“How far away is this place?” Jessica asked.

“Pretty far out,” Rex said. “Even from Dess’s, you can barely make it there and back in an hour on a bike.”

“What about flying?”

Rex’s jaw dropped, and then his eyes turned coldly toward Dess. She sighed and spread her hands with a little shrug. There was no hope of avoiding blame. Rex knew that Melissa would never have told Jonathan where Jess lived. For that matter, if Dess hadn’t blabbed, Jonathan might not even have guessed that there was a new midnighter in town. She tried to look sheepish.

But inwardly Dess smiled. Occasionally Rex needed to be reminded that nobody had elected him seer.

He gathered himself and turned back toward Jessica.

“It’s too dangerous. You two alone, out in the badlands—you’d be flying right into a death trap.”

“Yeah,” Jessica admitted, “it was pretty bad last night. And we barely went past the edge of town.”

“You went past—?” Rex bristled again but kept himself in check. “We’ll think of something else,” he said. “Some way to get you there before midnight.”

“Exactly where is this lore site, anyway?” Jessica asked.

Dess watched Rex carefully and thought she saw a moment of pleasure as he answered, now that he had another reason for Jessica Day to be scared of midnight.

“It’s called the snake pit.”

18

11:06 A.M.

NOTORIOUS

On Monday morning it didn’t take long to find out where Jonathan had spent the rest of the weekend. Jessica didn’t believe it at first—it sounded too much like a rumor to be the truth—but his empty desk and the stares in second-period physics said it all.

It was true. He was in jail, and it was all her fault.

There were a lot of versions circulating, but everyone seemed to know that Jonathan had been busted in the company of Jessica Day. She had gone from new girl to bad girl in record time. Most people seemed surprised to see Jessica here in school, as if they expected her to be rotting away in her own jail cell. She caused a stir everywhere she went, with everyone (except those few clueless teachers who were eternally immune to gossip) wanting to know what had happened.

Thankfully, Constanza came to her rescue, shepherding Jessica between her morning classes and filling her in.

“It’s like this: Someone’s aunt, or mother, works as a dispatcher, or deputy, in the sheriff’s department and was there on Saturday night when Jonathan was brought in. News travels fast in Bixby. What were you guys doing, anyway?”

“Just walking.”

Constanza nodded. “Breaking curfew. That’s what I figured. But some people are saying that you got busted for breaking into a car, or a drugstore, or both.”

“None of the above. But why did they take me home and him to jail?”