u mean now?

now.

u ok?

you want to do this or not?

A pause. He wrote:

Gimme 30 min. i gotta say bye 2 mommers.

I’ll get the money.

She reached her locker, pulled out her backpack and gym bag, looked for anything she might need. She grabbed an extra lip balm. A pack of gum. She would ask KT everything when they were safely across the county line, she told herself. Maybe when they hit New Mexico. Maybe never.

She shut her locker and saw Bethany Tanner standing a few feet away, watching her with an ugly mix of anger and concern. Sweet fuck, the girl looked so exhausted even the sequins of her singlet seemed to have dulled. Bethany had spent every minute since her loud confession in the parking lot yesterday morning doing her best to preserve her reputation. Considering the fact she was walking the halls alone, without Jasmine, her trusty sidekick, Kimbra suspected Bethany’s efforts hadn’t been successful. Things at the top of the pyramid didn’t look good.

“We’re waiting for you,” Bethany said.

Kimbra tossed her lock into her bag. “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving?” Bethany took a step forward. “You can’t leave. This is the biggest day of the fucking season.”

“Watch me.”

Kimbra didn’t have time for Bethany anymore. If she wanted to dance and cheer while boys were getting killed and running away and telling lies about her father then Bethany could—

She grabbed Kimbra’s arm.

“You have a job to do.”

Jesus Christ. Kimbra dropped her bag and brought her heel down on Bethany’s foot, twisted when the girl squealed and tossed her into a locker. The metal boomed through the empty hall. Bethany released her.

It was almost satisfying—Kimbra had wanted to give Bethany Tanner a nice shiner for years. She took a quick step away, out of Bethany’s reach, but Tanner made no move to grab her again. The girl only stared at Kimbra, rubbed the back of her head. For the first time in her life, Kimbra saw Bethany on the verge of tears.

B-B-Benny spoke briefly in her mind. Fine. Kimbra would be a good person. “If you want to be useful for once in your life, tell Luke Evers not to go tonight, wherever he’s going,” she told Bethany. “Tell him it’s dangerous.”

And with that, Kimbra turned on her heel and strode away. For once, finally, she had had the last word.

JOEL

He retraced his route toward town and checked his phone for news from Clark. No messages, no service. Fifteen minutes earlier, Ranger had refused to say another word. Whatever had motivated him to reveal so much to Joel—spite or revenge against this town or a desire to see justice done for Jason—had run dry as abruptly as it had sprung up. The man had screwed his mouth shut, stared at the television, played with his beer, not even glancing up when Joel had slipped from the shack without saying goodbye.

So where did that leave him? He had gone to Ranger’s to discover one thing: whether KT had been lying and Dylan had been involved in drugs after all. Joel had harbored a long shot theory that perhaps, if Dylan had been murdered because of KT’s involvement with narcotics, then Garrett Mason, KT’s apparent business partner, might have been involved in the murder—that boy with his big bruised fist sure seemed to have plenty to hide. Perhaps, Joel had thought, Garrett Mason might even have been the boy KT had spoken of Dylan traveling to the coast with; it sounded absurd, certainly, but what else did he have to go on?