By the time we get to the warehouse, I’m a ball of fury. This is one of the reasons I got kicked out of school—oh, sorry, asked to “take a leave of absence.” Last year, before she said those words, Rose-Brady told me she’d given me second…third…tenth chances (her words, not mine), but they just couldn’t risk letting me stay in school. I was a loose cannon (again, her stupid words); I was going off on people too often. Plus, every time I took a test, sat through a lecture, walked by that fucking boarded-up entrance to the band room…every time, I felt another little piece of what was left of my soul die. The hilarious part is, I got asked to leave only a few weeks before the administration decided that Carter was too full of anger and ghosts and shut it down forever.

Lucy and I walk into the warehouse and find ourselves in a long, narrow hallway lit by bright overhead fluorescent lights. The noises of instruments pile on top of each other, creating a cacophony. It’s the first time I’ve heard live instruments since that day. I haven’t played my trumpet. I don’t even know where it is. The last time I saw it was in that room, before I got up to find an extra music stand, leaving it behind. Leaving so much behind.

I don’t know what they did with it, and I haven’t asked. I don’t want to know.

“Where are we going?” I put my hands over my ears to block out the sounds. It’s so loud in here I can barely think. I want to punch the wall.

“This way.” She takes off down the hallway to the right. I stuff my hands into my pockets and follow her, head down. About halfway down the hall, something hard hits my shoulder and I’m thrown off balance. I look up and see some kid with one of those annoying hipster haircuts. He’s lugging a trumpet case—a fucking trumpet case—which must be what hit me. We make eye contact, and every atom of my body clenches tight. A bolt of anger shoots through my gut. What the fuck? Who the hell does he think he is, hitting me and then taking off without an apology? There’s no way I’m going to let him get away with that shit.

I turn to him as he’s passing me and shove him face-first into the wall without a second thought, every ounce of fury I’ve buried over the past week—the past month—the past YEAR—bubbling up fast and hard, white and hot and blinding.