Wynonna’s style could best be described as “military hippie-core” or maybe “’80s vomit-punk.” All I could tell you was that she had electric-blue hair and was currently wearing combat boots, a pair of very distressed jeans—shredded, bleached, and pegged to a fault—a bomber jacket covered in patches, tied snugly around her waist, some sort of boho-crochet top, and bracelets. Lots of bracelets. Like, way too many bracelets for any one human being. And yet, there they were—bold, overbearing, and predominantly neon. She had a pair of tattoos on her inner forearms. On her left arm was the word “dharma.” On the right, mirroring the other, was “karma.”

Ironically, it was the karma hand (rocking electric-blue nails to match her hair) that shoved me square in the chest. I staggered backward—almost tripped and fell—but landed against the wall of lockers behind me.

“Did he hurt you?” said Wynonna.

“No, no, I’m fine,” said Imogen, crawling to her feet—although this was followed by an invalidating wince.

“Was he trying to put his creepy moves on you?”

I felt myself flush red.

“What? No!” said Imogen, appalled.

“Did he try to bank-rob your virginity?” said Wynonna.

Okay, now I was fuchsia, swiftly encroaching on magenta.

“Wynonna!” said Imogen, wide-eyed. “Can we not talk about my virginity?”

But Wynonna was already bored with Imogen and set her predatory sights on me. I still had my back to the lockers, but Wynonna’s presence was reverse-magnetic, pressing me flat against the cold blue metal.

“I’ll tell you how this works, Slevin,” said Wynonna. “I’m like Imogen’s daddy. If you want to ask Imogen on a date, you gotta go through me. At which point I’ll decide whether or not I’ll kill you. Are we clear?”

We were so clear. Cellophane, even.

However, at that exact moment, I heard Holden calling my name. Then he rounded the corner and saw his best friend being bullied—yet again—by Wynonna fucking Jones.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BEST FRIEND, YOU BLUE-HAIRED SNAKE.”

Wynonna turned her head, and then her lips twisted into an amused smirk. “Blue-haired snake?”

“You lay one more finger on him,” said Holden, “and I’ll…”

But Wynonna was already raising a single finger—slowly, tauntingly. She made an incredible display of it. She then reached it slowly toward my face. But her eyes were on Holden. Testing him. Sneering with her pupils.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” said Holden.

She pressed my nose like a button.

“Boop,” she said.

If my nose were a button, then Holden was the doomsday device to which it was wirelessly connected. He extended his arms and screamed like a total maniac—which Wynonna thought was hilarious. But then he marched over to Imogen.

Wynonna’s smile vanished.

Holden snatched a bag of pork rinds off the floor.

Wynonna’s eyes widened with alarm. “Put the pork rinds down, you son of a—”