bruises, but they checked him out and discharged him a while ago. He tried to come in and sit with you, but the nurses wouldn't let anyone stay with you but me. At any rate, he told me he wasn't leaving, so unless Carlie and Jim dragged him home, I'm guessing he's out in the lobby somewhere."

I start crying again, relieved he's not hurt but also concerned that we're in a lot of trouble, depending on what Kieran told his parents and my mom about what went down earlier. "Mom...about tonight...did Kieran explain..."

Mom takes my good hand in hers again. "He said the power went out at the Stanley Farm, so you two left to...to go be alone." She darts her eyes away and scrapes her teeth across her lower lip, something she only does when she's upset at someone, and I'm guessing the "someone" in this case is Kieran. "It was so dark at the river you misjudged your speed heading down and tried to pull off to the side to keep from going in the water."

My insides burn on hearing Kieran's lie. Even though his story is so much less complicated than the truth, I can't help but be embarrassed that Mom probably thinks we were headed to the river to hook up and I ruined everything because I suck at driving. "So are you mad at me?" I ask, tears welling in my eyes.

She surprises me by smiling. "I'm half-tempted to send you to California to become a stuntwoman. Forget this wanting to be a sports reporter nonsense. If I'd been in the same situation, my car would be on the river bottom right now."

I laugh a little, but the pain in my chest and head turns the laughs into moans. "Careful," Mom warns. "I'm glad you're going to be okay, but regardless, you're grounded until school's out and you leave for your dad's."

"Thanks." I forget and laugh again, the burning pain returning almost immediately. "Why does my chest hurt so bad?"

"The seatbelt. You'll have a nasty bruise there. They hooked you up to the heart monitor as a precaution. Try not to move around so much."

Nodding, I attempt to recall details from after my automotive misadventures, but nothing comes. "Mom, did Kieran say what happened after the wreck? I don't remember."

"Well, he said you kind of keeled over in the car and he had to crawl over you to get out because the passenger door was messed up. He thought you probably had a concussion, so he was trying to walk you around to keep you awake, but then he had one of those moments when he kind of loses muscle control, I guess?" Mom tilts her head at me as if she's looking for confirmation that Kieran's muscle weakness actually happens, and I nod to get her to continue. "He couldn't hold you up and you both fell—that's probably when you got a lot of the bruises and cuts on your legs, although some of them might be from the wreck, too. I guess he was able to recover enough to call for help."

I shut my eyes, tiny flashes of the evening coming back to me, especially the moment when Kieran and I were speeding down the county road and he told me his phone must have fallen out of his jacket. So unless he found my phone in the car when we were at the river...

"Honey? You okay?" Mom asks.

"Yeah," I whisper, the memory—or maybe the dream—of another person with us after the accident returning to me. "Was there anyone else around when the ambulance showed up?"

"No. The paramedics found the two of you alone. Why?"

"Not sure," I tell her, forcing a smile. "Just confusing parts of the night, I guess."

"Partchett said you might be kind of mixed up for a while. It's normal."

If this is normal, I don't like it. I'm woozy and nauseous and...and...my stomach rumbles, and I'm afraid I'm going to throw up. Mom senses what's about to happen and reaches for a bedpan on the table next to the stretcher, but I'm only able to spit some bile into the kidney-shaped plastic.

"You probably don't have anything left in your stomach," she notes. "The concussion made you throw up all over your dress."

Hearing I puked on myself does little to settle my nausea, and I spit up again. "Where is my dress, anyway?" I ask, looking around.

"They cut it off to examine you," Mom says, shaking her head. "It's a lost cause."

For some reason, probably because my head's such a mess, tears spring to my eyes at this news. I rewind the evening in my mind once again and sort of remember dropping my sandals in the grass next to my car at the Stanley Farm, but I don't think I ever picked them up again.

"I lost my shoes, too," I whimper.

"Like you were ever going to wear those again anyway," Mom huffs with a flick of her hand.

"And the car. Oh, my God—your Camaro. It was a classic," I whine, evidently needing to list everything I've lost or messed up tonight.

"You know, we probably needed a new car anyway. We'll go shopping once you're up to it, get something nice and modern this time—with airbags."

"It's a total loss?"

"Well, the back seat's a little closer to the front seat than it should be, so probably." Her comment makes me tear up again, and she stops joking around. "Zip, who cares about the car? I can replace a car. I can't replace you. You're all that matters."

I lose it, crying so hard I don't realize Kieran's slipped through the curtain. "They told me I could come back before they take you for more tests," he says, and I wipe my eyes with my good hand so I can see him. He holds his dusty jacket to him, but his tie and vest are missing, his white shirt and black pants stained with dirt from our post-Prom activities. Mom stands up and slides behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. "I'll leave you two alone," she tells him. "But just for a few minutes, okay?"

"Okay."

Kieran collapses into the chair next to the stretcher as Mom leaves. He reaches out to hold my hand as she had been doing before, only he closes his eyes and raises my hand to his lips, and I sense the tiniest bit of warmth spreading through me at his touch.

"I can't believe you're still here," I whisper, although I have no idea how long we've been at the hospital.

"I told anyone who would listen I wasn't leaving until I saw for myself you were okay. Besides, I didn't want to leave without thanking you."

"Thanking me?"

"You're my hero." He smiles, his mouth only millimeters from my skin, his breath warm across my knuckles. "You probably saved my life tonight."

"I nearly killed you tonight. Sounds like I messed up the car pretty good. I'm surprised you're not hurt."

I pull my hand away from his so I can touch the white tape bandages masking cuts on his cheek and on the bridge of his nose, the flesh bruised and irritated around them. Kieran takes my hand from his face and kisses my fingers. "A few cuts and bruises. No big deal. I'm more worried about you. How are you doing?"

"Not great, but apparently I'm going to live," I joke. "And from what I hear, you saved me, too. Mom says you tried to keep me awake and called for help."

Kieran shifts his eyes to the other side of the examination area, and as soon as he does, I know. I know what I'd wondered about at the river, what I've been struggling to piece together since Mom told me Kieran was the one who called the ambulance. I half expect to follow Kieran's stare and find Morgan Levert standing in the corner, as if this scene is straight out of To Kill a Mockingbird and he's the Boo Radley to my Scout.

