I sink onto the nearest bench and set my backpack on the floor, prepared to wait out the rest of sixth period. My gaze lands on the freshly painted red wall—Cougar Crimson!—then slides down to the white metal lockers in front of me. Huh. These are the same dented, beat-up lockers we used when I was a freshman. Beneath my feet, the concrete floor is still cracked and chipped in places.

Some renovation.

Over the summer, the boys’ locker room was updated with new lockers and benches, upgraded showerheads, and a slip-resistant floor treatment. Jake talked about it for weeks. But it looks like all the girls’ facilities got was a new coat of paint.

Oh. And shower curtains. Three stalls stand at the end of the main aisle of lockers, and their new white vinyl curtains are notably missing the greenish mottling of mildew at the bottom that kept everyone out of the showers when I was a freshman. So at least there’s that.

A smear of red catches my eye on the floor of the left-hand shower. Paint dripped on the tile.

No, wait. It’s thin and watery, and entirely the wrong shade of red.

I head down the aisle, and when I squat in front of the empty shower stall, I realize the paint isn’t paint at all. It looks like blood, diluted when someone tried to wash it down the drain. Which is still dripping …

What the hell?

Another red drop catches my eye, to the left of the shower. Then another. I follow the trail until I round the end of the bank of lockers to find a duffel bag lying abandoned on the grimy concrete floor, in the aisle not visible from the locker room door.

The main cylinder of the bag is crimson, with “Cougars” written in blocky white letters along both sides. The ends are white, and they each have the school’s emblem screen printed in crimson in the center: the silhouette of a cougar’s head, its maw open in a roar, with the words “Clifford High School” forming a ring around it.

There’s something sticking up out of the open duffel. I step closer, then I stumble to a shocked halt.

It’s a hand. A tiny, tiny little red hand.

And it isn’t moving.

Chapter Two

TWO

The locker room door squeals when I shove it open. My shoes squeak on the gym floor.

The basketball guys are still standing there, right outside the guys’ locker room, and now Jake is with them, but my gaze skips right over them this time.

“Coach Killebrew!” I shout at the only other person in the gym.