“Sheriff Kahn says Tatum complained about you,” I say. Poor Monty. “According to Tatum, you wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“Yeah, well, I was just trying to get her to listen.” A hoot of laughter from the group of high schoolers seems to startle him.

I know that kind of laughter: like the hooting of an owl sighting a mouse. Sharp. Predatory.

“Listen to what?”

He looks away. A muscle tightening in and out across his jaw. “It was nothing. Some stupid game with her friends. But they aren’t her friends. They don’t give a shit about her.”

The Game. A bad feeling scratches my neck. Probably coincidence. But still. “What kind of game?”

But Monty feels the currents changing. Despite his size, despite his football jersey, in Barrens, Monty isn’t a hawk, but a mouse: and like all prey everywhere, he knows when there’s danger in the air. The black mass of high schoolers is restless, shifting, swelling with sudden sound. “Look,” he says, and I can tell he’s impatient now. “It was just some stupid-ass game with some older dudes, piece-of-shit nobody suckfaces. But Sheriff Kahn didn’t ask them, did he? Just because they got flashy cars and tighty-whities.” He shakes his head. “I was just trying to help her. I was just trying to—”

He breaks off suddenly, as the mass of kids lobs a single word in our direction, again and again. Freak. Freak. Freak.

“Tatum’s friends,” he says, in a strangled voice. Then: “I gotta go.”

He takes off to the parking lot at a half jog, sticking as close to the gym as possible, head down, as if he might slide by, invisible. Not that easy. Never that easy: a water bottle misses his head by inches, then an empty beer can, clattering off the side of the gym just as he disappears around the corner.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“You should be careful, miss.”

I’m not sure who says it. Turning, for a second I’m not even sure the comment was meant for me, but then a shadow comes toward me. A girl. With the calm air of all beautiful girls, as if the world is pouring toward them and they only have to stand there and wait. She repeats: “You should be careful.”

“What are you talking about?” I say.

There’s a pause. She picks her way across the grass, wobbling a little; she’s drunk, or maybe just having trouble finding her footing in the dark.

She stops a good twenty feet from me, edging into the light.

I recognize the waterfall of blond hair. Wide-spaced blue eyes. A face uncannily like Kaycee’s.

“I said you should be careful,” she repeats. “He might kill you. He might burn you to death.” When I say nothing, she adds: “He carries bombs in his backpack. He acts normal but his head is all screwed up.”

“Who?” I ask automatically.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” is all she says, and turns away.

“Sophie.” She freezes when I call her name. “Sophie Nantes, right?”