"Morgan was with us, wasn't he?" I whisper in case Mom or someone else is listening.

"You remember?" he asks, turning wide eyes back to me.

"Vaguely. What happened?"

Kieran looks around as if he's expecting to be interrupted at any moment. "I was helping you walk and my muscle weakness thing kicked in—"

"I sort of remember that."

"Yeah. I sat you up and tried to go back to the car to find your phone. I must've passed out, because when I woke up, I'm lying next to the back tire and he's with you. I thought I was seeing things." He grips my hand. "And I just kind of stared at him for a minute, because I was so blown away, you know? He looked just like I drew him."

"What's he doing here?"

"No clue." Kieran shrugs. "He said he wished he had time to explain. When the ambulance started getting close, he put you in my arms and ran off into the woods. For a while there, I was half convinced the whole thing didn't happen."

"Did you tell anyone?"

He shakes his head. "No way. It's bad enough Frank was here, but Morgan showing up, too? My parents would have movers at our house by tomorrow morning."

The mention of Frank reminds me to ask, "What happened to Frank? I was so confused after we wrecked—"

Kieran stares down at our joined hands. "When I looked up after I crawled out of the car, Frank's car was in the water."

Just as I thought—Frank, being unfamiliar with the area and with his car bouncing up and down off the gravel, wouldn't be able to see the river coming up ahead as we barreled down the path, wouldn't be able to hit his brakes fast enough to keep him from launching off the final rut and into the river.

"The car was going down while I was walking you around," Kieran says, sounding almost guilty. "By the time the ambulance showed up, it was completely under."

I let this information sink in. Frank Dozier is probably dead, which truly, honestly, wasn't supposed to happen. My plan was to pull the Camaro off to the right while Frank's car went into the water, submerging the front end but not much else, buying me enough time to turn my car around and head back up the hill to safety. Smashing up Mom's car and Frank sinking all the way into the river were obviously severe miscalculations on my part.

All I wanted to do was get away from him. I never meant to kill the guy.

My head weighs a thousand pounds, and as much as I try not to, I shut my eyes for a second and have to force them back open. "You're tired," Kieran points out. "I should go before your mom or the nurses come in and chase me out anyway. But I'll come over tomorrow if you're up to it, okay? We'll talk more then."

"I'd like that," I tell him, wishing he could stay, wishing he could curl up with me in my hospital bed because I'm afraid after a night like tonight, I might not see him again if he leaves. "I'll call you as soon as I get home."

"Okay," he says before pressing his lips to my hand as my mom pokes her head through the curtain. "Kieran," she whispers. He lets me go, sniffling as he stands up. Tears burn my eyes, and I'm amazed I have any left. I watch as he slides past my mom out into the public areas of the emergency room, leaving me to hope I can fall asleep tonight so tomorrow can get here faster.

#  Chapter 25

For someone who's supposed to be taking it easy, I've got a lot of activity swirling around me right now. My grandparents just showed up after going to the salvage yard out on Highway 20 to clean out what's left of the Camaro, and as they're coming into my room to deliver my purse back to me, Mom's phone blares. "Hello?" she huffs, immediately rolling her eyes to the ceiling once she hears who's on the other line. "Mitch...seriously...we've been over this. You don't need to drive all the way down here...Yes, she's still coming to stay with you, and she'll be good as new by then..."

That would be my dad, calling Mom for what's bordering on the millionth time since last night. She's so preoccupied with trying to keep him calm, she ignores the buzzing of our doorbell. "I'll get it," Gram volunteers, as Gramps sits down on the edge of my bed, where I'm lying propped up against both my pillows. "How's my Zipperino?" he asks.

"Sore. Wishing Mom and Dad would chill out already."

Mom's pacing in front of my bedroom window, and on hearing me, she says, "Mitch, give me a minute, okay?" She covers the phone with her hand and walks out of the room, and I hear her say to someone in the hall "Ten minutes. Got it? She needs to rest."

"Sure thing," Kieran says to her over his shoulder as he comes in. Gramps stands up and shakes Kieran's hand. "Hey there, Kieran."

"Hi, Mr. Shipman. Hope you don't mind if I spend a few minutes with Zip?"

Gramps pats Kieran on the back. "Of course not. I'll give you two some privacy."

He leaves and closes the door behind him, which tells me that when Mom told my grandparents about the accident, she must've left out the reason—or what she thinks is the reason—Kieran and I ended up at the river last night. Otherwise, Gramps probably wouldn't be so eager to shut the bedroom door and leave us alone.

"So people in this town don't bring flowers when they visit the sick?" I ask as he sits down on the bed, hoping he remembers the day we met. Apparently he does, because he starts laughing. "I ordered some online this morning," he says. "The florist isn't open on Sundays, but they should be here tomorrow, if you can wait."

"I think I'll manage. I'm not going anywhere for a while, obviously, so now I have something to look forward to. And you didn't have to do that, by the way."

"Yes, I did," he insists. "It's all part of this spoiling-you thing I started last night. Plus, you're my superhero, remember? Buying you flowers is probably the least I can do after you rescued me."

"Some superhero," I grumble. "I don't think superheroes wreck their mothers' cars and end up in the hospital after thwarting the bad guy."

"Minor details," Kieran says, shrugging. He leans in to kiss me, but he pulls back when the doorknob clicks. My mom, still yakking away on the phone, pushes the door open and cocks an eyebrow at me that I meet with a heavy sigh as she pads back down the hall.

"Who's your mom talking to?" Kieran asks, keeping his voice down. "She sounds pretty worked up."

"My dad. Those two are in rare fighting form right now. She's trying to talk him out of coming down here to check up on me, and he's being all guilty and upset and insistent. Like, what would he do if he were here? Sit and stare at me all day? In two weeks I'll be at his house for a month, anyway, so..."

"Well, if he does end up coming, I'd like to meet him."

I give him a wry smile. "No, you wouldn't. Thanks to my mom, he thinks you're the guy who was planning to take his daughter's virginity at the river before she ruined everything by smashing up the car. I'm guessing you're not high on Dad's list of favorite people right now."

