And try to fit in, Piper thought.

“I’ll show you your place,” Jada said. “It’s smaller than ours but it’s okay.” She pointed to one of the three doors that opened off the small, square hallway. “That door goes to the club. There used to be, like, an Italian restaurant where Spiral is now.” She indicated the door in front of them. “Me and my mom live there. It’s not as nice as our place was in St.Louis, but Mom wanted to leave, and Coop invited her to move in here. My dad died in a car wreck when I was nine. He was a private trainer for a while, and him and Coop were, like, best friends. Coop paid for his funeral and everything.”

“That’s tough. I lost my mom when I was young, too.”

“So did Coop. This is your place.” Nerf gun at her side, she headed toward the farthest door and twisted the knob. It was unlocked.

The space wasn’t big, but it was decent, with mustard walls, parquet floors from the seventies, and a pair of small windows that looked down over the alley behind the club. A white Formica counter separated the modest kitchen from the living area, which had a matching moss-colored couch and recliner as well as a couple of oak end tables and lamps.

“The bedroom is the best part.” Jada disappeared through the opposite door.

Was it ever. Piper stopped just inside to take it in. Most of the space was occupied by a king-size bed with a padded headboard and off-white duvet. The opposite wall held a large flat-screen TV. A state-of-the-art electronic charging station occupied a bedside table, and a pair of funnel-shaped pendant lights hung from the ceiling on each side of the bed.

“Wow.”

“Coop sleeps here sometimes.”

Not anymore, he doesn’t, Piper thought.

“He likes to be comfortable,” Jada explained.

“No kidding.” Piper sat on the end of the bed and felt the cushy support of an expensive foam mattress.

Jada, picking at some already tortured black nail polish, gazed with longing at the iPad in the docking station. “Coop is really rich.”

“Rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Piper said, which was a total lie.

“I guess.”

“Tell me about the Pius Assassins.”

Jada pushed a long lock of hair behind her ear. “It started a couple of days ago. It’s kind of like a class bonding exercise for all us sophomores.”

“Those nuns get zanier every year.”

“The teachers don’t really like it, but as long as we don’t bring Nerfs on school property there’s nothing they can do about it. Everybody in the sophomore class who wanted to play had to pay, like, five dollars. We have a hundred twenty kids in our class and ninety-two signed up.”

“And the goal is...”

“Be the last person standing.”