“They forget that the guys who did this were born here.” Javier’s mouth twists.

Miranda finds herself saying what she’s been thinking for a few months. “Sometimes I think that they weren’t really completely wrong about everything.” She waves her hand at the throngs of shoppers. “It can’t all be about buying stuff. Our priorities are sort of wrong.”

“Their priorities weren’t any better. Conspiracy theories.” Grace shifts uncomfortably, as if remembering how she agreed with Cole about some things. “Killing people to make their point. Or that McKinley guy, pretending that he had a cause, when really all he wanted was millions in gold.”

Karl McKinley, the one the others called Kilo, is still at large. Miranda figures with that much gold you could buy the best fake ID in the world. Buy yourself plastic surgery to make your face match your new papers.

“What do you think our priorities should be, then?” Javier asks.

“Maybe this sounds corny,” Miranda says slowly, “but I think it all comes down to love. Loving people. Doing what you love.” Miranda started a Narcotics Anonymous group at school and is thinking about being a counselor when she’s older. Maybe she can help people figure out how to fill the hole inside them without stuffing it with pills or food or alcohol.

A woman in a pink turtleneck stands up from a table of other middle-aged women and ventures over to their table. “You’re those kids, aren’t you? The ones who took this place back from the killers.” Her gaze is avid. Miranda feels her stomach curdle.

With each passing day, the public story gets simpler. Cole was never their friend. And the other hostages, even the one Parker nicknamed Heels, never fought back. Leaving only a band of plucky teens to save the day.

It’s Miranda who finally nods. She’s relieved when the other woman just says solemnly, “Thank you,” before leaving. Then she tries to ignore how the other four women at the table openly stare, nudge each other, whisper, and snap pictures with their phones.

“So what about you, Miranda?” Grace asks. “How are you doing?”

She thinks a bit before answering. She sees her dad more often than she did before. Her mom has a tendency to hug her too tight and to want to talk about things, which Miranda has sort of grown to like. Her grades have gotten better. And she hasn’t seen or talked to Matthew since the night it all happened.

“Still off Oxy, if you’re wondering about that. It hasn’t been easy.” She had admitted her addiction to them when she was in the hospital, when she refused to let the doctors give her anything, not even Advil. “But I went through the worst of the withdrawal here in the mall, when we were together.”