Kieran frowns, obviously disappointed. "Well, speaking of what we weren't doing at the river, all I told our parents was that we went to the boat launch to be alone. The rest...well, they kind of went there on their own. I hope you know I'd never disrespect you like that, especially to our parents. Like I'd ever talk about that with them anyway..."

I thank him by raising his hand to my lips. "Awesome of our parents to assume the worst about their own kids," I say, after dropping kisses along his knuckles. "I guess two teenagers going to the river to talk on Prom night is just too unbelievable for them."

"Yeah." Kieran grins. "Gutter minds. They should be ashamed of themselves."

"Although if Frank hadn't shown up at the farm, who knows what could have happened..." I match his grin with a flirty one of my own, and Kieran swallows up my wondering with a kiss that leaves my head swimming even more than it already is thanks to my concussion. After he pulls away, he reaches his hand up to my forehead to graze the skin near my bump. "How are you doing?"

"Better, after that kiss. Seriously, though, I've got a little headache and I'm sore everywhere. I probably won't be at school for a few days." I think I remember Mom saying something about my being checked for internal injuries from the seat belt, which brings up the memory of the beeping heart monitor I was hooked to last night. "Are you okay?" I ask, reaching out to touch his chest. He doesn't wince, but instead covers his hand with mine, his heart pounding against my palm.

"A little bruised up, but I'm fine," he says, shifting his eyes away from mine to the floor. "But, there's still some stuff about what happened last night I need to tell you, if you're up to it."

He's given me this opening, and I decide now's as good a time as any to reveal the dreams I don't think are coincidence anymore, especially after last night. "I have something to tell you, too," I whisper.

"Ladies first."

Breathing in, I start with "Okay. Um...I'm not even sure how to explain this, but I'm pretty sure I knew something bad was going to happen last night."

"What do you mean, you knew?"

"I...I dreamed all of it." Kieran stares at me and doesn't say anything, so I continue. "Right around our birthday, I started having these dreams about the two of us dancing at Prom and then all the lights went out. I mean, what I was seeing happened at school and not the Stanley Farm, but...and I kept having these dreams with sunbursts—"

"You know, I draw sunbursts a lot," he points out, apparently subscribing to Kayla's "coincidence" theory, which I quickly shoot down: "But when I dream them, they're in color, just like Frank's tattoo."

Kieran squeezes his eyelids shut. "I dream them like that, too—in color." He opens his eyes and leans in to cradle my face in his hands, confusion in his eyes. "This doesn't make any sense, though. How..." he begins, before he's struck with the answer. "Oh, God. Frank? You think...but how did he...?"

"Remind me to stop drinking so much diet soda. Apparently, it's not good for me."

Pressing his lips to my forehead, a safe distance from the bump, he whispers against my skin, "I can't believe...oh, God...I'm so, so sorry. If I'd had any idea hanging out with me would put you in danger of ending up...like me...I mean, Kayla has all these bat crap crazy theories about stuff, but I never ..."

"She told me—the poisoning and cults and stuff. So I brought up what I thought might be happening with me, but by the end of the conversation, she had me convinced I was just overreacting. Now, I'm not so sure."

Kieran lets out a ragged breath, and I take his hands in mine as best I can with a giant bandage around the fingers of my right hand. "Kieran, I'm fine," I say impulsively, more concerned with making him feel better than with whether what I'm saying is true or not.

"Have you noticed anything else? Sleeping or anything?" he asks, voice low so as not to tip off my mom or grandparents to our conversation.

"No. Just the dreams. I've written down everything I can remember." I nod toward my desk. "Grab my laptop."

Kieran crosses the room and brings the laptop back with him to the edge of the bed. With the index finger of my good hand, I log in and pull up the file containing my dream descriptions. "Here," I tell him, the two of us in a more technologically advanced version of the day in his room with the boxes full of notebooks. "Read."

He takes a few minutes to scroll through the entries, and I watch his face change—his brow furrowing and relaxing, his lips tightening before spreading into a smile—depending on what he's reading at the time. "I like the one about me outside with the trees," he says after he's finished. "It seems...peaceful or something." He squeezes my hand and reviews the description I've written of him staring at the mountains one more time. "Does anything seem familiar to you?" I ask him.

"Could be North Carolina, I guess. Not enough details. And a lot of what you've written here could have been influenced by things I've told you or that you read in my notebooks."

So he's back to the Kayla Lanier Coincidence Theory. "Kieran..." I start to protest, but he cuts me off by scrolling through the file and turning the computer back to me so I can reread my second dream about Prom. "Zip, you're clearly describing the gym here," he says, pointing over the top of the screen at lines I've written depicting the scoreboard draped with white lights. "There's another one after this where you've got us next to the bleachers. But the lights didn't go out while we were in the gym."

"So? They still went out."

"But they went out at the farm. When I dream, I don't mess up details like that."

Strangely insulted, I twist my mouth into a frown. "Guess I'm just not as good at this yet as you are."

"That's because it's not happening to you," he insists, shutting my laptop as if doing so would put an end to the conversation. "And it's not like you get better or worse at dreaming details over time. Things get clearer, maybe, but I always see the same details...the right details."

"Kieran..."

He moves my laptop next to us on the bed and gathers me to him. "Zip, listen—I'm not trying to talk down to you, I swear. But you've read my notebooks. You've seen how this works. I dream these tiny scenes of things, these moments, but everything's exactly how I saw it when the scene happens later in real life. And how do you think all of my dreams end?" I open my mouth to say...I don't know what I'm going to say. But Kieran answers his question before I can babble out anything that may or may not make sense. "Everything just ends. It all fades to black, just like your dream about Prom, or I wake up the middle of something happening."

I sit back, still in his arms but far enough away that I can study his face, his jaw set with determination, his eyes glowing with confidence. "So you don't think Frank got to me?" I ask.

"I don't think Frank got to you," he confirms, before shifting his gaze to my laptop. "I refuse to believe Frank got to you."

"Those are two very different things, you know," I point out, putting a finger underneath his chin so I can ease his face back in my direction. "Refusing to believe something doesn't automatically make it untrue. Trust me—I've been trying not to believe this for a few weeks now, but after last night, I just don't know."

