 
Streaks of Blue: How the Angels of Newtown Inspired One Girl to Save Her School

By Jack Chaucer

Copyright 2013 Jack Chaucer

Smashwords Edition

Second edition 2019

Cover art by Damonza

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This novel is written in memory of the 20 children and six women who went to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on December 14, 2012, and never came home.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Lakes of the Clouds

Chapter 2: 14th & Stardust

Chapter 3: Bat-shit Crazy

Chapter 4: Driving Mr. Brody

Chapter 5: The Police

Chapter 6: Three Words

Chapter 7: Calling for Backup

Chapter 8: Demons and Trail Angels

Chapter 9: "We're Going to be Friends"

Chapter 10: Sugar Cubes

Chapter 11: The Acid Den

Chapter 12: Inside Information

Chapter 13: The Punch Heard 'Round Lakeview

Chapter 14: Talking About Trips

Chapter 15: 9/11

Chapter 16: The Unexpected Diagnosis

Chapter 17: Bucket Lists

Chapter 18: A Date at Chili's

Chapter 19: A Shot in the Dark

Chapter 20: The Aftermath

Chapter 21: The Wounded Poet

Chapter 22: AC 360

Chapter 23: Kearsarge North

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

### LAKES OF THE CLOUDS

Nicole Janicek beamed, her glowing face a lighthouse beacon for the sea of silent, stony summits surrounding her in the late summer twilight. Undistracted by the long, fine strands of light brown and dyed-blue hair whipping around her in the gusty mountain air, the teenager's spritely blue eyes danced from peak to peak as they faded into silhouettes. The moment itself was a fully conceived poem, but Nicole was too consumed by the blackening White Mountains to bend down, reach into her pack and pull out her journal.

Then she heard her best friend's boot steps traversing the rocks to her left.

"The hut is filling up," Candace Cooper informed her as she approached, "but at least they have a decent bathroom. Wow, it's getting dark fast up here."

"And cold," Nicole added. "Hug me already, girl."

Candace leaped over both of their packs and landed on Nicole's rocky perch. The soon-to-be high school seniors embraced warmly beside alpine flowers and a glassy blue pond — one of several tarns on the beautiful broad shoulder of Mount Washington. The Lakes of the Clouds, as they are known, sit at about 5,000 feet between the summits of Mount Monroe (5,200 feet) and Mount Washington, the highest peak in New Hampshire's Presidential Range at 6,288 feet.

"Look," Nicole said, pointing to the purple northeastern sky. "Venus."

"Yes, the goddess of love," Candace said, her long, auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail as the wind buffeted them again. "I saw a few young men in the hut who could help keep us warm tonight and perhaps Venus is our sign."

Nicole gasped and pulled back from her slightly taller friend in semi-mock outrage.

"Don't even think about chickening out on me now, Candace," she said.

"They're going to catch us, Nikki. You know the rules — no camping above the tree line. They can almost hit us with a stone from the hut," Candace replied, her green eyes pleading for a wooden roof instead of a nylon tent at such an exposed position. Despite the mercifully clear and hospitable conditions on this 55-degree night, the wind made it feel much colder and the girls weren't used to it after a long, hot summer.

"So what. I came here to sleep under the stars and that's what I'm going to do," Nicole said, her hands on her hips. "Are you with me or not?"

Candace gazed up and found more planets and stars shining back at her.

"God, they should call this place Lakes of the Cloudless tonight," she finally said. "If it weren't so damn clear, I wouldn't, but ..."

"Good, then let's hunker down and very quietly start setting up the tent ... like almost in slow motion," Nicole said, bending down and reaching for the folded-up tent inside her navy blue pack. "Every minute that it gets darker and they don't see us works in our favor."

"OK, but I'm blaming it all on you if they catch us or a bear eats us," Candace quipped.

"I can live with that," Nicole said. "The bears live in the woods and we're above them here. Besides, some things are worth taking a risk for."

Dressed in a powder-blue fleece sweat shirt, black wind pants and sand-colored hiking boots with red laces, Nicole took the lead in setting up the green nylon tent and spreading out a foldable cushion inside it for added support. They made camp on a stony patch of ground because they didn't want to risk getting in trouble for trampling the fragile alpine flowers. When Candace joined her friend inside the tent and stretched out her long, athletic body against the cushion, she immediately grimaced.

"Ouch, Nikki, this is most definitely gonna suck," she said, causing them both to laugh. "I really do hope we get caught now."

"Stop it," Nicole protested, punching her friend playfully in the shoulder. "We're roughing it for one night. That's all. It'll make you appreciate every other night when you have all the comforts of home."

"I swear I'm gonna start howling like a she-wolf until they find us and make us sleep in the hut," Candace threatened with a grin.

"Uh, no you won't, C.C. I'll tape your mouth shut."

"With what?"

"Duct tape."

"Duct tape? You brought duct tape?"

"Of course," Nicole said, tossing Candace an energy bar from her pack as they now sat Indian style across from one another inside the tent. "I also brought this," she added, grabbing a small headlamp and strapping the black band around her bi-colored hair so she could see as darkness descended on the ridge. "Cheryl used a headlamp just like it on her trek."

"You and your Strayed," Candace said.

"You should finish it," Nicole advised, referring to Cheryl Strayed's book, "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail." "And you know she'd break the rules and make camp right here."

"I read enough of that book to know Cheryl would walk right over to that hut tonight and hook up with the first guy she met," Candace said, her mischievous grin returning.

"You make a valid point," Nicole said, nodding and taking a sip from her water bottle. "She was a real slut back in the day, but I do admire how honest she was about that in the book. I'm ..."

A flashlight suddenly shining against the tent made both girls flinch and freeze in place. Then they heard boot steps against a nearby rock.

"Oh shit, Nikki, I told you," Candace whispered, before smiling and adding, "I'm saved!" as she whimsically thanked a higher power with prayerful hands.

Nicole frowned, stuck her tongue out at Candace and then stuck her head out of the flap of the tent.

"Hello?" she said, squinting toward the flashlight.

"Hi, I'm Will from the hut crew," a handsome young man in his early 20s said, squatting beside their tent with the flashlight on them.

Candace nudged Nicole aside and stuck her head out of the flap, too, causing Will to shuffle his legs, lose his footing momentarily and nearly fall into the tarn. Clearly, he wasn't expecting to see two teenage girls camping in this spot. Nicole and Candace both managed to stifle their laughter.

"Sorry to disturb you, ladies," Will said, quickly recovering and remembering why he was there. "But there's no camping permitted above the tree line or anywhere within a quarter mile of Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Do your parents know you're out here?"

"Yes," Nicole replied, her blue eyes defiant. "We may be young, but we're seasoned hikers. We're practicing to do the whole Appalachian Trail, maybe even the Pacific Crest Trail. We're not starting a fire and we're not trampling the flowers."

"Still, rules are rules," Will said. "We have a couple of bunks not filled at the hut, so why don't you join us there. It's not far at all. "

Candace was attracted to the man and saw an opportunity to help her friend get "Strayed" in her way while possibly getting "Strayed" herself in an entirely different way.

"I'll make you a deal, Will," she said slyly. "I'll join you at the hut if you'll look the other way and let my friend Nikki here live out her dream of sleeping under the stars just this one time. How does that sound?"

The young man smiled and shook his head, but clearly he was entertaining the offer. When all of Candace emerged from the tent and she bent over to pull out her pack, Will just stared and had no words.

"You'd really do that for me?" Nicole asked Candace.

"Gladly," she replied, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and flipping it around in the wind for full effect.

"No fires, no ...," Will said, finally regaining his voice, only to be cut off by Nicole.

"No trampling the flowers, got it," she said with a smile. "Thanks, the both of you ... I really mean that."

"I'll be back to check on you early, Nikki, or join us in the hut if you come to your senses. Otherwise, just call me if you need anything ... we do have working cell phones up here at least," Candace said.

"Anything else, Mom?" Nicole asked as they began walking away.

"Yes, don't roll into the pond and drown," Candace yelled back.

"You be careful, too," Nicole shot back with a loaded smile that she hoped Candace saw in the glare of her headlamp.

When they were gone and it was certain she had been given the green light to camp under the stars 5,033 feet above sea level, Nicole climbed out of her tent and jumped for joy. She launched all 5-foot-6 of her toward the heavens and tried to grab a piece of the Milky Way as it cascaded above her. Though her boots crashed back onto the rocky ground, she felt her heart leap into space.

...

Adam Upton roused his younger brother from a daze when he suddenly jerked the wheel to the right and drove the rumbling, red pickup truck into the empty parking lot at Lakeview Regional High School.

"What the hell are you doing?" Brody asked. "School doesn't start until next week."

Adam brought the truck to a screeching stop facing the large, open practice field on the left side of the sprawling brick school building.

"I'm about to give you your most important assignment for the school year," said Adam, who at 17 seemed nearly double the size of his 13-year-old brother. "And you're gonna do it when I tell you to do it because that's what freshmen are supposed to do — kiss the asses of the upperclassmen."

"That's total bullshit," Brody protested.

Adam punched his brother in the left arm and laughed. Brody grabbed his arm in pain and hung his head. He was tired of being ordered around, overpowered and pummeled by his Ultimate Fighting Championship-loving brother.

"Get used to it, son. Life is bullshit," Adam said with a nasty edge to his husky voice.

"You ain't my father," Brody said hesitantly, not looking at him and fully expecting another punch at any moment. "And whenever you start calling me 'son' something bad is about to happen."

Both boys had messy, wavy brown hair and brown eyes, but Adam was 6 feet tall, stocky and stubbly faced. Brody, whose growth spurt hadn't started yet, was only 5-4, fairly thin and didn't even sport peach fuzz on his cheeks yet.

"I'm the closest thing you got to a father, son, and you're gonna pull a prank for me sometime very soon," Adam said menacingly, his whole face boring into his brother, leaving no room for argument.

"OK, OK ... what the hell do you want me to do?" Brody asked, practically whining for mercy.

"You're gonna pull the school fire alarm for me," Adam said flatly, shifting his weight back toward the steering wheel.

"Why?" Brody asked after pondering the assignment for a moment.

"You'll see," Adam replied, his eyes now focused on the grassy field in front of the truck. "And if you're smart, you'll hide in the bathroom after you pull it. You really don't want to get caught up in a turkey shoot."

"What?" Brody asked, utterly confused.

"It's just a hunting expression, son," Adam said.

"Oh."

CHAPTER 2

### 14TH & STARDUST

A beautiful little girl with golden, shoulder-length hair and crystal blue eyes appeared in Nicole's tent seemingly out of nowhere. Smiling as she glowed in the darkness, the girl was just short enough to fit inside the tent standing up.

"Who are you?" Nicole asked.

"My name is Star now," she replied sweetly. "Would you sit next to me in class?"

"Class?" Nicole wondered.

"Yes, it's about to start. Come with me," Star said, offering Nicole her tiny hand.

Confused but curious, Nicole reached out for the girl's hand and, as soon as she touched her, they were suddenly outside the tent and under the stars — billions of them, and so much brighter than Nicole had ever seen.

Strangely, the wind was gone and Nicole found herself sitting next to Star in a field of lush green grass. They were part of a semicircle full of children, all 6 to 7 years old, and facing a tall woman with long brown hair who stood next to an easel with a blackboard.

"Wow, an outdoor class under the stars," Nicole heard herself say before a school bell rang from out of nowhere and the teacher began writing on the chalkboard. As all of the students watched the teacher, Nicole's eyes wandered and noticed a familiar face several feet to her right. He was bigger than the rest but still only 6 or 7.

"Who is that boy, Star? I think I know him," Nicole whispered, pointing toward him discreetly.

"His name is Adam," she replied, the sound of her voice so close to Nicole's ear even though they sat a couple of feet apart in the grass.

"Adam Upton," Nicole concluded. "Yeah, I remember him. He was in my class a long time ago. We used to play together during recess."

"He's still in your class," Star whispered. "He's going to be a senior, just like you."

"Really?" Nicole asked, wondering how Star knew this.

That's when the teacher spoke directly to Nicole.

"Yes, Nicole, it's true," she said, her face gravely serious as she gazed into Nicole's eyes. There was a sadness Nicole could not understand nor look away from. "Please help us if you can."

Nicole nodded, glanced over to where Adam had been sitting in the grass and noticed he was gone.

"Where did Adam go?" she asked the teacher.

"He's planning something very bad, Nicole," she said. "He's lost and needs to be found very quickly."

Then the teacher pointed at the chalkboard, where she had written the numbers 12:14.

"Please bring Adam back here before it's too late," the teacher warned.

"OK, I will," Nicole replied instantly, surprised at the conviction in her own voice. "What's the address here?"

"Star will give you a note so you remember," the teacher instructed.

Just like that, Star was back inside the tent with Nicole, handing her a little blue sticky note with yellow stars on it.

"Please bring Adam with you as a friend," Star said in her angelic voice as Nicole accepted the note and read the address, handwritten by the teacher. It said: "14th & Stardust."

...

"14th and," Nicole mumbled aloud as she sat up suddenly in her sleeping bag and realized she had been dreaming. The cold mountain air made her shiver, but that physical chill seemed insignificant compared to the message from the dream that hammered at her brain.

"Adam Upton," she told herself, donning her headlamp and searching in the dark for the side pocket of her pack to find her pen and journal. In the process of fumbling for those items, she discovered a small clear Ziploc bag that she distinctly didn't remember packing. Inside it she was delighted to find some homemade chocolate chip cookies and a folded piece of white notebook paper. Nicole smiled as she bit into a cold but delicious cookie and read her mother's handwritten words:

" _Here's a little something to boost your energy on the trail. I know you and Candace know what you're doing up there with so many hikes under your belt, but a mother still worries so call me anytime and when you get to the summit. The forecast looks great. I hope it's as clear as the day we hiked Washington together for your 14th birthday!!! I also just read online that meteor showers could be visible so gather some stardust for me. :) Stay safe, enjoy your last getaway before senior year and I'll see you Sunday. Love, Mom."_

They hadn't been getting along very well lately, but after reading the note and finishing off that first cookie, Nicole only had warm thoughts of her mother. The teen actually wished they were huddled together in the tent now.

A moment later, as Nicole glanced at the note again, she froze. Her wide eyes fixed on the "14th" and then on the word "stardust." Her jaw dropped open, her stomach felt queasy and the dream burst back through her consciousness in full this time.

"How? ... How is that even possible?" she muttered to herself as a gust of wind shook the tent.

Nicole realized she didn't even need a pen and paper anymore. Her mother had written the address for her: 14th & Stardust — whatever, wherever that meant. The teacher in the dream had used the number 14, too. She suddenly recalled the 12:14 on the chalkboard in haunting detail.

"They were written as a time, not a date, but I know those numbers," Nicole said aloud. "Newtown. December 14th."

Nine months ago, on December 14, 2013, she participated in a candlelight vigil to mark the one-year anniversary of the massacre that killed 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — only two states away from Nicole's high school in southern New Hampshire. Unshakable grief hung over the whole nation, and especially New England, in the wake of that dark day just before Christmas in 2012.

Now she had been asked, in a dream, to help prevent another horrible event — this time at her own school. Could this be real?

"Adam Upton?" she asked herself. "I don't even really know him anymore."

She thought about what Candace would say when she mentioned his name — if she mentioned his name; if she even told her best friend about this dream.

"Trailer trash," Nicole whispered to herself. "That's what Candace would say about him. That's what most people would say."

"He's lost and he needs to be found very quickly," the teacher's words echoed in Nicole's ears.

"Bring him with you as a friend," Star had told her.

"Why me?" Nicole whispered as the wind whipped against the tent.

The words "From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" suddenly trekked through her thoughts.

"Me and my Strayed," Nicole said aloud after a long silence and a deep breath. "I must be the finder of lost souls. I wonder if Adam Upton enjoys ..."

She wanted to say "hiking," but the word "hunting" barged onto her tongue instead. Nicole bit down on it before she finished the sentence.

...

"You've been weird this morning, Nikki," Candace observed out of the blue as the girls lumbered steadily from rock to rock up Mount Washington's steep, monotonous summit cone. "Are you mad that I abandoned you to cuddle up with Will in the hut?"

Candace's question stirred Nicole from her trance — one she had mostly maintained since they had ascended out of the easy ridgeline trail of tarns and alpine flowers, and began exerting themselves on their final push toward the summit. The clear skies from the night before had given way to mostly cloudy conditions, allowing only intermittent views of the Presidential Range and beyond.

Nicole's mood was deteriorating, too, and she could no longer withhold the reason from her friend.

"I'm sorry," she said, abruptly stopping to sit on a smooth rock next to a small pyramid of rocks, or cairn, which marked the trail above the tree line. "I've got to tell you about this dream I had last night, C.C., or I'm going to lose it and roll off the mountain."

"What? OK, you better tell me then," Candace said, sitting across from her friend on a different rock.

Nicole thought about her words as she took a swig of water from her bottle. Candace pulled a water bottle out of her pack and did the same, but she got tired of waiting for her friend to talk.

"So you're not mad at me then?" Candace asked.

"Definitely not," Nicole assured her. "I'm so glad you had fun with Will and I was able to sleep under the stars last night. It was a win-win for both of us, but now I just want to stay on this mountain and never go back to school."

"Whoa, I here you, but what the hell did you dream about that makes you say that, Nikki?" Candace asked, leaning forward to touch her friend's forearm and to hear her better as the wind whistled up the rocky cone.

"This was more like a vision than a dream — it was disturbingly real," Nicole said, searching for words. "Do you know Adam Upton?"

The question caught Candace off guard at first, but she eventually blurted out the two words Nicole predicted she would. "Adam Upton, yeah, sort of ... he's trailer trash, obnoxious ... why?"

"Because this dream I had basically warned me that he's going to do something bad this school year," Nicole said, shivering as her sweat turned cold in the strong winds on this 58-degree day.

"Bad like what?" Candace asked.

"Bad like Newtown," Nicole replied. "He's going to shoot at us and kill us — that kind of bad."

Candace's eyes bugged out, but she was speechless as Nicole recounted most of the details of the dream.

"You had a nightmare, Nikki, that's all," she finally concluded.

"Am I crazy?" Nicole asked.

"Yes," Candace said, hugging her tightly and not letting go as two older male hikers descending from the summit nodded at them.

"Good way to keep warm in this wind, ladies," one of them said a little too flirtatiously for Candace's taste. She suddenly shifted into protective mode for her frazzled friend.

"Glad we could make your day," she said with a little bite in her tone as they drew closer.

"Views were pretty spotty up there," the other climber said with a winded voice as he carefully lumbered down the rocks and moved past them.

"Oh well, thanks for the update," Nicole said, trying to change the subject back to hiking and regain her composure. But then she remembered her mother's note. She pulled it out of her pack and showed it to Candace.

"What's this?" she asked.

"In the dream they told me to bring Adam Upton to 14th & Stardust," Nicole said. "Then I wake up, reach into my pack and find this note from my mother that I didn't know was in there. I swear I never saw the note before the dream."

"So what?" Candace said.

"Look," Nicole said, pointing at the note. "There's a '14th' here and a 'stardust' there. That's a pretty bizarre coincidence, don't you think?"

Candace shook her head and then looked up to the clouds for assistance.

"You do think I'm crazy," Nicole concluded.

"I think I'm never gonna let you sleep alone under the stars ever again," Candace said, refocusing on her friend.

"I'm serious," Nicole said.

"I can see that," Candace replied, suddenly uncomfortable with the whole conversation. "But we came up here to get away and now you're all upset."

"The little girl handed me a note that said '14th & Stardust,' then I wake up and find that note from my mother ..."

"Dreams aren't supposed to make sense, Nikki. What does that even mean? I don't get it," Candace pleaded.

"I don't know," Nicole said, "but I better reach out to this kid and help him before he ..."

"I'll save you the trouble and call the police on him," Candace interrupted. "Will that make you feel better?"

"Based on what?" Nicole asked.

"Exactly my point," Candace said. "Based on a bad dream somewhere above the tree line where the oxygen is thinner. That's all it was, Nikki. Now let's go. We've got a mountain to finish climbing."

Nicole nodded, and they stood and hugged, but Candace studied her friend's face closely and waited for her to have the last word.

"I won't let it happen," Nicole said, looking Candace right in the eyes. "I can't lose you and I won't."

"Why? Did I get shot in your dream? Did you leave that part out?" Candace asked bluntly.

"No," Nicole answered, "but it's not the dream I'm worried about."

CHAPTER 3

### BAT-SHIT CRAZY

"They have us in their sights, Lee," Adam blurted out before muffling a laugh in his hands. He snorted in disbelief at what his eyes were seeing five tables away in the busy high school cafeteria.

"Who the hell are you talking about?" said Thomas Harvey, his back to whatever Adam saw as they both wolfed down pizza.

"Well, one is super hot and the other one with the blue hair ain't bad either. They both keep looking over at us," Adam said before cracking up again.

Long and wiry with spiky blonde hair and huge black gauges in his ears, Thomas "Lee" Harvey turned his whole body around. When he spotted the two girls in question, he leaned toward them aggressively and blatantly stared at them. His creepy, cold blue eyes never blinked. Nicole and Candace both frowned and quickly looked away.

"That should take care of that," Thomas said menacingly, turning back toward Adam and chugging his Coke.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Adam asked, pounding the table with his fist.

"They're rich little whores," Thomas said flatly.

"I'd do them just the same," Adam boasted.

"My ass you would."

"Put your cash where your ass is, dipshit, and I'll make you even poorer."

"You're all talk. Just like with this thing we got planned. I'm doing it. You say you're doing it, but one girl looks at you and you turn into a pathetic school boy. Don't get cock-tracked," Thomas growled.

"Hell no, I'm in 150 percent!" Adam barked right back at him before his eyes watched the hot girl exit the cafeteria and the blue-haired girl start walking toward them. He snorted into his hands again in disbelief.

Thomas glared at him and never looked up as Nicole now hovered over their table.

"May I join you boys for a minute or am I interrupting something?" she asked pleasantly but nervously.

Adam's eyes lingered on her toned thighs covered in tight black leggings for a moment before gazing up and vaguely recognizing her face. Thomas, meanwhile, rubbed his forehead with both of his hands as if he were wishing the female intruder away.

"Yeah sure, sit right down next to me," Adam said, slapping the seat to his left with gusto and shooting Thomas a loaded, defiant grin. "What brings you over to our side of the tracks?"

Thomas resumed his unnerving stare, but Nicole ignored him and focused on Adam.

"Looking for a prom date?" Adam asked with an obnoxious, slightly uncomfortable laugh as Thomas stewed.

"It's a new school year — our senior year — and I was hoping to reconnect with some of the kids I went to elementary and middle school with, you know, before we all scatter after graduation and enter the real world," Nicole explained in her most disarming voice as she flipped her bi-colored hair over her shoulder.

Adam was blown away. He looked at her with his large mouth open, his brown eyes curious and his brain struggling to recall when exactly they knew each other.

"Who are you?" he finally asked with a laugh.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Adam, you probably don't even remember that far back," she said. "I'm Nicole Janicek and we both had Mrs. Whitney in second grade. We used to hang out during recess sometimes."

"We did? ... Wow. My memory sucks," Adam said with a snort. "Good to meet you again all these years later."

As Adam shook Nicole's hand, Thomas buried his head in his hands and Valerie Moore, a sexy senior with short, edgy brown hair, walked toward their table with a look of horror. Valerie had been friends with Nicole off and on throughout high school. This was definitely an "off" period, and the disgust on her face put an exclamation point on that.

"Really Nicole? What a T.T. train wreck!" she scoffed before quickening her march toward the lunch line.

Nicole rolled her eyes at Valerie's predictable reaction. Then she lost her patience with creepy Thomas.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked him, staring right back at him and trying not to wince at the gauges dragging down his ear lobes.

"Don't mind Lee," Adam said, trying to interrupt the awkward glares, to no avail.

"Well it's pretty clear Lee doesn't want me to sit at this table," Nicole pointed out.

"You're smarter than you look," Thomas shot back. "And don't call me Lee."

"His real name is Thomas ... Thomas Harvey," Adam noted. "I should've told you that."

"Oh," Nicole said, processing his macabre assortment of names. Her enjoyment of Stephen King's novel "11/22/63" a year ago and her subsequent interest in the topic of President John F. Kennedy's assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald suddenly came in handy. But right now, she wished she knew far less about the subject. She also wished she weren't sitting directly across from this dangerous kid. "Lee Harvey. I get it. How ... clever."

"Do you? Do you really get it? What exactly is your purpose here right now?" Thomas snapped.

"Relax Lee," Adam said, putting a hand out toward him as Nicole shrank back and looked annoyed. She thought about getting up to leave, but then she remembered the dream. She looked at the clock on the wall that hovered over the cafeteria. The time was 12:02 p.m.

"I'd like to be friends if that's possible," she said firmly. "That's my purpose."

"Oh yeah, why now — why not when he was in third grade, fourth grade, last year — why the hell now?" Thomas erupted. "Go back to your safe little table with your rich little whore friends and leave us alone."

Adam grimaced during his friend's diatribe while Nicole stood up and glared down at Thomas. She had never felt such hatred cast in her direction before and she didn't know how to react for a moment.

"You're an asshole!" she finally said, pointing at him. "You better watch your mouth!"

"Oh yeah, what the hell are you gonna do about it, little girl?" Thomas barked. "Are you gonna tattle on me like I'm sure you did in first grade?"

Nicole met his unblinking eyes and seethed.

"No, _Lee Harvey_ , I was just trying to _Jack Ruby_ your hatred with a little kindness, that's all. I'm so sorry I ruined your day," she said sharply and walked away.

Adam shook his head and pounded the table with his fist again, but his eyes followed Nicole's ass as she walked out of the cafeteria.

"Who's Jack Ruby?" he finally asked.

"Who cares," Thomas said, getting up to leave. "It's fitting her hair is blue. That's a 'Dead Girl Walking' right there. And she'll have plenty of friends to reconnect with in the graveyard very soon."

...

"Why did you take off, Candace?" Nicole asked from outside her stall in the girls' bathroom.

"Because now I'm starting to believe your dream could be right," she said. "So from now on, I'm hiding in the bathroom every day at 12:14."

"So you just left me out there to die then?" Nicole said, noticing the time on her watch had mercifully passed to 12:19.

Candace flushed the toilet, emerged from the stall and looked her friend in the eyes. "You're bat-shit crazy trying to talk to them, Nikki. Did you see the way that one asshole turned around and glared at us? He'll certainly _be_ a serial killer if he isn't one already. He makes the other one look normal, which he isn't. He's ..."

Valerie Moore suddenly sauntered into the bathroom and seemed pleased to have cornered Nicole. She crossed her arms over the two books she had pressed to her chest and moved closer to interrogate her target.

"Are you certifiable, Nicole?" Valerie asked. "You start your senior year getting caught up in a trailer-trash train wreck. Really? Talking to two of the biggest losers ever to walk the halls of this high school?"

"I just told her she's bat-shit crazy," Candace said, surprised to find herself agreeing with Valerie for once.

Nicole stood her ground physically, but mentally even she was beginning to wonder what good could come from reaching out to Adam and, especially, Thomas.

"The scary one's nickname is Lee ... as in Thomas Lee Harvey," Nicole noted.

"And you're telling us this why?" Valerie asked, rolling her eyes.

"As in Lee Harvey Oswald, the guy who killed JFK," Nicole said, trying to wave some oxygen toward Valerie's brain. She just shook her head and checked her hair in the mirror.

"So that's his hero then?" Candace chimed in.

"I find it very troubling, Nikki, that you like making small talk with homicidal maniacs," Valerie said, returning her sharp look toward Nicole.

"Stop being so dramatic, Valerie," Nicole shot back. "I was just trying to be nice. You should try it sometime."

"I am being nice. And I'm about to give you some good advice: get yourself checked out, Nikki," Valerie said, heading for the door but looking back derisively. "I mean that. Find yourself a good shrink ASAP."

When Valerie departed, Candace practically picked up where she had left off.

"Bitch or not, that bitch is sort of right, Nikki," she said. "Keep your distance from both of them. We'll just call the police the moment they say or do anything suspicious."

"It's kind of hard to hear them say anything suspicious if I keep my distance, isn't it?" Nicole countered. "And I think the name Lee Harvey qualifies as a red flag. I wouldn't have learned that if I hadn't walked over and tried to talk to them."

"So call the police and tell them Lee Harvey is gonna shoot up the school," Candace said. "He names himself after a presidential assassin. That's pretty good evidence to start with."

Nicole shook her head and took a deep breath.

"It's too early to call the police," she said. "I'll try to talk to Adam alone, without Lee Harvey."

"So you _are_ gonna to try to be friends with him... because the dream said so?" Candace asked with an incredulous look.

"Yes, I'm going to try," she said firmly.

"Then you'll know where to find me every day at 12:14," Candace said, "and I'll pray very hard to a God I don't believe in that you aren't the first one to get shot."

CHAPTER 4

### DRIVING MR. BRODY

"So how was Mount Washington?" Melanie Ferguson asked Nicole as they stood atop the hill and looked down over the practice field. Dozens of boys in gold helmets, white jerseys and gold pants were stretching on the grass before football practice began in earnest.

"We climbed it, but the great views we had along the way up went to shit at the top," Nicole told Melanie, her history classmate and fair-weather friend. "The clouds roll in so fast and thick that high up."

Short, petite and mousy with frizzy strawberry-blonde hair, Melanie always seemed to be chewing gum during her endless quests for gossip and information.

"Did Candace really sleep in the tent with you?" she asked in between glances at her iPhone.

"Yes," Nicole lied, preferring not to reveal her best friend's possible new long-distance love interest, Will.

"My parents would never let me do an overnighter up in the mountains like that," Melanie said, chomping and gadget-surfing away.

"What can I say? My Mom is pretty cool about some things. She's taken me hiking up there quite a few times and she trusts that I'll know how to handle myself. Plus Candace is an awesome hiking partner."

"Valerie said you guys were fighting in the bathroom today," Melanie reported.

"Did she? That sounds like the way Valerie would twist a situation she knows nothing about," Nicole snapped. "Candace and I were having a discussion, not a fight, and Valerie had to put her two cents in, of course. Why are you talking to Valerie anyway?"

"We're friends again," Melanie replied happily.

"Have some self-respect, Mel," Nicole said. "She stabbed you in the back how many times junior year?"

"I know, but we're good now. Me and Val hung out a lot this summer. We even went to Cape Cod in July."

"Better you than I," Nicole said, her eyes focused on senior linebacker Derek Schobell limbering up his hamstrings with his back against the grass.

The sound of a car door slamming violently nearby caused both girls to turn their heads back toward the parking lot. They watched Adam Upton punch a smaller boy in the gut and walk away, leaving him there to curl up in the fetal position next to the truck's driver-side tire.

"Did you see that?" Melanie asked with a horrified look.

"Yes and I know who did it," Nicole replied, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and trotting 20 yards across the parking lot to check on the injured boy. In far less of a rush to assist, Melanie walked over.

"What happened?" Nicole asked, squatting next to the boy and quickly realizing his resemblance to Adam.

"I just got punched," he mumbled, struggling to get his wind back as tears filled his brown eyes. He seemed surprised by the attention from Nicole and now Melanie as she finally arrived on scene.

"Are you Adam's younger brother?" Nicole asked, putting a hand on his shoulder and instantly brightening the freshman's rough first day of high school.

"Yeah ... unfortunately," he said before deciding to pick himself up in an attempt to regain some measure of pride in the company of the two older girls.

"What's your name?" Nicole asked.

"Brody," he said shyly.

