I first met Taylor during freshman orientation, when I’d been wandering the halls alone while looking for my classes. From that moment onward, she’d decided to take me under her wing because we were both wearing the same shirt from American Apparel, and decided to teach me everything she already knew about the social scene at JFK. Without her, I would have been totally lost—literally, figuratively, and most certainly socially. Now, more than two years later, we were still best friends, and I was still content to hang out in Taylor’s social-butterfly shadow.

“Why do you have that weird look on your face?” Taylor asked as we followed the throng of people through the front doors.

I glanced away from a group of teachers huddled together in the hallway by the front office, their heads together, whispering, and frowned at Taylor. “What look?”

She rolled her eyes and gave me a nudge with her elbow. “Never mind. Are you ready for that test in American Government today? I can barely understand what Monroe’s talking about half the time, and I swear, it’s totally pointless that we even know how many cabinet members there are or whatever, and I—Hadley, are you even listening to me?”

My focus was drawn to the pair of uniformed police officers located down the hallway from my locker, standing with the principal, Ms. Greene. By the stiff, grim expressions on their faces, I guessed they must have been talking about something highly unpleasant. But what would have brought the police to our high school?

“I’m sorry, Taylor, I’m just . . .” I couldn’t come up with a word to describe how off I felt. “I don’t know, just worried about the test too, I guess.”

Taylor snorted out a laugh as I rummaged around in my locker for my chemistry textbook. “Why are you worried, Hadley? You’re, like, the only one who actually manages to stay awake in Monroe’s class.”

“Guess I’m just lucky.” That, or I had a lawyer for a dad who would flip if I didn’t keep a decent grade in Government.

I left Taylor and made for homeroom, now feeling as though someone was following close behind me, breathing down my neck. I dropped into a seat toward the front of the class and focused on keeping my breathing in a steady pattern, succeeding until the first bell rang and our teacher didn’t appear.

Mrs. Anderson, the German teacher who ran our homeroom, was probably the nicest person I’d ever met. She was almost always humming under her breath, and had a thousand-watt smile for every person who just happened to look her way. I didn’t have the patience to learn German—I’d barely made it through my two required years of Spanish—but Mrs. Anderson seemed like a hoot, and she made homeroom bearable despite it being so ridiculously early in the morning.