“I refuse to be a homewrecker.”

“Gotta draw a line somewhere.”

“Speaking of drawing lines . . . Madison asked about you. Like two minutes ago. It was weird.”

The pan clanged as Carter dropped the scalpel. “Awesome,” he said, with the tone of someone who did not think it was awesome at all.

“Why?”

Carter jotted something in his notebook.

“Oh, come on, Carter. She’s hot A.F.”

Checking to make sure Mr. Kendrick wasn’t coming over, Carter pulled out his phone and called up his recent texts.

He’d received a string of about twenty. From Madison. Each insinuating how hot she thought Carter was, and each insinuating exactly what she wanted to do about it.

“Why didn’t you respond?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? None of these have my name in them. She probably sent these, unsolicited, to other guys too.” Carter strapped on exam gloves. “I’m surprised you didn’t get them yourself.”

I scrolled through them again. “The detail in these is impressive,” I said. “I’m jealous. I can confirm I’ve never received romantic texts from her that were this vivid.”

“But you have gotten them from her.”

“What’s your point?”

“Never mind.” Carter skimmed our instructions. He picked up the scalpel and gave me a pinky-sized pair of forceps. “It wants us to see how the brain affects this little guy’s organs and stuff too. We’re going to have to do a full dissection.”

“Goody.”

“And we need the intestines to stay intact. We can’t blow through them like last time.”

“I don’t recall that being my fault.”

“Mags.”

“I don’t recall that being entirely my fault.”

Carter sliced through the skin on the rat with one fluid movement. Future surgeon, everyone. I got to help him cut off the parts that would get in the way. This was usually the part when the people who were going to faint, fainted.

“Ewwww,” chorused around the room as our classmates performed the same part.

“I have a better angle,” I said, taking the scalpel. I had to be careful to keep the rat’s muscles intact. That had screwed us over before.

This was serious business.

“That, like,” said Carter, “made me want to take a hundred showers.”

“I’m actually doing okay with the scalpel.”

“No,” he said. “Madison’s messages.” Carter drummed on the table. He reclaimed the scalpel, unable to stay still. “Was that sexual harassment? I think I’m going crazy.”

Uh-oh. Carter broke.

Well, not totally broke. Was scratched. It would take something much bigger than Madison sliding into his DMs for him to really lose it.

The other tables continued on, not a care in the world but the dead animal slowly rotting before them, already accustomed to the smell. Mr. Kendrick, our six-foot, washed-out teacher, hated sunshine and joy and had put up light-blocking curtains. He claimed they would keep important equipment from being affected by the sun. Mostly the curtains made biology class a perpetually somber affair.

Of course, students knew the truth. I’d originally heard it from a senior on the soccer team when I was a freshman, who’d heard it when he was a freshman. Mr. Kendrick, a legendary vampire, actually guarded the school at night and protected it from the other vampires of North Cassidy. It wasn’t an easy job, and many students are sacrificed, but someone had to do it.