"I'm Nicole and this is Melanie," she introduced them. "Why would Adam punch you?"

"Because I wanted to go home, and he wanted to stay and talk to Lee."

Nicole shook her head and dropped her pack on the pavement, the name "Lee" sending chills up her spine.

"I'll take you home then," she offered.

"What?" Melanie gasped.

"The buses already left," Nicole pointed out.

"But he's a freshman, right?" Melanie said, turning toward the boy.

"Yes," he replied with a look of shame. "Are you ...?"

"Seniors, yes," Nicole confirmed, pointing toward her light green Nissan Altima. "My car is over there. Let's get you home, Brody."

Brody's face lit up, while Melanie's flashed disbelief.

"Do you really think that's a good idea, Nikki?" she asked. "I mean, you don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

"Actually, I think it's a great idea and maybe I'll tell you why sometime," Nicole replied, grabbing her pack and leading Brody away from Melanie.

"Ohhhh-K?" Melanie responded, her expression stuck in the stunned position as she watched them get into the same car.

When Brody took his seat beside Nicole, he smiled and couldn't believe his sudden change of fortune. Perhaps high school wasn't such a horrible place after all.

"Where do you live, Brody?" Nicole asked, putting her keys into the ignition and starting the engine.

Brody seemed a little embarrassed to answer, and Nicole had a feeling she knew why.

"It's OK, Brody, just tell me so I can take you home. I try not to judge people like most people do," she said, auto-lowering her window in the warm, mid-afternoon sun.

Without looking at her, he said, "Whispering Pines trailer park. It's a right off Stony Brook Lane."

"Thank you for telling me," she said, driving out of the school parking lot and taking a right.

"Thanks for the ride and for ...," Brody said, struggling to complete his sentence while sneaking a glance at the blue streaks in Nicole's hair as they danced around in the breeze.

"No problem," she replied.

"I like your car," he said.

"Thanks, but it's not really mine. It's my mom's."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Nicole turned on the stereo but kept the volume fairly low. She wondered what to ask this freshman stranger — the younger brother and spitting image of the kid who was probably plotting with Lee Harvey at that very moment how to kill as many Lakeview students as possible. When would they do it? Tomorrow? Friday? Next week? December 14th — the second anniversary of Newtown? Or was Nicole totally overreacting to that chilling dream she had beside the Lakes of the Clouds?

"Do you know Adam and I went to Park Ridge Elementary together?" she finally asked the boy, who seemed delighted to resume some sort of conversation with her. "We both had Mrs. Whitney in second grade."

"Really? Wow," he said, slightly less shy now and stealing more frequent glances at Nicole. "That's pretty randomly cool. I had Miss Cleary is second grade. ... I like your hair."

Nicole smiled at the equally random change of subject.

"Thanks. I try to mix it up once in a while. Lately, I've been in a blue phase," she said, fiddling with her hair and turning the car left.

As Nicole drove through a poorer section of town with dilapidated duplexes and claustrophobic yards, she longed for the panoramic vistas she and Candace had savored just days ago. They seemed a world away now. As grand as it was, even the memory of the glittering and dusty Milky Way — tantalizingly close from her perfectly clear perch on Mount Washington's shoulder — tasted bittersweet. Some of the names of the 26 innocent victims who died at Newtown had been scrolling through her mind since Monday, when she looked back at online stories about the massacre. Try as she might to explain the dream away, she could not. She had slept under the stars and those stars spoke to her — one Star in particular.

When Nicole drove past a street sign that said Benson Trail, she longed for the sign that read "Stardust." Where in God's name is "14th & Stardust?" she asked herself.

"What does that even mean?" Candace's skeptical voice echoed through her thoughts.

Nicole realized she needed to start asking questions before she, Candace and many of their classmates potentially joined the legion of silent stars up above. _I'm not ready to die. I've barely begun to live._

"What's wrong with Adam?" she forced herself to ask the young boy in her passenger seat. "Why does he hit you, Brody?"

Brody hung his head and Nicole suddenly regretted bringing it up. She pulled the car over to the side of the road about a half mile before the entrance to the trailer park. She flipped on her hazard lights and turned to face Brody.

"I know I don't know you and it's really none of my business, but I'm worried about Adam and what he's doing with Thomas ... Lee ... whatever his name is," she explained. "That kid is really bad news and I just don't want to see your brother go down a very, very bad path. Again, I don't mean to pry, but why does Adam hit you? Why is he so angry?"

"My Dad, well, he hits us sometimes and I think that's part of it," Brody said softly.

Nicole was surprised by the boy's honest and revealing answer. Perhaps no one else ever cared enough to ask him, she thought.

"Do you have a mom?" she continued, with an even more empathetic tone.

"No, she died when I was a baby," Brody replied, his voice a little thicker with emotion.

"I'm so sorry," Nicole said.

"She was a drug addict," Brody quickly volunteered. "That's what Adam told me."

"What did your dad tell you about your mom?" she asked.

Brody shook his head.

"He doesn't like to talk about that," he said with a lump in his throat.

"It's OK, Brody, don't go there," she said, her eyes meeting his and her hand on his shoulder. "I appreciate you telling me what you have already — it explains a lot. I would like to be your friend and Adam's friend. That's the bottom line. So now I will take you home."

...

Adam couldn't believe his eyes as he wheeled his pickup truck around the bend and toward the trailer home he shared with his father Gary and brother Brody. Nicole whatever-her-name-was, Brody and his father were congregated around an unfamiliar light green car as he drove up and pulled into the dirt driveway to the right of the trailer.

Adam felt three sets of eyeballs burning a hole right through his windshield and into his conscience — the voice in his jumbled head that he loved to say "fuck off" to and then laugh about it. People always gave him strange looks when he seemed to laugh for no reason, but he didn't mind. He really didn't care what people thought, except for his father. For one thing, Gary could still make him feel small just by the way he looked at him and talked to him. Second, Gary could still kick his ass. And third, Gary was addicted to alcohol and painkillers, making him unpredictable depending on dosage, hour of the day, day of the week and cash on hand. Adam's father had been collecting disability checks since injuring his back on a construction site three years ago, but he continued to do occasional home improvement jobs around town for customers who were willing to pay under the table for his lower-than-market rates.

"What's going on?" Adam asked, playing dumb as he emerged from the truck.

"You punched your brother in the gut on his first day of high school and left him to rot in the parking lot — that's what's going on, son," Gary said, his burly arms crossed in front of his chest and his angry brown eyes boring into Adam. Nicole stood to Gary's left and Brody to his right near the driver-side door of what must be Nicole's car, Adam surmised.

When Adam slowly drew closer to them, he detected the smell of booze on his father, but he could tell Gary was acting as sober and restrained as possible in the girl's presence.

"Yeah, sorry about that, but I told him to wait a few seconds so I could talk to Lee and he whined like a baby," Adam said, looking mostly at his younger brother and avoiding the eyes of his father and Nicole. "Babies should stay in middle school where they belong."

Nicole gasped and Gary erupted.

"Oh shut the hell up," the 6-foot-3, 230-pound man shouted, pointing at Adam. "You're lucky there's a young lady here right now. I'll knock some sense into you later, son, you can be sure of that!"

Adam kept his mouth shut and glanced at Nicole, who twirled her blue hair with increasing vigor, looking visibly uncomfortable with the situation she had driven herself into. "Still want to be friends with me now?" Adam quipped to his own brain while marveling over the fact that she had chauffeured his freshman brother to Whispering Pines trailer park.

To his shock, Nicole then tossed him a temporary get-out-of-beating free card.

"Mr. Upton, is it OK if I talk to Adam for a few minutes out here alone — maybe I can talk some sense into him first ... that is, if you don't mind," Nicole asked politely.

Gary raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise and quickly smiled at her request.

"Sure Nicole, give it a try," he said, waving a hand toward Adam. "Good luck. He's a real piece of work."

Brody chuckled softly, making sure not to look at his brother, but Adam was busy checking out Nicole and wondering what planet she was from. No girl had ever voluntarily requested to talk with Adam alone in all of his 17 years.

"Thanks for driving Brody home, Nicole. You're a real good Samaritan," Gary said, using words Adam had never heard his father utter before. "Come on, son, let's go inside and you can tell me about your fancy new teachers."

"You're welcome, Mr. Upton," Nicole replied, watching Gary put a hand on Brody's shoulder.

"Bye Nicole. Thanks again for the ride," Brody said, grinning and turning to head inside the trailer.

"You're welcome, Brody," Nicole said before focusing her blue eyes on Adam. "Let's walk."

"Here?" he asked.

"Why not?"

"OK," he said, joining her as she began strolling up the trailer park's paved, horseshoe-shaped paved drive. Trailers were packed tightly together on both sides of the road, but Adam pointed to a path leading between two trailers and off into some of the whispering pines hinted at in the name of the park. "Let's walk through there."

Two young boys exited the path and ran past them, turning their heads in shock at the sight of Adam walking with a pretty girl. Their reaction was not lost on Nicole, who allowed herself a small grin.

"I can't believe you're here — where we live. And you drove my brother home," Adam said as they ambled along the 5-foot-wide path, stepping over small rocks and tree roots. Glints of sunshine filtered through the pines and highlighted Nicole's fair skin and clean, striped hair. She smelled nice, too, Adam noticed.

"How would you feel if your older brother punched you and left you with no ride home on your first day at a scary new school — wouldn't you want someone to help you?" she asked as they walked side-by-side but didn't look at each other.

"I guess I never really looked at it like that," Adam conceded, rolling up his right sleeve to reveal part of a barbed-wire tattoo encircling his bicep.

They came to a clearing and Nicole strolled ahead a few paces to pick a cluster of bright blue, bottle-shaped wildflowers from amid the tall grasses rustling in the breeze. The sun was still warm even though fall was approaching.

Nicole walked back to face Adam and handed him the flowers. Adam smirked uncomfortably for a few seconds, but he finally grasped the blue bottle gentians with his fingers and twirled them around. He had to; he could see she would've waited for as long as it took until he accepted the flowers.

"Why did you sit with me at lunch today? Why are you here with me now? Do you want to be my girlfriend or something?" Adam asked seriously.

Nicole just gazed at him for a couple of seconds and gave no hint either way. Then she said, "I'm here because I want us to be friends."

"Really? Even after what I did to my brother today ... and seeing where we live ... and smelling the booze on my father?" he asked, one eye squinting in the sun, the other fully on her.

"Yes," Nicole replied firmly.

"You must be crazier than me, then," he said, snorting. "We're nothing alike. Friends usually have something in common."

"What do you like to do? Maybe we have more in common than you think, Adam," Nicole said as they left the clearing and resumed their stroll down the wooded path.

"I like watching UFC and hockey, going hunting, and shooting guns mostly," he replied, making Nicole's heart skip a beat. "What do you like to do?"

"I like reading, writing poetry, singing, camping and climbing mountains," she said.

"That's kind of cool," he said. "At least we both like the outdoors."

"Yeah, it's kind of hard not to like the outdoors when you live in a state as beautiful as New Hampshire," Nicole said. "We're so lucky to live in a free country and a great place like this, don't you think? I mean we could've been born into a place where people are blowing each other up or a place with nothing to eat or a place with no mountain views."

Adam pondered her observations for a moment and stopped walking.

"Yeah, I guess we are," he said as Nicole stopped and turned to face him. "You seem to notice stuff that most people don't."

"All you have to do is use your brain, your senses and pay attention, I guess," she said, realizing this man-boy who could be feared and who could kill also was not a seemingly hopeless case like Thomas Lee Harvey. Adam Upton was still reachable, still moldable, she sensed. If she could get through to him at least, then maybe the whole terrifying plot would come unraveled.

"What other smart stuff is in that brain of yours?" Adam asked, his look a little creepier than before — like he might actually enjoy probing the brain inside her skull.

Nicole tried not to think about that and answered his question.

"I just think we're all very lucky to be alive," she said, her blue eyes riveted on his, trying to make him understand the depth of her words. "Life is an incredible gift — not one that should be wasted, not one that should be used to destroy everyone else's gifts. Do you know what I mean, Adam?"

They stared at each other for several awkward seconds. Adam then lifted his head to gaze at the peaks of the pines and the blue sky overhead. Nicole had no idea whether he knew what she was trying to talk about — what she was so desperate to ask him, but simply could not bring herself to say because they barely knew each other. This was not the moment to accuse him of planning a mass murder, even though she feared she was running out of time. She had to trust that he would say something, volunteer a clue, feel an ounce of guilt — _something_.

Unless, of course, her dream had it all wrong. There was no plot. Adam Upton and Thomas Lee Harvey were just poor, angry, obnoxious teen boys. "Trailer trash train wreck," Valerie Moore had said. Her words clanged through Nicole's brain right now as she looked at Adam and wondered what he'd say.

"Life is bullshit," he finally concluded, "but you're not, Nicole. I'll be your friend."

Nicole smiled as Adam handed her back the blue flowers she had given him. That's when she saw Adam smile for real for the first time. She couldn't remember exactly what his smile was like back when they played together during recess in second grade at Park Ridge Elementary School, but she had a feeling it was something like this.

"Call me Nikki then," she said.

CHAPTER 5

### THE POLICE

On the second day of school, Nicole felt slightly better now that Adam had accepted her offer of friendship, but there was no way to know for sure whether her influence would make any difference. Sitting in Mr. Richardson's English lit/poetry class, she thought of Candace hiding in the girls' bathroom as the clock above the blackboard read 12:12 p.m.

Then Nicole caught Derek Schobell sneaking a glance at her from two desks to her right and she smiled back, delighted to be distracted by something positive.

"I want to try a little different approach this year before we get into some hardcore poetry," Mr. Richardson said with a playful smirk, partially concealed by his bushy, brown mustache. The 40-something teacher with the brown hair, blue eyes, friendly face and folksy voice had a certain charm about him, Nicole observed. "I want us to look at song lyrics — musical poems, if you will — and examine how words are used to evoke certain emotions and reveal deeper meanings. I've emailed you PDFs of the lyrics to an entire album of songs from one of my favorite bands growing up, so check your iPads and call up the PDF on your screens now."

The 27 students eagerly clicked away on their gadgets, and a few kids immediately recognized some of the song titles, blurting them out loud.

"These are the lyrics to all of the songs on The Police's 'Synchronicity' album from 1983 — a time before CDs, MP3s and iTunes, but well after eight-track tapes," Mr. Richardson explained with a goofy grin. "I know they were popular way before you were born, but I take it some of you have heard of Sting and his band The Police, right?"

"Yes," most students replied, including Nicole.

"No," a few others chimed in, drawing a playful nod from their teacher.

"Your homework will be to come up with at least one song from your generation, analyze the lyrics and tell me why the lyricist's words moved you personally," Mr. Richardson said as Nicole was relieved to have noticed the clock on the wall had passed safely to 12:15. "But right now let's look at these musical poems by The Police and see what strikes you."

Nicole glanced at the various titles and recognized the song "Every Breath You Take" right away as a song she knew; most of the other titles weren't familiar to her. She was born in 1997, after all.

As Mr. Richardson rambled on about the song "King of Pain" and the lyrics, "There's a little black spot on the sun today/That's my soul up there," Nicole scrolled down with her index finger and became deeply troubled by the title of the last song on the album, "Murder by Numbers." She read the lyrics and instantly felt haunted by them:

Once that you've decided on a killing

First you make a stone of your heart

And if you find your hands are still willing

Then you can turn murder into art

Then she looked at the chorus:

It's murder by numbers — one, two, three

It's as easy to learn as your ABCs

"That's terrible," she blurted to herself, unknowingly disrupting Mr. Richardson. He stopped to stare at her after uttering the lyrics: "There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack" from "King of Pain." They gazed at each other for an awkward moment, then Nicole put her hand over her mouth in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"What's so terrible ...?" he asked, gesturing in her direction to prompt her for assistance with her first name.

"Nicole," she said.

"Nicole, thank you — I've got a lot of names to learn fast," the teacher said. "So what's terrible, Nicole — my spoken word reenactment of Sting's lyrics? Trust me, you don't want to hear me sing these."

The class laughed, Mr. Richardson chuckled and Nicole smiled, but he could tell she was serious so he approached her to the left of her window seat.

"This is terrible," she said, pointing to the title "Murder by Numbers" on her iPad. "Extremely insensitive."

Mr. Richardson stooped to look closely at her screen, nodded quietly and returned to the front of the classroom. He put his hands on the podium and frowned.

"I apologize to you, Nicole, and anyone else who might be troubled by the song 'Murder by Numbers,'" he said, genuinely apologetic. "I probably should've excluded it from this lesson, given what has happened over the last decade or so, especially in our schools."

"It's just a song," a boy interjected from the other side of the classroom. A few other students grumbled their agreement.

"Relax," gasped one red-headed girl, clearly directing her venom at Nicole.

"It is a song written well before Columbine, 9/11, Newtown and all the rest," Mr. Richardson said, "but I asked you to look at these lyrics and see what moved you. Nicole has responded very honestly to this particular song."

Nicole was impressed by her teacher's calm reaction to and assessment of her disruption of his lesson, which he clearly had intended to be fun. She felt bad about ruining that, but the effect of her dream in the mountains, the one creepy look on Adam's face yesterday and the pent-up rage she sensed in Thomas Lee Harvey would not let her read the title "Murder by Numbers" without saying something. So she did. Now what? She felt compelled to say more.

"I'm just not comfortable with that song — it's too raw, too flippant about killing," she said before reciting more of the lyrics to the teacher and the class. "'You can bump off every member of your family/And anybody else you find a bore?' Really? Wow. I'm moved all right. I thought I liked Sting. I had no idea he wrote this song and now I might hate him for it. Apparently nobody valued human life in 1983 — just the same as today."

"You're totally overreacting," the red-headed girl piped up again.

"Am I?" Nicole shot back, looking right at her and trying her best to ignore Derek's smirk.

"This is quite a lively poetry class," Mr. Richardson interrupted, attempting to regain some control as other students began arguing separately. "Next time I'll try Barry Manilow, perhaps."

"Who?" someone shouted, causing everybody to laugh except Nicole.

"Quiet please," Mr. Richardson implored.

After a pause of relative silence, he said, "I respect Nicole's honest reaction and the rest of you should as well, even if you don't agree with her. 'Murder by Numbers' is not the focus of my lesson. I included all of the songs on this album to give you a sense of its entirety and the power of the band's collective words. As I said earlier about poetry, don't always just take the words at face value. Quite often there are deeper meanings. Nicole, if you would, please read the last four lines of that terrible song."

Nicole just looked at him for a moment and seemed reluctant, but he waited her out and eventually she focused on her iPad. Then she read the lyrics to the class:

But you can reach the top of your profession

If you become the leader of the land

For murder is the sport of the elected

And you don't need to lift a finger of your hand

"Murder is the sport of the elected," Mr. Richardson repeated to the class while looking at Nicole. "The end of the song takes it in a rather different direction, doesn't it?"

The red-headed girl pounced: "Yes, it's the elected leaders who start wars and get people killed without a drop of blood on their hands! That's what this song is about!"

"Thank you ...," the teacher said, raising his eyebrows and leaning toward her to get help with her first name, too.

"Rebecca," she said with an edgy assertiveness.

"Thank you, Rebecca, for your opinion and I do happen to agree with you," Mr. Richardson said as Nicole quietly huffed. "While I do understand why Nicole would find this song offensive, particularly the cavalier talk of murder in the lyrics, I believe the writer, Sting, is trying to make a political statement with this song: that the leaders of nations often are the people most guilty of murder by numbers, and they do so without lifting a finger of their hand. All they do is give the order."

"I get your point," Nicole said. "But I'm more worried about the people who aren't so clever — the ones who don't get elected and don't write fancy words with deeper meanings. I'm worried about the ones who take the order from the clever guy and turn murder into sport. I especially fear the damaged kid who reads lyrics like these — 'Now you can join the ranks of the illustrious in history's great dark hall of fame' — and decides to start shooting to ease his pain ... to spread his suffering around to the rest of us."

Nicole's chilling words hung in the air for three seconds that seemed much longer.

Then the bell rang.

CHAPTER 6

### THREE WORDS

Nicole stashed a few books in her locker and realized she had forgotten her lunch in the fridge at home. She had late lunch today and now she'd be forced to find out what little the $2.50 in her pocket would buy. As she stared blankly in thought, Derek had sidled up next to her without her even noticing him.

"Are you always such a troublemaker?" the 6-foot-1, 210-pound linebacker asked whimsically.

Nicole jumped, slammed her locker shut and covered her mouth shyly when she saw the handsome young man with the mostly buzzed brown hair and playful hazel eyes suddenly standing next to her.

"You scared the crap out of me," she admitted.

"I apologize. I'm Derek," he said, offering his hand. She shook it and smiled.

"I know. I've watched you at football practice, I've seen you in class ... and I'm sure you know my name by now after I ruined Mr. Richardson's lesson on song lyrics," Nicole said.

"Are you OK, Nicole? You seemed pretty shaken up in there," he observed, leaning against a locker with his arms folded across his chest and his backpack slung over one shoulder. He had a free period so he was in no hurry to join the exodus of students fleeing the corridor toward their next class.

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm sorry I went off in there, but ... never mind. I'm actually pretty normal most of the time, but you're catching me on a bad day, week ... I don't know."

"Hey, I understand," he said. "We all have those."

Just as he said that, Thomas Harvey emerged from the boys' bathroom, looked over his shoulder as he was turning away from them and smiled. Nicole had never seen his smile before and now she wished she hadn't.

Derek's eyes followed hers, and they watched Thomas abruptly turn around and walk back toward them suspiciously. His hard blue eyes never blinked.

"Making more friends, DGW?" he asked calmly with a disturbing curl to his lips. Derek took a more aggressive posture and glared at the strange kid with the stretched earlobes.

"Johnny Football Hero is a more sensible choice for you," he added mockingly, strolling past them and giving them just wide enough berth to avoid Derek's reach in case he decided to respond with a fist.

"You better keep on walking and shut your mouth, asshole, before I shut it for you," Derek warned him with a finger pointed at his head.

Thomas did as he was told. He wanted no part of Derek, but he made sure to add a parting shot when he was safely down the hall.

"OK, DBW," he said ominously before shoving his way violently through one of the double doors and exiting the school.

"DBW? DGW? What the hell is that dipshit talking about?" Derek asked with a scowl, his temper flaring and his biceps rippling beneath his light-blue collared shirt.

"I have no idea, but thanks for ... being here," Nicole said, feeling even more shaken up by "Lee Harvey" than she was yesterday in the cafeteria.

"No problem. Do you actually know that kid?" Derek asked.

"No, but I'm friends with one of his friends ... Adam Upton," she acknowledged with some hesitation.

Right away, Derek backed away a step to process that. She could tell he thought less of her in an instant.

"Wow," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "He's a pretty messed up kid. I'd be paranoid, too, if I were you — hanging around with that loser, who's friends with an even more psychopathic loser."

Nicole closed her eyes and searched for a response as the bell for next period reverberated through the empty hall.

"We went to the same elementary school, Adam and me," she finally said before changing the subject. "I have to eat something before I faint. I've got late lunch today."

Derek calmed down and sensed he had been too harsh with her.

"Sorry I ... sometimes I shoot my mouth off before I ...," he started.

"It's OK," Nicole quickly interjected, walking down the hall toward the cafeteria. "I'm sure you were just being honest. But the truth is none of us knows each other very well. A lot of the kids in this school are going through a lot of different things with very different family backgrounds. It's so easy to judge each other, to jump to conclusions and dismiss each other. It's a toxic place sometimes and it freaks me out."

Derek shrugged his shoulders as they strolled down the corridor together. "Are you always this deep about everything?" he asked.

"Most of the time," she admitted with a shy grin. "Maybe I should go to a football game, let my hair down and have fun for a change."

"Your hair is down right now," he countered with a smile as his eyes followed her blue streaks down the side and back of her gray-and-white blouse.

"Metaphorically, I mean," she said playfully.

"Our first game is next Friday night," Derek said.

"Then I'll make sure to go and root you guys on," Nicole said, forcing herself to think happy thoughts for a change.

"Will you be watching us practice again today?" he asked.

"Would you like me to?" she asked with a flirtatious smile.

"Definitely."

...

Nicole was joined by Candace instead of Melanie as she overlooked football practice from the grassy hill for the second straight day. Her eyes were on Derek, but her mind was wondering what happened to Adam. Brody had taken the bus home, she had observed from a distance, but there had been no trace of his older brother at school all day. Even Thomas had bothered to show up for at least part of the day — just long enough to torture Nicole with another creepy encounter. Not even Derek could completely shield her from his diabolical aura.

"I thought of you hiding in the bathroom at 12:14 today," Nicole told her friend as they both stared blankly toward the field while cars exited the parking lot behind them. They both wore hooded sweat shirts, with their hoods down, as the wind kicked up on a mostly cloudy afternoon. "I would've joined you, but I had English that period."

"How's the killer friendship going?" Candace asked somewhat caustically.

Nicole winced at her choice of words but decided not to argue.

"He accepted my offer of friendship," she simply said, "but I haven't seen him at school all day."

"Part of me thinks you're one brave, admirable girl for sticking your neck out like this and part of me thinks you're totally insane," Candace said as Nicole's iPhone chirped.

"That's Adam now ... Hello?" Nicole asked.

"What?" Candace mouthed in horror. "You gave him your number?"

Nicole nodded, then asked Adam, "What's going on? Why didn't you come to school today?"

As Nicole listened to his response, Candace pointed at her and whispered the words, "The second part of me is right — you're totally insane! You don't give a potential killer your number!"

Nicole waved her off with one hand as she continued to listen to Adam's explanation.

"Wow, OK, well I'll see you tomorrow then, Adam," she said. "Right ... second lunch. OK, bye."

Candace shook her head and squinted in disbelief, but no words came out.

"It's hard to be friends with somebody if you never call them or text them," Nicole said with an annoyed tone. "I need your help with this, C.C., not your judgment. I'm trying to save your life, my life and the lives of everybody in this school, and all I get is grief from everyone."

Candace toned down her critical approach and grabbed Nicole's hand.

"I just don't want you to get hurt, Nikki," she pleaded. "You're supposed to stay away from troublemakers, not hang around with them and give them your number. Don't put yourself in that position."

"What am I supposed to do, C.C.?" Nicole asked.

"I don't know — just let it be," Candace advised, then pointed toward the practice field. "Be a senior, go date a football player and forget about saving the world for a little while."

That brought a smirk to Nicole's lips in between suddenly blushy cheeks.

"Wait a minute," Candace said, pushing her face close to Nicole's and then looking out toward the field of golden helmets. "Are you up to something ... someone?"

"Well, I'm not just standing here for no reason," she replied with a grin.

"Who?" Candace pressed, a little too loudly.

"Derek Schobell maybe," Nicole said softly.

"Fantastic!" Candace yelled.

"Shhhhhhhh," Nicole slapped her playfully.

"That's more like it, girl. Good for you. How did that happen?" Candace asked.

"Nothing's happened yet," she said. "But he's in my English class and we talked at my locker after class. I'm going to root him on at the game next Friday night if you want to come with me."

"I'd love to," Candace said, "especially if you're going to be the normal, fun Nikki."

Nicole smirked. "What? I can't invite Adam, too?"

Candace rolled her eyes. "Really, Nikki?"

"One friend on each side of me," she said, egging Candace on.

"Now that's playing with fire right there, Nikki, and I'm not even joking," Candace said.

"What?"

"You can't be friends with Adam Upton and talk to him on the phone at the same time you're trying to date Derek," Candace warned.

"We're not boyfriend-girlfriend. I told Adam we're just friends," Nicole explained.

"Yeah, you might understand that, but you're dealing with a very unstable person who probably won't be satisfied with that, Nikki. That's the kind of shit that could set somebody like that off and your dream just might come true."

Nicole cringed. The Derek thing kind of just happened and she didn't consider any possible consequences as they might relate to Adam. Then again, she had only talked to Derek so far — nothing more.

"I guess you're right," she told Candace. "I'll make sure I don't kiss him or anything — at least until this whole thing blows over."

"Don't let Adam try to kiss you either," Candace said. "You shouldn't even let yourself be alone with him. You're way too trusting of people."

Nicole nodded, wondering how her best friend would react if she told her she drove Adam's younger brother home yesterday and then walked down a path alone with Adam at Whispering Pines trailer park. Instead, she said, "Then I might ask you to come along with us sometime. How about that?"

"I'd rather not hang out with that kid, Nikki," she replied. "It's not a safe situation for you or me."

Nicole sighed.

"What did he say on the phone anyway?" Candace asked.

Nicole waited for the whistles blaring on the practice field to stop before answering.

"He had a big fight with his father," she said.

"Why?"

"His father wouldn't let him take the truck and told him to walk to school because he ditched Brody in the parking lot yesterday. So Adam blew off school today."

"Who's Brody?"

"His younger brother," Nicole said. "He's a freshman."

Candace shook her head and waved both of her hands in front of her.

"OK, that's enough about the Upton family. Sorry I asked," she said. "I'd much rather talk more about Derek, but I've gotta go."

"Mall on Saturday?" Nicole asked, hoping to end their rollercoaster chat on a high note.

"Yeah, let's do that," Candace replied, "but don't invite Adam, Brody, Lee Harvey Oswald or anybody else. Got that? And I'm driving just to make sure."

"Fair enough," Nicole said as they both left the berm and walked toward their cars.

After a warm embrace, Candace got into her car and left, but Nicole noticed Mr. Richardson walking toward his car a couple of rows over from her and waved to him.

"Hi Mr. Richardson," she said.

"Hello Nicole," he replied, smiling and meeting her halfway between their vehicles.

"I'm impressed you remembered my name already," she said.

"How could I not? You're the student who will forever remember me as the teacher who offended you in the shortest amount of time any teacher has offended any student in the history of modern education," he deadpanned with his folksy voice.

Nicole laughed out loud for the first time in what seemed like weeks and it felt good.

"I'm sorry I was such a lesson crasher today," she said. "I promise I'll be better next class."

"No apology necessary, Nicole," the teacher said, raising both hands, one of which clutched his briefcase. "That song will be stricken from the record from now on as far as I'm concerned. Your point was honest, well-made and well-taken."

"Thank you for reacting so well to my concerns and hearing me out," she said. "I'll make it up to you by writing an extra poem ... it's one that's been rustling through my mind lately and I've gotta put it on paper. I think it will give you a better understanding of why I am the way I am."

Mr. Richardson nodded and smiled. He seemed impressed at Nicole's initiative.

"You don't owe me anything extra, Nicole, but I would be delighted to read your poem if you want me to," he said.

"Great. I'm going to write it tonight then," she said enthusiastically.

"Glad to hear it ... I'll see you tomorrow, Nicole," he said, stepping back toward his car.

"OK, Mr. Richardson, bye," she said, smiling as she got into her Altima and drove home.

...

"Nikki, do you want to go for a jog with me?" her mother asked, sticking her still youthful face into Nicole's bedroom.

Nicole was writing a poem in longhand on a notepad while lying stomach-down on her bed. She was so deep in thought that she took too long to answer her fast-paced mom.

"Nicole Christine ... I just asked you a question," her mother said, this time projecting her voice and standing in front of Nicole's bed in a teal-and-white track suit.

"Oh, sorry Mom ... what?" she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes.

"Do you have a sinus infection? Head ache? Sudden loss of hearing?"

"No," Nicole replied, opening her eyes again to look at her mother.

"Come with me then. It's been too long since we ran together," said Lynn Barrett, a 42-year-old mother of one who had reclaimed her maiden name after she and Nicole's father divorced six years ago. "You used to like to run, but lately you've been ..."

