Daniela Rivera, Marisol Heights, California, October 29th, 2017
The wine was the color of a bruise.
Dani held the bottle up to the string lights that still crisscrossed the rooftop terrace—April's string lights, April's terrace, April's idea to drape the railing in cheap fairy lights from the dollar store because she said every girl deserved to live somewhere that sparkled, ugh. The wine caught the glow and turned it into something almost beautiful, this deep violet-red that reminded Dani of the stained glass windows in the church her mother used to drag her to before everything fell apart. Before God punished her for being a sinner.
She took a long pull straight from the bottle. It tasted like cough syrup and regret. The label said Merlot but the price tag had said $4.99, and Dani figured that was about what her life was worth right now. Five dollars. Clearance rack. Damaged goods.
Below, the apartment complex hummed its usual nighttime sounds. Someone's TV too loud. A dog barking in the lot. The distant thrum of the 101, a ribbon of headlights cutting through the California dark. Sixty-two degrees and the breeze smelled like eucalyptus and exhaust and the ocean, which was four miles away but never let you forget it existed.
Dani was sitting in a rolling desk chair she'd dragged up from the apartment. Not April's apartment anymore. Not Laurel's apartment anymore. Just the apartment, the one with the yellow walls and the kitchen that smelled like coffee and cinnamon, the one where April used to hum while she cooked and Laurel used to do homework cross-legged on the living room floor and Dani used to feel like maybe, maybe, the universe had finally stopped kicking her in the teeth.
Last month ago, April Parker had walked into the Pacific Ocean and not come back.
The chair squeaked as Dani pushed off with one bare foot, sending herself into a lazy spin. The rooftop blurred—string lights, potted plants dying because nobody watered them, the folding table where they used to eat breakfast on warm mornings. She let momentum carry her, head tipped back, wine bottle dangling from her fingers. Her Spotify playlist blaring.
She pulled out her phone. The screen lit up with a photo she couldn't bring herself to change: Laurel and Dani at the beach, June of this year. Four months ago. A lifetime ago. Laurel in the yellow sundress—the yellow sundress, the one April had bought her the first week in California—and Dani's arm slung around her shoulders, both of them squinting against the light, grinning like idiots, the ocean behind them like a promise.
She opened the texts. Scrolled to the conversation labeled with a yellow heart emoji. The last messages sat there taunting Dani.
Laurel ?: I love you. Please don't forget that. Whatever happens.
Dani: WHERE. Tell me where. I'm coming to get you right now.
Dani: Laurel???
Dani: LAUREL
Dani: please please please answer me
Read. September 14th, 2017.
Six weeks of silence. Texts, calls, emails, DMs on every platform she could think of. She'd called Richard Parker's office seventeen times—hung up on twelve, threatened with a restraining order twice. She'd driven to his San Francisco condo, talked her way past the doorman pretending to be a delivery driver, and been intercepted by security on the fourteenth floor and escorted out like a criminal.
She'd filed a missing person report. The police told her Laurel wasn't missing—she was with her legal guardian. Case closed. Have a nice day.
Green Day's “Basket Case” played on the speakers and Dani groaned.
“Damnit Laurel, how many times do I have to tell you to stop putting Green Day on MY playlists??”
The empty house didn't answer.
The rage boiled up so fast it was almost a relief. Before she could think, she grabbed an empty wine bottle and hurled it at the retaining wall. It exploded. Glass shards sprayed outward, catching the string lights like tiny falling stars, and Dani screamed along with it. Not a word. Just a scream. Raw and jagged and animal.
She stood there, chest heaving, arm extended. A shard had nicked her ankle and she could feel blood, warm and thin, trickling toward her bare foot.
"Cool," she whispered. "Very normal behavior."
She relit the half-dead joint balanced on the chair arm and inhaled until her lungs ached. The high settled into her bones like warm sand, making everything slightly underwater, slightly less unbearable.
She had until the end of October to vacate. Then the yellow walls and the string lights and the kitchen that smelled like coffee would belong to strangers, and the last physical place on earth that still felt like home would be gone. She couldn't stay here tonight. She grabbed her bag and walked out the door.