"Well, maybe whether it's true or not doesn't matter." Kieran slips from my grasp and stands up, fishing a folded slip of paper from his back jeans pocket. "What is this?" I ask as he hands the paper to me.

"Open it. This is what I didn't get the chance to tell you about last night."

I don't hear my mom harping on my dad anymore, which means she could be coming to kick Kieran out any second now. So I unfold the crinkled paper and quickly scan its contents:

There are things you need to know. We should meet. Call as soon as you can. Morgan.

Morgan's penciled a phone number below the angular handwriting that reminds me of Kieran's. "I found this last night when we were still at the river," Kieran explains. "I guess he slipped it into my tuxedo jacket while we were both out."

"Have you called him yet?" I ask, anxious. "Are you going to?"

"I wanted to tell you first," he says, sitting back down next to me, and since he seems to be looking for my opinion, I tell him what I think.

"Well, if he'd wanted to hurt you or kidnap you or whatever last night, he would have. He had every chance, and he called for help instead."

"That's what I was thinking."

"I'm still a little scared for you, though," I admit. "I mean, from everything your dad—Jim, I mean—told us, the guy's totally shady. What if he's trying to trick you or something?"

"I know," Kieran agrees. "On the one hand, he's my crazy, drug-cooking biological dad who didn't give a crap about me when I was a baby. But on the other hand..."

"On the other hand, he really got us out of a bad situation last night," I finish for him. "So which Morgan do you think we're dealing with here—Convicted Felon Morgan or Reformed Criminal Morgan?"

"Well, he kept saying he wanted to make things right," Kieran points out. "If he's serious, maybe we can get him to give us the formula for this...stuff and we can figure out how to treat me...or, us, maybe, if it turns out that you..." Kieran moves his head back and forth as if he's trying to shake the thought that I'm having dreams right out of his head.

I think back to the night of our birthday, right before our first kiss, when he said he would gladly dump his sleeping disorder but had mixed feelings about losing the dreams. "You're sure you want it all to go away?" I ask. "The dreams, too? Because not too long ago, you weren't so sure, remember?"

"I know," he says, nodding. "But we were talking in hypotheticals then, for one thing. I'd still sell my soul to be able to go to sleep when I want to and wake up when I want to like a normal person."

"And the dreams?"

He hitches his shoulders towards his ears. "All I need to know about the future is that you're in it."

His voice seems small and desperate somehow, so I pull him to me. "Of course, I'm in it," I breathe against his skin, just below his ear. "I'm not going anywhere—I promise."

"Except to your dad's for a month," he grumbles.

I lean back against my pillows. "Except for that. But what I meant was, in the grander scheme of things, I'm not going anywhere. I want to be a part of your future, Kieran."

Kieran reaches out to trace the line of my jaw with his index finger. "That's all I need to know. I can live without the dreams. The best one already came true anyway."

He looks away and out my window, the slight blush in his cheeks telling me he's a little embarrassed at what he's just said, and I can't help but pounce. "Awww," I tease. "How is it you always know the right thing to say?"

"Because that's just how I roll," he says, looking at me again with narrowed eyes. "You know me—Mr. Suave."

"Well, Mr. Suave, I think you should call Morgan," I tell him, returning us to the more important topic at hand. "But I'm going with you, just in case something's up."

Kieran shakes his head so intensely pain shoots through my forehead. "Zip, come on—"

I jump in before he can say anything else. "I should be okay enough to go with you if he can wait a few days. We'll take Kayla, too—safety in numbers." His chest heaves in frustration, but I persist. "Look, I'm going whether you want me to or not. He took care of us last night, and I want to thank him in person. It'd be rude not to." Even though I'm arguing with him, I'm smiling, and he joins me, leading me to think for a second that I've won him over.

"How about if I promise to send along your best regards? Bring him a thank-you card or something?" he says instead.

"Kieran," I warn.

"Not talking you out of this, am I?"

I don't get to tell him "no," because my mom pokes her head into the room. "Sorry, Kieran—times up."

He nods at her and leans in to whisper, "I'll call you," before giving me one last kiss on the forehead. He slips past my mom and out the bedroom door as she walks over to sit next to me on the bed.

"Did you get Dad calmed down?" I ask.

"I think I did this time," she says, sighing. "He's concerned, obviously, but there's no sense in him taking off work and driving here when he can't really do anything but sit around and be in the way. I reminded him he gets to worry about you all he wants in a few weeks, and I'll be the one wondering if you're okay."

"Oh, please. Like you sit around all day while I'm at Dad's and stress about me."

Mom brushes my bangs off my face, careful not to graze my bump. "Well, sure, I go to work and live my life, but you're always in the back of my mind. Even when you're here, that's true. You'll get to experience this special brand of torture someday with your own kids—just wait. And don't get me wrong, I totally trust your dad, but I always wonder if he's letting you stay out too late or get into situations where you could wind up in trouble. It's hard giving up control, I guess."

All this talk of control and wondering about being okay, and I can't help myself. "Do you ever wish sometimes you could see into the future and know what's going to happen?" I ask.

Mom laughs a little and lightly strokes my hair at the crown. "What a weird question. You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. You were just saying stuff about wondering what happens to me when I'm not here..." I don't finish my thought, and Mom gazes at the ceiling as if she's giving my idea serious consideration.

"You know," she starts, looking at me again, "if I could have seen into the future and stopped everything that happened last night, I would've in a heartbeat. But like I said, even though giving up control over your kid is hard, in some sense you never have control. I mean, I can't be with you every minute of the day."

"And thank God for that." I smile, prompting another sigh.

"As far as seeing the future, there are things in my life that turned out badly enough that I probably would've liked to know they were coming," Mom continues. "Then again, I would've missed out on so much if I could have changed things. If I'd known your dad and I were going to split up when we first started dating, maybe I would've saved myself some trouble and not gotten involved at all. But then we wouldn't have had all the good times we had, and I wouldn't have had you. So I don't think I'd want to find out what's going to happen in the future because having everything figured out kind of defeats the whole point of life. It's all about taking the bad with the good and learning from what happens."