"Mom, please don't be so dramatic," Nicole pleaded. "We will run together again very soon, I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that, Nikki, because lately you've been extremely distant with me and I don't like it," Lynn said, tying her shoulder-length brown hair into a ponytail and heading back toward the door. "I really think you met a boy or something on that hike you and Candace went on, and you won't tell me about it."

Nicole knocked her head into the raspberry-colored bedspread a few times for effect.

"Mom, we've been over this 10 times now. Candace met a guy, I did not and we had a great hike," she said. "You know I don't like to be watched like a hawk for my every change of mood. Go and enjoy your run."

"Fine," Lynn said curtly before scurrying down the hall.

"And your chocolate chip cookies in my pack were a divine surprise ... thank you again," Nicole shouted but got no response — only the front door of their raised ranch being closed rather forcefully in her mother's wake.

The truth was Nicole didn't want to tell her mother about the baffling coincidence — the _14th & Stardust_ coincidence — but it continued to nag at Nicole's overtaxed brain just the same; just as her mom continued to nag at Nicole's ears and conscience for keeping her in the dark. But how do you tell your mom you're following your dream when it's the one that warned you to befriend a psychotic boy before he shoots up your school?

Instead Nicole attempted to express her feelings in her poem. The words and emotions flowed from her heart, down her hand, through the blue pen and onto the paper. When she paused a moment to think and look up, her eyes fixed on the calendar hanging against the lemon-yellow wall. Beneath the photo of the basket of puppies and the word September, the number 14 seemed to jump out at her.

"That's the day," she whispered to herself. "14th & Stardust ... that's the night then. I have to have my friendly intervention with Adam sometime in the next 10 days ... or I will call the police. I won't be able to handle this by myself any longer than that. It's too much."

Nicole felt slightly better. At least now she had a Point A and a Point B. She sensed it would be her most difficult trail yet, though she wouldn't even have to leave the relative flatlands of southern New Hampshire. No, this was a different sort of trail. In the White Mountains, she felt comforted by the vertical rectangles of blue paint that blazed her path through the trees, over the rocks and kept her on course toward the summit. But at Lakeview Regional High School, Nicole had no such markers — just the toxic cliques, unnerving stares and harsh words to buffet her every step.

She thought again about the 20 innocent little children and six women who died in the classrooms and hallways of Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. She ran her fingers through her brown-and-blue hair and allowed her tears to make trails of their own — down her cheeks and onto the paper below. The three words forming in her mind had moved her. They perfectly matched the trail markers in the mountains, the strands of her hair, the tears running down her face, the ink of her pen and the sorrow in her heart for every young life cut short.

She now had a title for her poem — the one she would give to Mr. Richardson, as long as he promised not to read it until after 14th & Stardust.

CHAPTER 7

### CALLING FOR BACKUP

Valerie Moore ambushed Nicole at her locker with the sound of a train whistle.

"How's the T.T. train wreck going, Nikki?" the sassy brunette inquired as Nicole flashed her a nasty look.

"You're the one tied to the tracks," she shot back.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry, I'll come to your rescue, too," Nicole said, "even though you don't deserve it."

"It's like you don't even speak words that make sense anymore," Valerie said.

"Oh, there's definitely a disconnect — I don't deny that," Nicole replied. "I'm having lunch with Adam Upton today so you'll have plenty of ammunition to torment me with all day long."

"Wow, this is serious," Valerie said derisively. "Do I hear wedding bells at the station?"

"Valerie, what is _wrong_ with you? We used to be friends, but you're so nasty that now I'm not sure how that ever occurred," Nicole said, glaring right at her. "These days you get off on tearing other people down. Say whatever the hell you want about me, but know this: I don't give a shit. Am I speaking the same horrible language as you now?"

Valerie choked on her tongue for a moment. Nicole savored the small victory and started to walk away.

"Wait," Valerie said.

Nicole turned around in the crowded corridor, visibly annoyed at Valerie and the other kids jostling her as they passed by.

"What?" she asked.

"Are you trying out for the school play this year?" Valerie queried with a semi-chastened look.

Nicole raised her eyebrows at the sudden change of subject.

"Yeah, who wouldn't want to be Juliet?"

"Then I'll see you at tryouts," Valerie countered with a suddenly competitive tone.

"When do they start?" Nicole asked.

"The week of the 15th," Valerie replied.

Nicole pondered that for a moment.

"Well, if we're all here on the 15th, I might be too happy to compete for such a tragic role, but I'll think about it," Nicole said, now realizing that she absolutely was speaking a very different, very cryptic language. How could she expect Valerie, her own mother or anyone else to understand what was going on in her head if she didn't tell them? But if Candace barely showed support for her, who would?

Valerie just shook her head in dazed disgust.

"Take care of yourself, Nikki," she said, walking away in the opposite direction.

...

There were no obvious bruises to Adam's face, so either the fight with his father was strictly verbal or he won. Nicole was hesitant to ask Adam about it as she sat across from him at the long, white lunch table. The clock said 12:12 as they dined alone despite a busy lunchroom. Apparently no one wanted to join them — too bizarre a combination perhaps, Nicole and Adam. Kids have their own cruel ways of rejecting their peers — some loud, some silent. But this silent statement was gnawing at Nicole as she gnawed on her apple.

12:13.

"Does the time 12:14 have any significance to you?" she forced herself to ask Adam out of the blue.

Adam gave her a weird look, shrugged and polished off his Coke.

"What do you mean?" he finally asked.

Nicole could tell he was lying just by the way he made an extra effort to avoid her gaze.

"Wanna go to a hockey game sometime this fall?" he asked, deftly changing the subject.

"Sure," she replied, pleasantly surprised by the invitation to something fun and positive.

"I like the Bruins," he said, "especially Shawn Thornton."

"Who's he?" she asked. "I'm a Patriots fan, but I don't know much about the Bruins."

"Boston's best fighter," Adam said, punching the air a few times and grinning.

"So they play in Boston?" Nicole asked, belatedly realizing it was a dumb question.

"Yeah."

"That's kind of a long way from here," she said.

"Nah ... 45 minutes if traffic ain't too bad."

"Oh," she said, suddenly regretting she agreed to go with him so quickly. Candace had just warned Nicole not to spend time with Adam alone, and now she fretted over the scary possibility of driving to Boston with him — far from home, far from safety.

12:14. Nothing. How could anything happen today? The suspect was having lunch with her.

Nicole took a sip of Snapple and noticed a goofy-looking string bean of a kid mocking Caleb Evans, a short sophomore who walked with a cane and shuffled awkwardly because of cerebral palsy. Nicole didn't know the clown who clearly enjoyed exaggerating every herky-jerky move Caleb made from behind his back like a coward. And Caleb had no idea what most of the lunchroom was now laughing at as he searched for a seat.

Adam, too, snorted out loud at the disgusting display. Nicole glared at him.

"How would you like it if you had a disability and someone treated you like that?" she asked bitterly.

"I wouldn't like it at all," Adam acknowledged, "but it is sort of funny."

"Who is that coward?" she asked.

"Timmy something, I think," he replied. "He's a junior."

"He's terrible," she said.

"You're right," Adam agreed, springing up from his seat with an idea in his head and a creepy expression on his face — very similar to the one she saw on the path two days ago that disturbed her greatly.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

But Adam didn't answer. Instead he took off running and violently hip-checked Timmy into the yellow wall between two tables. The lanky kid crumpled in a heap on the floor and the lunchroom roared with laughter, hoots and hollers. The same kids who cheered on the cowardly showman seconds before also applauded the much larger boy for his blindside punishment.

Relishing the results of his hockey-style check and the crowd's reaction, Adam bowed with a deranged-looking smile.

Nicole was mostly horrified and slightly impressed all at the same time. Her face was frozen in shock from that overload of mixed reaction.

Caleb, meanwhile, looked confused as he turned around to assess the situation.

Timmy managed to flip Adam the bird from his fetal position as he grimaced in pain, but the man-boy laughed and snorted at him.

"Hah, dumbass, you shouldn't make fun of the handicapped and expect to get away with it," Adam shouted down at him as a kitchen staffer emerged to intervene. The short Hispanic woman with the hairnet pointed at Adam, but he ignored her and challenged Timmy to get up.

"Scrape yourself up off the floor and fight me, son," Adam yelled as he assumed a boxer's stance to the howls of the cafeteria crowd, which surged closer for a better look.

"Screw you asshole!" Timmy shot back with no interest in getting up.

Guidance counselor/disciplinarian Maria Alvarez happened to walk into the cafeteria, surveyed the scene with sharp eyes and received an update from the kitchen staffer before taking command of the situation. Ms. Alvarez also was Hispanic, but stood about a half-foot taller than the kitchen lady. Wearing black pants and a sleeveless light-green shirt that showed off her strong, tan arms, Ms. Alvarez looked like she had won a few fights of her own in her life.

"What do you think you're doing, Adam?" she asked, her dark-brown eyes and determined face instantly commanding respect. "You know you can be suspended for fighting in school."

"There was no fight," Adam countered. "I boarded this punk against the wall for making fun of Caleb behind his back."

"That's no excuse for physically assaulting someone. Two wrongs don't make a right," Ms. Alvarez replied, bending down to check on the wounded Timmy. "Are you OK?"

"I'm not sure," he said, rubbing his head and looking dazed.

"You better check him for a concussion," Adam advised with a laugh, prompting a few other students to chuckle as well.

"This isn't funny, Adam — go to the principal's office right now and wait for me there. The school nurse is coming any minute to check on Timmy and I'll see you in Mrs. Wheeler's office," she ordered with a loud voice.

"But it's true. Adam did stick up for Caleb," Nicole blurted out.

Ms. Alvarez looked at her with an expression that conveyed annoyance first and then surprise. Nicole clearly had thrown her for a loop by rushing to defend the likes of Adam Upton.

"What?" was all she managed to say.

"And I put the idea in his head to do something about it because Timmy was being such a jerk to Caleb, making fun of the way he walks — and all of it behind his back like a coward," Nicole added as Adam smiled and nodded at her support.

"Is that true, Timmy?" Ms. Alvarez asked him.

"Yes," he reluctantly admitted as the school nurse arrived, stooped down and began examining his head.

"OK Timmy, well when you're all checked out by Nurse MacCormack, you can report to Mrs. Wheeler's office, too," Ms. Alvarez declared. "Adam, you come with me now, and Nicole, I'll be talking to you later about your role in this because fighting is not the proper response to these situations."

Chastened, Nicole simply nodded as Ms. Alvarez led Adam away.

Before departing the cafeteria, Adam gave her a thumb's-up sign that left her feeling confused. She could tell he appreciated the way she backed him up, but she began to wonder if her attempt at friendship was doing just as much harm as good. Was she pushing his buttons with her words and making him act out more aggressively than if she had just kept her mouth shut?

_No,_ she thought to herself. _At least he's listening to me. And as long as I can get through to him and say the right words next time, I can make sure he doesn't harm anyone else. This Adam is not like the Adam from Newtown who killed all those little kids. He's a completely different person and he can be good. Like the trail angels who warned me about the danger ahead, I can be Adam's trail angel, show him the painted blue rectangles on the trees and lead him up the right path — the safe one._

...

As final bell rang at 2:20 and the students departed for the weekend, Mr. Richardson gathered his materials and filled his briefcase. Nicole said a few words to Derek, waved as he exited the classroom and then waited for her English teacher to look up.

"Nicole," he acknowledged her with a smile.

"Mr. Richardson, here's that extra poem I promised you," she said, handing him a sealed white envelope.

"Great," he said, smiling and taking it from her.

"The only stipulation is you can't read it until September 15th," she instructed.

He made a quizzical smirk. "Why the 15th?"

"I can't say right now," she replied.

"That's intriguing," he said with a grin. "I do love a good mystery — and there's nothing like a mysterious poem with a do-not-read-until date."

Nicole smiled but provided no further clues.

"I look forward to reading everyone's emails this weekend and seeing which songs you've all chosen," the teacher said, shutting his briefcase and walking with her toward the door. "Can you tell me that at least?"

"Sure," she said. "I chose 'We're Going to Be Friends' by the White Stripes.' Not completely modern, but close enough, right?"

"Oh that's a fantastic choice, Nicole," he said with a smile. "I enjoy the Stripes. Too bad they broke up."

"I know."

"And I remember that song being on the soundtrack for that crazy movie ... what was it called?" he asked.

"Napoleon Dynamite," she answered with a chuckle.

"That's it. How could I forget a title like that?" he wondered with a hearty laugh. "Have a great weekend, Nicole."

"You, too, Mr. Richardson," she said.

...

Nicole checked her iPhone and read the text from Adam: "Got detentiun Monday for the hip check."

She smiled at the misspelling of his punishment.

"Detention, not un, LOL. I have 2 c Ms. Alvarez on Mon. a.m.," she texted back as she sat in Candace's front passenger seat en route to the mall Saturday.

Nicole was pleasantly surprised Adam had kept her in the loop, even if it was one day later.

"Want 2 hang out 2morrow?" she texted him.

"Sure," he replied.

"I'll pick U up at WP around noon and we'll go 2 the lake," she texted, referring to Whispering Pines trailer park.

"How bout 1?" he texted.

"OK. C U then," she confirmed.

Candace checked her lipstick in the mirror at a red light before giving Nicole a concerned look.

"Nikki, that better be Derek you're texting with all this time and not you-know-who," she said, her eyes returning to the road as she drove into the sprawling mall parking lot.

Nicole didn't respond right away and Candace had her answer. She shook her head, stopped the car rather abruptly in a parking space and turned off the ignition.

"What?" Nicole asked, dreading another battle over Adam.

"I think it's time for an intervention, Nikki," Candace said, totally serious.

"You and me with Adam?" Nicole asked, despite knowing full well what her friend meant.

"No, how about me with you right now," she said sharply.

"Candace, sometimes I wonder what would've happened if you had had the dream instead of me. Tell me what you would do if you were in my shoes right now," Nicole said with an exasperated tone.

"I would not be texting Adam Upton, that's for sure," she replied. "You're playing with fire. Just stop it already!"

"I'm just trying to be his friend," Nicole said.

"And I'm just trying to be _your_ friend right now, Nikki. I know I'll never convince you, so just forget it. Intervention over," Candace declared. "I came here to shop, not rehash the dream that never ends."

They both hopped out of Candace's candy-apple-red Jeep Cherokee, slammed their doors and flip-flopped their way toward the shoe outlet. Nicole trailed her agitated friend into the store and down an aisle. Candace stopped to admire a pair of furry brown boots, but Nicole grabbed them out of her hands and held them behind her back.

"Intervention resumed," Nicole said with a smirk.

Candace rolled her eyes impatiently and huffed.

"We always back each other up on the trails. Why not in regular everyday life?" Nicole asked.

"What are you asking me? Just get to your point, Nikki, because I know you have one," Candace said.

"I need you to come with me tomorrow when I pick up Adam at his trailer park and we go hang out at Rainbow Lake," she said.

Candace's green eyes bugged out.

"Nikki, I already told you I don't want to be dragged into this. I half-expected that he'd pop by the mall today as it was. That kid and his creepy-ass friend are not my kind of people."

"So you won't back me up on this?" Nicole persisted, still clutching the boots behind her back.

"Stop putting me in an uncomfortable position, Nikki," Candace said. "I don't want to hang out with Adam Upton for the 100th time."

"Why can't you go out of your comfort zone for a change, girl?" Nicole asked. "There's strength in numbers and I'm tired of trying to do this all on my own. So what if the kid lives in a trailer and has a screwed-up home life? He's still a high school senior just like us. He comes from a broken family just like me. We're lucky we get to live in nice homes in fairly nice neighborhoods and that our moms didn't die from a drug overdose when we were 3 years old. Put yourself in his shoes for once. How would you like it if you were poor and everybody looked down on you because of it ... even though you were born into that and had no control over it?"

Candace briefly pretended to claw her eyes out with her red finger nails, but then she softened her approach and placed her hands on Nicole's shoulders.

"Nikki, you're such a nice and noble person — you really are," she said. "I respect what you're trying to do even though I think it's quite possibly dangerous and, hopefully, pointless. But I really, really don't want to go with you and Adam to the lake tomorrow."

Nicole nodded.

"Then I respect your decision as final and I won't bring it up again," she said somberly.

Candace sighed as she observed her best friend's resigned disappointment.

"But I'm not finished with what I was going to say," she added. "I will meet you at the lake in my own car to make sure he doesn't try to kill you or do God knows what else."

Nicole smiled and let out her own sigh — of relief.

"Thanks C.C.," she said softly, handing the boots back to Candace. "Now go buy these before I do."

CHAPTER 8

### DEMONS AND TRAIL ANGELS

Adam raised his hunting rifle at the narrow space between two towering pine trees and pictured a closed door.

Suddenly the door springs open and out floods an endless line of targets — not on four feet, but two, pushing and shoving to get out of the school building and onto the grassy field.

Three-heartbeat, two-heartbeat, one-heartbeat: Adam's right finger goes full throttle. He mows them down from his perfect sniper spot — at the edge of the woods, beyond the practice field. His breathing remains steady, his emotions in check for maximum efficiency. He wants to kill them all. To do that, he needs to be a machine — just like his semiautomatic rifle. The weapon doesn't think; neither does he. Just aim and shoot. Drop Rifle 1, grab Rifle 2 and repeat with Rifles 3 and 4 that lie near his feet. There's not enough time to reload.

Adam's ears welcome the screams like a round of applause, and soon the wailing of sirens join the din. The fire alarm was pulled at exactly 12:14 p.m. and that set the carnage in motion. The fire trucks will arrive first, but they'll want no part of this and he knows it. They'll wait for the police and the SWAT teams. There's still a couple of minutes to be a killing machine before fleeing into the woods.

Adam pans the killing field — his eyes and rifle are one. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom! The smell of gun powder is intoxicating as his targets keep falling, rolling, screaming — seemingly in slow motion. It's going so well he allows himself to think about what Thomas is doing inside the school — firing at will, forcing the targets to flee more quickly out the door and into Adam's personal turkey shoot. The students and teachers are caught in a vise of vicious force that's ripping them full of holes. It's truly a genius and diabolical plan that will ensure their place among the greatest mass killers of all time.

Adam scopes the field again and sees no standing targets. He smiles and trains his rifle toward the door once more, just in case.

Three-heartbeat, two-heartbeat, one-heartbeat: It's her. Blue hair shining in the mid-day sun. Terrified face. Tears.

" _Call me Nikki," the voice in Adam's brain says amid the sirens and screams. His finger freezes on the trigger. He can't shoot her as she sprints away from the door and directly toward his hidden position, though he knows she can't possibly see him in his camouflage outfit._

Then she falls — no more than 20 yards from reaching the edge of the woods. Adam feels sick to his stomach at the sight of her, the strands of blue and brown hair spilling lifelessly around her crumpled body. His eyes and rifle automatically shift focus back to the doorway, where he sees Thomas standing in the entrance, a black pistol raised triumphantly in each hand and a smile clearly directed at Adam's position in the woods.

It's done. They're all dead.

Lakeview Regional High School now belongs to Adam Upton and Thomas Lee Harvey, the first killers to wipe out an entire school.

Adam closed his eyes, shook his head and then focused again on the empty space between the pine trees. There was no door. No deer either. Just shadows, confusion ... and that awful feeling in his gut.

...

"I saw Dead Girl Walking talking to Johnny Football Hero in the hall again Friday," Thomas said, his right hand undulating with the breeze as he rode shotgun in Adam's truck along a hilly, windy road late on Sunday morning. There were four black rifle cases in the back of the truck, but no deer carcasses.

"So what," Adam said, his eyes glazed and his right hand on top of the steering wheel.

"I thought you were gonna do her and now she's already banging someone else?" Thomas snickered.

"We're just friends. I told you that!" Adam shot back angrily. "I wanted to bang the other one all along."

"How's that going?"

"Shut the fuck up, Lee!" Adam shouted with a menacing glare. "I'll kill you right now and dump your body in the woods. The turkey vultures will eat you for Sunday dinner."

"Now that's the Adam we all love," Thomas replied with his best creepy grin. "A helluva lot better than the moody fuck you've been all morning. Is your head on straight, man? Are we doing this or what?"

"Hell yeah we are ... if _you_ live long enough to be a part of it," Adam shot back. "I don't need shit from you. I get enough from my father."

"How is Gary? Still popping?"

"Of course."

"And how's Brody boy — ready for Thursday I hope?"

"I'll make him ready, the dumbass."

"Good," Thomas said with a nod. "We need to time this Chinese fire drill and see where all the dick wads and whores line up. What better day than 9/11 for a dress rehearsal?"

Adam grunted, still in a daze.

"What?" Thomas asked.

"I heard you," Adam yelled.

"OK you big ol' bastard," Thomas shouted back. "I just hope your hunting skills are up to the fucking challenge next week because you sucked today."

"So did you, Lee. Keep talking shit like that and I'll be hauling your corpse to the butcher," Adam snapped, then gunned it down a steep hill.

...

Two hours later, Adam sat somewhat uncomfortably in the passenger seat of Nicole's car as she pulled into a dirt parking lot on the southwestern edge of Rainbow Lake. The sun poked through puffy clouds on a pleasant 60-degree day.

"I've got someone else coming to join us any minute," Nicole said, wearing a blue No. 12 New England Patriots jersey, the number worn by quarterback Tom Brady.

"Who?" Adam asked, slightly annoyed.

"There she is now," Nicole said, pointing at Candace's Jeep. She figured Adam would get over the third-wheel change in plan at the sight of the head-turning, auburn-haired girl. She was correct.

Adam's air of protest got immediately sucked out of him. He failed to breathe while watching Candace's long, svelte body slip out of her Jeep, sling a small orange pack over her shoulder and stride toward them. She wore a tight black short-sleeved shirt that said "You can't handle this" in white letters across her chest, orange-and-black shorts, orange socks and tan hiking boots. Even Nicole did a semi-aghast double-take at her unusually bold fashion statement. Was Candace deliberately trying to turn Adam on to distract him from being more than friends with Nicole or was she simply hoping to overpower the boy's senses with cocky words and garish colors? Nicole didn't really care. She was just happy her friend had showed up at all.

"Right on time," Nicole said, smiling as she checked her pink wristwatch and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

Adam appeared uncomfortably shy as he was the last of the three to close the car door and stand up in the nearly empty parking lot.

"Adam, this is my best friend Candace ... Candace, this is Adam Upton," Nicole introduced them while grabbing her small green pack.

Adam shook Candace's hand, but he didn't look her in the eyes.

"Nice to finally meet you, Adam, even though we go to the same school," Candace said, attempting to break the ice.

"Yeah ... good to meet you, too," he replied awkwardly. Adam wore a camouflage sweatshirt, blue jeans and black sneakers for the hike, but he didn't carry a pack.

Nicole and Candace both sensed that Adam had no experience hanging out with two attractive girls at the same time, and they smiled knowingly at each other while Adam bowed his head and kicked at the dirt. Nicole felt emboldened that her theory about approaching Adam from a position of strength in numbers might actually make an impact. Perhaps she could get through to the boy a week ahead of her deadline. She just hoped Candace would let her do most of the talking as they had planned. Otherwise, knowing her friend's tendency to be blunt, things could go awry pretty quickly.

"I parked here because I knew it wouldn't be crowded on this side of the lake and we could hike a mile or so to the west shore canoe landing area. That's a good place to have our lunch," Nicole explained to Adam. "You don't mind hiking a little, do you Adam?"

Adam stole a glance at Candace, who forced a smile, and quickly turned to face Nicole.

"Not at all," he said, trying to act normal but failing. His sudden lack of confidence in the company of both girls was striking.

"Great, let's go," Nicole said, leading them across the lot and toward the woods. "The trail head is over here."

Candace motioned for Adam to follow Nicole, he nodded and began walking between the two girls in single file on a narrow, densely wooded path. The three teens moved briskly along a flat stretch for a quarter of a mile before they began a fairly steep ascent through majestic maples, soaring evergreens and striking birch trees. Up they went toward the top of a 400-foot bluff that overlooked the large, egg-shaped lake.

Bright green ferns carpeted both sides of the trail as Adam carefully stepped over intermittent jagged rocks and exposed roots. The last thing he wanted to do was trip and make a fool of himself in front of Candace Cooper. Already self-conscious about his labored breathing and the sweat that was beginning to dampen his forehead and armpits, Adam wondered why he suddenly cared what other people thought of him. This strange, silent march in the middle of nowhere with two girls he barely knew made his thoughts go off the rails — into unknown territory.

"It's not all like this, Adam," Nicole reassured him as she glanced back over her shoulder. "It goes down after this bluff. There's a pretty cool waterfall up ahead, too, where we can stop for a drink."

"It's OK. I'm fine," he replied.

They crested the bluff and heard the waterfall before they saw it. Just off to the right, a stream forged through the trees at an angle and disappeared over the rocky shoulder of the bluff. Nicole led them off the path, down a well-worn and steep side trail, and stopped alongside the waterfall. The foaming water cascaded over several descending layers of rocks and into another stream below that fed the lake.

Nicole grabbed two water bottles from her pack and handed one to Adam.

"Thanks," he said with a slight grin.

"You're welcome," she said.

Candace had a bottle of her own as they all drank and admired the waterfall.

"What do you think of hiking so far?" Nicole asked Adam.

"I'm out of shape, but it's pretty cool," he said, slightly more comfortable with the girls now.

"Candace and I have climbed most of the big peaks in the Presidential Range over the last couple of years," Nicole said proudly.

"Yeah, we try not to do anything less than 4,000 feet," Candace added with a laugh.

"Wow," Adam said. "Have you climbed Mount Washington?"

"Oh yeah, three times for me," Nicole replied.

"Twice for me," Candace said, holding up two fingers as she studied Adam more closely and wondered what really was going through his mind at that moment. Small talk didn't distract her from the elephant in the woods, but she kept her mouth shut for the sake of her friend.

"We just climbed it as part of a three-summit loop last month before school started," Nicole said. "We even camped out under the stars in a tent above the tree line, which is technically illegal."

"Correction: you camped out," Candace said. "I slept in Lakes of the Clouds Hut."

"That is true," Nicole said. "Candace helped cover for me so I could sleep under the stars."

Adam's eyes and ears bounced from girl to girl with interest. He was not even sure this conversation in the woods was real. It felt more like a dream because it was an experience so unlike anything he had ever had or could've expected in his life to this point. The feeling he got from actually being invited and included in this adventure with these two girls was as exhilarating as it was foreign. The depressing confusion from his daydream during the deer hunt, and the bitter aftertaste from his talk with Thomas in the truck, had been replaced with a surreal sense of wonder and almost happiness — all in the matter of a couple of hours. The extreme down and up now left him slightly dizzy and at a loss for words, but he suddenly felt more alive and in the moment than he could ever remember. It was like a light beer buzz, without the beer.

"I should drink water more often," he blurted out with a chuckle. He did manage not to snort.

Candace laughed at his out-of-the-blue observation. Adam blushed when he realized his random statement had absolutely nothing to do with the girls' conversation about hiking.

"You want more water, Adam?" Nicole asked.

"No, I'm just crazy, don't pay any attention to me," he replied, staring at the waterfall again.

Candace took a step back and another sip of water. Perhaps she was uncomfortable with the word "crazy." But Nicole stepped toward Adam and waited until he returned her gaze.

"You are not crazy, Adam," she said. "If you were, I wouldn't have invited you on a hike in the woods with us, would I?"

Candace raised one eyebrow and looked away as Adam shook his head.

"Why would you guys want to hang out with someone like me?" he asked, seriously. "I guess I'm just confused."

Candace kept her mouth shut, but her eyes spoke volumes. Nicole gave her a quick, reproachful glance, and then refocused on Adam as the steady rush of the waterfall provided soothing ambience for this impromptu shrink session under the trees. All that was missing was a sofa for the patient.

"We're all Lakeview Golden Eagles, we're all members of the Class of 2015 — why wouldn't we hang out?" Nicole asked him. "We're all into the outdoors. You like hunting, we like hiking, we live in a beautiful state ..."

Nicole could see Candace grimace at the word "hunting" out of the corner of her eye and knew she needed to get them all back on the trail fast — before her friend bailed back to the parking lot.

"Let's get back on the main trail, Adam, and head toward our lunch spot," she said, putting her hand on his arm and guiding him back up the slope.

"OK," he said.

Candace let them walk a few paces, checked her iPhone and then followed with some hesitation.

...

The three hikers emerged from the woods and onto a narrow, V-shaped wedge of sand that sloped down to the lake's tranquil blue water. Canoes, kayaks and small boats usually were launched from bigger, more accessible points around the lake. This location mostly was used for landings and lunches, but no one occupied the place when they arrived, except for three ducks waddling into the shallow water and drifting to the right.

Nicole pulled a white-and-yellow blanket out of her pack and spread it on the sand with help from Candace. Adam smiled and looked across the lake. A couple of kayakers were barely visible near the opposite shore about two miles away.

"It really quiets down here after Labor Day," Nicole said as she passed out chicken salad wraps, a small bag of chips and stubby plastic water bottles to Adam and Candace before sitting down to start on her own lunch.

"Yeah, I like it more when it's not so crazy here," Candace said, sitting down next to Nicole. Adam was the last to sit, but he seemed more at ease with the girls now and smiled more regularly.

"Thanks for lunch," he said, squinting at Nicole.

"You're welcome, Adam," she replied, smiling as she released her hair from her ponytail.

The way the sun hit some of her fine blue strands brought back an unpleasant memory for Adam, and he suddenly felt awful about the shooting plot he and Thomas were actively planning. However, the chicken wrap looked so good and he was so hungry from hiking that he forced himself to eat despite the bile in his gut. The tasty food and the pretty companions helped him pretend, for now at least, that there was no such plot against his fellow Lakeview Golden Eagles.

"I'm glad you came, Adam," Nicole said after swallowing a bite of food. "Who knows? Maybe you'll blossom into a real mountain climber some day and it all began today at Rainbow Lake."

Adam nodded and smiled while wolfing down his wrap and reaching into his bag of chips.

"I climbed Mount Washington with my Mom for the first time when I turned 14 — about three years after my parents divorced," Nicole said. "I've been hooked ever since. There are a lot of great trails in the White Mountains and the views are awesome."

"Now we're talking about doing the whole Appalachian Trail during one of our college summers," Candace chimed in, ripping open her bag of chips.

"That's that really long trail, right?" Adam asked, happy to join a three-way conversation and get the opportunity to look at Candace more frequently. He found it hard not to stare at the letters on her shirt as she talked or listened.

"Yeah, it goes from Maine to Georgia," Candace replied.

"Or, if we can scrape together enough money, I'd really like to do the PCT," Nicole said.

"What's that?" Adam asked.

"The Pacific Crest Trail, which goes from like southern California all the way up the West Coast," she said excitedly.

"Nikki got that big idea from her hiking hero, Cheryl Strayed," Candace added with a smirk.

"Do you like to read, Adam?" Nicole asked.

"Not really," he said, smiling and squinting.

"OK, I'm not talking about boring books for school," Nicole said with a grin. "Do you like to read for fun — like books about hunting, for example?"

"Yeah, I guess," he lied.

"Well, anyway, I highly recommend Cheryl's book. It's called 'Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.'"

"What's so great about it?"

"Well, it's a true story, a memoir by this woman named Cheryl — she was in her 20s at the time — and she hiked most of the PCT by herself with, like, zero hiking experience," Nicole explained.

"She was pretty dumb then," Adam said.

"Naive and lost might be the better description," Candace countered, drawing a longer stare from Adam. "She was basically a messed-up chick who screwed a lot of guys and shot herself up with heroin before she ..."