She didn't realize where she was going until she was already there.
The house at 1847 Oleander Street looked different in the dark. Smaller. More honest. The daylight version of Dani's childhood home had been an exercise in denial, Marianne's flower boxes, the American flag on the porch, the doormat that said BLESS THIS MESS in cheerful cursive. All designed to project normalcy while the inside rotted.
The windows were boarded up. Plywood sheets nailed over every frame. A sign stapled to the front door:
CONDEMNED
Dani stood on the sidewalk and stared until the letters blurred.
Condemned.
The ceiling had finally caved in, then. Or the pipes had burst. Or the mold got bad enough that someone called the city. Either way, the house was done. The house where her father taught her three chords on a guitar. The house where Marianne had looked at a photo of her daughter kissing a girl and said Get out. Get out and don't come back.
She thought about Bree. Fourteen now, probably wearing Dani's old hand-me-downs. If the house was condemned, where was Bree sleeping tonight? She'd typed Bree's number a hundred times without hitting send, because every time she heard her mother's voice…and the phone became a brick in her hand.
"I'm sorry," Dani said to the condemned house. To her father's ghost. To Bree's boarded-up window. To the version of herself who'd lived here once and believed love was enough to keep a roof from caving in.
She wiped her face. She hadn't realized she was crying.
She walked back. Past the taco truck. Past the bus stop. Past the 7-Eleven. She cleaned up the glass. She packed a bag. She texted Sam.
Dani: Heading over. Sorry it's early.
Sam: doors open. theres leftover pizza in the fridge. dont eat the one with pineapple its mine and i will end you
Sam: you ok?
Dani stared at the question for a long time.
Dani: No
Sam: ok. come home.
Home. Sam's floor with its flat pillow and its borrowed blanket. Home was a word that kept getting redefined, kept shrinking, kept becoming a person instead of a place.
She let herself in with the key Sam had given her—a plain brass key on a keychain shaped like a guitar pick—and found Sam awake on the bed, cross-legged, shoulder-length bottle-blonde hair with pink and blue streaks catching the lamplight, reading a battered paperback and eating pineapple pizza directly off the box.
"Your hair sucks by the way."
"Thank you. I did it myself. Obviously." Sam glanced up and took in Dani's red eyes, dirty boots, the wine stain on her hoodie. Her expression didn't change—that was the thing about Sam; she never flinched at the wreckage, just assessed it and made room. "How bad?"
"Smashed a bottle. Walked to my old house. It's condemned."
Sam set the pizza down. "The house?"
"Boarded up. City sign on the door."
Sam was quiet for a second. Then she lifted the edge of the blanket on the bed—not the floor, the bed—and said, "Get in."
Dani kicked off her boots and crawled in. Sam smelled like cheap shampoo and pizza and incense. The bed was barely big enough for one, and with two of them it was a tangle of knees and elbows, but it was warm and it was safe and it was Sam.
"Bree?" Sam asked.
"I don't know." Dani's voice cracked. "I don't know where she is."
Sam's arm came around her, awkward and firm. "We'll figure it out."
"I yelled at Keely today. At practice."
"I heard."
"I made her cry."
"You'll apologize tomorrow."
"Everyone keeps giving me space."
Sam's chin rested on the top of Dani's head. "I'm not giving you space. I'm right here."
Dani closed her eyes. The tears came quieter this time, leaking into Sam's pillow. "I keep thinking she's going to text me back. Every time my phone buzzes, I think it's Laurel saying I'm okay, I'm coming home. And it's never her. It's never going to be her again."
Sam didn't say anything. Just held on. And Dani fell asleep with her boots by someone else's door and her heart in a house that no longer existed.
November 14th, 2017
Third period. Mrs. Castellano's pre-calc. Dani was in the back row—she'd migrated there over the past two weeks, retreating seat by seat from the center of every classroom to the margins, like she was trying to disappear by degrees.
She hadn't slept in two days. She'd stopped counting hours and started counting in units of consciousness—periods of misery punctuated by gray zones where she might have dozed off or might have just blinked really slowly.