I swallow hard and think about how if I'd given in to my fears of all the bad I'd seen coming last night, I would've stayed home and missed out on so much good—talking with my friends at dinner, laughing at Kayla and Brad trying to dance, swaying in Kieran's arms in the gym and at the Stanley Farm, feeling him against me in the backseat of the Camaro before Frank came along. Not to mention finding out Morgan Levert may not be the Boogey Man we thought he was.

"Okay, now my head hurts after all that," Mom says. "You should probably get some rest."

Tired enough I can't argue, I rearrange my pillows with Mom's help and slide down until the covers meet my chin. "Sweet dreams, kiddo," Mom whispers, kissing my forehead before she stands and walks out, closing the door behind her.

Sweet dreams. I hope so, Mom—I really do.

#  Chapter 26

The clock on my nightstand tells me it's nearly midnight. Even though I'm grounded, I'm getting ready to go out, and for the first time in my life, I'm not using the front door.

"You're sure you're up to this?" Kieran whispers from where he stands outside my bedroom window, which faces the fields at the back of the house. My response is to sit down on the sill and swing my legs out, Kieran reaching to grab me under the arms so he can help me to the ground. I inhale the night air into my lungs, my first taste of the outside world in the week—almost to the hour—since the accident. And although my head still aches sometimes, my legs are still bruised, and my right hand's still bandaged, stepping out into the darkness works some instant therapeutic magic.

"Never felt better." I smile, silencing Kieran's groan at my response with a quick kiss. "Kayla's parked by the road?" I check with him when we part.

"Just like we planned. Come on."

Kieran takes my hand, and we start walking in the direction of his house, but we turn toward the blacktop once we're a safe enough distance from my house anyone looking out the windows wouldn't be able to see us against the night.

"Any trouble getting over here?" I ask.

"Nope. Once Kayla put the car in gear, I just gave it a little push, and she was able to coast all the way down to the road without starting it. Thanks for the tip."

"No problem." I snicker, knowing my mom would regret telling me about how Jimmy McCaffery used to sneak out of his house when they were our age if she had any inkling of what I'm up to right now.

Kayla starts the Jeep once she catches sight of us near the blacktop. She shoots me a quick "hi" as I crawl into the back seat, and after Kieran buckles himself in on the passenger side, she revs the engine to make the u-turn, her right front tire skidding through the dirt on the shoulder before she straightens up to head down the road in the direction of, and then past, the Lanier house. In minutes, Kayla's slowing to take the left turn onto the gravel path leading to the boat launch. "You might want to hit the brights and take this slow," I suggest, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in my voice. "Road's kind of tricky."

"So I've heard," Kayla says, smirking at me in the rearview.

We rumble down the path at about fifteen miles an hour, a speed that almost seems as if we're moving backwards compared to the last time I drove down here. Without any reminder, Kayla slows to a nearly complete stop and rolls over the final rut, coasting us out to the boat launch area, where she pulls over next to the tree line at the left and turns the engine off about a minute before we're scheduled to meet Morgan Levert.

"I still can't believe you thought meeting here was a good idea," Kayla says as we gather next to the passenger side of the Jeep, the still-burning headlights casting an eerie glow out on the river's surface. Both Kieran and Kayla squint into the darkness ahead of us, looking for Morgan to come walking out of the woods, but the water grabs my attention, the tiny ripples revealing no hint of Frank's car—or Frank—resting on the muddy bottom.

"We needed to meet somewhere private we could all get to easily in the middle of the night," Kieran starts. "I don't remember you suggesting anyplace better."

Kieran switches on the flashlight he's holding to reveal Morgan Levert standing near the trees on the opposite end of the boat launch, near where the Camaro came to rest after the accident. His sudden appearance, as if he's a stain only visible under infrared light, makes my skin crawl.

"Light's in my eyes, you know," he yells over at us, and Kieran instead angles the flashlight towards his own face. Morgan pulls a smaller, pen-sized flashlight from his jeans pocket and holds it under his chin, prompting Kayla and I to fish our phones out of our jacket pockets, allowing the lit-up home screens to show our faces to Morgan. He takes a few steps toward us, but as soon as he's more than halfway across the gravel, Kayla holds out her hand and yells "Stop! Don't come any closer."

To my surprise, Morgan does exactly as she says. "Your sister?" he asks Kieran.

"Yeah."

"I'm here to make sure you don't try anything," Kayla says, completely serious even though Morgan's so solidly built he'd probably be able to snap her in half if he wanted. "You stay over there, we'll stay over here, and the second things even look like they might go bad, we're in the car and we're gone. Got it?"

"Got it," Morgan responds, a smile visible through his scruffy facial hair. And to Kieran: "Way to go, man. Looks like you've got two women willing to kick ass for you."

Morgan's comment kind of confuses me and doesn't do anything to ease my nerves over being down here with him, but I don't get much of a chance to dwell on things as he says "Thank you for looking out for my son—both of you." He nods towards Kayla before turning to me.

Kieran bristles next to me on hearing Morgan call him his son, but I'm more interested right now in learning whatever it is Morgan wants to tell us. "Thanks for helping us after the accident," I say, hoping I'll prompt him to keep talking.

Morgan puts his free hand in his jeans pocket and bobs up and down on his worn work boots, the light swimming in front of his face making me woozy. "Helping was the least I could do since I pretty much caused the accident," he notes. "I was driving the Dodge." I lean back against the Jeep, trying to steady myself as Morgan says "You sucker punched Frankie Boy real good. He was lucky he remembered his own name. So he sure as hell wasn't in any shape to drive. Lucky he had me as his getaway driver—just like old times."

Kieran's hand closes over mine, and a searing pain rises in my temple. I get a brief memory flash of pressing up against Morgan's damp shirt the night of the wreck, which makes sense now—he went into the river with the car.

"You said there were things we needed to know," Kieran says, voice hard. "We're here. So talk. You can start with what the hell you were doing driving for Frank Dozier."

"Well, I need to go back a few months," Morgan explains, as Kieran leans up against the car and slumps a little, an indication we might lose him to sleep any minute now. Fighting through my own grogginess, I start squeezing his hand rhythmically, hoping the action is enough to keep him with us.