Adam's eyes bugged out with interest at that nugget of information, but Nicole cut her off.

"Don't forget why she did that, Candace," she said. "She had just watched her mother die of cancer, and the rest of her family was a bunch of losers who just took off on her and left her to deal with the whole sad situation."

"Still, that's a pretty extreme reaction," Candace said before sipping some water.

"I'm sure it's not easy to watch your mom die," Nicole said, biting her tongue at the end of that sentence as she remembered what Brody told her — that Adam's mother died of a drug overdose when he was very young.

Adam looked out at the lake, but outwardly didn't seem too troubled by what she had said.

"Anyway, the point is Cheryl was going down a terrible path until she went on this hike. She found a way to survive, met some cool people along the way and basically turned her whole life around in one summer," Nicole said, locking eyes with Adam and hoping he could grasp her message as it related to him. "It's a very inspirational story, especially for young people like us, who sometimes feel lost or depressed and have no clue what the future holds."

Nicole's words hung in the air for an uncomfortable moment as Adam finished off his lunch and Candace checked her iPhone.

"Maybe I should read it then," Adam finally said, his tone suddenly serious to Nicole's pleasant surprise. She nodded and gave him a squinty little grin.

Another short period of silence was interrupted by the loud, strange sound of a man's voice yelling "Fee-fee, fee-fo ... Fee-fee, fee-fo" from the trail behind them. Then Nicole, Adam and Candace all smiled as an enthusiastic young golden retriever bounded toward them, sniffing their blanket and licking their faces, hands and shirts for traces of lunch, most of which had been consumed.

"Hey there doggy," Adam said, beaming like Nicole had never seen him before.

Candace laughed when the dog tried to jump on Nicole and kiss her mouth.

"Aaaah," Nicole gasped, turning her cheek as she petted the fluffy dog with both hands and ruffled its long, floppy ears.

Soon the dog's owner appeared next to their blanket on the sand with a broad smile on his face.

"Hello, I'm Vlad and you've already met Fifi," said the red-capped man with the Russian accent, salt-and-pepper hair and beard, and friendly blue eyes. He wore a tie and vest under a dark blue windbreaker, blue slacks and brown boots — probably the best-dressed hiker Nicole had ever met on the trails.

"Hi Vlad, I'm Nicole and this is Adam and Candace," she said, looking up at him as Fifi drifted over to lick Adam's hands and face. He snorted and pushed the dog around playfully.

"Fifi is a good girl, just a big baby really," Vlad said. "She's only 11 months old."

"Wow, she's pretty big for 11 months," Adam observed.

"Yeah, Fifi likes to eat a lot," the man said with a hearty, infectious laugh that made all three teens smile.

"Where are you from?" Candace asked.

"I was born in Russia, but I live on Cape Cod now," he said. "I love the ocean. It's very beautiful. So is New Hampshire. I love the mountains. I love to visit here."

"I know. We're lucky to live around here," Nicole said, visibly gushing over the stranger's positive energy.

" _You_ are very lucky, Adam," Vlad said, vigorously pointing at him with the hand that held Fifi's leash. His eyes and grin were full of mischief.

"Why?" the boy asked.

"Why?" Vlad repeated, waving his arm over Nicole and Candace below him. "You get to relax with two beautiful young women in a beautiful place such as this on such a beautiful day."

The Russian laughed while Adam's sheepish look morphed into a shy grin. His cheeks flushed, but he nodded his head. "I guess you're right. Sometimes I don't notice the most obvious things."

They all chuckled at that.

Nicole thought about all the interesting people Cheryl Strayed had met on her long trek through the wilderness, including some locals who aided hikers but didn't actually hike the PCT themselves. Those people were dubbed "trail angels" by the grateful hikers. Vlad seemed cut out of that same cloth, and Nicole's heart leapt as she watched Adam's facial expressions in the unexpected company of the affable Russian and his lovable golden puppy. It gave her a real glimmer of hope that she was on the right path — the one marked by blue rectangles; the one where nobody got shot.

"It's so nice to meet you and Fifi, Vlad," Nicole heard herself say. "That's one of the great things about hiking — all the amazing people you randomly bump into on the trails that you otherwise never would've met."

Vlad nodded, gave her a huge smile and then watched happily as Fifi suddenly rambled toward the edge of the lake to lap up a long drink of water. Three other sets of eyes followed, captivated by the puppy's youthful spirit and thirst for life.

"Oh I can't take any credit," Vlad said, pointing toward his dog. "I just let Fifi go and she found you first — way, way before me. I'm quite slow."

They all chuckled.

"I think I'm taking her for a walk, but really, she's taking me," the Russian added with a laugh.

Nicole caught Adam gazing at her and they shared a smile.

CHAPTER 9

### "WE'RE GOING TO BE FRIENDS"

"Adam's pretty weird, but I'm not sure he would start shooting people. Then again, I'll probably keep hiding in the bathroom at 12:14 for a while just in case. I'm too young to die and I definitely don't trust psycho Thomas whatever-his-name-is," Candace rambled on into Nicole's ear as she stashed her lunch bag and a paperback book into her locker. Scores of students streamed past them in the long corridor. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked, pointing to the book.

"Yeah, I was going to let Adam borrow it if he wants," Nicole said of "Wild."

"He doesn't seem like an avid reader."

"You never know," Nicole said, closing her locker and spinning the lock. "I thought it went pretty well yesterday. Thanks for backing me up, C.C., and holding your tongue at the key moments. ... I guess your shirt did the talking for you," she added with a wink and a grin.

"Pretty rad, eh? Adam definitely couldn't handle hanging out with the two of us at the same time — he was like a shy pathetic freshman at first," Candace said as they began strolling down the busy hall.

"I'm just glad it turned into a fairly positive experience — something to build on maybe. I didn't want a full-blown intervention in the woods," Nicole said.

"That's what I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised," Candace said, clutching her books close to her chest. "I think the Russian guy and his dog really saved the day."

Nicole chuckled. "A little trail magic right there. I think the food helped Adam's morale, too."

"OK Strayed, I'll see you later."

"I have to meet with Ms. Alvarez now," Nicole said.

"Why? ... Oh yeah, Friday's shoving incident," Candace answered her own question. "Too bad I missed that."

"See what you miss when you're hiding in the bathroom," Nicole quipped.

"Oh well. Bye Nikki," Candace said, waving as she walked into a classroom on the right.

"Later," Nicole said, heading straight for the guidance counselor's office.

...

Ms. Alvarez cloaked her strong arms in a long-sleeved black shirt today, but her dark brown eyes didn't lack for intensity as she studied Nicole, who fidgeted with her fingernails as she sat in a stiff-backed chair in front of the counselor's desk. She sensed an air of quiet defiance in the teen that both surprised and irritated her.

"Why would you encourage a boy like Adam to beat somebody up? That's just not like you, Nicole," she said, dark curls framing her tan face. "I have to tell you that incident on Friday really threw me for a loop. I needed the weekend to process it before I talked to you."

"Timmy was making fun of Caleb ..."

"Yes I know, I know that, but still ..."

"What do you mean when you say 'a boy like Adam?'" Nicole asked, cutting off the counselor in turn.

Ms. Alvarez sighed. "You know what I mean, Nicole."

"No, I don't, so you're going to have to tell me," she replied firmly.

Ms. Alvarez raised her eyebrows and thought for a moment.

"Nicole, I really don't prefer to talk about another student behind his back in this office, but I think you're smart enough to know that Adam Upton has some behavioral issues and the last thing he needs is a girl pushing his buttons to act out," she said sharply.

"I wasn't trying to push his buttons," Nicole insisted. "How was I sup- ..."

"But you did, so I've decided that you can join Adam in detention after school today," the counselor ruled curtly.

"What?"

"Look, I wasn't necessarily planning on giving you detention, but I really don't like your attitude right now. Your tone is very challenging and unremorseful. There is no place for fighting inside this school and I don't want to see you involved in any more incidents like this. Do you understand?"

Nicole rolled her eyes and tugged at her long strands of brown and blue.

"Do what you want, but all I'm trying to do is be friends with Adam and it isn't the easiest thing, you know," she said, suddenly looking up at the ceiling, hoping the counselor wouldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes. She had never been disciplined in school before at any level and it didn't sit well with her.

Ms. Alvarez could see the girl getting emotional and softened her tone.

"OK, Nicole, but you have to understand that I've never seen you two hang out in school before so I'm a little confused — and then the incident on Friday? I walk into the cafeteria and the lunch lady tells me what happened. Then you defend Adam and admit you played a role in it. What am I supposed to do? Just ignore that? Timmy could've been seriously hurt. Adam is a much bigger boy."

Nicole shrugged and forced back her tears. Her punishment had been handed out so she decided to change the subject. She suddenly wanted to test how much guidance Ms. Alvarez was capable of providing. Hopefully it was better than her ability to hear someone out.

"Can I ask you a question, Ms. Alvarez?"

"Yes, of course, Nicole."

"Do you feel safe coming to this school every day?" the teen asked gravely.

Ms. Alvarez appeared even more confused now, tilting her head to the right, raising only her left eyebrow and clasping her hands together on top of her well-organized desk.

"Yes I do, Nicole — what are you talking about?"

"I mean, do you ever think about Newtown or Columbine and wonder if something like that could happen here at Lakeview?" Nicole asked, looking the counselor right in the eyes.

"Of course I've thought about it — how can any of us not think about it when these shootings have happened again and again, but I don't worry or agonize about it," she replied. "Walking around in fear is no way to live. We all come here to learn and teach and guide, and that should be our focus."

Nicole nodded and looked down at her hands. She decided her fingernails needed a fresh coat of lavender polish as she waited for the counselor's inevitable follow-up question. Did she really want to go there with Ms. Alvarez?

"Why? Do you know about something? ... Because if you do, you should tell me right now, Nicole."

Nicole sighed. "I don't know anything, but I did have a dream a couple of weeks ago," she said.

Ms. Alvarez squinted at her. "A dream? Go on."

"Well, the dream warned me that something bad like that might happen at this school and time was running out to stop it," Nicole said.

Ms. Alvarez nodded thoughtfully and sat back in her padded black chair to ponder what the teen said.

"Dreams are not real, Nicole, but they are a good indication of what's on our subconscious mind — fears or whatever," she said. "I don't blame you for being afraid of that threat because we all have been inundated with these images of mass killings over the past decade or so, and many of them have taken place in school settings."

"Do you think the dead can talk to us? Warn us?" Nicole asked.

"No ... no, I don't believe that, but that's my personal belief. However, sometimes dreams can focus on things that we might overlook while we're awake. Did the dream warn you about a specific plot or a specific person who might be behind it?" Ms. Alvarez asked.

Nicole thought about her answer for a moment.

"Yes," she finally said, "but I don't want to say who."

Ms. Alvarez nodded silently, picturing the face of Adam Upton in her mind. For the first time in their conversation, the guidance counselor didn't seem confused at all.

...

Nicole skipped lunch. She needed a break from Adam after her draining talk with Ms. Alvarez. She knew she'd see him in detention anyway and decided to give him the book then. She spent her lunch period in the school library instead, using the computer to do Internet searches on bipolar disorder, Columbine, Newtown, Asperger's syndrome and Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. It troubled her that she was dealing with an Adam, too.

"Do they really have to have the same exact first name? Creepy," she whispered to herself.

Computer research only added to Nicole's anxiety, so she tried to focus on the progress she had made with Adam instead.

About a half hour later, she was staring out the window and thinking about Sunday's hike at Rainbow Lake when Mr. Richardson called her name in English class.

"What? I'm sorry," she said, realizing she was in a fog.

"Yes, Nicole, you were clearly somewhere far, far away," the teacher said with his usual easygoing style. "That's OK. Can you share with us the song you chose? And please tell us why this particular lyrical poem moved you."

"Sure," she said, straightening up in her seat, clearing her throat and focusing on the iPad screen on her desk. "I chose 'We're Going to Be Friends' by the White Stripes. Most of you probably heard the song on the soundtrack for the movie 'Napoleon Dynamite,' which came out in like 2004."

"Oh I loved that movie," a boy shouted from across the room, drawing a round of laughter, followed by a few dissenters who called the film "stupid," "asinine" and "retarded."

Someone else yelled "vote for Pedro!" in reference to Napoleon's popular Hispanic sidekick in the movie. Yet another person bellowed, "Liger ... a cross between a lion and a tiger, bred for its skills in magic," one of Napoleon's infamous one-liners. That sparked another round of laughter and chaos in the classroom.

Mr. Richardson allowed his students to have some fun with their trip down cinema lane for a few moments, but then he regained control. "OK everyone, let's hear Nicole's take on the White Stripes' song," he said, hushing the room with the downward motion of his hands.

Nicole looked down at her iPad again and recited the first five lines of lyrics to the class:

Fall is here, hear the yell

Back to school, ring the bell

Brand new shoes, walking blues

Climb the fence, books and pens

I can tell that we are going to be friends

Nicole noticed Derek gazing at her intently from the desk to her right as she looked up to address the class from her left-aisle window seat. She gave him a quick smile and spoke clearly. "I've always loved the White Stripes and most people know their song, 'Seven Nation Army' ..."

A boy in the back left of the class interrupted her by humming the popular melody to that song — a catchy, militant progression often sung by fans at college basketball games and even soccer matches around the world. A few others joined in before Mr. Richardson, once again, had to tamp down the noise with his hands.

"Continue, Nicole," he said.

"Well, I chose 'We're Going to Be Friends' because it's an acoustic song with a great melody and the words take me back 10 years ago when I was 7. That's when going to school was so new and exciting and innocent. Back then it seemed like making friends was so much simpler, easier and fun," she explained, trying her best not to get emotional while she talked. "I'm especially moved by the lyric, 'We don't notice any time pass,' later in the song. It's just so true. We're so completely wrapped up in learning and beginning to discover this world that we can't possibly see the forest for the trees. Before we know it, 10 years have come and gone. Once again, fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell — only now we're starting 12th grade instead of second. It's almost over for us, but the cycle continues.

"The second-graders over at Park Ridge Elementary are going to be friends, going to learn and won't notice any time pass. It makes me wonder where I'll be, what I'll be doing and who my friends will be 10 years from now — when I'm 27 and those second-graders are sitting in this classroom ..."

"Telling me about their favorite songs," Mr. Richardson said, deftly finishing Nicole's sentence and smiling like he, too, was moved by the lyrics and her interpretation of them. "Well chosen and well said, Nicole. I really believe you captured the essence of the song and applied it to exactly what you guys have gone through. I love how the writer — Jack White in this case — has written the song in present tense even though he's clearly an adult now, looking back on a time when he was much younger and completely innocent. It's hard not to yearn for that innocence yourself when you read the lyrics and especially when you hear the song. It's a song that makes you smile and hurt a little all at the same time — and that's not easy to achieve. It's often the simplest songs with the most heartfelt, honest messages that move us the most."

Nicole wiped a tear from her left eye and smiled at Mr. Richardson. Derek gave her a pat on the right shoulder and she blushed. Amazingly, the previously rowdy class seemed fine with a moment quiet reflection.

"I like the positively determined title of the song, too," she added softly. "'We're Going to Be Friends.'"

CHAPTER 10

### SUGAR CUBES

Nicole opened her locker to retrieve her history book and the Cheryl Strayed paperback as Derek watched her with a look of playful curiosity.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Just a book about hiking," she said, avoiding direct eye contact with his hypnotic hazel eyes as his rugged presence surrounded her. "I'm going to let a friend borrow it."

"Are you going to swing by football practice today?" he asked.

"I would have, but ... I've got detention," she replied with a frown.

"Wait, what? _You've_ got detention. That's impossible," he said, his eyes bugging out and his right hand nearly fumbling his English book onto the floor.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I'm a normal person who gets in trouble from time to time, too," she said.

"I like you even more now," he said with a laugh.

Nicole blushed and gazed down at her chipped pinky nail.

"What for?" Derek asked.

"What for what?" she countered, completely forgetting what they had been talking about.

"Why did you get detention, Nikki?"

"Oh ... um ... it's kind of a long story. I wouldn't want to bore you with it."

"No, I gotta hear it."

"Take me out sometime and I'll tell you," she replied slyly.

"When?"

"Probably not this week. I'm too busy. But next week maybe," she said, looking up at him and smiling now.

"What's your number?" he asked confidently.

"Hand me your phone and I'll make sure you have it."

Derek gave her his iPhone, and she added her name and number to his contact list.

"Thanks," he said as she handed the phone back to him.

"You're welcome, Derek," she said, beaming.

"I like what you said about that White Stripes song in Richardson's class today," he said. "I guess I better take you out before this year whips by, too."

Nicole chuckled.

"Then that's what will do. Now go practice so you guys win on Friday night," she said.

"OK ... and you enjoy detention," he quipped before spinning around and nearly flattening Melanie Ferguson as she approached Nicole in the hall. "Sorry about that," he said.

"No problem," Melanie mumbled, checking to make sure all her limbs were still intact.

"Hey Mel," Nicole said as the short strawberry blonde began strolling with her down the nearly empty corridor. "I've only got a couple of minutes to talk. I've got detention at 2:30."

"What?" Melanie gasped, her jaw dropping open.

"It's true."

"What did you do, Nikki?"

"It's no big deal really, but I'll tell you when I have more time to talk."

"Wow ... there's a whole lot of crime and punishment going on around here lately," Melanie noted.

"Why ... what else happened?" Nicole asked with a furrowed brow.

"Well, Valerie just told me that Thomas Harvey got suspended today for calling Mr. Barnes 'a half-blind, faggot Oreo douche bag' in history class."

Nicole's heart skipped a beat at the mention of Thomas Harvey's name. She was so relieved to hear his crime didn't involve a gun that she actually chuckled at the long-winded insult. Melanie looked at her in horror over her reaction and Nicole immediately felt awful.

"How can you laugh at that, Nikki?" she asked. "Mr. Barnes is such a nice teacher. He's _our_ teacher."

"I know. I'm sorry, Mel. I really didn't mean to," said Nicole, who sometimes sat next to Melanie in Mr. Barnes' honors history class — not the lower-level class taken by Thomas Harvey.

"That's like a homophobic slur, a racial slur and an insult about his bad eyesight all in one sentence," Melanie pointed out.

"What's Oreo mean anyway?" Nicole asked.

"Well, I guess because Mr. Barnes is sort of, you know, half black, half white," Melanie replied.

"Oh ... that is terrible. Mr. Barnes is way too nice. He puts up with a lot of crap and he definitely doesn't deserve that kind of treatment," Nicole said. "Thomas is awful."

"Yeah, he's real bad news. Valerie said she heard he's out through Thursday," Melanie said.

"Wow," Nicole replied distractedly as she processed that nugget of information. She wasn't sure whether she felt safer with Thomas in school or roaming around outside it. Then she checked her watch. "Oh shit, I've gotta get downstairs for detention. I've got my own jail time to worry about."

"Good luck," Melanie said, giving Nicole a look like she didn't quite know what to think of her as they parted — Nicole toward the stairwell down to detention; Melanie out the door to freedom.

...

As she walked past the music room on her right, where some band members were tuning up their instruments, Nicole spotted Adam waiting for her several feet before the detention room, also on the right. The door was closed.

"It's still locked. I missed you at lunch today," he said with a weird grin that didn't exactly put Nicole at ease.

"Yeah sorry. I had to hit the library to do some research for my history paper and I totally lost track of time," she lied. "Ms. Alvarez gave me detention, too, so I figured I'd hang out with you here anyway."

"Sorry my hip-check on Timmy got you in trouble, too, but it was really cool of you to back me up," he said.

"No problem, except now I'm super hungry and we've got to sit in detention for an hour."

"I've got just the thing to get you through it then," Adam said, pulling two small white cubes out of a Ziploc bag in his pocket. He popped one in his mouth and handed her the other.

"A sugar cube? You carry these?" she asked.

"Yeah, it'll give you a little burst of energy to make it through detention," he said matter-of-factly.

"Perfect, thanks," she said, popping it into her mouth and savoring the immediate burst of sweetness. "I met a really cool hiker once who carried sugar cubes in his pack. He gave Candace and me a couple of them and we zipped up to Lion's Head in record time."

"Lion's Head?"

"It's a rocky landmark that, well, kind of looks like a lion's head above the tree line on Mount Washington," she explained. "It's where the views start getting really awesome on a clear day."

"Oh, well I doubt that hiker had _these_ cubes," Adam said with weird grin No. 2.

Nicole detected a strange, almost metallic aftertaste as she swallowed the cube. But the very second she intended to ask Adam about it, the animated Mr. Barnes scurried toward them in his dapper gray suit, lavender bow tie and fancy brown dress shoes.

"Aaaah.... sorry I'm late!" Mr. Barnes said, opening the door with a key. "Follow me."

Nicole was thrilled a familiar teacher was overseeing detention today as she and Adam entered the small, dungeon-like classroom and sat down next to each other. There were seats for about a dozen kids and no windows. A few posters broke up the beige walls, but there was no chalkboard and only a small desk and chair for the detention monitor.

"I'm glad to see you brought your history book, Nicole," Mr. Barnes said, smiling and pointing enthusiastically as his brown pupils darted back and forth behind thick glasses. "At least your time here won't be for naught," he added in his effeminate voice.

"Yes I did. And I also brought this book for Adam to read," she said, holding up "Wild" for Mr. Barnes to see before depositing it on Adam's desk. He gazed at the beat-up hiking boot with the red laces on the cover for a moment and smiled before leafing through the pages aimlessly.

Mr. Barnes jumped out of his chair and stood over Adam to get a closer look.

"Oh gosh, I _loved_ this book. Oprah picked it for her book club and I was all over it," the teacher raved, his hands all over the place.

Adam grimaced and let the book fall to the floor.

"Aaah!" Mr. Barnes cried, bending down to pick it up and place it back on Adam's desk with a protective hand over it. "No, no, no, Adam. You should really read it. I highly recommend it. Listen to Nicole here."

Nicole chuckled at the whimsical interaction between Mr. Barnes and Adam. She truly felt awful that the harmless, well-meaning teacher had been verbally abused by Thomas earlier in the day.

"OK," Adam said reluctantly, then opened the book after Mr. Barnes released his grip.

"Good boy," the teacher said, returning to his seat.

"Yes, good boy," Nicole chimed in, smiling at Adam but suddenly feeling hazy and light-headed as she gazed at him. He looked back at her, studied her face for what seemed like a minute and Nicole couldn't look away. Adam's eyes were the only thing keeping her steady as the room around her began to spin. She felt so relaxed, numb and confused all at the same time.

Then Adam flashed her a mischievous smile and whispered, "Feeling anything yet?"

"Yeah, I'm definitely feeling _something_ ," she said before giggling. She had no idea why.

Adam laughed, then snorted in response, drawing a curious stare from Mr. Barnes, who had been marking papers with a red pen.

"You two seem to enjoy detention more than most of the kids I get stuck with," he said. "I'm surprised you're the only two today ... of course, Thomas ... no, I won't even go there."

Nicole and Adam didn't even hear Mr. Barnes' aside. They were too busy staring at each other, making funny faces and giggling.

"That was really fast," Adam whispered loudly to her.

"What was so fast, fast, fast?" Nicole asked, turning her hand into a speeding jet taking off from her history book as she smiled from ear to ear.

"It usually takes at least a half hour to kick in," Adam whispered a little lower this time, "but ... oh ... that's why."

"What's why, why, why?" Nicole asked again, unaware that Mr. Barnes was observing her weird behavior more closely now.

"You skipped lunch," Adam replied, pointing to her and then actually touching her maroon long-sleeved shirt where her belly was.

As soon as Nicole felt Adam's finger touch her belly button, she made a raspberry sound with her mouth and howled in laughter.

"Oh my God," Mr. Barnes cried out with his jaw wide open. "What's so funny, Nicole?"

She ignored the teacher and kept laughing hysterically. Adam snorted several times, pointed at one of the posters on the wall — the one promoting the school's upcoming October production of "Romeo & Juliet" — and said to Nicole, "Make sure to stare at that and see what happens!"

Nicole sprang out of her chair and walked with some difficulty over to get a better look at the poster. There was a young man and woman staring into each other's eyes, but that's not what she saw.

"Oh my God, they're totally making out!" she yelled and then laughed like it was the funniest thing she had ever witnessed.

Adam howled and started clapping as he, too, jumped up from his seat to join her next to the poster.

Mr. Barnes' pupils oscillated rapidly as he processed the strange and totally unexpected scene in front of him. Then, when the band began playing in the next room, Nicole suddenly stopped laughing, attempted to keep a straight face and marched around the room to the beat of the drums. She soon collided with an empty chair and tumbled onto the floor. That's when she and Adam launched into another round of hysterical laughter.

The craziness continued as Ms. Alvarez arrived in the room's doorway. She tried to ask "What the hell is going on?" over the howling and band music, but Mr. Barnes jumped out of his chair and rushed over to guide her back into the hallway.

"What the hell is going on in there, Ron?" she asked again loudly.

"I have no idea, Maria," he replied, waving his hands frantically. "They were completely normal a few minutes ago and now they're hysterical. It's like they don't even know I'm in the room with them. They don't respond to me at all."

Ms. Alvarez peered back through the doorway and saw more of the same. It was clear the teens had no idea where they were or that the monitor had left the room. She sighed, frowned, shook her head and folded her arms across her chest.

"I'd bet my paycheck they're on something, Ron," she said bitterly.

"Drugs? Nicole?" he wondered incredulously.

"It wouldn't be the first time for Adam Upton and they've been hanging around each other a lot lately," Ms. Alvarez said. "Go home, Ron. I was coming down to relieve you anyway and now I have a really good reason."

"Are you sure, Maria?"

"Yes, you've had a trying enough day already thanks to Thomas Harvey," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, I've been called worse," Mr. Barnes said with a drained, forced smile.

"Well that's a shame then," she said, shaking her head in disgust.

"Like the world isn't bad enough already, and then we're supposed to teach kids like these," she added, jerking her head and thumb toward Nicole and Adam. "More crazy people heading into the real world — just what we need."

Mr. Barnes nodded somberly and then departed. It was Ms. Alvarez's turn to enter the acid den.

CHAPTER 11

### THE ACID DEN

Ms. Alvarez stood in the open doorway and pretended she was a fly on the molding. It was easy to do. Nicole and Adam had no idea she was observing them because they were now both standing in the far left corner of the detention room having an animated discussion next to the "Romeo & Juliet" poster.

"I swear these walls are moving and shifting," Nicole insisted, pounding the beige wall with her hands. "You'd tell me if we were in the middle of an earthquake, wouldn't you Adam?"

"Of course, Nikki," he replied, waving a paperback book in his hand — another visual that made absolutely no sense to the guidance counselor. Adam was allergic to all books, as far as she knew.

When the band practicing in the next room launched into a loud and thumping rendition of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," Nicole's dilated pupils dilated even more.

"Oh I love this song!" she shouted, pushing Adam in the chest with both hands and laughing. "It's Gaga!"

"You're out of your fucking mind!" Adam bellowed while pointing to his own oversized head.

Nicole began dancing to the music and quickly lost her balance, falling onto the floor for the second time in her debut detention period. Adam howled and helped her back up.

"You're so much fun to trip with!" he yelled over the music, completely unaware he was admitting his guilt to the eavesdropping Ms. Alvarez.

"Yeah," Nicole said dizzily. "Wasn't that a great hike at the lake yesterday?"

"Very weirdly cool," Adam replied. "How about that Russian guy and ..."

"Oh, I _loved_ him and his _dog_ ... Fee-fee, fee-fo! Fee-fee, fee-fo!" Nicole shouted, cupping her right hand around her mouth to project her voice as if she were actually calling out for the dog; as if that was even necessary given how loud she was already.

Ms. Alvarez shook her head and wondered how this could be the same person she had a serious discussion with only hours ago.

Adam began yelling "fee-fee, fee-fo" as well, and they were soon doubling over in laughter yet again. Nicole rolled onto the floor for the third time, practically mopping it with her bicolored hair.

That's when Ms. Alvarez decided she had seen and heard enough. She closed the door behind her and stood where Mr. Barnes had been a few minutes before. Nicole didn't even notice, writhing around on the floor and stuttering through the final chorus of "Poker Face." But Adam did. He held up the paperback book in his left hand — the word "Wild" was the only thing Ms. Alvarez saw as he waved it around in front of him.

"Where's Oprah?" he asked with a straight face. "I thought Mr. Barnes left to go find Oprah so we could talk about this book Nikki gave me."

The meathead of a boy stated this ridiculous combination of words so seriously that it was all Ms. Alvarez could do not to break into laughter herself at that moment. Amazingly, she was the one who maintained a poker face and replied, "I'm sorry. You're right, Adam. I'll go and find Oprah right now."

"Good," he said, quickly dropping beside Nicole on the floor as Ms. Alvarez darted back out of the room, closed the door and began making phone calls.

"Who are you talking to?" Nicole asked, trying to prop herself back up into a sitting position. "And who turned off Gaga?"

"The bitch who gave us detention ... she put us here, she turned off the music," Adam said.

"What?" Nicole wondered with a half-baked look. "Where are we, Adam? I feel so ... like I'm gonna throw up."

Adam helped her sit back in her chair and then sat down next to her with the book still in his left hand.

"You'll be OK, Nikki. You've got nothing to throw up because you skipped lunch. Remember?"

"Oh yeah. I'm such a genius sometimes," she deadpanned before making another raspberry sound that got them both laughing again.

Adam covered his eyes with the book cover. "Stop making me laugh so I can read this book about hiking," he quipped.

"You really _are_ going to read it then?" she asked hopefully, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Of course I will," he said, trying to focus on her eyes with limited success.

"Well then you're a good friend, Adam — see, I always knew you had it in you," she said, shaking his shoulder with her hand and chuckling.

Then Ms. Alvarez suddenly opened the door and loomed over them. Nicole looked a lot more confused than Adam, but her face still clung to a dazed grin.

"Good, now that you're both finally seated ... 45 minutes into detention," the counselor addressed them bitterly.

"Wait, where's Mr. Barnes?" Nicole asked, a hint of alarm finally registering on her increasingly pale face.

"I relieved the poor man quite awhile ago and you've treated me to a fascinating show ever since," Ms. Alvarez said as sarcastically as she could make her sharp voice sound.

"What?" Nicole asked, wondering why Ms. Alvarez's face looked downright hostile.

"Here's what's going to happen ... _if_ you can follow along in your drug-addled state," she said authoritatively while pointing her right index finger here, there and everywhere. Nicole's dilated pupils followed the flashes of Ms. Alvarez's crimson nail polish everywhere they went, like she was tracking a bloody fly. "Your father, Adam, and your mother, Nicole, are on their way to school right now to pick you up because, let's face it, you are in no condition to drive yourselves home."

"What?" Nicole skipped like a vinyl record.

The counselor ignored her and continued. "I suspect you're both high on LSD because that is Thomas Harvey's drug of choice and he, no doubt, supplied his friend Adam here with said drug, so now all three of you can be suspended together," she said firmly.

"I don't understand what ...," Nicole began to protest as Adam smirked.

"Just be quiet, Nicole, and listen to me for a minute," Ms. Alvarez commanded. "Being high on drugs in school is an automatic three-day suspension, especially when you did it while already being punished for something else."

"No, no, no ... I'm just really dizzy, but I can still drive," Nicole interjected while blinking rapidly and trying to gather herself.

"Yes, Nicole, and I'm really Oprah Winfrey," the counselor deadpanned.

"Good one," Adam snickered, though he seemed to have completely forgotten their earlier conversation.