Mrs. Castellano was writing an equation on the board. Chalk squeaking on the green surface. Something with variables and exponents and brackets nested like Russian dolls. The fluorescent lights buzzed at a frequency that wormed behind Dani's eyes and set up camp.
"Now, when we look at this expression," Mrs. Castellano said, turning to face the class, "we can see that the relationship between these variables is what determines—"
Dani's chair scraped back.
The sound cut through the room like a knife. Twenty-three heads turned.
Dani was standing. She didn't remember deciding to stand. One second she was sitting; the next her body had made the decision without consulting her brain.
"Daniela? Is everything—"
"Who the fuck is going to need any of this shit?"
The words filled the room and bounced off the walls.
Mrs. Castellano's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Dani kept going. "No, seriously. Who. In this room. Is going to wake up one day and think, thank God I know how to factor trinomials, because that's definitely going to help me when I'm sleeping on my friend's floor and my mom thinks I'm dead and my girlfriend is gone and I can't—"
Her voice broke.
The silence was total. Someone in the front row had their pen frozen mid-word.
"Daniela, why don't we step into the hall—"
"Why? So you can send me to the counselor? So the counselor can ask me if I've tried journaling and deep breathing and then send me back here to learn about shit that doesn't matter while my entire life falls apart?"
She kicked her chair. It clattered into the desk next to hers.
"Daniela. That's enough. Please sit—"
"Or what?" Dani heard herself say, and she hated the wildness in her own voice, hated that she could see the fear on their faces and couldn't stop. "You'll call my mom? She changed her number. You'll call my emergency contact? She's dead. Go ahead. Call a dead woman. See what she says."
Silence. Then a laugh—involuntary, uncomfortable—from somewhere in the middle of the room. It hit Dani like a slap, and the tears finally came, fat and furious.
"Fuck this," she muttered, grabbed her bag, and walked out.
She locked herself in the girls' bathroom—second floor, third stall, the one with the broken lock—sat on the floor with her back against the tile, and shook apart.
Forty-five minutes. Through the bell. Through the shuffling feet. Through the distant sounds of a school that kept turning without her, a machine that didn't notice when one of its gears came loose and fell to the ground.
Nobody came looking.
The counselor found her at noon. Sat her in an office with motivational posters. Asked if she was safe. Asked if she was having thoughts of self-harm. Asked if she had a place to stay tonight.
Dani said no, no, and technically yes, in that order. She had learned, over the course of a very educational few months, exactly what you had to say to avoid a 5150 hold and exactly what you had to say to make adults stop asking questions.
The counselor wasn't satisfied. The counselor made phone calls.
Dani sat and counted ceiling tiles. Fourteen. Motivational posters. Six. People in her life who still knew where she was and gave a shit. Two.
"Daniela," the counselor said. "We've been trying to reach your mother at the number on file—"
"It's disconnected."
"Yes. We also tried the secondary number, listed as an April Parker—"
Dani flinched.
"—also disconnected. Do you have any other family we can contact?"
Family. The word sat between them like a joke missing its punchline. Dani thought about Marianne, who had erased her. Bree, who she'd abandoned. Her father, dead in the ground. The aunts and uncles who'd circled the wagons and cut out anyone who didn't fit the approved version of the Rivera family—which meant Dani, who was too angry, and Sofia, who was too gone.
Sofia.
The name surfaced like a bubble from deep water.
"No," Dani said. "There's no one."
November 17th, 2017
Three days later, Sofia showed up anyway.
Dani was in the parking lot behind the gym, sitting on the hood of a car that didn't belong to her, smoking a cigarette with her hood up. She was supposed to be at color guard practice. She hadn't been since the Keely incident. Coach had left voicemails—your spot is waiting when you're ready—and Dani had deleted them without listening past the first sentence.
A silver Honda Civic pulled into the lot. Old but clean. California plates.
The driver's side door opened, and a woman got out.