"I'm assuming Jim Lanier told you about everything that happened all those years ago?" Morgan says, as if 'Jim Lanier' is some stranger and not Kayla and Kieran's father.

"Yeah," Kayla responds.

"Okay, then." Morgan strokes his chin as if he's figuring out the best place to begin his story. "About three weeks ago, I'm in New York at a friend's and the prison forwards me a letter from Frank, postmarked from here, telling me if I had any idea what was good for me, I'd get myself to Illinois pronto because he'd found my son. Now, let's just say Frank and I weren't exactly best friends by the time we got sent up. I blamed him for Jenna getting killed—"

Once again, Kieran bristles, this time on hearing his mother's name. I let go of his hand and put my phone back in my pocket so I can wrap my arms around him, both to comfort him and to try to keep him awake. Seeing this, Morgan pauses. "He okay?"

"I'm fine," Kieran insists. "Keep talking."

"Okay. So I blamed Frank for Jenna and he blamed me for...well...pretty much everything. Frank and I didn't have a whole hell of a lot to live for when we went in, and we were going to have even less once we got out. But we both knew I had you...somewhere." Morgan's and Kieran's eyes lock on each other, almost zombie-like in the glow of their flashlights. "I didn't need to read between the lines to realize Frank was threatening me...threatening you...and so I wrote and told him I was coming. He was using a post office box, but when he wrote the next time, he gave me directions to an abandoned trailer a few miles outside town where he was staying." Morgan lowers his eyes to the gravel and then raises them again, but his gaze is somewhere in the distance. "I don't know what Jim told you about us meeting years ago, but I'm not that person anymore," he insists. "When I went in, I had years of nothing in front of me, and I was hopeless and bitter for a long time. I did almost fifteen years, and I wasted a lot of those years being angry over things I couldn't do anything about. But after a while...I accepted my fate, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. And I knew that if I could avoid getting killed or doing something stupid to get time added on to my hitch, someday I'd get out, and I'd need to be ready for life on the other side. So I got some counseling, took classes—"

"Found Jesus?" Kayla interrupts, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Morgan ignores her and turns back to Kieran and me. "What I'm saying is, I was twenty-two when I went in. I'm thirty-seven now. Took a while and a lot of work, but I grew up. And after I got over myself, the last thing I wanted was to interfere with your life. I'd done enough damage, and Jim Lanier would give you a better life than I ever would." Morgan focuses his attention on a large piece of gravel he starts rolling around with the toe of his boot. "I was never a real father to you, kid, even in the short time we were together. The best way to honor your mother and do right by you was to stay the hell away and start my life over when I got out."

"Until Frank," I finish for him.

"Until Frank." He sighs, still kicking at the rocks. "Frank was in the joint upstate at this place where there was a riot last year...real sorry situation with inmates and guards hurt bad and one guy killed. He told his lawyer he could finger the guys who started the whole thing if he got a deal. His lawyer worked out a protective custody agreement and got him out of state after he ratted. Once the rest of his sentence was commuted, he headed straight for North Carolina."

"Looking for us?" Kayla asks, confused. "How did he find out we were there?"

"Frank said his lawyer knew Jim had quit working for the District Attorney's office after we got sent up and that he'd moved to North Carolina. No idea how his lawyer found out, but if I learned anything in prison, it's that you can find out whatever you need to know about people in those circles if you just ask the right person, and sometimes, if you bribe them. Wouldn't have been too hard for anybody to find out exactly where you were. Hell, I might've told some people after that time Jim came to talk to me and the information worked its way upstate to Frank—who knows?"

I try to sort out in my addled brain everything Morgan's telling us, and what he's saying makes sense—when Jim moved the family the first time, they weren't in any danger, so they didn't need to be as secretive as they were when they came here.

As if he can read my thoughts, Morgan asks, "Mind if I ask how you guys ended up in this backwater anyway? Frank was stumped on that one—he told me he showed up in Asheville and next thing he knows, you're moving here and he's following."

"The dreams," Kieran blurts out. "I was seeing you. My mom and dad—"

Now Morgan flinches. I notice his shoulders hunching up at Kieran's mention of the word "dad," and Kieran must, too, because he corrects himself. "The Laniers, I mean. That mom and dad. They thought my dreams meant you were headed to North Carolina to find me."

Morgan nods in understanding as Kayla hisses at Kieran, low enough Morgan wouldn't be able to hear "Are you seriously trusting this guy?"

"The formula, Kayla," Kieran reminds her through his teeth. "We need to get him to give us the formula."

Morgan doesn't catch the siblings' side conversation about Kieran's ultimate goal for this meeting, and he almost talks over them. "So you were running away from the wrong guy," he says, a tiny smile on his lips.

"Guess so," Kieran mumbles, having shut Kayla up for the moment.

Morgan shakes his head and continues explaining to Kieran how we've all ended up where we are right now. "I get here, and turns out, Frank used you to bait me. See, back in New York, Frank never knew how to make the stuff that...made you the way you are. He was always a user—never wanted to do the dirty work, only came around when the batches were already cooked up. So the deal was, I either give him the formula and help him get what he needed to cook it up and sell it, or he'd hurt you.

I wrap my arms even more tightly around Kieran as Morgan continues. "I talked him into a new plan, though. I said, 'Let's grab the kid and go back to New York.' I told him I knew guys with connections to people who would probably pay big money for the recipe and to do research on someone like Kieran. No need to get our hands dirty being drug dealers. One big sale to the right people and we'd be set for life. Once I told him the kid had the blackouts like we used to, plus the sleeping thing and the dreams, Frank was all in. Of course, I was lying about knowing anybody, though between the two of us, Frank and I both probably know enough shady people we wouldn't have had to work too hard to find somebody connected." He shrugs, a smile playing about his lips that almost makes him seem proud to know the people he does. Then he quickly sobers up, saying to Kieran, "I'd never hurt you, kid. You don't have much reason to believe me when I say I've changed, but it's the truth." Morgan looks out at the river for a long second before revealing his biggest surprise. "The thing of it is, I don't even know how to make the stuff. Frank would've killed both me and you for sure if he'd found that one out."