"Now let's go upstairs so Nurse MacCormack can check you guys out. She just told me on the phone that the effects of LSD can last from six to 14 hours, depending on the dose," Ms. Alvarez said.

"What?" Nicole asked yet again. "You're not making an ounce of sense."

"Very small dose, very small," Adam said, squinting and pinching his thumb and finger together.

"Do you really want to admit that to me, Adam?" she asked.

"Why? I've got nothing to hide ... I'm an open book," he replied, flapping "Wild" toward her for dramatic effect.

Ms. Alvarez just shook her head and tapped her black shoe on the floor.

"It looks like you'll have plenty of time to read that open book over the next few days, Adam," she said.

...

Nicole's mother, Lynn, was on the verge of tears as she sat across from Principal Connie Wheeler, a 40-something woman with the charisma, poise and perfectly coifed blonde-gray hair to be a veteran anchor on the TV news. Ms. Alvarez stood off to the left of the principal's cherry wood desk, leaning against a file cabinet and studying Nicole's mother carefully.

"I just feel like I've been losing touch with her since, I don't know, spring or early summer," said Lynn, wearing a burgundy blouse and black dress pants. She had left her job at a local bank early to deal with her daughter's transgressions.

"The communication, or lack thereof, has been alarming .... and now this," she added, reaching for a tissue as the principal offered her the box on her desk. She dabbed at her eyes and shook her head.

"It's very common," Principal Wheeler said empathetically. "This is the age when they're becoming more independent, searching for who they are and who they want to become ... experimenting ... not always with the right things."

"But LSD? Nicole has never done drugs that I know of. I didn't even think that drug was still around," Lynn said.

"Oh yeah, it's been making a bit of a comeback lately because it's cheap," Ms. Alvarez noted. "The good news for you, Ms. Barrett, is that I'm quite sure Adam Upton duped your daughter into taking it right before they had detention together. I don't believe it's a regular occurrence with her."

Lynn rolled her eyes. "There is no good news here because I didn't even know my daughter had detention in the first place, never mind why," she said. "She called me and told me she was staying late today to rehearse for 'Romeo and Juliet.'"

"The auditions for that show don't even start until next week," the principal said.

"So she's lying to me left and right, basically."

"Mostly lies of omission, Ms. Barrett," Ms. Alvarez pointed out.

"They all hurt just the same. Why did she get detention?"

"Obviously she didn't tell you about the incident on Friday then, right?"

"No."

"She meant well actually," Ms. Alvarez said. "A boy was mocking another boy with cerebral palsy in the cafeteria and she kind of pushed Adam's buttons about it, so Adam got up and leveled the kid. I wasn't even going to give Nicole detention, but she got all testy with me when we discussed the incident this morning."

"See, that's not like her either — battling authority," Lynn said. "Something is going on and I feel like I have no clue what it is. I didn't even know she was friends with this Adam boy until now. She's falling in with the wrong crowd at the absolute worst possible time. This is when she needs to have her head on straight and get ready for college."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Ms. Alvarez said pensively, weighing whether to tell Lynn about her daughter's ominous dream and the possible reason why she was hanging out with Adam. She decided against it. "I would just encourage you to spend as much time as possible with Nicole over these next three days and reconnect with her on any level you can. My hunch is she'll open up to you about what's going on."

"Absolutely right," Principal Wheeler added. "Look at this as an opportunity to get her, and the two of you, back on track. Nicole is a very bright and talented student with no previous disciplinary issues. I see no reason to panic or get too down about this. The teen years are extremely challenging for every parent, myself included."

Lynn nodded and composed herself. "Thank you both very much," she said, getting up to shake their hands. "I plan on taking a couple of personal days off from work and I'll do my best to get her back on course."

"Great," the principal said. "We look forward to seeing Nicole back here in school on Friday then, and next time, hopefully, we'll see you under much better circumstances."

"Nicole is resting in Nurse MacCormack's office. We'll give you a sheet about the side effects of LSD and how long it'll be before she feels normal again," Ms. Alvarez said, guiding Lynn out of the principal's office and into the hallway.

Gary Upton had arrived and was waiting to enter. The big man was leaning against the wall and looked like he had just come off a construction site. He smiled at Lynn, hoping to de-ice their awkward stare.

"I'm Gary Upton, Adam's father," he said, extending his hand.

Lynn refused to shake it. "I hope it's not true that your son tricked my daughter into taking LSD before detention today," she said coldly.

"The truth is I don't know what happened yet, Mrs. Janicek ..."

"It's Ms. Barrett," she quickly corrected him.

"My apologies," Gary said, "but I just want to say that you have done a great job raising your daughter, Nicole. She gave my other boy, Brody, a ride home when he needed one on his first day at this school, and she's also been the best, most real friend Adam has ever had."

Lynn and Ms. Alvarez both looked stunned at this revelation. Nicole's mother needed a moment to process it.

"Thank you for telling me that," Lynn finally said, "but right now it seems like my daughter is raising your sons, and you and I are failing miserably as parents."

CHAPTER 12

### INSIDE INFORMATION

Nicole's iPhone rang and Lynn scurried over to the kitchen table to check who was calling. It was Candace. Nicole had finally fallen asleep around 9:30 p.m. after intermittent bouts of nausea, scary hallucinations and confused restlessness.

After hesitating for several seconds, Lynn decided to pick up her daughter's phone and answer it on the fourth ring.

"Hello Candace," she said.

"Hi ... Nikki?"

"No, Candace, this is Lynn."

"Oh, hi Ms. Barrett," Candace said, sounding slightly confused. "Is Nikki OK?"

"No, I'm afraid she's not, Candace."

"What happened?" Candace asked, though she already had a pretty good idea thanks to social media.

"I don't know where to begin, but I guess I'll start with Nicole and Adam Upton taking LSD before detention today and making a fool of themselves in front of Ms. Alvarez," Lynn said. "They've both been suspended from school until Friday. Now she's sleeping it off after being sick and crazy for the last several hours."

"Holy ... wow," Candace said.

"Yes, my thoughts and then some. Candace, maybe you can help me try to understand what's been going on with Nikki because, clearly, I've been missing something. She's been particularly strange and distant since you guys went on that hike in late August. I've asked her about it and she says nothing. Then I find out she's friends with this strange boy who may or may not have tricked her into taking drugs today."

"Yeah, I guess you could say something happened on the hike, but I'm not real comfortable talking about it behind Nikki's back," Candace replied.

"I respect that, Candace, I really do. I'm glad your my daughter's best friend. I would never have let her go on that hike with anyone else but you because you have a level head and common sense," Lynn said. "I let Nikki go against my better judgment because she's 17 and she needs to spread her wings, but now she's crashing after an acid trip and I'm a very desperate mother searching for answers."

The phone conversation went silent for several heavy seconds.

"Well," Candace finally said, weighing what to reveal. "Nikki had a really weird dream that night on the mountain and she's been on this mission to be friends with Adam Upton ever since."

"A dream?"

"Yes, but she told me it was more like a warning or a vision that something bad might happen."

"Was she doing LSD then?" Lynn asked, afraid of the answer.

"No, Ms. Barrett, I swear ... I never touch drugs and I've never seen Nikki take them either."

"Can you tell me what the dream warned her about?"

"A shooting at our school," Candace acknowledged after some hesitation.

"A shooting? Why would she dream about that? You feel safe at Lakeview, don't you, Candace?"

"Most of the time. There are a few weird kids, but I'm sure there are those at every school."

"Is Adam Upton one of those weird kids?" Lynn asked.

"Probably, but Nikki, Adam and I did a short hike at Rainbow Lake yesterday and he seemed better than I expected actually," Candace replied. "I think Nikki is having a good influence on him."

"I'm more concerned about the bad influence he's having on her, especially given today's developments ... I mean LSD? A three-day suspension?"

"Yeah, I was shocked by that, too," Candace agreed. "I hate to say it, but I kind of knew about what happened with Nikki and Adam before I called tonight because some of our classmates are buzzing about it on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter."

"What, the LSD?"

"Yeah, and the fact that her and Adam are the ones involved. I wanted to warn Nikki about it in case she hadn't seen any of the posts. I also got worried when she didn't respond to my texts earlier this evening," Candace said.

"Well, a bunch of gossip is the least of our concerns right now, but I want to thank you, Candace, for telling me a great deal about what's going on with Nikki," Lynn said, fighting back tears. "I'm embarrassed that I have to ask you ... that I don't know what's going on with my own daughter."

"It's OK, Ms. Barrett."

"No, it's not, and I'm sorry I put you in this position, but I didn't know what else to do. You're a true friend and Nikki is lucky to have you. I want to help her through this and now maybe I can."

"We all make mistakes, but Nikki's awesome," Candace said. "She always means well. I just hope she doesn't hate me for telling you."

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen, Candace."

"OK, let me know if Nikki needs anything over the next few days."

"I will. Thanks again, Candace, and goodbye."

"Bye."

Lynn turned off Nicole's iPhone, checked on her sleeping daughter and then went to her own room to cry.

CHAPTER 13

### THE PUNCH HEARD 'ROUND LAKEVIEW

"I can't believe I have to wait til Friday to razz Nikki in person about this," Valerie tittered to Melanie as they slowly strolled up the walkway toward the school's entrance. Even the light rain didn't quicken their pace. Gossip like this was meant to be savored. "I don't know whether to call her Lucy, as in 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' or Eve, as in Adam and Eve. Maybe I'll switch off ... even days Lucy, odd days Eve."

Melanie chuckled. "I was just telling her yesterday how you told me about Thomas Harvey getting suspended for three days, and then she goes and does the same exact thing — only for LSD instead! And with Adam Upton? OMG!"

"I warned her, Mel. How many times did I tell her she was headed for a trailer-trash train wreck with that psychopath?"

"Like a million," Melanie instantly computed. "I couldn't believe she gave his little brother a ride home last week after Adam punched him. She said she had a good reason, but she never told me why. And then she becomes friends with Adam? Come on, Nikki."

"I told you she's certifiable. Hell, I told _her_ that to her face so no one can accuse me of talking behind her back," Valerie said as she yanked her red backpack off her right shoulder and slung it over her left.

"I'm starting to think you're right, Val," Mel said, pointing toward Candace, who appeared to be waiting for them under the overhang in front of the school's main entrance. "There's Candace."

"Let's see what dirt she's got on Nikki ... I mean Eve. Today's the 9th after all," Valerie noted with a smirk as Melanie laughed.

Candace didn't look pleased as they approached her, glowering at them with her auburn hair pulled back tight.

"You two are pathetic," she snapped.

"Oh relax, Candace," Valerie shot back.

"Way to kick Nikki when she's down and spread it all over the Web," Candace said, aggressively pointing at both of them.

Melanie flinched and took a step back, but Valerie inched closer. Nearly the same height at 5-feet-9, the girls challenged each other with their eyes.

"Nobody forced her to hang out with trailer trash and drop acid, Candace. We're just spreading the truth," Valerie said sharply.

"You don't know shit about anything, Valerie. You have no idea what's going on with Nikki, or anything else for that matter."

"I thought you agreed with me when I told her she was insane for talking to that kid when we were all in the bathroom last week," Valerie said, pointing back at her adversary. "Now all of a sudden you're defending her. You're a pathetic flip-flopper ... that's what you are!"

Candace's fury spread from her eyes through her clenched jaw and down to her hands. She violently shoved Valerie back four feet as Melanie's eyes bugged out.

Valerie flung her pack to the ground and charged at Candace with her right fist ready to throw a punch at her face, but Candace beat her to it, connecting a strong right hand to Valerie's gut and doubling her over in pain.

Mr. Richardson had witnessed the brief melee in disbelief as he sauntered up through the parking lot like he did every morning. His pace suddenly quickened and he pushed his way through the dozen or so wide-eyed students who began to flock around the pugilists.

"Stop fighting right now!" he yelled.

Candace already had stopped. She, too, look surprised at what had happened. Valerie slowly stood back up after regaining the wind that had been knocked out of her.

"Are you OK?" Mr. Richardson asked, putting a hand on Valerie's shoulder. He recognized both girls but didn't know their names because they weren't in any of his classes.

Valerie angrily grunted that she was OK through a couple of teary-eyed sobs. She tried to compose herself as quickly as possible to save face in front of a growing number of buzzing spectators. Then she pointed at Candace and shouted, "This bitch just pushed me and punched me for no reason!"

Melanie nodded but couldn't manage to utter any words. Her eyes were stuck in the aghast position.

Candace rubbed her punching hand with her left hand and now seemed more at peace with her snap decision to fight.

"Keep blasting Nikki on social media like a coward and I'll punch you again — only next time I'll hit you in the face, take a pic and post it for the whole goddamn world to see ... bitch!" Candace said loudly and firmly.

Mr. Richardson had never stumbled upon a cat fight like this in his entire teaching career and he seemed in over his head at the moment, but the name "Nikki" certainly caught his attention and he just had to ask.

"OK girls, let's just calm down all the nasty talk and take a deep breath for a moment," he said. "This Nikki you're referring to wouldn't happen to be Nicole Janicek, would she?"

"Yes," Candace replied.

"She's a student of mine," the teacher said, turning toward Valerie. "Why would you cyber-bully such a nice girl as Nicole?"

Valerie's face turned to disgust at Mr. Richardson's sudden lack of objectivity and, in her mind, unfounded charge of cyber-bullying.

"You need to go back to school yourself apparently, because that nice girl Nikki you're talking about won't be sitting in your classroom today, tomorrow or Thursday," Valerie said bitterly.

"Why?" he asked incredulously.

"Because she dropped acid during detention yesterday and now Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds Janicek has a three-day suspension ... that's why," Valerie hissed, injecting extra venom into her last two words.

Mr. Richardson shook his head, wondering if he had gotten out of his car and stepped into some alternate universe on this drizzly Tuesday morning. Then he refocused and finally took command of the situation as the spectators murmured around them.

"No matter what happened, I saw you both throw punches and now you can both go to Principal Wheeler's office to face your own punishments. Let's go!" he ordered.

The girls scowled at each other but complied. After grabbing their packs, Candace went first through the door, followed by Mr. Richardson and then Valerie.

Melanie, meanwhile, hung back with the curious horde of onlookers and quickly became the star witness, providing them every detail of the punch heard 'round Lakeview.

...

Lynn gave Nicole all the time she needed to recover from her LSD trip. Sheer hunger spurred Nicole to respond to the smell of pancakes and find a way to walk to the kitchen table just before 10 a.m.

"Good morning, Nikki," her mother said, surprisingly pleasant considering the circumstances.

"Pancakes?" Nicole asked, her previously dry mouth now watering. She hoped the savory salve of hot butter and maple syrup would be enough to heal the metallic wounds to her taste buds inflicted by Adam's tainted sugar cube. "I don't deserve pancakes, Mom. I'm on suspension, remember?"

Lynn put the spatula down and gave her daughter a huge hug — much bigger than the one she got when she returned home safely from Mount Washington in late August.

"Ms. Alvarez told me Adam tricked you into taking LSD before detention," she said softly. "It wasn't your fault, Nikki."

"LSD? Are you shitting me? That's what I was on?"

"Yes," her mother confirmed.

"And Adam admitted to that?"

"Eventually, yes he did."

"What an asshole," Nicole said, putting her hand on her achy head and plopping onto a stool beside the island in their square-shaped kitchen.

"Have some of these, dear, and you'll start feeling like yourself again," Lynn said in a reassuring tone as she removed the lid from a plate that kept three buttered pancakes warm and ready to eat.

"Thanks, Mom," Nicole said, pouring syrup all over them. "I'm insanely hungry."

"You should be."

"All I've had to eat since breakfast yesterday was one sugar cube laced with LSD. I can't believe I just popped that thing in my mouth without even thinking."

"How could you know it was LSD, Nikki?"

"I should know enough not to trust Adam yet. He keeps getting me into trouble. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about detention, but Ms. Alvarez just kind of sprung it on me and I thought that was totally unfair."

Nicole thoroughly enjoyed the pancakes and let her mother do the talking for a moment.

"I just wish you had told me about Adam. I wish you felt you could share what's going on in your life with me more than you have lately," Lynn said. "I love you, Nikki. I'm on your side and I want to help you. Being 17 is not an easy time. It wasn't easy for me a long time ago and it's probably even harder today."

Nicole's iPhone rang and she saw that it was her best friend calling. Nicole covered her mouth before saying, "Oh my God, Mom. I haven't even told Candace what happened yesterday and that I'm suspended until Friday. I've been so ... so out of it."

"She knows. She called last night while you were asleep and we chatted. Just answer it," Lynn said.

Nicole took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

"Hi, C.C., I'm so sorry I didn't call you to tell you sooner."

"Don't worry about it, Nikki. You needed to sleep it off and recover. How do you feel this morning?" Candace asked.

"Still really weird, but my Mom made me pancakes."

"Ooh, that sounds good," Candace said, though she sounded a little distracted. "Are you sitting down?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I got suspended, too," Candace said with a semi-embarrassed laugh.

"What?" Nicole gasped, then mouthed the info to her mother, whose eyes popped open. "Can I put you on speaker so my mother can hear this, too?"

"No, she'll hate me!"

"Too late," Nicole said, punching a button on her phone and smiling in anticipation of a juicy discussion.

"Your Mom told me how I was level-headed and used good common sense last night on the phone, and then I go and get suspended the very next morning," Candace said.

"What for? Let's hear it, C.C.," Nicole replied as Lynn just listened with her eyes wide open and her mouth covered by her hand.

"I got in a fist fight with Valerie Moore before school even started."

"Holy shit, Candace!" Nicole shrieked.

"Wow ... these suspensions are as catchy as the flu," Lynn quipped.

"Yeah, I confronted Valerie and Melanie about all the crap they've been blasting out on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter about you, Adam, the LSD and the three-day suspension."

"I haven't even looked at any of that yet, but I'm not surprised ... well, maybe I'm surprised at Mel," Nicole said.

"Valerie got in my face and pissed me off, and before I knew it I shoved her really hard."

"Then what happened?" Nicole asked excitedly.

"She tried to punch me in the face, but I nailed her first — right in the gut!"

"Oh my God, C.C.! I don't believe it."

"Never been in a fight in my life until today," Candace said.

"Sounds like you won," Nicole said.

"Yes and no. I got suspended for starting the fight because I pushed her first. Valerie only got detention."

"Sounds like she got her pride bruised though," Lynn pointed out.

"Yeah, she had that coming for a while now," Candace said proudly.

"Thank you so much for defending me, girl, while I wasn't there. You really are a true friend, suspended or not," Nicole said, almost tearing up.

"You're welcome, Nikki. Maybe we should get together for a suspension party," Candace said with a chuckle.

"Hey, totally ... that's an awesome idea," Nicole replied, grinning at her mother. Lynn shook her head, but she smiled a little, too.

"I just want you girls to know that I do not condone drug use or fighting, but given these special circumstances, I would be more than happy to invite you over for a suspension dinner tonight, Candace," Lynn said as Nicole beamed.

"My day is suddenly free, so consider it a date," Candace said with a laugh.

"Great. We'll see you around 6 then?" Lynn asked.

"Yes, see you then," Candace said.

"OK, and try to stay out of trouble until then," Nicole quipped.

"I will. Bye to you both."

"Bye," mother and daughter said in stereo.

They shared a playful smile. It felt good to be in harmony again.

CHAPTER 14

### TALKING ABOUT TRIPS

Lynn had decided to work the second day of Nicole's suspension and take the third off instead. She wanted Nicole to feel fully recovered before embarking on a mother-daughter getaway to New York City. They planned to drive down Wednesday night and stay at a hotel so they could go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the morning, have lunch in Little Italy and maybe visit the 9/11 Memorial before heading home.

The weather forecast also had been a factor in Lynn's decision. Thursday was supposed to be sunny, warm and clear. On Wednesday, Nicole looked out the window of her second-floor bedroom and watched the rain drops pelt her car in the driveway. The downpour matched her mood as she auto-dialed the boy who had drugged her 48 hours before.

"Hello Nikki," Adam answered, as if nothing had even happened.

"I told you to call me Nikki because I thought we were going to be friends, but then you trick me into taking LSD on an empty stomach, get me suspended for three days and don't even bother to call or text to apologize. _I'm the one_ who picks up the phone and calls you."

"I figured you might be pissed off and I better let you cool off," Adam replied.

"No, it works quite the opposite way actually," she corrected him. "The longer you let it go and don't deal with me, the more pissed off I get."

"Oh. I mean ... I thought you had fun with it. You were so funny and awesome to trip with," he countered gingerly.

"I remember some of that, but I also had some horrible hallucinations later on that scared the shit out of me. Not to mention the fact that I was nauseous for hours with no relief because there was nothing in my stomach to throw up."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"Are you?"

"Yes, Nik ... Nicole, I am."

"I hope you really do mean that, but I'm not sure I trust you anymore. I'm naive. I always give people the benefit of the doubt. I didn't know sugar cubes could be laced with LSD. It would've been nice to know you were handing me drugs so I could've at least made a choice."

"But if I had told you ..."

"That's right, I would've said no," she finished his sentence.

"And we wouldn't have had so much fun together," he noted.

"Getting high on drugs is not my idea of fun, Adam. I would've preferred to spend detention doing something productive, like reading books maybe. Have you read any of Cheryl Strayed's book yet? The one I let you borrow? I do remember you telling me that you planned on reading it."

"No, not yet."

"Thanks for being honest about that at least," Nicole said, softening her tone slightly. "You've got all this time off from school, Adam. This is the perfect opportunity to start reading it. Once you do, I'll bet you'll be hooked and want to read some more. Then maybe you'll be excited to go hiking again some time. You might even learn some things about yourself."

"I guess I should then," he said.

"I won't say another word about the book. I've twisted your arm enough. Now it's up to you, Adam."

"OK ... do you want to hang out tomorrow before we have to go back to school on Friday?" he asked.

"No, I can't. My Mom and I are driving down to New York City tonight and spending most of the day there tomorrow. I need to get away from here and see something different. I've gotta get my shit together. I don't think you understand, Adam. This suspension is really going to set me back — three days of work to make up. I mean ... this is my senior year. I want to get into a good college next year."

"Do you want to hang out today then?" he persisted.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she said firmly. "I'll see you at school on Friday, but I don't want to have lunch with you. I need some time to refocus on school and my other friends right now — the ones who don't use drugs; the ones I can trust."

The silence grew more awkward by the second.

"Do you still want to be friends?" he finally asked her.

"I would like to, Adam, but I need some time to think about everything right now. Am I getting my message through to you? That acid trip _really_ messed me up."

"Oh."

"I prefer _hiking_ trips, not deceitful drug trips ... just so we're perfectly clear," she added angrily.

"OK then, bye," Adam said tersely before hanging up.

"Adam?" she asked, then tossed her iPhone on the bed in resignation.

Nicole involuntarily glanced at the calendar on the wall but quickly shook her head and refused to let certain fears creep back into her mind.

"No! I don't feel like saving the world anymore!" she shouted.

CHAPTER 15

### 9/11

As Nicole and her mother strolled quietly through a long, rectangular room of Oriental paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one image grabbed the teen's eyes and refused to let go.

"Cloudy Mountains" the sign beneath the painting said. A range of jagged peaks, rising up out of a nebulous garland of trees and misty clouds, spanned the breadth of the 5-foot-long, horizontal hand scroll. Mounted in a beige frame exactly at Nicole's eye level, the image hypnotized her with its raw, mysterious beauty.

Then, fearful that the after-effects of her recent LSD trip might begin distorting the painting, she forced herself to look away and read the description beneath it. Fang Congyi, a Daoist priest from Jiangxi, China, used calligraphy ink and color to create the image in the second half of the 14th century, Nicole read. Congyi lived in Shangqing Temple on Mount Longhu, or Dragon Tiger Mountain, the dominant peak in the painting.

"According to Daoist geomantic beliefs, a powerful life energy pulsates through mountain ranges and watercourses in patterns known as longmo, or dragon veins," Nicole read. "In 'Cloudy Mountains,' the painter's kinetic brushwork, wound up as if in a whirlwind, changes the mountains with an expressive liveliness that defies their physical structure. The great mountain range, weightless and dematerialized, resembles a dragon ascending into the clouds."

Sure enough, the most eye-catching feature of the painting was the dark, dragon-like spine, climbing and veering off into left and right peaks that evoked dragon wings. The only thing missing was the dragon's head.

Again, Nicole looked away before an acid flashback could provide that. She felt angry at Adam for scarring her mind, altering her sensory perception and ruining her ability to relax and enjoy a work of art. All of her efforts to become his friend and pull him up the mountain — which appeared to be heading in the right direction until Monday — now seemed like a lost cause. It was as if they had reached the first rocky ledge with a great view and he decided to jump off right there instead of continuing the ascent.

Nicole sensed her mother approaching, shook off her blues and flashed her a smile. She wasn't going to let Adam drag her off the ledge, too.

"You must really love this one, Nikki," Lynn said. "I've already navigated the entire room and you've been standing in front of this painting the whole time."

"Have I?"

"Yes."

"I guess it just blows me away that I could have something in common with a 14th century Chinese priest," Nicole said. "Mountains move me, too."

"Ah, but can _you_ move mountains?" her mother asked playfully.

Nicole thought about that question for a moment and didn't feel like answering in the same cheerful tone.

"No, apparently I can't."

...

Candace glanced at her wristwatch — 12:13 — and opted to walk past the girls' bathroom on her way to lunch. With Adam and Thomas both suspended until tomorrow, she felt stupid for even checking her watch, much less hiding. It was Nicole's nightmare after all and she was suspended, too, amazingly enough.

Fresh off her own one-day punishment for fighting Valerie, Candace smiled while recalling the fun she had Tuesday night at the suspension dinner party Ms. Barrett threw for her and Nicole. They feasted on chicken tacos, chimichangas and other delicious tapas Lynn had prepared, and washed it all down with virgin strawberry margaritas. Lynn shared stories of her own rebellious teenage years and how her mother had grounded her twice during her senior year in high school — once for hosting a raucous party while her parents visited Cape Cod; another time for smoking pot outside a school dance. She always managed to get caught, Lynn lamented.

Candace had walked about 30 feet past the girls' bathroom in the mostly empty corridor when the school's fire alarm buzzed so loudly that she jumped in place with her heart in her throat. As nearby classrooms emptied students into the hallway, Candace noticed the 12:14 on her watch and instinctively darted backward against the current of teens and teachers.

The alarm's rapid five-buzzer bursts, interrupted only by a split-second of silence, cut through Candace's core and made her heart pound almost as loudly. She barreled through the bathroom door and found no one inside. She opened a stall, closed it, locked it and climbed on top of the toilet.

Candace's fingers shook as she squatted down and used her iPhone to text Nicole. She didn't want to talk for two reasons: one, she wanted to hear what was going on; two, she didn't want to be found in case someone was walking around with a gun and hunting potential victims. The creepy stare of Thomas Harvey haunted her as she typed furiously on the tiny virtual keyboard.

Nicole's iPhone pinged as she walked down the grand stairway with her mother just outside the Met, near the busy intersection of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. A bright mid-day sun blazed overhead as Nicole shifted the sunglasses she had just put on to the top of her head and checked her iPhone.

"Oh my God!" she shouted, freezing on the fourth step above the sidewalk and sitting down.

"What is it, Nikki?" her mother asked, stooping beside her.

"I just got a text from Candace at school. She's hiding in the girls' bathroom scared out of her mind!"

"Why?"

"Because the fire alarm went off right at 12:14 and she's afraid of getting shot!" Nicole yelled, raising a few eyebrows on the people walking up and down the stairs near her.

"Oh no!" Lynn said, recalling what Candace had told her about Nicole's dream. She had decided not to discuss the details of their phone conversation with Nicole until her daughter had fully recovered from the LSD trip, but now the fear of a school shooting suddenly became real. Candace was not one to cry wolf, Lynn knew.

Nicole's fingers shook, too, as she texted her friend back. "What's happening? Please tell me U r OK!"

The ensuing moment of terrifying silence ripped Nicole's heart to shreds and filled her eyes with tears.

"I should be there with her, Mom," she said, her voice cracking.

"Nikki, calm down, it's going to be OK," Lynn attempted to assure her with a hand on her shoulder.

"If anything happens to that girl, I'll never forgive myself for being a million miles away when it happened," Nicole stammered through sobs.

"Please don't get all worked up when we really don't know what's happening, Nikki," Lynn implored her and tried to hug her, but Nicole was in no mood to be smothered. She pushed away the embrace and focused more obsessively on her phone.

"Well that's what's killing me right now ... not knowing ... and she said the alarm went off at 12:14! Oh my God! Those sick, twisted pieces of shit!" Nicole shouted.

"What do you mean?"

"12:14, mom ... _Newtown_! It happened on December 14th!"

"But today is ... oh my God ... 9/11," Lynn said, a sickening chill running through her body now.

"See, I'm not crazy! My dream warned me this would happen and that time was running out. The teacher even wrote the exact time on the blackboard — 12:14!"

"What dream?" Lynn asked, playing dumb and praying for Candace to text back immediately.

Then she did, pinging Nicole's phone.

"Finally!" Nicole screamed, her eyes five inches above the words on her phone. "She's safe! Thank God!"

"I'm OK," Candace texted. "We're all OK. Everyone coming back into the school right now. Buzzer off. No shots. So relieved. Gotta go blend in before I get caught not exiting the school. CALL U LTR."

"See, I knew she would be fine, Nikki," Lynn lied.

"I want to know who pulled that alarm," Nicole said.

"Maybe it was just a drill."

"There's _no way_ that was a drill, Mom — not at 12:14 on 9/11," Nicole replied sharply as she refocused on her iPhone. She hesitated for a second but then quickly auto-dialed Adam as the expression on her face turned from frazzled to angry. Her hands were still shaking.

"Pick up, you piece of shit!" she yelled, adjusting her hair and jamming the phone close to her ear so she could hear the rings in the midst of the Manhattan traffic whizzing past her.

"Calm down, Nikki," Lynn urged. "Adam's not even in school today, remember? He's suspended."

"I don't care. I want to talk to him anyway. Pick up!"

On the fifth ring, Adam answered his phone.

"Hello?"

"Adam, where are you right now?" she asked loudly.

"What? I'm at home ... why?" he replied.

"Because someone just pulled the fire alarm at school and scared the shit out of everybody!"

"Well, you know that I'm suspended so ... how would I have any clue about that? Where are you?"

"New York City."

"Oh yeah, that's right. You told me you were going there. Say hi to the Statue of Liberty for me!" Adam said, snorting and laughing as he hung up the phone and playfully shoved Thomas Harvey into a nearby tree.

"Who was that?" Thomas asked, punching him back as they retreated through the woods near the school after their fire-drill-viewing party.

"Just a girl," Adam replied.

"Let me guess," Thomas said with his creepy smile, "Dead Girl Walking."

"I'm not going to answer that," Adam said, suddenly turning more serious as he stopped to face Thomas. "But she's off limits."

"What? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Thomas responded with crazy eyes and a fiendish laugh.

But Adam didn't laugh.

"We can kill everybody else if you want, but not her," he said. "Got that?"

"Or what?" Thomas asked, inching closer to challenge his ultimatum.

"Or I'll kill you right now with my bare hands," Adam growled as his heavy boots crunched the leaves.

Thomas backed off slightly, rolled his eyes, shook his head and grinned.

"You said you had the hots for the _other_ rich little whore," he said.

"I lied," Adam said, stone faced.

CHAPTER 16

### THE UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS

Candace tried to creep out of the girls' bathroom unnoticed, but, as fate would have it, Ms. Alvarez practically bumped into her as she joined the loud herd of students and faculty stampeding through the hallway following the fire alarm. The guidance counselor quickly seized her by the arm and scowled.

