“Is she the one who got you into art?” asked a somber girl with a long ponytail.

“Not really. It was always an interest of mine. But once she realized that I loved it and I might be good at it, she did everything she could to support me, and now she’s trying to foster your love of art by having me come back to teach you what I’ve learned. Are you interested?”

All the other kids readily agreed. Only Jaden still seemed skeptical.

“Well?” Seth said, focusing on him.

He toyed with the various pieces of his chess set. “If I go to your class, will I get to create for a living, like you do?”

“You can do whatever you want for a living. It’s possible you won’t need me to make it in the industry. But why not take the help I’m here to offer you?”

The tension in the boy’s shoulders eased. “Okay. I’m in.”

Seth went over some of the basic things he’d be teaching. Most were happy to hear there’d be no tests, just projects that would be due by certain deadlines. “I’ll assign your grade, but we will have peer reviews as well,” Seth said. “As an artist, it’s important to learn how what you create affects others and how you can improve. It’s also important to separate yourself from your work.”

They each signed a contract Aiyana had created, which stated that in order to attend the class they would keep up their other grades, and they turned those in on their way out.

“Well?” Aiyana said after the last one left.

“I think it’s going to be an interesting class,” Seth told her.

“You’ve never taught before. Are you comfortable with what’s ahead of you?”

He thought about Jaden and what’d held him back in the past. His reluctance to experience the pain he’d feel for some of these kids hadn’t gone anywhere. But now there was something bigger to counteract it: his desire to teach Jaden and others like him how to express themselves in a much healthier way. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

Tia’s palms were sweating by the time she opened the door for Officer Crocker. “Would you like to come in?” she asked nervously.

He cleared his throat as he stepped inside. “I’m sorry to bother you again. I honestly didn’t anticipate having to come back.”

She hadn’t expected to see him again, either. “What’s going on?”

His chest lifted as he hitched up his gear belt. “I’m afraid we’ve got a problem.”

The last thing she needed was another problem. “And that is...”

He peered closer at her. “You don’t know?”

“How would I?” she asked, spreading out her hands.

“What did Seth look like when he came home last night?”