Isn’t my life amazing now?

I’M SHRINKING, JOLLY.

I’m shrinking.

I’m shrinking.

And Daphne

gets

bigger.

Dana bought a gun.

The girls (Kit, Natasha, Emily, Dana, Beck) are behind Samhattan High when Dana shows them.

“I’m not fucking around,” she says. “This is a pattern now.”

It is. Detective McGowan called it the same thing when she spoke to their parents. Said that between the two basketball players and the stolen team photo, all members of the team (girls, for now) are on complete lockdown. Curfew. All must be watched until this man is caught.

Detective McGowan still thinks it’s a man.

Melanie’s mom, Julia Jack, has no answers for what happened. She told McGowan and the other officers she’d heard Mel calling from upstairs and so the man must’ve already been up there. Julia has no idea how this happened. There is no sign of a break-in, no sign of a struggle, except, of course, her daughter, whose arm was removed and used against her own head. The window in Melanie’s bedroom wasn’t even opened.

McGowan, the girls can tell, is lost. They don’t need to see her face to know so.

“We can’t look to the police for security,” Dana says. “Look how easily we got together, here, now.”

“Okay,” Emily says. “Listen, I get that. But this…this is dangerous too.”

“Is it?” Dana asks.

They’re all eyeing the gun she holds. It looks different from how they thought it would. And it’s impossible not to imagine it going off.

“What are you going to do with it?” Kit asks.

“I’m gonna go to sleep with it,” Dana says. “And I’m gonna wake up with it too.”

Someone’s coming from around the corner of the school.

Dana bobbles the gun. The others don’t know if she’s thinking to hide it or use it.

Stewart, Brandon, and Little Richard step into view.

“Who the fuck told you we’d be here?” Dana asks.

Stewart looks to Beck. The lanky sophomore-to-be averts his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake,” Natasha says. “You didn’t think we could handle a conversation about protection without them?”

“Dude,” Beck says. “We need everyone we can get.”

“Fuck that,” Natasha says.

“Hey,” Brandon says, uncharacteristically (and for that, frighteningly) serious. “We’re freaked out too.”

“If you don’t want us here, we can go,” Stewart says. He means it.

Dana eyes the boys. Gives in.

“Whatever.”

“Everyone’s looking for the guy,” Richard says. “Like…everyone. People from out of town, all over. Chaps, Goblin. Farther than that even. This shit is scary.”

It’s true: Samhattan doesn’t feel like Samhattan anymore.

Stewart looks to Dana’s gun. “Where’d you get it?”

“Dawn Pawn.”

“Seriously?” Brandon asks. “They sold you that? You’re underage.”

He reaches for it and Dana pulls it away.

“You sure it’s not a toy?” he asks.

“Fuck you,” Dana says.

“Seriously. They wouldn’t sell you a real gun, Dana. They can’t. Does it even go off?”

She brings it forward again. The boys gather closer. Little Richard shakes his head.