"You didn't leave the building during the fire alarm, did you, Candace?" she asked sharply.

"Um," was all Candace managed to say. Her guilty-as-hell expression took care of the rest.

"Let's go to Principal Wheeler's office right now then," Ms. Alvarez commanded, strongly guiding her with a hand on her back.

"But I can explain," she pleaded.

"Good. Save it for the principal. You're guilty until proven innocent as far as I'm concerned."

"Guilty of what?"

"Someone pulled the fire alarm and anyone caught hiding inside the building is a suspect until the surveillance camera proves otherwise," the counselor said as they weaved briskly through the crowded corridor and into Principal Wheeler's office.

"Candace? In my office again?" the principal said, spinning around to greet her just seconds after entering the office herself. "You were suspended yesterday for fighting and now you're back again already? What the devil is going on with this school lately?"

"She was hiding in the girls' bathroom during the fire alarm," Ms. Alvarez reported, closing the door. The principal leaned her backside against the front of her giant desk, folded her arms across her navy blue blazer and looked Candace in the eyes.

"Why would you do that, Candace?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"I didn't pull the alarm, if that's what you mean?"

"The camera will provide us with that answer either way, but if you didn't pull the alarm, then why not go outside like everybody else?" Wheeler asked.

Candace pondered the question for a moment, struggling with how best to answer it. _It was Nikki's dream. Why do I have to answer for it?_ she thought. _She's in New York and I'm the one on the hot seat._

"I was scared, that's all," she finally admitted as both women probed her with unwavering glares.

"Scared of what? Wheeler asked.

"Scared of being shot!" she said loudly, then quickly looked down at her neon-orange-and-white tennis shoes.

"What are you talking about?" the principal followed up.

"That's all I want to say," Candace pleaded.

"I think you should have a talk with Ms. Alvarez about this then. She's one of our counselors and she can help you open up about this fear of yours," Wheeler said. "It's a completely rational fear given what's happened at so many of this nation's schools, but you still have to follow the rules, Candace. Every person in this building _must_ exit during a fire alarm. Being scared is not an excuse."

A knock on the door interrupted the tense moment.

"Come in," the principal said.

Vice Principal Arthur Guyton stuck his bushy, salt-and-pepper head into the room.

"We've got our puller thanks to the magic of film," he deadpanned.

"Is it a he or a she?" Wheeler asked.

"A he," Guyton replied.

Candace sighed and looked at Ms. Alvarez, who nodded at her.

"Thank you, Mr. Guyton. Please announce his name for the school to hear, would you, as you summon him to my office for a chat," the principal instructed.

"I shall," he said, closing the door.

"Candace, please set up a time with Ms. Alvarez to talk about what we discussed, but for now, go back to class," Wheeler said. "I'm sure you've got plenty of catching up to do after missing school yesterday."

"OK," Candace said, but before she left the office, the school intercom system came on and froze all of them in place.

"Brody Upton, please report to the principal's office ... Brody Upton, please report to the principal's office," Mr. Guyton announced.

Candace's green eyes pulled an alarm of their own.

...

Nicole picked at her lasagna at an outdoor table beside a bustling street in New York's Little Italy, but her mind was poisoning the sauce.

"It's been a rough week, sweetie," her mother observed empathetically as a sea of yellow cabs surged past them.

"Yeah, you could say that," Nicole agreed while the waiter quietly refilled their glasses of lemon water. "Thank you."

The waiter nodded and left, but Nicole was looking straight at her mother when she said it.

"Who me?" Lynn asked, her eyes suddenly heavy with emotion.

"Yeah you," Nicole confirmed. "Thanks for being cool about everything, and so supportive ... for taking me here ... on suspension, no less. It means a lot."

"Oh, Nikki, don't make me cry in public," her mother protested joyfully through tears.

Nicole dabbed her own wet eyes with a red-and-white cloth napkin. "We probably _should_ go visit Ground Zero, the 9/11 memorial and the new Freedom Tower," she said softly.

"I know ... 13 years ago today ... right here in this city ... on a beautiful day like this one," Lynn said. "I didn't let you watch the news all week."

"I was only 4, thankfully," Nicole said. "I barely remember any of it."

"Just a horrible, dreadful day," Lynn said, shaking her head and staring at the passing taxi cabs.

"But I don't think I can handle going to Ground Zero today," Nicole admitted. "I'm already an emotional wreck."

"I know, dear. Me too."

"I'm really not even in the mood to go shopping."

"Now that's serious," Lynn quipped, trying to lighten the mood, but Nicole was beyond that.

"Why do people .. I mean, how can people be so cruel? Killing for sport, for religion, of all things. I don't understand this world at all. It makes no sense to me. Sometimes I like this world only when I'm climbing a mountain and there are very few people around."

"Why?" her mother asked.

"Because I trust people less and less the older I get," Nicole said.

"Yes, Nikki, unfortunately that's part of growing up," Lynn said, reaching across the table to stroke her daughter's brown-and-blue hair. "There are times when I envy you, dear, being 17 and getting to dye your hair blue."

Nicole chuckled at that.

"You should try it," she suggested, dabbing her eyes again and smiling.

"Oh yes, they'd love me at the bank with blue hair," Lynn said with a grin before turning more serious. "But there are times when I don't envy you at all — coming of age in today's world."

"Is this one of those times?" Nicole asked.

"Yes. Candace told me about your dream that night on the mountain," Lynn said calmly.

"She did?"

"Yes, but she didn't want to so don't blame her. Blame me. I wanted to know what was going on in your head. You were so distant. Then you're on LSD," her mother said, suddenly lowering her voice to a whisper and mouthing the letters in public. "I was desperate to help you. Can you put yourself in my position for a minute and understand why I pushed Candace to tell me?"

Nicole nodded, somewhat relieved they could have this discussion given the latest developments.

"Do you feel safe returning to Lakeview tomorrow?" Lynn asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you really believe Adam Upton is planning to try to kill you and your classmates?"

"I ... I'm not 100 percent sure either way," Nicole replied. "I don't know him well enough. I've tried to get to know him and be his friend, and we've seen the results of that so far. He's definitely weird and damaged and compulsively aggressive. Yet, he's capable of being sweet and funny and possibly somewhat normal with the right people around him. Honestly, I feel like he could go either way — in a positive direction or a _very_ negative direction, and I'm afraid I'm not enough to make a difference."

Lynn listened to her daughter's every word and realized she was having a conversation with a beautiful young woman. Nikki was not a little girl anymore, and her mother's heart ached from that loss even as she smiled and admired her daughter's maturity. Tears quickly returned to her eyes at the thought of losing her, but she forced herself to keep smiling and to stay strong for the one person she loved most in this dangerous world.

"Do you want me to call the police and discuss the situation with them?" Lynn asked.

"I don't think so," Nicole replied. "Not yet — not based on a dream. I'm still hopeful I can reach him as a friend, and calling the cops on him will make that impossible."

"I admire what you're trying to do, Nikki, and I'm very proud of you for being a positive influence on this boy, but I don't want to see you get hurt," Lynn said, her voice choked with emotion. "This world can't afford to lose people like you and ..."

"Oh Mom," Nicole interrupted, reaching across the table to grasp her mother's hand.

"Neither can I," Lynn finished her sentence in a whisper.

...

Candace's mind careened between conflicting thoughts as she steered her car into the Middlebrook Police Station parking lot, came to a stop and kept the engine running. The fact that it was Adam Upton's younger brother Brody who yanked the fire alarm at 12:14 gnawed at her all afternoon. She yearned to text or call Nicole with the bad news, but she decided against it. She wanted her best friend to enjoy the rest of her time in New York with her mother before returning to such a frightening reality. She also knew she had freaked out Nicole enough already with her earlier text from the girls' bathroom.

A uniformed officer emerged from the side door of the rectangular, red-brick police station and whistled as he got into his black-and-white cruiser. He never noticed Candace sitting there with her car idling just 20 yards away. She had important information to share, but would the police even care?

" _So let me get this straight: your friend dreamed there would be a shooting at your high school," she could hear the skeptical officer repeating her words back to her._

" _But they pulled the fire alarm today ... at 12:14," she would quickly add. "Newtown happened on 12-14."_

" _It's understandable that you would be concerned by that," the officer would say in a faux empathetic tone. "Any other evidence or reason why these boys would take the leap from fire-alarm pullers to potential mass murderers."_

" _They have really creepy stares," she imagined herself replying, knowing it sounded inadequate._

" _OK," the officer said, pretending to jot something down in his notepad._

Candace pounded her fists on the steering wheel, put the car in reverse and drove off.

...

Brody hopped off the bus and was visibly surprised to be greeted with satisfied smiles from his brother and Thomas Harvey.

"Nice job, little Bro," Adam said, slapping him on the back. "See, I didn't call you son. You're part of the crew now."

"Thanks," Brody said, still partly shell-shocked from being reamed out simultaneously by Principal Wheeler and Vice Principal Guyton.

"Cheer up now," Thomas ordered him. "Your brother and I are taking you to Mickey D's for a fucking Happy Meal."

They both laughed and Brody hung his head.

"I'm serious, kid," Thomas said, a little softer this time. "Our treat."

"Yeah, Bro, hop in the back of the truck and let's go eat," Adam said, waving his brother along.

"Good, I'm hungry," Brody said, finally perking up when it appeared they weren't busting his balls. He grinned, eagerly tossed his backpack into the truck bed and jumped on board.

"Pulling stuff sure can give a boy an appetite," Thomas quipped as he climbed into the passenger seat.

"Oh shit, he's used to it ... pulling his pud all the time and all," Adam added with a snort and a howl. He quickly revved up the truck and sped off, kicking up gravel from the shoulder of the road before swerving into the other lane and then back to the legal lane.

Two miles and 10 minutes later, Brody was scarfing down a Big Mac, super-sized fries and a large Coke across from the two seniors, who were ready to debrief him in between big bites of their own meals.

"So Bro, what did those douche bags throw at you?" Adam asked.

"I got suspended for tomorrow, that's it ... because it's my first offense," he mumbled while gulping down a mouthful of food. After a drink of Coke, he added, "If I pull it again, they said they'll arrest me. They wanted to send me home earlier, but Dad never answered their calls to pick me up so I had special detention until the buses ran."

Adam laughed. "Probably because Dad's drunk at the bar and turned his cell off," he said. "He likes to get wasted on Thursdays and not be interrupted."

Thomas nodded and grinned. "Did you blame us like we told you?" he asked Brody.

"Yeah. I told them I was delivering your message of protest for your suspensions."

"Good," Adam said, snorting.

"Then the principal said something like, 'That'll be the last thing they get to protest at this school,'" Brody noted.

"Nice," Thomas said.

"Good work, Bro. Now go take a long piss so Lee and I can shoot the shit for a few minutes alone," Adam instructed.

Brody hesitated as he held onto the last chunk of his burger.

"Go!" Adam swatted him. "Take it with you!"

Brody stuffed the rest of the burger into his mouth and shuffled off toward the bathroom.

"I told ya he'd do it," Adam said. "Now we got it all timed for Monday."

"I'm 'don't-Tase-me-bro' shocked. I didn't think he had it in him," Thomas said.

"Well, I _did_ threaten to kick his ass. That didn't hurt."

"He doesn't have to pull it again on Monday," Thomas said. "I'll get in there no problem. I'd rather do it myself when it's the real thing anyway. The less people involved, the less chance for fucking it up."

Adam nodded. "Yeah, the less he knows and the less he's involved the better. I might tell him to get off the bus and keep on walking right past the school on Monday. I don't even want him there when this heavy shit goes down."

"Don't forget to tell your sweetheart to do the same," Thomas ribbed him.

"Shut the hell up!" Adam shot back.

"Hey, at least I didn't call her 'Dead Girl Walking' this time."

"At least we never have to take another bullshit class at that retarded school," Adam said, changing the subject.

They both smiled like convicts gazing back for a moment at the prison from which they had just escaped.

"They definitely bumped up our suspensions for telling Brody to pull the alarm," Adam added. "It sounds like they might expel us, too."

Thomas laughed hauntingly at that before lowering his voice to just above a whisper.

"Expel us from where?" he asked, grinning like a boy possessed. "There won't be a school left to expel us from when we get done with it. We'll be the ones expelling everyone, not them."

...

Brody was asleep by the time Gary finally staggered through the door around 10 p.m. The big man smelled of booze, but he looked more tired and sad than drunk, Adam observed as he sat up on the sofa and turned off the TV.

Gary paused for a moment with his head down and Adam didn't know what to expect next. He had never seen his father act this way before. He assumed he had heard the phone message about Brody's suspension and Adam's possible expulsion, but Adam was used to anger, a punch perhaps — definitely not this.

"What's wrong, Dad?" he finally asked when it appeared his father was waiting to see how long it would take for his son to notice his depressed state.

"We have to talk, son, just you and me ... man to man," Gary said, looking him in the eyes now as he came over and sat down in a blue chair just a few feet across from the tan sofa in the trailer's cramped living room.

"OK, Brody's already asleep," Adam said, increasingly uncomfortable with his father's strange mood. "What's going on?"

"I'm sorry I'm home so late," Gary started, surprising Adam yet again. The man wasn't big on apologies. Ever.

"It's OK. Did you go to O'Reilly's?" Adam asked, referring to his father's local pub of choice.

"Yeah, but I also went to see a doctor today, son, and I got some real bad news," Gary said, his broad shoulders slumped and his head bowed again.

"What news?"

"I've had something wrong with me for awhile, but I didn't want to tell you and Brody about it until the doctor confirmed it. And, well, today ... he told me I've got liver cancer," Gary said, his lips trembling and his brown eyes wet.

Adam's eyes popped open as his heart sunk. The only parent he had left looked resigned to the grave. No words came to his tongue. He just stared in disbelief at the seemingly invincible, suddenly fragile man in front of him.

"They're going to do what they can for me," Gary added softly, "but the odds ain't good, son."

Adam shook his head and tried to process what his father was telling him, but it was all too much — especially given what he and Thomas had planned to do on Monday.

Death now encircled him and Adam felt trapped. He desperately wanted to bolt out the door, jump in his truck and drive far away, but the look on his father's face would not let him move an inch. Adam remained frozen on the sofa and time stood still as intense, bizarre emotions surged through him.

"I didn't get the principal's message until a few hours ago because I had to turn my cell phone off at the doctor's office, and then I forgot to turn it back on for awhile," Gary explained, his voice strangely calm considering the substance of that message. "She said you and Thomas told Brody to pull the fire alarm to protest your suspensions. She suspended Brody for tomorrow. She wants me to take you to Lakeview on Monday afternoon for an expulsion hearing. Even if they let you stay in school, you've been suspended for 10 more days."

Then his father paused and began to break down in front of him. Adam didn't remember ever seeing his father cry, not even in the early weeks, months and years after his mother died. He didn't know what to say or how to react. He looked completely stunned and felt sick to his stomach.

"I'm sorry I've completely failed you as a parent, as a father, son," Gary forced his strained voice to say through sobs and tears. "I should've stopped drinking. I should've held down a steady job. I should've found a nice woman to marry and look after you and Brody. I had my chances after your mother died, but I pissed them all away ... now look at me."

"I'm sorry, too," Adam finally spoke, his voice cracking. "I'm sorry, too, Dad."

"I'm going to die, son, and Brody needs you to be a man now — not a screw-up like I've been."

Adam couldn't hold back his tears any longer. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed heavily for almost a minute. When he opened his eyes again and looked up, Gary was standing above him with open arms. Adam jumped up like he was a small child and hugged his father for the first time in what seemed like a decade.

The emotions ripped through Adam's insides as the tears poured out of him. Gary had stopped crying now, but Adam could not. The new and foreign comfort of his father's sturdy embrace clashed with the new and foreign hatred welling inside him.

Suddenly, Adam despised death just as much as he hated life, and he had absolutely no idea how to unsolve that equation.

CHAPTER 17

### BUCKET LISTS

When Nicole guided her car into a parking space on a sunny Friday morning, Candace was there waiting for her. The girls hadn't been in school together since Monday because of their assortment of suspensions, yet it felt much longer than four days ago to Candace. She was happy to have her best friend back, greeting Nicole with a big smile and a warm hug.

"She's back," Candace quipped as she released her grip.

"Look out Lakeview," Nicole shouted, slamming her car door shut, slinging her pack over her right shoulder and soldiering on toward the bustling school entrance.

"How was New York... I mean, other than when I texted you from the bathroom and freaked you out?" Candace asked.

"Just what I needed actually, but I felt horrible that I couldn't be there for you. I was so scared before you texted me that everything was OK. I'm just glad you're fine."

"I'm not so sure you'll be fine when I tell you the rest of the story that I refused to tell you yesterday because I didn't want to ruin your ..."

"Just tell me, C.C. Who pulled the alarm?" Nicole asked, resigned to the bad news.

"Brody Upton did it," Candace said darkly.

"What?" Nicole gasped, halting 20 yards from the entrance and forcefully stopping Candace with her hand. "Why would Brody do it?"

"Let your imagination run wild, Nikki. I certainly did," Candace replied, electing not to tell her friend that her imagination had cajoled her into a brief stop-and-go at the Middlebrook Police Station.

"I called Adam from New York and he said he had no clue about the fire alarm because he was at home suspended," Nicole said bitterly. "He must've known Brody did it. Hell, he probably threatened him to do it. I'm so mad right now, Candace, you have no idea."

"That's why I didn't call you to tell you this sooner," she said. "I wish there had been some way to prevent you from ever finding out because now you won't be able to focus on school."

Nicole fumed, staring past Candace to the school entrance. For a moment she gave in and pictured all the laughing, oblivious kids dropping in a hail of gunfire.

"No!" she barked to no one in particular.

"No, what?" Candace asked.

"I'm sticking with my new attitude, that's what. I'm not getting sucked back into all of that. I'm here to learn, not to flip out about the twisted plans of lying, drug-popping losers. Life is short — maybe extremely short — so I'm going to live it on my own terms again and that's it!"

Candace nodded and smiled. It was exactly what she needed to hear from her friend at a moment when she was just as fearful about what might happen as Nicole had been last week. "I like your new attitude, Nikki," she said.

"And I'm going to root Derek on at the football game tonight even if he hates me now for taking LSD and getting suspended," Nicole said firmly.

"That's the spirit, girl, and he definitely won't hate you," Candace assured her. "Speaking of haters, no sign of Valerie or Mel yet."

Nicole glanced back toward the parking lot and her eyes were drawn to the troublesome twosome like magnets.

"Oh, I see them," she said, glaring at their position beside Valerie's maroon SUV long enough for Candace to spot them, too. "But my new attitude _does not_!"

...

"Where the hell are you, man?" Thomas yelled into the phone as he idled in his half-black, half-rusted Mustang at their usual rendezvous point beside Breezy Birch Park.

"I'm chillin' outside Valley Alley," Adam replied, his numb monotone alarming Thomas almost as much as his response.

"What the fuck are you doing there?"

"I'm about to go bowling, dickhead ... what else would I be doing at a fucking bowling alley!" Adam snapped, eerily shifting from comatose to angry in an instant.

"You know we're supposed to be going over final plans and ... and _supplies_ ," Thomas said, suddenly using caution with his choice of words over the phone. "And you're _bowling_ right now? Are you shitting me?"

"I'm not in the mood to talk about _that_ right now, Lee, so ..."

"What the fuck! You better not be bailing out on me, asshole! Not now ... not ever!" Thomas shouted.

"Or what, Lee? Say it!"

"I don't have to because I don't make threats and not make good on 'em. Talk is fucking cheap. Talk is for liars and bull-shitters like you."

"Are you done yet, asshole?"

"No, I'm just getting warmed up. Who are you bowling with — that rich little blue-haired whore? I can't wait to put one through DGW and watch you cry."

"None of your goddamn business, Lee, you paranoid piece of shit."

"It is my goddamn business when you committed to this thing and you start pussying out three days before it's supposed to go down!"

"How about I kick your ass the next time I see you and we'll see who the pussy is — you could never take me in a real fight, you loser," Adam boasted.

"Keep talking shit like that and you won't get the chance because you won't be breathing," Thomas warned. "You'll be full of holes three times the size of the asshole you shit with and right about the size of the asshole you use to make empty threats with. I always make good on mine."

"I don't need _you_ to do what I gotta do, Lee," Adam said darkly. "I'll take you out first, just for sport. Then I'll take out the whole school, minus three people, and then _I'll_ blow my brains out myself because I'm all done with this bullshit life I never asked for in the first place."

"What the fuck? So we're both gonna do this, but not together? Is that what you're trying to say, dumbass?" Lee asked incredulously.

"All I gotta say is my old man's got a bucket list and on that bucket list is bowling with his two sons before he dies, so that's what I'm gonna do if I ever get off the goddamn phone with you, Lee!" Adam said, his words escalating into a shout by the end of the sentence.

"What the hell are you talking about? Is your father going in on it, too, now? Thomas asked in disbelief.

"Who knows? But I got a bucket list, too, and the clock is fucking ticking, so click, dick!" Adam concluded, hanging up on Thomas.

The red-faced teen flung his phone against the passenger-side window and sped off in a black-hearted rage as the white birch trees rustled overhead in a gentle late-summer breeze.

...

"I'll see you after the game tonight ... good luck, Derek," Nicole told the senior linebacker as he smiled and exited Mr. Richardson's English class.

Derek hadn't seemed overly fazed by her suspension, but she had a feeling her favorite teacher didn't see her in the same light since her acid trip and three-day punishment. She decided to linger as the classroom emptied and chat with him about it.

"Well you've had quite the second week of school, Nicole," the teacher said, not quite so friendly and folksy with her as he was before her fall from grace.

"Yeah, I've got a lot of catching up to do," she said, hanging her head and clutching her books tightly to her chest.

"You'll get it done, Nicole. You're a bright student who hit a bump in the road and I have very little doubt you'll learn from the whole experience," Mr. Richardson assured her.

"Ah, but you _do_ have a little doubt," she noted, pinching her index finger and thumb together before adding a slight grin.

"While I certainly don't condone drugs and I am aware that you didn't mean to take what you took, quite a few of the more creative artists and musicians in this crazy world of ours produced some of their finest works with the help of a little ... pharmaceutical magic, shall we say," the teacher said, matching her grin.

"Really?"

"It's true."

"Then perhaps I should take back the poem I gave you and try again now that I'm ... _experienced_ ," Nicole quipped.

Mr. Richardson smiled broadly. "A Jimi Hendrix reference ... very clever and quite accurate in regard to our present conversation."

"I can't take credit for it," she said, yanking her right thumb in reverse. "Derek was just joking with me about Jimi. He was making fun of me ... in a good way, unlike most people."

"You'll always be better off if you don't pay attention to what most people think — or, more precisely, what _you think_ most people think of you. Oftentimes, our perception of what other people think of us is way off base anyway. With teenagers especially, your minds are still developing. You don't even really know what you're thinking yet. You're still trying to make sense of this world. You have very little perspective."

"Does that mean my poem will be hopelessly shallow?" she retorted playfully.

"I'll let you know after Monday. I can't wait to find out," Mr. Richardson said, walking her toward the door.

"You can read it sooner if you want. I don't really care," Nicole said.

"Oh no, I'll honor the poet's original request," he replied. "Have a great weekend, Nicole, and I'll see you next week."

"You, too, Mr. Richardson," she said as he departed one way and she headed the other direction toward her locker.

A moment later, Caleb Evans, the sophomore with cerebral palsy, spotted Nicole and slowly made his way toward her. It looked like he wanted to speak with her so Nicole met him halfway down the nearly empty corridor.

"Hi Caleb, how are you?" she asked.

The personable brown-haired boy smiled and leaned on his cane as he spoke.

"Hi Nicole," he said, slightly winded.

"Call me Nikki."

"OK, Nikki. I just wanted to thank you and Adam for, you know, standing up for me when Timmy was making fun of me in the cafeteria last Friday," Caleb said, his earnest chocolate-brown eyes and genuine gratitude almost moving Nicole to tears in a matter of seconds. "Not a lot of kids in this school would've done that for me."

"Well, you're very welcome, Caleb," she said. "Next time, I'll take Timmy out myself if he tries it."

Caleb chuckled. "Thanks, Nikki, but he hasn't bothered me since then," he said.

"I'm so glad to hear that."

"I feel bad you and Adam got detention though."

"Don't feel bad, Caleb," Nicole said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Everything happens for a reason and I've learned more this week than I have in the last 52 combined."

"Really?"

"Definitely. Are you going to the football game tonight?" she asked.

"Yeah, actually I am," Caleb replied with a big grin full of braces and rubber bands.

"Good. Then I'll see you there and you can sit with Candace and me," Nicole offered.

"OK, great," Caleb said, beaming as he shuffled toward the exit with the help of his cane.

Nicole watched the boy labor down the hall and out the door. She reflected on what Mr. Richardson said and allowed her perspective to expand a little more. She also thought about her mother, and how it had been far too long since they had gone for a run together.

...

Gary looked at the score sheet and smiled.

"Well, I'd say young Brody held his own," the big man said as he and Adam waited for the boy to emerge from the bathroom.

"I would've bowled better, too, if I didn't know what you told me last night," Adam pointed out as he returned his bowling shoes to the counter and then looked his father in the eyes for a response. "It's a lot of work pretending to have fun right now."

Gary nodded and grabbed Adam's shoulder. He could tell his son was not as comfortable with the physical contact today and released his grip.

"I know, son. I'm sorry. I'll tell Brody later ... he's so young. I've still got some time. Maybe a year ... who knows?"

Adam shrugged his shoulders and stared at a little boy struggling to guide his ball down the lane as the racket of the alley filled his ears.

"Too bad you only got to bowl three strings," Gary said, scanning the score sheet again. "Who were you talking to out in the truck for so long?"

"Nobody," Adam said flatly, still staring at the boy, who now jumped up and down while watching his ball roll to a stop about 10 feet short of the pins.

"You _should_ be talking to Nicole," Gary suggested. "She's a good person."

"Yeah," Adam said, reverting to his numb monotone.

Brody finally sauntered out of the bathroom with a huge smile. He was still reaping the benefits of having pulled the fire alarm: free lunch at McDonald's yesterday on Adam and Thomas; no school Friday due to a one-day suspension; and bowling and pizza to kick off a three-day weekend.

Life is full of pleasant surprises, the 13-year-old mused, as he flashed a toothy grin.

...

Looking sharp in their gold helmets, Carolina-blue jerseys and gold pants, the Lakeview Golden Eagles rolled to a 32-7 victory in their season opener under the Friday night lights. The football game was played in front of an overflow crowd at the oval-shaped stadium beyond the school's sprawling practice field.

Derek Schobell led the defense with nine tackles, two quarterback sacks and a fumble recovery.

Nicole Janicek made a date for Saturday night after she decided she didn't want to wait until next week to see him.

And Thomas Lee Harvey stalked his prey from his perch overlooking the 15-yard line.

CHAPTER 18

### A DATE AT CHILI'S

Nicole savored every stride of her four-mile run through the winding, sun-dappled trails of Fox Run Woods with her mother on a crisp Saturday morning. They jogged and chatted just like they used to — before Lynn had become so preoccupied with work and the online dating scene.

Now Nicole felt fit and happy for her own date. Derek planned to pick her up at her house at 6:30 p.m. for a 7 o'clock dinner at Chili's, a restaurant she loved.

After showering and throwing on some comfortable clothes, Nicole closed the door to her room, sat down at her desk and focused on catching up on some of the schoolwork she had missed during her suspension. That's when her iPhone burst into song with her new ringtone — "Rumour Has It" by Adele.

Nicole hoped it was Derek, but, to her not-so-pleasant surprise, Adam was calling.

"Hello Adam," she said, forcing herself to sound positive, even though her mind simmered at the thought of him threatening Brody to pull the fire alarm — a theory she had yet to confirm.

"Hi Nikki," Adam said somberly as a gust of wind could be heard just after he spoke.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Rainbow Lake," he replied.

"Really? That's cool. Are you hiking on this beautiful September day?"

"No."

"Well ... what are you doing?" she asked after an uncomfortable pause.

"I thought about fishing maybe, but I don't know," he replied listlessly.

Nicole sighed. She felt herself getting sucked into a depressing conversation when she was feeling quite the opposite. She put her hand over her eyes and thought about what to say during another awkward silence. She recalled the dream she had under the stars at Lakes of the Clouds and pushed herself to take the warning seriously once again. Tomorrow was the 14th, and she sensed something in Adam's voice that made the dream feel almost as real as the chilling moment she awoke from it in the wind-whipped tent. Her back shuddered as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Adam, I think we should hang out again soon," she said, barely masking the regret in her voice as the words tumbled out.

"But aren't you busy?" he replied weirdly, his tone almost accusatory.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"No, say what you want to say, Adam. You clearly called me for a reason."

"I called to tell you I'm at Rainbow Lake because I thought you'd like that."

"I do. I'm glad you went up there ... it's good for the soul," she said, choosing her words delicately. "But what else is on your mind? I can sense something is bothering you."

"Something?" he replied, then laughed strangely before another gust of wind scratched against Nicole's ear.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Too many somethings to count," he said darkly.

Awkward silence No. 3. Nicole rolled her eyes and pressed on.

"Can we get together tomorrow afternoon? At Whispering Pines maybe?" she asked.

"Why not today ... or _tonight_?" he countered with a hint of wise-ass in his tone now that aroused more suspicion in Nicole's increasingly agitated mind.

"Because I've got _plans_ today and _tonight_ ," she said sharply. "You're fishing all right — fishing for information you obviously already have. Stop trying to bait me into an argument when you know I told you I just wanted us to be friends and, after the LSD stunt, I wanted some space even from that."

Awkward silence No. 4.

"I don't know who your mole is and I don't really care. Amazingly, I'm still willing to hang out with you tomorrow if you want to talk about what's bothering you, Adam, but I hope I'm not the source of all of this," Nicole said firmly. "I've done nothing but try to be honest with you, reach out to you and be friends with you. I backed you up when you demolished Timmy. I just wish you'd appreciate that and treat me with some respect in return. That's what friends do."

Awkward silence No. 5.

"Please say something, Adam. Do you want to hang out tomorrow or not?" she asked, utterly frustrated.

"Yes," he finally said.

"Good. I'll call you tomorrow morning, OK?"

"OK," he said, hanging up.

Nicole looked at her phone and shook her head.

"I actually have a date with Derek, but all I can think about is Adam ... again," she mumbled to herself. "God help me."

...

Crowded and noisy, it was a typical Saturday night at Chili's, the popular chain restaurant that offers spicy Southwestern fare.

Sitting across from each other in a cozy booth, Derek and Nicole were too distracted by each other to concentrate on the menus in front of them. The football player cleaned up well for his date with a dark gray dress shirt, black jeans and black shoes. Nicole wore a long, flowing black sweater over a white shirt, blue jeans and short black boots. Her brown-and-blue hair was swept up into a twist — not unlike her stomach, thanks to a combination of first-date butterflies, romantic excitement and inescapable pangs of doom about Adam. She smiled through it all and focused on Derek's confident, handsome face as he glanced at her frequently in between aimless stares at his menu.

"You guys were awesome last night, especially you. That game was fun to watch," Nicole said. "Who's your favorite pro football player?"

"I like Vince Wolfork. He's a beast," Derek replied, referring to the New England Patriots defensive lineman, who wears No. 75. "Do you have a favorite?"

"Tom Brady."

"Of course," Derek chuckled, adding "Mr. Handsome," as the waitress delivered their Cokes and a basket of nachos with salsa. Nicole shrugged her shoulders, smirked and smiled.

