Open my eyes and stare without seeing for a time, the jack-o’-lanterns not really coming into focus until the wind sends another blast through my clothes, jolting me. I’m directly across from Moon’s creation, an oblong-shaped pumpkin carved with giant, joyful features. There’s more rot showing now, black mold stealing like a rash across the orange shells, each pumpkin beginning a slow collapse into itself.

My gaze travels past the gap where Ivy’s once sat, to Kincaid’s, like a neat, rounded skull, shaped by decay and the elements.

But the next space is empty. My jack-o’-lantern is gone.

I head home, not really feeling safe until I pass the usual dump sites and know that I’m only minutes from the trailhead. I keep seeing the place where my jack-o’-lantern used to be, hearing Kincaid’s words, that some partyers must’ve knocked Ivy’s off the bridge, that other people go out there all the time, do their own share of vandalizing.

Slog, slog, up the hill of the Terraces. I’m envisioning our futon, TV, whatever’s left of the ice cream in the freezer, being a completely selfish waste who doesn’t worry about anybody, when my senses give me one second’s warning. The sound of metal chains working through gears, the zing of air through spokes. I look up. The hoodies, coming at me.

“Christmas Barf. All alone.” Green Hood, doing a half-standing pedal, letting the incline bring him toward me. “No friends.” Behind him, Blue Hood drops against his handlebars, fake-weeping. “Where’s the bitch and the hottie today?”

I fix Green with a flat stare, keep walking toward our unit.

He snorts. “What’re you looking at, you shitty-haired freak?”

“A douchebag on a little girl’s bike.” I don’t slow down.

Green Hood’s expression darkens, reminding me of when Bree slammed his wheel with her foot—oh, right; bruised ego, score to settle, all that—but the words are out. No time to do anything but flinch back as he drops to the seat, blowing by me, snagging my backpack as he goes.

I curse, spinning before he pulls me over, yanking free of the strap even though my whole everything’s in that bag—then Blue Hood slams into me from behind, forearm like a crowbar across my shoulder blades, sending me down.

Pain. Above me, laughter, more of those metallic, bladelike bicycle sounds as they circle above me on the slope so they can charge again. I get up at a run. They swoop after me—one glimpse of them standing on pedals, suddenly huge, grizzlies on their hind legs.

I try to dart across a yard. Green Hood cuts me off—“Nope, sorry”—and I throw my elbow into him, hitting bone. More pain shoots up into my shoulder, and he swears, almost pitching over.