Kieran's body slackens in my arms, and I grab his flashlight and lean my full weight against the Jeep to keep us upright. "What do you mean, you don't know?" he breathes.

Once again, Morgan drops his gaze. "I used to use the stuff a lot, too, remember? The blackouts...there are whole chunks of things from that period that are completely...gone. How to make the stuff is one of them, and that was more Jenna's deal anyway. I messed around mixing stuff here and there, but she's the one who hit on the actual formula for what we were using—that much, I'm sure of. Sometimes, I get bits and pieces of memories when I think back..."

My head starts to pound as the truth takes shape. If Frank had no clue how to mix up the drug, he couldn't have been drugging me at the diner. Kayla, was right all along, and so was Kieran—my dreams were nothing more than coincidences, symptoms of reading Kieran's journals and of my own anxieties.

"So, you weren't lying all those years ago when you told my dad you didn't remember how to make it," Kieran states, the flatness in his voice betraying his disappointment.

"No, and that's one of the few times in my life at that point I wasn't lying about something. You, me, and Frank—we were the only evidence left the stuff ever existed, and now Frank's dead."

"Thanks to me," I can't help but interject.

Morgan shakes his head. "Thanks to me. I was stringing Frank along, telling him I'd help him get Kieran and we'd go back to New York to meet my contact. We'd tried a few times to grab the kid, but he was never alone. The night we saw you two at that farm, we figured we had our best chance. You guys got in your car and I drove around to the far side of the field. Frank thought he'd just grab the kid and run, and we'd be gone before you even knew what hit. Dumbass didn't count on you catching up with him."

My lips curl into a smile as Morgan continues the story. "So my plan was for Frank to come back to the car with Kieran, we'd get out of town, and I'd...get rid of Frank somewhere and bring Kieran home."

"You were going to kill him," Kayla says, filling in the blanks.

"Only if I had to, and I'm guessing I would've had to—anything to keep you out of danger," he says to Kieran. "But that's beside the point now." Morgan shifts his eyes to the river's surface, glossy and black save for the small section being lit by Kayla's headlights. "After you clocked Frank, he was so pissed," he tells me, flashing a smile. "Frank never was one to stand for getting one-upped by a chick. So, of course, he wanted to follow you so we could grab Kieran and mess you up good."

I don't even want to know what "mess you up good" might mean, because the nightmares I'm probably going to have about that night for the rest of my life will already be bad enough. So I swallow down the bile building up in my throat and let Morgan continue.

"I did the whole car chase for Frank's benefit. I figured you'd be smart enough not to lead us back to town, but even if you did, I was going to turn off somewhere deserted so I could do whatever I needed to do to Frank to end the whole thing. You pulled down that gravel road, and it was almost like you were reading my mind. I thought there had to be somewhere out there in the woods I could pull off. I didn't figure there'd be a river at the bottom of the path."

"That was my plan." I say.

Morgan nods and goes on. "After we went into the water, I opened the window and crawled out before we were too far under. No way Frank had the strength to swim, probably wasn't even enough in his right might to unbuckle the seat belt. You didn't kill him, little girl. I did. I let him drown. I had to get back to shore and help you kids. While I was walking you around, I made sure we shuffled the dirt and the tire tracks enough nobody'd notice any signs of another car. The ambulance driving over everything helped, too. Once you two got off to the hospital, I came back out of the woods and smoothed over the gravel some more before the tow truck showed up. Frank and I were never there as far as anyone's concerned." He shrugs his shoulders, his demeanor almost humble. "Guess if I know how to do one thing real well, it's cover up a crime scene."

Kieran's head grows heavier against me, and I glance over at Kayla. "Kay...um...I think he's..."

Kayla puts her arms around Kieran as well, and together we lower him to the ground, leaning his frame against the Jeep's rear tire. I sit down next to him and cradle him to me.

"Can I help?" Morgan asks.

I look up. Morgan's taken a few steps toward to us, his face twisted in concern, but Kayla's flat voice stops him from coming any closer. "We're fine."

Morgan nods, his mouth a tight line. He's obviously a little disappointed Kayla won't let him get close to his son, and I can't help but feel bad for him, especially now we know everything he did to make sure Frank didn't hurt Kieran.

"What happens now?" I ask him. "Do you plan on sticking around?"

"No, no, no." He shakes his head. "Kid's got a life here, and I'm not part of that. This is the last you'll ever see of me." He seems to be looking at Kayla as he says "This is the last you'll ever see of me."

"I've got your phone number," Kieran points out, but Morgan dismisses him. "Pre-paid phone—already dumped it. So don't try to stay in touch. Don't really know why you'd want to." He resumes looking down at the gravel and kicking at it with his boot. "Look—you might feel like you owe me something for helping you out, but you don't. There's nothing I could ever do for you to make up for all the bad I've done. And now that I've explained everything that went down, here isn't my place. You've got your life, and I need to get on with figuring out mine." An awkward silence passes before Morgan looks up and says, "So long, kid," and shuts off his flashlight. As he shuffles away across the gravel, Kieran sits up in my arms and leans forward. "Hey," he yells into the darkness, and the shuffling stops.

"Yeah?"

"What's my real name, anyway?"

I can barely make out Morgan's shape in the distance, his face momentarily lit up by the flash of a lighter, leaving the glowing embers on the end of a cigarette behind. "Morgan," he mumbles, his smoke dangling from his mouth. "Sorry, kid. Jenna's fault. Said she always wanted a Morgan around in case anything ever happened to me."

Morgan turns and the ember disappears, his feet crunching the gravel again. In seconds, the only noises are the breeze whistling through the trees, the faint lapping of water against the rocks, and Kieran whispering in my ear "I think I like 'Kieran' better."

I smile, even though he probably can't see me in the darkness. "Me, too."

#  Chapter 27

Rain pelts the Jeep's windows as Kieran and I huddle together in the backseat before school on Monday, my first day back after the accident. Kayla's generously gone inside to do some work in the library, allowing us a few precious moments alone since I'm still grounded and we're all too aware that our time together will be coming to an end for a while when I leave for my dad's right after school lets out.

