And to Jordan, who believed I could write about them

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

Lord Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib” (1815)

CHAPTER ONE

Vera

A darkness surged through Roaring Creek, casting a shadow upon its modest homes and oozing onto Vera Martinez’s hands—and it all began, at least for her, the day that Maxwell Oliver’s pale brown eyes turned her way.

He was staring.

Vera flipped a fistful of curls in front of her face and pretended not to notice. This was an unfamiliar situation. Boys never looked at Vera, and certainly not like this.

She opened an eight-hundred-page novel, reduced to the five-inch screen on her phone, and pretended to read. Discreetly, she scratched her scalp with a nail chipped of black polish and let her gaze slip between her wavy strands. Yup, he was still looking.

“All right, class!” Ms. Spuhler cleared her throat to begin their last day of eleventh-grade English. “Settle down.” The teacher grabbed the TV remote, the only tool necessary on the final day of classes.

Roaring Creek High School had the feel of an iPhone powering down one app at a time. Science teachers cleaned lab equipment, jocks threw out ratty sneakers, and theater kids sobbed over the end of another magical season. Vera, however, was the app that no one clicked. She was “Keynotes” or “Numbers,” an icon you couldn’t delete due to manufacturer settings but was rarely engaged.

So why was Maxwell Oliver suddenly taking notice?

“We’ll be picking up Jane Eyre right where we left off,” said Ms. Spuhler. So far today, Vera had watched Saving Private Ryan in AP History; Hidden Figures in precalculus; and now Jane Eyre in Advanced English.

He’s not looking at me, she reasoned. Then, because she had to prove herself right, Vera glanced at the window behind her, expecting to see a flying squirrel or mating robins drawing Maxwell’s attention. But there was nothing. Not even a breeze.

Her brow furrowed. Vera and Maxwell had never spoken, not directly, or at least if they had, she couldn’t remember it. They’d never been partners on a project or run into each other at the beach. To say they moved in different social circles would imply that Vera had a circle, which she didn’t. Unless you counted her family, and that was just sad. Vera preferred to be thought of as sans-circle. The loner. The outcast. The…well, all the other names that people called her.

Her parents had unconventional careers, the kinds that caused dog walkers to cross the street when they passed the Martinez home and mothers to refuse to let their children go over for playdates. Vera had long since accepted this, because what other choice did she have? Hating her reality would mean hating her mom and dad, and she refused to go there.