“You know who lives on this street?” Trace, suddenly incensed. “That toolbox Spicer. Assface Spicer.”

“Good name,” I say. “‘I dub thee Assface.’”

“Freakin’ chumbait turned me in for putting plastic wrap over the locker room toilets and making Nick Humboldt piss on his new Jordans. Goddamn it.”

“Did you do it?” I say.

“Obviously. But he didn’t have to say anything.” A long silence, broken again by Trace: “See, now, that is wrong.”

We’ve come to a full stop in front of a house like the others, a small porch with rocking chairs, pots of mums. “You can’t put them out there naked.” He’s staring at the pumpkins on the steps, scraping his thumbnail musingly across his chin. “The whole point of pumpkins is making jack-o’-lanterns. The whole point of making jack-o’-lanterns is smashing them. What the hell’s the matter with these people?” He releases a pent-up breath. “I really want to steal one now.”

Sage glances over, checks his expression, looks back at the houses with a soft laugh. “Mumbler’s gonna get ya.”

“I’ll do it,” Bree says.

“The Mumbler”—Trace cups the back of Sage’s neck, rubs the muscles there—“would pin a medal on me.”

“I said, I’ll do it,” Bree says.

Trace locks eyes with her in the rearview. Bree unbuckles her seat belt, shoves the straps aside. Drawing six guns.

His gaze goes to the driveway: no car, but the garage door is closed. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s see it.”

Bree shoves her door open, sprints around the tailgate, up the steps, and grabs the first pumpkin she sees. A second’s hesitation, then she bundles the other four into her arms, a huge load she can barely see over, almost dropping them as she runs for the car.

I make room so she can spill into the backseat, pumpkins tumbling all over the floor as Trace stomps the gas and we sail off down the street, cab full of our disbelieving laughter. Bree’s pretty like I’ve never seen her, laughing so hard she can’t breathe, released.

Eight

IT’S WILD NIGHT, Thirsty Thursday, and the drinking starts as soon as we get to the skate park, tiny fifty-milliliter bottles of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky sold at a slight markup from Trace’s brown bag in exchange for crumpled ones and fives. Bottles vanish into pockets, cup easily inside hands, the bloodred demon on the label breathing flame down everyone’s throats but mine, so I’m digging in my backpack for change even though I know I’ve got supper with Dad in a few hours. Just want to blend, and it’s not like I’m planning on getting sloshed or anything.