"Ready to order?" the waitress asked.

"No," they replied in stereo.

"Take your time. I'll be back," the waitress said before departing.

"I have no idea what to get, do you?" Nicole asked Derek as they both dunked nachos into the salsa at the same time.

"Probably steak fajitas," he said with a smile before eating.

"Oooh, that's a good one," she mumbled while crunching away and looking at the menu with more urgency now.

"I'm glad you came to watch us, Nikki," he said. "That crowd was sick last night."

"Yeah, some of those kids go crazy, especially the ones who paint their faces blue," she noted with a chuckle.

"Totally insane," Derek agreed.

"OK, I'm gonna order the chipotle chicken," Nicole suddenly decided, pushing her menu aside so she could focus on Derek. He did the same.

"What do you want to do for a career? Do you have that figured out yet?" she asked, closely studying his lively hazel eyes.

"I want to be a captain of industry," he deadpanned as Nicole burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Sounds impressive, doesn't it?" Derek asked, smiling now.

"I love that — a captain of industry. Why not? You're already a captain on the football team."

"It's just a cool way of saying I want to run something, you know, be the boss."

"What colleges are you looking at?" Nicole asked, leaning closer to him while playing with her straw.

"I'm thinking about Fairfield in Connecticut or Bryant in Rhode Island. They're both pretty good for business administration."

"Cool. And not too far from home. What business would you like to run?"

"Something with sports," he said. "Sporting goods, sports apparel maybe."

"That's great that you already have a clue what you want to do."

"Why, you don't?"

The waitress returned and took their orders, but Nicole didn't forget Derek's question.

"I actually wanted to be a firefighter when I was a little girl," she said with a laugh.

Derek laughed, too. "Hey, why not? You definitely surprised me with that answer."

"My Dad was a fireman at the time, but he ended up having an affair with a paramedic and that led to my parents' rather nasty divorce, so ..."

"You hate all firemen now," Derek said, completing Nicole's sentence with a flirty smirk and a chuckle.

"Something like that. No, I'm only kidding. But I don't want to be a firefighter anymore."

"Then what?"

"Ideally I'd love to be a forest ranger in a national park, but the federal government is such a mess," she said.

Derek nodded as he munched on some more nachos. "Hey, forest rangers keep an eye out for fires. That's similar to being a firefighter, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it is," she said, briefly interrupting her thought process for a hazy smile. "The problem is they keep cutting and cutting, and the parks have to get by with a skeleton crew now, so there's probably no future for me with that."

"That sucks," he said.

"The short answer to your question is I have no clue what I want to do yet, but I'd like to go to a good college like Boston University or Northeastern and figure it out in the first year or two hopefully."

"Both good schools," Derek said. "You'll figure it out, Nikki. Just remember to say 'no' to drugs and you'll have a fine future."

His perfect comedic timing made her laugh, but then she opened her mouth in faux horror.

"You think you're pretty hilarious, don't you?" she asked, flirtatiously.

"I do."

"Well, you are, Derek, and I'm glad you took me out tonight," she said, gazing into his eyes and not looking away.

He matched her hopeful, sexy stare. "I'm glad, too."

Then he raised his glass toward her. She met him halfway, clinking her ice-filled Coke into his as her heart melted.

"A toast to our senior year and all the good times yet to come," Derek said as the waitress rounded the bend with his sizzling steak fajitas and her spicy chicken.

"I'll drink to that," Nicole said with a deeply contented face she usually reserved only for the most spectacular mountain views.

CHAPTER 19

### A SHOT IN THE DARK

On Sunday evening, the 14th of September, Nicole was driving her car away from the diner where she had just told Candace all about her amazing first date with Derek.

But where was she driving to? Home? The police station? Whispering Pines trailer park?

That morning Adam had told her he would be too busy to hang out with her Sunday afternoon — a complete reversal from what he said yesterday; yet completely consistent with his bizarre tone and unreliability of late. He also refused to divulge what he would be so busy doing. Nicole desperately wanted to believe he was just being a jerk to get back at her for going to New York instead of hanging out with him last Thursday; for making other people a priority over him since the LSD incident, or for some other reason he wouldn't discuss with her. But her gut told her otherwise.

Last Sunday, after the hike at Rainbow Lake, Nicole felt encouraged about her progress with Adam. But at 7:42 p.m. on this Sunday, as her car rolled to a stop at a red light, she dreaded what her hands might do next.

The light turned green.

One second.

Two seconds.

A horn blared from behind her as she gripped the wheel — knuckles as white as her teeth, everything clenched — a potential lives-changing moment frozen in time.

"Shit!" she shouted, pounding the steering wheel, hitting the gas and turning her car left toward the trailer park instead of driving straight toward home.

The police station was not an option yet. She had to talk to Adam face to face before she made a decision like that. She had to ask him about the fire alarm, study his eyes and make sure she got an honest answer this time. She would reveal to him the dream she had and gauge his reaction to that. And if he couldn't satisfy her with his answers enough to calm her fears, then she would be forced to drive to the police station ... tonight!

When Nicole turned into the trailer park at dusk, she nearly struck two boys skateboarding away from the entrance, in the middle of the road, with their backs to her. They barely even noticed.

Her heart pounding, Nicole pulled over angrily, got out of her car and slammed her door.

"What the hell are you two doing — in the middle of the road ... wearing dark hoodies ... at dusk? I nearly killed both of you!" she shouted.

Brody Upton spun around on his board to face her while his pal Vince wiped out and gazed up at Nicole from the pavement.

"Brody, is that you?" she asked.

"Yeah ... oh, hi Nikki," he replied, pleasantly surprised to see her after his eyes adjusted to recognize her face and blue-brown hair in the fading light. "Sorry ... we don't get many cars coming in and out of here on Sunday nights so we like to do a little boarding."

"OK, well now I know," she said, her mind already racing ahead to more pressing issues. "Where is Adam? Is he home?"

"No, I've barely seen him all day," Brody said as lanky-framed Vince shyly stood up behind him and stole a few glances at Nicole.

"What's going on with him?" she asked. "He's been acting really strange lately."

"My brother's always strange," Brody corrected her. "The only time he's less strange is when you're around, but you haven't been around here lately so he's back to being his old self again."

Nicole took a moment to digest Brody's unknowingly weighty words and then she moved closer to him.

"Brody, will you tell me the truth if I ask you a tough question?" she queried, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder as Vince watched in amazement. He had never seen a 17-year-old girl that physically close to his fellow freshman friend before.

"Sure," Brody replied, looking into her eyes.

"Why did you pull the fire alarm on Thursday?"

"Adam and Lee told me to do it," he said without hesitation.

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm not totally sure, but they told me to tell the principal that it was a message from them to protest their suspensions."

"I see." Nicole nodded, but her mind immediately flagged this as a bullshit cover for their real intentions. Those two likely would never protest any punishment that removed them from school.

"Yeah, they even took me out to McDonald's for lunch after I got off the bus that day ... I couldn't believe it," Brody added with a smile. Vince grinned, too.

Nicole's face, on the other hand, struggled to conceal her horror.

"Adam _and Lee_ both took you out for lunch after you pulled the alarm for them?" she asked again, somehow hoping for a different answer this time.

"Yeah ... I was as surprised as you," Brody confirmed, looking more and more confused by her strange reaction. "What's wrong, Nikki?"

"I hope nothing, but I'm afraid a lot is about to be very, very wrong," she said, her hand trembling as she grabbed the iPhone out of her jacket pocket and attempted to call Adam.

"Damn you, Adam, pick up!" she said loudly, alarming Brody and Vince.

Adam did not pick up.

"Brody, do you have any idea where your brother might be right now ... any clue at all?" she asked desperately.

"He said he was going to the shooting range today, but that was sometime this morning."

"Do you have a phone on you?"

"Yeah."

"Please give it to me," Nicole said, "so I can give you my number."

Brody gladly handed her his phone. She quickly punched her name and number into his contact list as Vince looked on in awe.

"If Adam calls you, texts you or comes back here, call me right away, OK?" she asked urgently as she handed him his phone.

"OK. Where are you going now?" Brody asked as Nicole ran back to her car.

"I'm going toward the high school just in case Adam went there," she said.

"Why would he do that on a Sunday night?"

"I don't know, Brody. It's just a shot in the dark," Nicole said before turning her car around and driving off.

...

Nicole spotted Adam's abandoned red pickup on the right shoulder of the road about a half mile before the school and pulled over behind it. After flipping on her hazard lights, she got out of her car, gingerly stepping along the passenger side to inspect it. The bed was empty except for an orange hunting vest and an empty cardboard 12-pack of Natural Light beer. She thought it was odd that Adam would leave the hunting vest for anyone to take.

Nicole detected the scent of marijuana when she approached the passenger-side window, which was halfway down, and noticed the doors were unlocked. He had left everything to thieves but the keys ... and the beer, of course.

She also noted there was no orange police sticker on the windshield yet, warning the vehicle's operator to remove the truck from the side of the road or get it towed. That told her the truck couldn't have been sitting there for very long.

Nicole got back in her car and resumed her drive toward the school. At the next light, she took a left and, a quarter-mile later, steered right into the football stadium parking lot just in case Adam was hanging out there. The ticket gate was closed and the large, dimly lit lot was empty except for a beat-up black Mustang parked in the far right corner, next to the fence and the woods. It, too, looked abandoned, but Nicole didn't want to drive too close to inspect it just in case there were a couple of teens having back-seat sex in the partially secluded spot.

Nicole circled around in the lot and exited. Two minutes later, she pulled into the empty main high school parking lot. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw someone take off running down the grassy slope and into the practice field as her headlights flashed in that direction.

After parking with her headlights facing the field and the engine running, Nicole sprang out of her car and ran to the top of the hill to see who was fleeing.

"Adam? Is that you?" she shouted toward the dark field. The only big lights were well behind her in the lot and far to her right next to the school's main entrance.

"Yeah ... it's me," Adam replied, slowly approaching the base of the hill. "Nikki? What ... what are you doing here?"

Nicole immediately thought Adam sounded drunk, but she was relieved to have found him. "Wait a sec ... I'll be right back," she said, trotting back to her car to kill the engine. She left the headlights on.

Seconds later, Nicole ventured down the slope to stand next to Adam. She tried to ignore the smell of booze and pot and get right to the point.

"I'm here looking for you, Adam," she said, finally answering his question. She zipped up her blue windbreaker on this clear, chilly September 14th night. The stars sparkled brightly overhead and the words "14th and Stardust" breezed through her mind as she thought of what to say next. "You look like you could use a friend right about now."

Indeed he did — drunk, depressed and disoriented in a dirty gray, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. One of his construction boots reeked of dog shit.

Adam nodded, pulled a travel-size bottle of Jim Beam out of his pocket, finished it off and flung it toward the woods. He staggered and nearly fell from the aggravated exertion of the throw. His brown eyes looked glazed and his stubbly face wore an expression of utter hopelessness. Nicole now had zero doubts about the dream she had at Lakes of the Clouds. She knew she was here with Adam at this moment in time for a reason.

"I found your truck abandoned on the side of the road. You haven't answered my calls or texts. You're drinking alone at our school on a Sunday night. Adam, can you please tell me what's going on so I can try to help you?" she asked as empathetically as possible given his obviously fragile state.

Adam tried to wipe the fog out of his eyes and focus on Nicole's face. Her genuine eyes offered him a rope out of the abyss and he desperately wanted to grab on. He deeply yearned to tell her everything, but he also believed she'd never want anything to do with him once all of it was revealed. The liquor helped him open up and tell her the truth regardless. He was so sick of carrying it around inside him.

"I didn't want to hang out with you today because ... cuz I don't know what to do... and I don't know what's gonna happen," he began, looking down at the grass.

"OK, Adam, what does that mean?" she asked softly but urgently.

"Me and Lee were going to shoot up the school tomorrow," he admitted, too ashamed to look her in the eyes. "He was going to pull the fire alarm and we were both going to expel the whole school ... before we got expelled."

The chills piercing the entire length of Nicole's spine kept her pinned in place as she hung on every terrible word that Adam uttered.

Nicole waited a second to see if he had anything else to add, but he just stood there — looking down at the grass, hands in his pockets, awaiting her judgment. She couldn't believe the dream's warning had been so dead-on. It took her a few more seconds to form a question.

"So, Brody pulling the alarm on Thursday was the dress rehearsal?" she asked, forcing herself to keep her tone calm, no different than if they were talking about the school play. Nicole wondered if anyone would get to try out for "Romeo & Juliet" tomorrow. She pushed the thought aside. This was the absolute worst time to think about a teen tragedy.

"Yes," Adam acknowledged.

"And you planned to bring your guns to school and kill all of us, me included, tomorrow?" she asked, again suppressing her emotions for the sake of gathering the facts.

"No, you and Brody and Candace were off limits," he said, finally looking her in the eyes for the first time since she came down the hill to stand next to him.

Nicole shuddered and gazed up at the stars for guidance, but now her emotions started getting the best of her. She looked back down into Adam's lost eyes and suddenly wanted answers. If only her tongue could keep up with her dizzying train of thoughts.

"How could you even ... Adam, I'm so ... you did say, 'You and Lee _were_ going to shoot up the school,' did you not? Is the plan on hold? Canceled, I hope?"

"My Dad told me a couple of nights ago that he's dying of liver cancer," Adam said, dropping another bombshell rather than answering her question. Then he pulled another bottle of Beam out of his other pocket and took a swig.

Nicole's eyes popped open and her mind raced to process all of Adam's revelations.

"Wow, that's awful, Adam," she said, forcing herself to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"I'm so sorry ... no wonder you're a mess right now," she said, then pausing. "But you're not ... I mean, you and Lee called it off, right?"

Adam looked down again and then launched into a drunken ramble.

"Not exactly ... we had a fight ... I've been avoiding Lee ... I don't really want to go through with it, but he's pissed off ... I left my truck ... I don't think I need it anymore."

"What? Why, Adam?" she begged.

"Because I don't want to live anymore, Nikki!" he yelled, his desperate eyes fixed on hers again.

As Nicole struggled to think of what to say or do next, a loud gunshot erupted from the woods.

"Ah, what the?" Adam yelled, staggering, falling and grimacing in pain.

Nicole jumped in place, then froze with her hands over her mouth, staring down at her wounded classmate. Adam had been shot in his backside.

"Don't move, Dead Girl Walking!" Thomas "Lee" Harvey shouted as he emerged from the nearby woods and stalked them with a black pistol in his hand.

It was aimed directly at Nicole.

Her heart pounded as she now wished she had just driven straight at the red light. She'd be home with her mother — safe, warm and catching up on all of her schoolwork.

Not here. Shivering. Facing death.

Thomas grinned as he moved next to them and then spit on Adam as he groaned on the ground. His right hand was covered in blood from pressing it against his wounded buttocks.

"Holy shit! I shot you in the ass ... perfect! Not a bad shot in the dark," Thomas said, wearing all black clothes and a creepy, satisfied smile. "Killing you would be too easy. I want you to suffer for backing out of our plan and acting like a pussy. I make good on my motherfucking threats. I told you that!

"And you," he continued, turning his cold blue eyes toward terrified Nicole with the gun now a foot away from her chest. "You crossed the tracks to our side and wanted to be pals. How's that working out for ya right about now, DGW? Thanks so much for screwing up all of our plans and turning this loser into a useless pile of shit. Now I'd like to turn all of you blue to match your hair. How does that sound?"

"Don't do it, Lee!" Adam shouted through his pain. He tried to get up while fumbling around with his left hand along his belt line. He had a pistol concealed beneath his extra-large shirt.

"Get your bloody ass back down on the ground and throw your gun toward me right now or I swear I'll shoot you between the eyes this time!" Thomas yelled.

Adam fell back down and reluctantly tossed the pistol toward Thomas' black boots. He grabbed it and stuffed it into his jacket pocket while still keeping his gun pointed at Nicole.

"Please don't kill me," she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I was only trying to help Adam."

"True, Lee, she was only ...," Adam joined in.

"Oh, shut the fuck up, both of you!" Thomas shouted, glaring more at Adam now. "We had a great plan. We were going to be famous — way more famous than that baby killer Lanza or that punk in Norway. And then this rich little whore got in your dicked-up head ..."

A flash of headlights entering the parking lot above the hill made Thomas freeze as much as his victims. The gunman looked to his right, in the direction of the approaching vehicle, and Nicole saw an opportunity to bolt. She sprang into a sprint as fast as she could, but Thomas calmly aimed his gun and blasted her with a shot to her right side. She cried out, fell halfway up the grassy slope and blood poured out of her bullet wound.

"No!" Adam yelled, once again struggling in vain to get up.

Thomas cursed several times, then took off toward the woods to flee the scene.

A female police officer — who had gotten out of her car to see why an empty green Nissan Altima, with its headlights on, was parked at the high school on a Sunday night — now drew her gun after hearing the gunshot.

"What's going on here?" the officer shouted from the top of the hill.

"Help! We've both been shot!" Adam screamed. "The shooter's getting away!"

"Who's we?" she yelled, pointing her gun with one hand and shining her flashlight down at him with the other.

"There ... in the grass ... it's Nikki! Go to her first!" Adam shouted, pointing at her crumpled body 25 feet away. Her lifeless strands of brown-and-blue hair haunted him now and made him sob.

"I see her!" the officer confirmed when her flashlight illuminated Nicole's motionless form in the grass. She raced down to the girl's side and yelled into her shoulder radio. "I need backup and ambulances at Lakeview High School right now! Two students are shot — both in the field to the left of the main parking lot!"

"He's getting away!" Adam cried. "Into the woods!"

"Who? Who did this?" the officer yelled.

"Thomas Lee Harvey!" Adam replied.

Just then, Nicole's iPhone ringtone went off inside the pocket of her blue windbreaker, and Adele's "Rumour Has It" cut through the panic-filled night air.

On the other side of town, Lynn Barrett began to worry when her daughter didn't answer her call.

CHAPTER 20

### THE AFTERMATH

Caleb rolled over in bed and glanced at his alarm clock with one eye. 7:32.

7:32?

He sat up in a panic. His alarm clock was supposed to go off at 6:45. He would have to rush to get ready and make the bus. Then he noticed his bedroom door was open a couple of inches and his mother was looking in on him.

"He's awake," Angela Evans told her husband, Marc, before they both entered Caleb's room.

"Good morning, buddy," Marc said, greeting him cheerfully in words but not the normal tone, Caleb observed, as the boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked completely baffled.

"Mom and Dad, what's going on? Today is Monday, right?" he asked.

"Yes son," Marc said with a smile, but Caleb noticed his mother's face appeared downright grim. He immediately feared one of his grandparents had passed away in the night.

"I'm afraid we've got some rather shocking news, Caleb, and because of it there won't be any school today for you or any of the students at Lakeville High," his mother said, now sitting next to her son on his bed as Marc stood nearby.

"What? What happened?" Caleb asked.

Angela clutched her son's hand and spoke softly, "Two students were shot at the school last night and a third student is on the loose — the boy who shot them."

"What?" Caleb gasped, both of his brown eyes wide open now.

"We saw it on the late TV news last night after you went to bed, but we didn't want to wake you until we learned more about what's going on," Marc said.

"We found out early this morning that school was canceled and we figured we'd let you sleep in," his mom added.

Caleb shook his head and wondered if he was still sleeping, still dreaming now.

"Who got shot? Are they OK? And who did it? ... And why were they at school on a Sunday night?" he asked rapidly as his parents nodded at every obvious question. Clearly they felt awful having to hold this conversation with their son, who now would face unexpected mental and emotional hurdles at the start of his sophomore year to go along with his physical challenges from cerebral palsy.

"Nicole Janicek and Adam Upton were shot," Angela said. "The TV news didn't give out their names, but one of the school counselors called us to tell us more about what happened."

"Oh my God. No, no, no," Caleb said, his eyes tearing up and his stomach feeling punched.

"The same two kids who stuck up for you in the cafeteria — the ones you told us about, Caleb," his father said before taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

"I can't believe this ... who shot them? Timmy?" Caleb asked, his anger rising.

"Yes, right Marc?" Angela said, turning to her husband for confirmation.

"No, close ... it was a Thomas ... Thomas "Lee" Harvey, I believe they reported," Marc said.

"Did you know him, Caleb?" his mother asked.

"Not really, but I know he was friends with Adam so it doesn't make sense."

"None of it makes any sense, dear," Angela lamented. "You just started school only a couple of weeks ago and this happens ..."

"And keeps happening, again and again," Marc added.

"Thank God when it happened in our town no one was at school. At least we can be thankful for that," Angela said, hugging Caleb tightly as Marc put a hand on her shoulder.

"Is Nikki dead, mom?" Caleb asked dreadfully.

"No," she replied, looking him in the eyes but providing little hope. "She's in critical condition at the hospital. That's what they said late last night and we've been watching the news this morning for any updates."

"I just sat with Nikki at the football game Friday night," Caleb said, barely resisting the urge to cry. "We had such a great time rooting for the Eagles ... she's like one of the nicest people I know."

Caleb's parents both nodded somberly.

"They're going to have counselors available at the middle school as soon as they catch the Harvey kid," Marc told him. "This whole area is in lockdown until he's caught. We heard police helicopters fly by earlier. Hopefully they'll get him soon so we can all take a breath and start dealing with what happened."

"Yes, they canceled school all over town today," Angela added. "If they do catch the shooter today, there's supposed to be a vigil Tuesday night at Our Lady of the Mountains... if you want to go."

"Yes, definitely," Caleb said. "I want to pray for Nikki ... and Adam. How is he?"

"He was stable last night so it looks like he'll be OK for sure," Marc replied, trying to sound more upbeat.

"That's good. Hopefully Nikki will be OK, too," Caleb said sadly.

"I'm sorry you had to wake up to this horrible news about your friend, Caleb," Angela said, stroking his short brown hair and wishing he were about 12 years younger at that moment so she could cradle all of him in her arms.

"I don't understand why terrible things like this happen to good people," Caleb said. "Nikki and Adam are good people. They don't deserve to be shot."

"Hopefully the truth will come out about what happened and then maybe we'll understand," Marc said, "but many times with these awful events, son, we're left with more questions than answers."

...

Lynn, Candace, her mother, Tracy, and Derek all huddled together in the corner of the ICU waiting room at Middlebrook Regional Hospital. Their eyes, worn out from too many tears and too little sleep, all turned in unison when the door opened and Dr. William Hamilton approached them with another update on Nicole's condition.

The tall, thin man in the white coat with the kind blue eyes and silver-rimmed glasses had their complete attention.

"Good news," he said, smiling, as the four grateful listeners exhaled loudly, hugged and each uttered a relieved "Thank God."

"She's going to make it?" Lynn asked, her hands clasped in prayer-like fashion on her knees as Tracy embraced her tightly.

"Nicole's chances for a full recovery are quite good actually," Dr. Hamilton said.

"Thank you so much, doctor," Lynn said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Nicole is very lucky that she was shot in the side and not more directly," Dr. Hamilton explained. "She has some muscle damage, but very little impact to the abdominal cavity itself. Surgery went very smoothly, all things considered, and she is in recovery now."

"Wonderful, wonderful news," Tracy said, now hugging her sobbing daughter Candace, who seemed on the verge of passing out. Derek, too, helped prop her up in her chair. "Nikki's just super tough," he said with a relieved grin. "And almost faster than a speeding bullet."

Candace laughed through her tears at that. "I'm so happy right now, but all I can do is cry," she said, sobbing again as Lynn and Tracy nodded in agreement.

"Doctor, how long before we can go in and see Nikki?" Lynn asked.

"I'd like her to rest for another hour or so to recover from surgery, but after that, we'll bring you in a couple at a time to visit her. She'll likely be disoriented from the pain medication at first, but I'm sure she'll be anxious to see you all after such a traumatic experience," Dr. Hamilton said.

"How long will it take for her to recover in full, doctor?" Derek asked.

"It can vary with these injuries somewhat, but generally patients with similar gunshot wounds have been able to resume normal activities within three to six weeks. Nicole is young and otherwise healthy, so I wouldn't be surprised to see her make the lower end of that range. My guess is we'll keep her in the hospital for several more days just to make sure there are no signs of infection or any other issues. OK?"

"Great, thanks again, Dr. Hamilton," Lynn said, breathing another huge sigh of relief.

"We'll send for you when she's ready for visitors in a little while then," the doctor said before departing and closing the door.

"OK," Lynn said, then collapsed against the others for support as the tears started anew. "My baby's gonna make it. My only child is gonna make it."

...

In a different wing of the hospital, Adam already had told his father everything. Brody had been sent to raid the vending machine while Gary endured his older son's rambling, tear-filled confession with grim, resigned silence.

It was 11:50 a.m. on Monday, and Adam's superficial wound to the buttocks would not keep him hospitalized much longer. Gary knew his son's next stop would be the police station. Two detectives were pacing somewhere outside the door, just waiting for the doctor's clearance to transport Adam there for questioning.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Adam said through tears. "You wanted me to be a man and I'm still just a screw-up."

Gary stood up from his chair and approached Adam's hospital bed. Leaning on his left side due to the pain in his right buttocks, Adam still couldn't believe his father only had an uncertain number of months to live. And now the big man would have to face the grave knowing his eldest son had conspired to kill scores, perhaps hundreds, of people.

"Listen to me, Adam," Gary said, staying strong for his son and showing no signs of tearing up this time. "You didn't kill anybody, OK? What you were _planning_ to do with Lee was downright Satanic, but in the end, you didn't want to do it and you became a gunshot victim yourself. You've told me the truth. That's a good first step. Now go out there and tell the police the truth. Be a man and take full responsibility for what you conspired to do. You probably will go to jail, but if you cooperate and help them in their case against Lee — and believe me, they'll catch that stupid little shit — then you won't go away for very long."

Adam nodded and hung on his father's every word.

"This is your chance to turn your life around — right now, son," Gary continued. "If you handle this adversity like a man, I guarantee you it'll make you stronger and you'll begin to feel better about yourself. On the other hand, if you had gone through with your evil plan, you would either be dead today or going away to prison for the rest of your life. You also could've been killed or maimed by Lee last night. Instead you're walking out of this hospital today, you're gonna tell the truth, you're gonna learn a great deal from all of this and, some day, you'll get a chance to start over. Lee won't get that chance. Today his life is already over — one way or another."

"I guess you're right, Dad," Adam said.

"And I'll tell you something else, son. That girl down in the ICU," Gary added, pointing toward the door with a slight tremble in his lips, "that girl saved your life and her entire high school last night. She took a bullet for you, son — so remember that every time you breathe, every time you make a decision from now on. You _owe_ her. I _owe_ her for what she did. She's more of a man than you or I will ever be, and she's a young woman — a brave young woman."

"Nikki came looking for me ... she wanted to help me ... and I let her get shot, Dad," Adam said, his voice cracking.

"Yes, you did," Gary said firmly. "Imagine how her mother feels right now. Maybe next time you'll use your brain to think about consequences before you come up with evil ideas. Maybe next time you won't hang out with people like _Thomas Lee Harvey_."

"I feel horrible that I might miss what little time I have left with you because I'll be sitting in jail," Adam said dejectedly.

"Don't worry about me, son. It'll give me more motivation to live longer," Gary said, forcing the tears back with every ounce of his strength. He was done crying in front of his son.

The noon local news began on the TV, which was anchored high up on the far wall, and Gary grabbed the remote to turn up the sound. Father and son watched the female anchor lead in with the day's top story.

"The suspect in last night's double shooting at Lakeview Regional High School in Middlebrook remains at large, but police say they have solid leads on the possible whereabouts of 18-year-old Thomas James Harvey, who also goes by the name 'Lee' Harvey," said the anchorwoman with the auburn hair and blue eyes as Harvey's yearbook photo flashed on the screen. "Police say Harvey shot two fellow students on school grounds Sunday night. The 17-year-old female victim, whose name was not released because of her age, has been upgraded from critical to stable condition today and is expected to recover, a Middlebrook Regional Hospital spokeswoman told TV-8 News a short time ago."

Gary and Adam both breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's great news," Adam's father said while the anchorwoman continued.

"The 17-year-old male victim, whose name also wasn't made available because he is a minor, is now in good condition and is expected to be released later today."

"That's you she's talking about, son," Gary said, his half-smile fading as the anchorwoman added, "TV-8 News also has learned more about a possible connection between these three Lakeview students. And for that we turn to reporter Dave Powell, who is standing by live at the high school. Dave, what can you tell us?"

The camera switched to a 30-something, clean-cut man standing in front of yellow crime scene tape amid a media horde in the parking lot facing the practice field.

"That's right, Patrice. Today we've learned from a review of recent social media posts that all three Lakeview Regional High School students involved in last night's shooting incident were suspended for three days each just last week," Powell said to the camera.

"Media," Gary huffed as Adam covered his eyes with his hands and grimaced. "You guys haven't even left the hospital — Nikki is still in the ICU — and these idiots are already digging up the dirt on you. Wait til they find out what you and Lee had planned, Adam. This thing is gonna explode. More consequences, son, more consequences," his father added, pointing to his head. "Nobody thinks before they do stupid, horrible things like this."

Powell continued: "School officials wouldn't disclose why the students were suspended last week, but at least one source close to the school told me that this shooting may have been the result of a teenage love triangle gone horribly wrong."

"What the hell?" Adam shouted.

Powell added: "Recent social media posts, meanwhile, seemed to indicate that at least two of the students were suspended for drug use on school grounds."

"That's it! I can't watch anymore of this garbage!" Gary said, turning off the TV and flipping the remote onto a nearby counter in disgust. "All these people do is try to get ratings. Who cares if they get it all wrong."

"I feel even worse for Nikki now," Adam mumbled.

"Good, son, you should. Now they're dragging her name through the mud and she doesn't even deserve it. Last week she got suspended because you tricked her into dropping acid, last night she got shot and now she's getting slandered in the media as the love toy of two gun-toting bozos."

"OK Dad, OK ... I feel awful enough already," Adam countered.

"Oh yeah, the cops will treat you a lot better than what I'm gonna have to face from Nikki's mom and the rest of the town when I leave this room. Brody, too. A _freshman_ in the middle of all this! You don't think he's gonna get hit with a pile of shit for this? Of course he will."

"I'll tell everyone the truth, Dad, I swear!" Adam shouted with more conviction in his voice than his father had ever heard before. "I won't let Nikki get torn down over this when me and Lee were the ones who screwed everything up. I'll be a man this time. You have my word."

Gary nodded and put his hand on his son's shoulder.

"I'm real glad to hear that, son," he said softly. "And I believe you. I just hope your word is still worth something out there, beyond this closed door."

As father and son both silently looked toward the door, the clock high on the wall harmlessly ticked to 12:14 p.m.

The fire alarm did not get pulled at Lakeview Regional High School that day.

No students, teachers or administrators died that day.

And Thomas James "Lee" Harvey was apprehended without incident.

An armada of state troopers nabbed their wanted man driving his old black Mustang west along a winding, backwoods road not far from the Vermont border.

CHAPTER 21

### THE WOUNDED POET

Strapped to her hospital bed but now conscious and alert, Nicole smiled at the sight of her teary-eyed mother and her best friend Candace. The first two of many concerned visitors to her solo room in the ICU on Monday afternoon, Lynn and Candace hugged Nicole like she had come back from the grave.

"My baby's gonna be fine," Lynn cried.

"My BFF's gonna be fine," Candace added with the same tearfully grateful tone, drawing a painful chuckle out of Nicole.

"Of course I'll be fine," she said weakly. "LSD last week, painkillers this week ... how could I not be fine?"

