Most of the people here tonight have never been in this building before. Half the school was rebuilt after the blast on New Year’s Eve, so the gym is not the same one where their classmates were murdered. That’s good enough for them to pretend. For the reunion, they get to inhabit a fake memory where nothing bad ever happened and they were just like any other high school class. There’s a DJ, and streamers and banners from the ceiling, and big, poster-sized blowups of old yearbook photos, and flat screens showing nineties music videos in each corner. It’s like they’re living in a rerun of an old TV show.

It helps that there are three open bars. As soon as you finish your complimentary plastic cup of beer or wine, you’re no more than five steps from a refill. (There are also big, serve-yourself tubs filled with ice and bottles of Zima, for old times’ sake.) People smile a bit too widely and laugh a little too loud. Everyone does their very best to put the past behind them.

The gym is packed, even though the weather is terrible. A light rain in the evening has turned into a full summer storm. There are tornado warnings in neighboring counties, and the sky has a weird green tinge as the sun sets.

But people make the same jokes over and over about “building an ark” and “nice weather we’re having” and so on.

They’re happy to see each other. Most of them.

Alana shows up alone and unarmed. She can feel the burn around her wrist throbbing with a steady pulse, reminding her of her agreement with Colchester. Alana doesn’t know exactly what will happen.

But she knows it would be cowardice to be anyplace else.

So she’s at the reunion, even though there’s no one she wants to catch up with. The closest she ever came to having friends in high school was Carrie and Danny and Eric, and they’ve already said everything they need to say about tonight.

There are people who want to speak to her. Fuller sees her come in through the doors and gives her a long look up and down like she’s wearing lingerie instead of a pantsuit. “Damn,” he says. “I always knew you had a body under there.”

Yeah, she remembers. He used to leave crusty tissues in an envelope in her locker with a note: I DID THIS WHILE THINKING OF YOU.

She steps closer to him, and he flinches, then hurries away. She considers chasing him, making him run, but heads to the nearest bar instead.

Alana gets a cup of wine, finds a quiet spot off the center of the floor and waits.

She sees Carrie across the gym. Their eyes meet. Carrie raises her glass. Alana does the same, and despite herself, smiles. Then the crowd blocks her view.