"So when you get back in July, I want you to start teaching me how to play basketball. More than the basics, I mean," Kieran tells me at the end of a long kiss.

"Like, teach you to run plays and stuff?"

"I'm not sure I can actually run plays without going head-first into the court, so maybe just diagram stuff for me or something. Your mom explained a few things to me at your Regional game, but I want to understand the finer points better so I know everything that's happening when I watch you."

"My mom barely understands anything beyond five players trying to put a round ball through a hoop, so I wouldn't trust whatever she told you," I tell him after giving him a kiss on the cheek in thanks for wanting to learn about such an important part of my life. "I could probably teach you to shoot free throws or something, though. You wouldn't have to move around as much, and I'd be able to stand next to you in case you thought you were going to pass out. And maybe I can draw out some of the sets we run and stuff like that."

"That would be awesome. It'd be even more awesome if you weren't going to your dad's at all and we could start my big jock makeover now."

I snuggle into him, resting my head on his shoulder. "I'll be gone for a month. You won't even miss me."

"Oh, I'll miss you. If I know anything, I know that."

Hearing him say he knows he'll miss me, I can't help but ask about the subject we've been avoiding since we met with Morgan on Saturday night. "Speaking of knowing things, are you upset I'm not...you know...like you? As far as the dreams, I mean."

"Never in a million years," he says, his voice sincere. He squirms so he can look at me directly and ask "Why? Are you?"

I've thought about this a lot since Saturday, and while I'm sure I wasn't fully prepared to deal with the possible consequences of dreaming about the future for the rest of my life, I was willing to learn to live with it, just like Kieran. At the same time, though...

"No," I answer him. "I'm okay with not getting hints about what's coming, especially if I can avoid seeing things I don't want to see ahead of time. I mean, thinking I'd gotten a glimpse of something bad on Prom night but I didn't know enough to stop it was pretty scary." I pause for a moment, and Kieran looks down at me. "But..." he prompts.

"But, on the other hand, there's kind of this weird disappointment, too. I mean, the dreaming thing is no joke, and I get that, but...we would've shared something with each other we didn't share with anyone else. How many people can say that?"

Kieran runs his hand up and down my forearm. "Zip, we share everything that matters. We laugh at the same things, we like the same books..." He gathers me to him. "And we'll share other things. Better things. I promise."

His promise is barely off his lips when I raise my mouth to his. The temptation to ask if he's seen glimpses of these better things gnaws at me every bit as much as the ache for him that grows each time we kiss, but I ignore it. I have no clue what's coming in the future, but at least I know I have him, along with a caring family, great friends, good grades, and a realistic shot at a title in a sport I love to play, all of which is more than some people get in a lifetime, whether they know what's coming or not.

"And you're really okay with the fact that Morgan can't save you, or whatever?" I ask for the millionth time since we found out Saturday night that no one alive knows the formula for the drug that made Kieran the way he is. And while he's assured me that he's fine, this is the first time I've asked when I can see his face.

"It is what it is," he says, the corners of his mouth turned down as he shrugs. "I mean, I'm disappointed, but it is what it is. I've never known anything else, so I guess I'll live. It's like..." He rubs his thumb along the top of my hand, frowning as he thinks. "It's like you and basketball. You can't remember a time when you didn't know how to play, right? It's just a part of you."

"True." I nod, although the analogy doesn't totally hold up. I like my abilities, while Kieran usually seems annoyed by or outright frightened by his.

"So we both have our own set of powers," he notes. "Only yours are superpowers and mine aren't-so-superpowers."

"Being good at basketball isn't a superpower. Unless you're Michael Jordan."

Kieran puts his fist under my chin to lift my head. "Hey—take a compliment for once, okay? Just accept that I think you can leap tall buildings in a single bound."

I roll my eyes and exhale. "Oh, fine," I start, and even if I did want to protest further, Kieran ends the moment with a quick kiss before pulling away from me so he can pull his phone from his pocket. "We'd better get going," he groans after checking the time.

With a heavy sigh, I slip into my vinyl rain jacket and raise the hood. Kieran's already warned me that in my absence, word had gotten around that I was now The Girl Who Wrecked Her Car Driving Her Boyfriend to the River to Hook Up, a lengthy title I'm not thrilled about but am totally willing to accept to since it's so much less impossible to explain than the truth.

I open the door, crawling out into the storm before Kieran. "Okay," I yell against the sheets of rain, slinging my backpack up on one shoulder. "Let's do this."

Hand in hand, we run toward the side entrance, backpacks bouncing against our backs. Lucky for me and my newfound social status as a car-wrecking slut, the parking lot is almost empty of students since we're just a few minutes from the warning bell, the few people who are still outside huddled under umbrellas and hidden under jacket hoods. Once we've reached the double doors, we stand aside to let some sophomores go into the building ahead of us, and we're alone again.

Kieran leans in for one last kiss, my hood falling off as I angle my face up to his. "Ready?" he asks when we part, his hand on the door.

"No. But it's not like I have a choice, right?"

Kieran grins and opens the door for me. I step through and jog up the few stairs, Kieran falling in next to me, and we start down the hall toward whatever's waiting for us.

END OF BOOK ONE

Other books by Amy Martin:

In Your Dreams (4 book series)

The Perfects (4 book series)

Want to be the first to know about Amy Martin's new releases? Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, check out her website at www.theamymartin.com, or sign up for her mailing list.

#

# ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my friends and family, who support me not just in my writing, but also in whatever life throws my way. In particular, I'd like to thank Stacey McNamara, who has read early drafts of most of my work and still likes me anyway.

I'd also like to thank Cleo, the greatest cat in the universe, who sits on my lap when I write and never complains that she'd rather be doing something else.

Above all, I'd like to thank my husband, Heath, whose unconditional love keeps me going and gives me the confidence that I can finish whatever I start.

#

#  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amy Martin wrote and illustrated her first book at the age of ten and gave it to her fourth grade teacher, who hopefully lost it in her house somewhere and didn't share it with anyone else. Not counting that early adventure in self-publishing, In Your Dreams is Amy Martin's first Young Adult novel. You can find out more about her books at http://www.theamymartin.com.