The patient's good humor set off another round of sobs and laughs, and another group embrace, though Nicole couldn't do much hugging back.

"Candace's mother, Tracy, is here and Derek is here," Lynn said, clutching her daughter's hand tightly with one hand and rubbing her arm with the other. "Derek came right over when he heard what happened and he hasn't left since. He wants to see you after us. The doctor is only allowing two visitors at a time while you're in the ICU."

"You've got a good man there," Candace said, beaming with pride for her friend.

Nicole smiled, then winced as she shifted slightly in the bed.

"Poor Derek. We had such a great date on Saturday night. We toasted to a great senior year, and then I go and get shot the very next night," she lamented.

"Don't worry about that dear," Lynn said. "Derek is here for you, the doctor told us that you're going to make a full recovery and the two of you will have many more dates to look forward to."

Nicole's smile faded during a thoughtful pause, and she asked her mother a tough question.

"Is Dad flying up?" Her father had been living in North Carolina with his new family for five years now.

"He's sending flowers and he'll call you later," Lynn said, her smile also disappearing due to the controversial topic. "We both agreed we don't want to add to your stress level by him being here. You two are not exactly on the best of terms. Your focus needs to be on healing and recovery right now."

Nicole nodded, wishing she did have a functional daughter-father relationship. As much as she hated to admit it, she missed his strength right now. A veteran firefighter, Lt. Roger Janicek was at his best in crisis situations like this. Handling the routine, everyday stuff life threw at him — such as holding a normal, relaxed conversation or spending undistracted time with his children — was another matter. He always seemed like he wanted to be somewhere else; as if the next fire emergency couldn't come soon enough so he could drive away and be a hero.

"Big hero out there, big zero in here," Nicole used to mutter in bed to herself, applying angry words like bandages over her internal wounds.

Now she was lying in a hospital bed with a real gunshot wound and, thanks to the painkillers, she felt far better today than she did for most of her childhood. But, as the memories of the night before began to seep back into her brain, one question soon nagged at her more than her father's travel plans or lack thereof.

"Did they catch him?" she asked her mother and Candace softly.

"What dear?" Lynn replied, hoping to delay her daughter until she came up with an entirely different query. Word of Harvey's capture that afternoon in western New Hampshire had not yet reached their hospital room.

"Did they catch Thomas — the sick, twisted boy who shot me?" Nicole persisted firmly, despite her weakened state.

Lynn's silent, trembling lips provided the answer. Candace scowled.

"He got away?" Nicole rephrased her question anyway in disbelief. "How is that possible?"

"The police have good leads, dear, and they will catch him very, very soon," Lynn said, summoning her most reassuring voice from deep inside her.

"That's right, Nikki," Candace said, leaning closer and smoothing out a few strands of Nicole's snarled hair with her fingers. "He's going to prison for the rest of his life, so please don't worry anymore about Thomas _Lee_ Harvey."

"And Adam? How is he?" Nicole asked.

"He got shot in the ass," Candace quickly replied. "There's some poetic justice."

"He'll be OK," Lynn said. "But enough about all of that. You need to focus on yourself right now and relax as much as possible. OK?"

"OK, Mom."

"A lot of students and their parents have been calling me to ask if they could stop by and visit you in the hospital when you feel up to it," Lynn said, happy to change the subject.

"Yeah, they canceled school today," Candace told her.

"Why?" Nicole asked.

With visions of yellow crime scene tape tangling her thoughts, Lynn shook her head and abruptly steered the conversation back to something more positive.

"That's not important right now, dear. The point I'm trying to make is the whole town is coming together to support you and help you through this, so we can all feel good about that. Teachers, too. A lot of teachers are planning to visit you in the hospital. One in particular ... Mr. Richardson, I believe."

"My English teacher," Nicole said with a smile. "He's awesome."

"Yes, he said he'll be stopping by later this afternoon," her mother confirmed.

Nicole smiled at that. Then she thought about the little girl Star and the teacher from her dream at Lakes of the Clouds. She had made her stand. She had tried to be Adam's friend. Unless her mother and Candace were hiding information to spare her, no one had died on the 15th of September at Lakeview Regional High School.

"14th & Stardust," she whispered to herself.

"What dear?" her mother asked.

"I'm just thanking my lucky stars, Mom, that's all," the wounded teen said wistfully as she wrapped a few strands of her striped hair around her fingers.

"We all are, sweetie, we all are," Lynn said softly.

...

Principal Connie Wheeler, Vice Principal Arthur Guyton and guidance counselor Maria Alvarez were among the Lakeview administrators on hand to listen to the live press conference in the school parking lot at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday the 16th. The New Hampshire State Police department spokesman addressed a phalanx of cameras and dozens of microphones tied together on the stand in front of him.

"Good morning. I'm Captain Victor Truesdale of the New Hampshire State Police and I'll give you an update on all that we know at this time. Then I'll open it up to your questions. Bear in mind that this is an ongoing investigation so I may decline to comment on certain topics. I first want to confirm what some of you already reported last night — the suspect in Sunday night's shooting incident here at Lakeview Regional High School was apprehended on Monday afternoon near Claremont, New Hampshire. His given name is Thomas James Harvey. He is 18 years old, a resident of Middlebrook and a senior at Lakeview. We did have the opportunity to question him extensively last night. We do believe he acted alone in Sunday night's incident. However, after questioning both Harvey and the 17-year-old male shooting victim — who has been extremely forthcoming despite giving us information that implicates himself — we have a significant development to report in this case."

Capt. Truesdale paused until the sudden buzz died down.

"The 17-year-old boy who claims he was shot by Thomas Harvey here Sunday night admitted to police yesterday that he and Harvey had been accomplices in a plot to commit mass murder on a horrific scale Monday at Lakeview Regional High School."

All in attendance gasped at this revelation. TV viewers throughout town and the state reacted with similar shock. Again, Capt. Truesdale paused before continuing.

"Our preliminary discussions with Thomas Harvey also appear to confirm that this shooting plot was indeed very real. I don't want to disclose details of their plot at this time, but we are confident these two students were the only participants in the plot that was set to unfold Monday."

After another pause, Capt. Truesdale continued.

"I do want to address media reports concerning the 17-year-old female victim in Sunday night's shooting here at the high school. As you know, she has been upgraded to stable condition at Middlebrook Regional Hospital. We have talked with her and her mother at the hospital, and we want to confirm that she was not involved in this mass murder plot in any way. Also, media reports of a so-called love triangle involving her and the two suspects are completely false and unfounded.

"The female victim did know both of the suspects and she became aware of the plot Sunday night. We have learned she is a friend of the 17-year-old boy and was attempting to talk him out of following through on the plot before Thomas Harvey emerged from the woods behind us," Truesdale said, hooking his right thumb back over his shoulder. "That is when we believe Thomas Harvey confronted both 17-year-old victims and shot them. Now I will take your questions."

The queries came fast and furious from every direction. One, in particular, stood out.

"Would you call the 17-year-old girl a hero, Captain?" TV-8 News reporter Dave Powell asked.

"In my opinion, yes I would," the officer said. "It certainly appears, based on all of the information we have at this time, that she played a crucial role in helping to disrupt a plot that could have resulted in a significant loss of life if the suspects had succeeded."

...

Dressed in a sharp gray suit and blue tie, Paul Richardson ascended to the podium and paused a moment to take in the scene in front of him. Caleb, Marc and Angela Evans were among the hundreds of students, parents, teachers, townsfolk and media members packed together into the cozy pews of dimly lit Our Lady of the Mountain Church. Rows of lighted candles down both sides of the long, rectangular church flickered to and fro, giving off a soothing, orange glow.

Following a moving rendition of the hymn, "Here I Am Lord," all mouths were silent and all eyes gazed up at Mr. Richardson.

"Good evening to you all," he said. "I'm Paul Richardson, Nicole Janicek's English teacher at Lakeview Regional High School. Though I've only truly come to know Nicole over the span of about two weeks so far this school year, she already had challenged me, inspired me and moved me in that short time. Nicole sees the bigger picture and isn't afraid to take a stand against something she doesn't like. As we have learned more today about her brave and selfless act Sunday night, I can honestly say I'm not surprised. It is completely in keeping with who Nicole is.

"We are so fortunate to be celebrating her life and praying for her full recovery tonight instead of mourning the loss of another caring and daring soul. Nicole takes her guidance from the brave women and children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. Well, on Sunday night, Nicole put that spirit into action and helped prevent another tragic event — this time at our school, in our town and in our state. We are all deeply in her debt.

"I visited Nicole in the ICU yesterday afternoon at Middlebrook Regional Hospital and she wanted me to thank all of you for your concern, prayers and support. She's doing well and the doctors believe she will be able to return to school as soon as early October. I also received her permission to share with you a poem she wrote for my class. I didn't ask her to write it. It was not part of any lesson or homework assignment. She simply wanted to write this extra poem because she felt moved to do so. Then she offered to share it with me. And I can tell you that this poem, especially in light of having almost lost Nicole on Sunday night, moved me personally more than any other I've ever read. I will share Nicole's poem with you all now. It is titled 'Streaks of Blue.'"

Red, white and ...

Streaks of blue

Far off the path

I search for truth

Live free or die

A state of beauty

Will we be next

To look to the sky

And find more stars

Than the night just passed?

Lessons never learned

The youngest of souls

Pay with their lives

So for them I cry

The rain in my heart

Soaks every ring

This paper on which I write

Once was a sapling

So young and new

But now it's a vessel

On a lake

Beneath a cloud

And onto it flow

My streaks of blue

Again and again

More trees fall

No not me

But it might as well be

For I die with them

As the view gets clearer

And the truth gets nearer

I am sad to discover

That we truly are lost

So I look in the mirror

And dye my hair blue

So I brook through the mountains

And keep my heart true

I'll blaze a new trail

No matter the cost

One without labels

One that is just

Souls are for saving

While we're still walking

So strap on your packs

Your hopes, your boots

And keep your eyes open

For my streaks of blue

Yes, I'll blaze a new trail

A path for the lost.

CHAPTER 22

### AC 360

**Anderson Cooper:** Welcome back to AC 360 on CNN. Joining me in a moment for an exclusive interview from her home in New Hampshire will be Nicole Janicek, the brave high school senior who helped foil a shooting plot at her school on the night before it was supposed to happen. As you probably know by now due to all the publicity this case has received over the past week, 18-year-old Thomas James "Lee" Harvey and 17-year-old Adam Benjamin Upton had planned to pull the fire alarm at Lakeview Regional High School in Middlebrook, New Hampshire, last Monday at 12:14 p.m. — a reference to the massacre at Newtown on 12/14 of 2012 — and shoot as many people as possible. One shooter was going to kill as many as he could on the inside of the school while the other planned to shoot those fleeing outside. Harvey and Upton are both in police custody and were indicted on multiple charges late last week. Nicole Janicek, who was shot in the side by Harvey, according to police, is recovering from her wound and, in fact, just returned home from the hospital yesterday. With her mother's permission, 17-year-old Nicole has agreed to speak with me exclusively tonight — exactly one week after the shooting was supposed to go down. Nicole, welcome to the show and thank you for coming on.

**Nicole Janicek:** You're welcome, Anderson.

**AC:** First, how are you doing after such a traumatic experience?

**NJ:** Very well, considering what happened. I know I'm very lucky to be alive right now.

**AC:** Yes, and apparently so are many of your classmates and teachers. Do you have any idea when you might be able to go back to school?

**NJ:** I'm hoping the doctors will clear me in a week or two. I'd like to get back before Homecoming weekend in early October if possible.

**AC:** Yes, sometimes it's easy to forget with everything that happened that you're still a high school senior and you just want to experience all that goes with that, right?

**NJ:** Absolutely. I've already missed so much time, so many classes and that's what frustrates me almost as much as getting shot.

**AC:** I don't want to rehash too many details of the terrifying plot or what happened the night of September 14th due to the ongoing investigation and upcoming court cases, but can you give us a sense of what Lakeview is like and how well you knew the suspects?

**NJ:** Yeah, sure. Lakeview is a pretty good school. I like it there most of the time. There are issues with cliques and labels and tensions just like any other school, but it's not the kind of place you'd expect to have a shooting. I actually first knew Adam back in elementary school. This school year I was in the process of trying to reconnect with him and be friends with him, but some of my former friends gave me a hard time about it.

**AC:** In what way?

**NJ:** One girl in particular called Adam trailer trash and said I was insane for trying to be friends with him.

**AC:** Really?

**NJ:** Yeah. And Thomas hated me for trying to be friends with Adam even though we didn't even know each other. He had a lot of anger and called me stuff behind my back. The night he shot me he called me 'Dead Girl Walking.' Before that he would say DGW this and DGW that, and I didn't know what he meant, but now I do.

**AC:** That is chilling. And what is Adam like?

**NJ:** He's angry at life sometimes, but not as much as Thomas is. There is good in Adam and I could see it. One time we went on a hike with my other friend, Candace, and he seemed happy that day for the most part.

**AC:** Adam admitted his role in the plot to you and to police. Did he change his mind about wanting to go through with it?

**NJ:** He was very depressed and confused, I would say. He had just found out his father has cancer. His mom had died when he was very young. I can't imagine having no parents. I think part of him still wanted to go through with the shooting and part of him didn't. He just seemed completely lost. I was trying to help him before we both got shot.

**AC:** How do you feel when people call you a hero for your 11th-hour intervention?

**NJ:** I'm not a hero. I was just trying to be someone's friend. If that qualifies for heroism today, then our country really is in trouble.

**AC:** Well said.

**NJ:** The real heroes are the six women who lost their lives trying to protect those children in Newtown.

**AC:** They certainly are. I went to Newtown and interviewed some of the families of those brave women.

**NJ:** They inspire me every day.

**AC:** I can see that, Nicole. How surreal is it for you to be at the center of a story like this in your town?

**NJ:** I don't think I even fully understand it yet. I'm just thankful that no one died this time. My school, my town and many other well-wishers have been so amazing with their support and concern for me over the past week. So I just want to thank them if they're watching right now.

**AC:** Is there anything else you want to share about this whole experience before I let you go and you continue your recovery, Nicole?

**NJ:** I guess the big lesson is to not take things for granted. It can all be taken away from you in the blink of an eye — even when you're 17. I'm just happy that this supposed dead girl is still walking. You know, I love hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and I'm glad I'll get to do that again. I've hiked a lot of hard, steep trails ...

**AC:** Already? At 17?

**NJ:** Yes I have. But the hardest walk I ever made was very short and flat — the one from my table in the cafeteria to the table where Adam and Thomas sat about 25 feet away. As soon as I did that, everything changed ... mostly for the worst.

**AC:** Outside of the obvious, in what way did everything change?

**NJ:** Everyone judged me, judged them.

**AC:** Would you do it all over again knowing this is what happened?

**NJ:** Um ... no, I don't think I would ... and that's what's really sad. It was too little, too late. I wasn't enough. We have to reach out to kids sooner. Everybody needs to step outside of their comfort zone and become friends with someone who is different, no matter what that difference is. And we all have to do it much, much sooner than senior year of high school.

**AC:** Remarkable words from a remarkable young woman. Thank you, Nicole, for speaking with me tonight and good luck with your recovery.

**NJ:** Thanks, Anderson.

**AC:** Enjoy Homecoming.

**NJ:** Thanks. I will.

...

Nicole almost had drifted off to sleep when her iPhone vibrated on the nightstand. She instinctively grabbed it in the dark and pressed it against her mouth.

"Hello?"

"Nicole, it's Dad," said Roger's husky voice, stirring her from her slumber and making her sit up on the bed faster than her wound could tolerate.

"Ouch," she winced.

"Ouch?" Roger asked.

"Sorry, Dad ... I didn't mean you. I sat up too fast."

"How bad is it?"

"Getting better every day."

"That's good. I wanted to call you sooner, but your mother didn't think it was a good idea."

"I know."

"I saw you on Anderson Cooper's show tonight."

"You did? Wow. Did I sound stupid?"

Silence ... sort of.

"Hello? Dad?"

Nicole thought she heard her father crying, but that didn't make sense. He never cried.

"Um, Dad ... are you crying right now?"

"Yessss ... I am," he admitted while trying to repair his cracking voice.

"Why? That's not like you."

"I just wanted to tell you ..."

Long pause. Nicole waited it out.

"I'm proud of you, Nikki," Roger struggled hard to say, his positive words weighed down by a tone that failed to mask years of regret. "I'm so damn proud of my little girl."

"Thanks, Dad ...," Nicole said slowly, searching for a toehold on this strange new slippery slope.

"I'm gonna fly up and see you for Christmas this year. Is that OK?" he asked, now corralling his emotions slightly better.

"You are?" Nicole replied, stunned. "But what about your family down there?"

"You're my family, too, Nikki ... you're my family, too," Roger said, firmly. "I guess what I'm asking for here is ... a second chance. A second chance between you and me."

Nicole paused for a moment as the tears rolled down her cheeks, but her voice remained strong and positive.

"I've been given a second chance ... so how can I deny my Dad?"

...

When Lynn drove Nicole to school on the clear, crisp morning of October 1st, the sight before them as they pulled into the Lakeview parking lot made them both laugh and cry out at the same time.

"Look at this!" her mother yelled as Nicole's eyes strained to take it all in.

The parking lot was jammed with students, teachers, administrators, police officers, firefighters, parents and even dozens of toddlers. Some held colorful signs that read "Welcome back Nikki!" and "BFF" and "Thank you!" and "Homecoming for Our Hero!"

A town police officer directed Lynn to park her car in a reserved space in the middle of all the hoopla. It was like driving into a car wash of love and adoration. And when they both emerged from the car, Nicole beamed through tears at the swarm of people squeezing forward to hug her. She also laughed at how many of them had dyed their hair with streaks of blue or wore ridiculous blue afro wigs. Derek (wig), Candace (dyed), Caleb (wig) and Mr. Richardson (yes, dyed!) were among the first to greet Nicole and embrace her like she had survived storming the beaches at Normandy in World War II. Ms. Alvarez, too, surprised her with a bear hug and a wig of blue.

"I can't believe _you_ even got on board with blue hair, Ms. Alvarez," Nicole said with a chuckle as they embraced almost uncomfortably long.

"Thank you, Nicole," the counselor said into her ear before pulling back to look her in the eyes.

"For what?"

"For teaching us all — especially me — that we all still have a lot of learning to do," Ms. Alvarez said.

"OK," Nicole replied, blushing at all the fuss being made. "But I'm the one who's way behind in my classes."

"Don't worry, Nikki," Mr. Richardson interceded with a big grin as he proudly patted the puff of blue on the top of his head. "We'll get you all caught up in no time."

" _And_ make sure you still get to go to the Homecoming football game and dance," Derek said, stealing her away from the adults for a warm hug. That's when Nicole forgot about the crowd for one brave moment and jumped at the chance to kiss the handsome boy in the blue wig. They locked lips just long enough to draw a huge cheer from everybody.

Everybody, that is, except Valerie Moore and Melanie Ferguson.

They both stayed home from school that Wednesday with mysterious, matching stomach ailments.

...

Adam immediately recognized that beat-up brown hiking boot with the red laces as if it were an old acquaintance. Sandwiched between the word "Wild" and the name "Cheryl Strayed" on a white cover, the boot now kicked him in the gut for opportunities wasted back when he was free to do whatever he wanted.

Despite telling police and prosecutors the truth about everything; despite agreeing to play the role of star witness in the upcoming trial of Thomas James "Lee" Harvey, and despite the fact that his father was dying of liver cancer, Adam still had to serve a one-year term at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord. The judge told him he was lucky that was all he got, plus seven years probation, for conspiracy to commit mass murder at a school. With credit for time already served and good behavior, Adam had a good chance to be released sometime in the summer of 2015.

In the meantime, while he was serving time, Adam took classes at the high school located within the prison complex. Correctional officers encouraged him to continue to work to achieve his high school diploma — even though he would never get to graduate with his fellow seniors at Lakeview Regional High School in June. He had no problem with that. How could he? Only a few months ago, Adam had fantasized about killing so many of those same students.

Now incarceration was his reality. He stood in the prison library and hovered over a cart of books waiting to be sorted. The same book Nicole had encouraged him to read again and again — to no avail — now stared him in the face once more. "From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail," the smaller title said beneath the much larger word "Wild."

Adam recalled Nicole talking about how the author felt lost after watching her mother die of cancer; how she turned to drugs and sex to ease the pain; how she felt alone in the world with no parents, no bearings, no direction; and how she ultimately found herself by trekking for hundreds of miles through the woods with a humongous pack she called "Monster." She set off with zero hiking experience and a pair of boots that tore the skin off her feet, but in the end, they transported her to a much happier place.

One of those well-worn boots tempted Adam now, daring him to reach out and try it on.

That's when he finally grabbed the book off the top of the cart, sat down at an empty table and began reading. Unbeknownst to the correctional officer observing the teen from 15 feet away, that simple action signaled the start of a new, much better chapter in the life of Adam Upton.

CHAPTER 23

### KEARSARGE NORTH

Nicole, Candace, Adam and Brody had hiked together for two miles since the three women dropped them off at the trail head on Hurricane Mountain Road. Lynn Barrett, Tracy Cooper and Donna Stanton — the paternal aunt of Adam and Brody — wanted to spend the day bargain hunting at nearby outlet stores. The air-conditioned aisles were far more comfortable and flat than the hot, steep trail the four teenagers had just ascended to reach the first band of ledges on Mount Kearsarge North. The 3,268-foot peak overlooked the resort town of North Conway, New Hampshire.

"Here's the beginning of what we just huffed and puffed for," said Nicole, wearing her No. 12 Patriots jersey as she pointed to an opening in the pine trees. "Follow me," she added, leading her small band of hikers toward a rocky outcropping.

"Wow!" Brody shouted, picking up his pace as the world opened up before his eyes into a breathtaking view to the south and west. "We're already up way higher than any skyscraper!"

"Wait until we get to the top," Nicole told him. "You'll be able to see like this in every direction."

"Yup, a 360-degree panorama," Candace agreed as she and Adam joined Nicole and Brody on the stony perch. "Plus there's a fire tower."

"Cool!" Brody said with a grin.

Nicole drifted over to some bushes and quickly found what she was looking for. "Come over here! Wild blueberries!" she shouted.

"Sweet!" Candace said, stooping to pick some and popping them in her mouth. "Small, but very juicy."

Adam and Brody soon did the same.

"They peak in July, but there's still a few now in early August," Nicole said with a grin before filling her mouth with blueberries.

Her smile soon faded while observing Adam's increasingly melancholy demeanor. Then she remembered why.

"Adam, come with me for a second," she said, waving him back toward the main trail and away from the ledge so they'd have a chance to talk in private.

Adam followed her and grabbed his backpack. The others had shed theirs near the ledge.

"What's wrong?" Nicole asked.

"I think this is the place I want to say goodbye," he said, his lips trembling as he held the strap on his pack tightly.

"Really? OK. It's a very beautiful spot," she assured him.

"I don't want to do it at the top," he said. "I want to enjoy that and this is going to be tough."

Nicole nodded and gave Adam a warm hug.

"Then that's what we're going to do," she said. "Candace knows, too. We just didn't know where you wanted to do it. Let's tell Brody."

Adam pulled the small navy blue urn out of a box inside his pack and they rejoined Candace and Brody by the ledge.

"Brody," Adam said. "It's time to say a final goodbye to Dad."

"What? What do you mean?" the lanky boy asked. His voice was deeper and he had grown three inches in the past year, but he hadn't gained much weight.

Somber yet resolute, Adam was ready to shed a different kind of weight.

"When I told Dad in the hospital that we'd be hiking up here this summer, he said he wanted his ashes scattered in the mountains ... and this is the perfect spot to send him off," Adam said.

Candace slowly stood up from her kneeling position amid the blueberry bushes and nodded respectfully as Brody tried to process it all. Nicole hugged the boy and guided him toward the ledge.

Adam solemnly removed the urn's lid and prepared to say farewell, but it quickly became apparent that he couldn't find the words until it was done. With tears in all of their eyes and the spritely call of the chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee filling their ears, Adam poured the ashes over the ledge and into the valley of pine trees below.

"Goodbye, Dad," Adam finally said, his voice choked with emotion. Somehow, he refused to cry. He was determined to remain strong for his brother.

The sun emerged from behind a cloud directly overhead as Brody repeated Adam's words in a whisper: "Goodbye, Dad."

Tears streamed down both of Nicole's cheeks. Candace wiped her eyes, too, as she helped Nicole prop Brody up with an arm around his other shoulder.

Adam knelt down to put the empty urn in the box. He slid the box back into his pack as it rested against a rock and then looked up at his brother. Immediately they both began sobbing. Adam quickly offered Brody his open arms as he stood back up. The brothers crashed into one another for a long, tight embrace and cried it all out. Nicole and Candace stepped back a few paces, held hands and gave the boys all the time they needed.

As much as Aunt Donna had done for them over the past few months and would continue to do in the future, no one could replace Gary Upton — the man who belatedly blossomed into the father Adam and Brody both desperately needed. It took liver cancer to bring that out of him, but cancer also came with a heavy price.

Nicole and Candace eventually approached the Upton brothers and wrapped them up in their arms for a final group hug. After a few moments, all of them felt a little better, and their packs seemed much lighter as they strapped them on for the final push to the summit.

"Let's go," Nicole said. "You men have your first mountain to climb. It doesn't count until you reach the top."

"Well then, Nikki, let's go," Adam said, forcing himself to smile through the pain as he followed her lead up the trail blazed with vertical rectangles of blue paint. Some could be seen on trees, others on rocks.

To Adam, they all looked like little blue doors of hope — and he was eager to walk through every last one of them.

...

When the four young hikers at last reached the rocky dome atop Kearsarge North, their heads and bodies seemed to rotate on an axis of exhilaration. Except for a few puffy clouds and a slight touch of afternoon haze, the view was clear and spectacular.

"See. This is the kind of high I like, Adam," Nicole said with a playful smirk before drawing in a big breath of fresh mountain air.

"Amazing!" Adam bellowed into a moderate breeze while Brody zestfully craned his neck toward the fire tower that loomed above them in the middle of it all. Four flights of wooden stairs led to a white square cabin with huge windows facing every vantage point. A tall, thin radio/cell tower was pinned to its side.

Kearsarge North's summit, once the site of a mountain-top hotel that burned at the turn of the 20th century, now features the last standing fire tower in the White Mountain National Forest.

"I want to see what it looks like from up there!" Brody pointed and yelled as he charged up the stairs with renewed energy. Adam, Nicole and Candace all laughed, especially when he tripped on the third step.

"Doesn't it figure that the boy who likes to pull fire alarms would be the first one up the fire tower," Candace quipped dryly. "I'll go make sure he doesn't fall off."

"We'll be up in a few," Nicole told her friend. "I want to show Adam around."

Nicole led Adam across several smooth rocks and pointed to the north, where Mount Washington presided over the entire mountain range with regal grandeur. "Stay in shape because next summer we're going to climb that ... Washington. It's about twice the elevation of this."

Adam nodded and smiled as he sized up the range's majestic signature peak. He honestly looked forward to the challenge.

"I can't believe how small everything looks from up here," he said, now peering into the lush, green valley below.

"That's why I love it up here," Nicole said, her brown-and-blue hair shining in the sun and dancing with each passing zephyr. "It puts everything in perspective. You quickly realize any problems you're having in your life at that moment are actually very small in the grand scheme of things."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. This is the big picture," Adam said, spreading his arms wide to embrace the panorama in front of him.

"It's the big picture until you look up at the stars on a clear night and realize that all of this," she said, sweeping her hand in front of the mountains, "is microscopic compared to the universe."

Adam shook his head and smiled. "You're always so deep, Nikki," he said.

"Am I?" she gasped, pretending to be taken aback by his observation.

"Thanks," he quickly added, almost too softly for Nicole to hear it, but she did. And she could tell he meant it.

"Thanks for what?" she asked, sensing an opening to truly communicate with this boy, who suddenly seemed more like a man.

"Where do I start? Where do I end? Thanks for being who you are, for getting shot trying to help me, for visiting me in jail, for being there when my father died, for being here with me today and showing me a place like this ... for getting me to finally read 'Wild,'" he concluded with a sheepish grin.

"Hold on a minute," she interrupted him with a playful gleam in her eyes. " _I_ didn't get you to read that book. _You_ read that on your own."

"You know what I mean, Nikki," he said.

"You'd prefer to go to prison, select the book there and _then_ read Strayed before acting on my literary suggestions straight-away," Nicole said in a mock British accent, before turning more serious. "I'm just glad you're reading, Adam ... and hiking ... and smiling ... and grieving for your Dad ... and _living_ through the ups and downs. You've really come a long way and you should be like totally proud of that. Aren't you?"

Adam raised his eyebrows, grinned and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said.

"Good," she said, giving him a friendly hug.

"Derek is a lucky guy," Adam said with a sudden lump in his throat.

"I know. And one day, sooner than you think, some girl will say she's lucky to have you ... and she'll be right," Nicole said confidently as a strapping man — with a pair of young, squinty-eyed boys in tow — approached them with a camera in his hand.

"I'll take your picture if you'll take ours," the man offered with a smile as wide as the view in front of them.

"Absolutely," Nicole replied, accepting the man's camera and snapping a photo of him and his sons standing on a smooth rock with Mount Washington looming in the background.

As chickadees whistled their whimsical song, echoing off the rocks and ferrying on the summer wind, the mountains held still and calmed Adam's soul. It all sounded, looked and felt like heaven as Nicole draped her arm across Adam's shoulder and they posed together to capture the moment.

The big man holding up Nicole's iPhone didn't have to tell Adam to smile. He already was. He had gone through hell and survived. And he was free — unlike his former friend, Thomas Harvey.

"Thanks ...," Nicole told the man, letting him fill the blank where his name should go.

"Vin," he said, offering a firm handshake to each of them.

"I'm Nikki and this is Adam," she said.

"Nice jersey," Vin said, nodding toward her Tom Brady shirt.

"Thanks."

"It's great to meet you guys and thanks for taking our picture," Vin said. "What a day to hike, huh?"

"What a day indeed," Nicole said, beaming as the man led his boys toward the fire tower. "Shouldn't we go to the absolute top, too, Adam?"

He savored her question, her friendly face, her lively blue eyes and her wild hair for a moment, and then he gazed up to see his brother and Candace waving at them from the glass windows of the tower's observation deck.

Adam waved back, patted Nikki on her shoulder and said, "Let's go!"

She followed him and up they went.

### THE END

OTHER BOOKS BY JACK CHAUCER

Revenge to the Tennth Power, 2018

Nikki White: Polar Extremes (Nikki #3), 2017

The Password Is Wishpers, 2017

Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble (Nikki #2), 2015

Streaks of Blue (Nikki #1), 2013

Queens are Wild, 2012

Freeway and the Vin Numbers, 2010

**ABOUT THE AUTHOR**

Jack Chaucer lives in Litchfield, Connecticut, with his wife and twin 8-year-olds. He is a 1991 journalism graduate of Marquette University and has worked in the newspaper industry for 29 years. His previous novels — the adult sci-fi thriller, "Queens are Wild," the YA drama, "Streaks of Blue," and its sequel, "Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble" — are available in paperback and e-book formats at major online retailers.

Photo by Christopher Massa

Connect with Jack Chaucer online at his blog:

queensarewild.wordpress.com

On Facebook:

facebook.com/jackchaucerbooks

On Goodreads:

goodreads.com/author/show/6445477.Jack_Chaucer

On Twitter:

@JackChaucer

On Instagram:

instagram.com/chaucersaucer22

