“Do your teachers remember your name?”

“Did you like your fortune?”

I give him a long look, showing him that I’m onto him, his whole shtick; that maybe Bree isn’t the only one who spends their whole day defending personal barricades. I know he was hiding from us in the darkness last night, just out of reach. Which, if you ask me, is way weirder than the stalking ever was. “I think it was meant for you.”

“You’re still not seeing it.” He leans forward, and I’m close enough to make out sunbursts around his pupils, some cracks of gold in those murky irises—and we’re right back in the marsh, him holding me, me reaching out with my eyes shut. “No mistakes in this world. Not for us. You opened that fortune; it was meant for you.”

Us—as in me and him? “You don’t even know what it said.”

He scratches his elbow, pushing up his sleeve to examine a scab there. Road rash; I guess even he wipes out on his board sometimes. “Destiny. Responsibility. Pretty soon, the universe is gonna test you, and you better be ready.”

I drop my hands to the table, staring. That cookie was vacuum-sealed; I remember the puff of vanilla-scented air escaping when I ripped it open. It takes me a second to say, “Oh my God. You know what you are? I just figured it out.”

His whole face lights up—genuine, intense interest blasting away the perma-stoned soothsayer act—and for the first time I see how deeply bored he usually is, with school, maybe with all of us.

Of course, everybody chooses that moment to reach the table, trays and soda cans touching down. “Fellow vandals,” Trace greets us.

“Told you.” Bree looks at Sage. “Insufferable.”

“I can’t believe we’re sitting at this table again.” Trace bites the head off a flaccid burrito, his tone low. “Anybody ask you guys about it?” We all say no. “Nobody acting suspicious?”

“Everybody’s suspicious,” Bree says. “Not necessarily of us.”

“Nice. Should’ve heard Spicer in shop this morning.” Trace screws his face up, sobs out, “‘They broke my mom’s birdfeeder, man!’” We laugh. Trace nods at me. “Anybody ask Clarabelle about the other thing?”

And this is it. I can feel it. The dark and massive thing I’ve sensed riding my back since morning; stretching, blocking out all light, some huge black bat at full wingspan, jaws lowering down on my head—not just our stupid Saturday night prank, but something hungry and idiotic and cruel, and it’s starting. It’s starting right now.

My voice is separate from my body: “What?”

“You didn’t hear, huh.” Trace’s coyote eyes widen. “Toxic Twins.” Nods toward the cool table. “Ivy ran away Thursday night. Guidance and the cops are asking around to see if anybody knows anything.”