Twenty-one, but she looked more lived-in than her age. Tall, same black hair but cut shorter—a blunt bob stopping at her jaw. Corduroy jacket the color of rust over a black turtleneck, cuffed jeans, worn ankle boots. Small gold hoops. No makeup except a slash of dark lipstick.
She looked like she'd come from a world with coffee shops and exposed brick and people who read poetry on purpose.
Dani's cigarette froze halfway to her mouth.
Sofia Rivera looked at her younger sister with something between relief and heartbreak, like she'd been expecting a body and was grateful to find a person but terrified by what kind of person was left.
"Dani," Sofia said.
Dani's throat closed. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Sofia's mouth twitched. "The school called me."
"I didn't give them your number."
"No. Someone went through the old emergency contacts. My number was still on there from when Mamá listed me, back when I was still—" She stopped, then started again. "They called. Said there had been some incidents."
Incidents. A clinical word for screaming in a classroom and living on a floor and losing every person she'd ever loved.
"I'm fine," Dani said.
Sofia's gaze tracked over her—the hollowed cheeks, the dark circles, the hoodie hanging off her like a flag at half-mast. "You're not fine."
"You don't get to show up after four years and tell me what I am."
"I know."
"Then what are you doing here, Sofia?"
Sofia's hands went into her pockets. She rocked on her heels—nervous energy, the old tell. Dani recognized it from a hundred dinner-table fights, from every time Sofia had been working up to something hard.
"I'm here because I want you to come live with me. In Oakland."
Dani's cigarette burned down to the filter. She felt the heat on her fingertips and didn't flinch.
"You're insane."
"Maybe." Sofia's dark eyes held hers. "But the school says you don't have a stable living situation. They said you're couch-surfing. They said—"
"They said a lot of shit that's none of your business."
"You're my sister, Dani. You're always my business."
The word sister hit her in the sternum. She crushed the cigarette under her boot, using the motion to push down the thing rising in her chest.
"I've got Sam. I'm staying with Sam."
"Sam's apartment is a studio. You're sleeping on the floor."
"How do you—"
"I called. Sam picked up. Sam told me."
Goddammit, Sam. Dani was going to murder Sam. Shallow grave. No witnesses.
"Sam had no right—"
"Sam is worried about you. Sam told me about the guard thing, and the classroom thing, and—"
"Oh, so now you and Sam are best friends? Having little chats about my life behind my back? That's great."
Sofia let the anger land without flinching. Just stood there, hands in her pockets, chin lifted. Dani hated that about her—the patience, the composure, the way she'd always been the one who could take a hit without swinging back. Fighting her felt like punching a wall.
"I have a two-bedroom in Oakland," Sofia said. "I live with a roommate. There's space. Not fancy, but it's clean and warm and you'd have your own room."
"I don't want my own room."
"You'd have one anyway." She stepped closer. Close enough that Dani could smell her perfume—something musky, woody, nothing like the vanilla body spray she used to wear in high school. Everything about her was different.
Four years. Four years since Sofia had walked out of 1847 Oleander Street with a backpack and her guitar and her girlfriend's phone number written on her hand and hadn't come back.
"I can drive you to Marisol Heights whenever you want," Sofia continued. "To see Sam. Your friends. Whatever you need. But staying here, in the same place where everything happened with Mamá, and now April—" Her voice caught. "It's not healthy. You know it's not."
Dani stared at the cracks in the asphalt. The dandelions pushing through. Stubborn ugly life that kept growing where it wasn't wanted.
"When did you talk to Sam?"
"Two days ago. Yesterday. This morning on the drive down."
"Sam should've told me you were coming."
"Sam said you'd bolt if they did."
Dani sighed, "I can't just leave. I have school. I have guard."
"You haven't been to guard in three weeks. And Oakland has schools."
"Wow. Oakland has schools. Revolutionary insight." Dani rolled her eyes.
Sofia's mouth curved. Almost a smile. "I know I don't have the right to just show up and tell you what to do. I'm asking. Not telling. Come stay with me. A month. A week. Whatever you can handle. Just let me try."
The wind shifted, carrying the sound of the guard's music from inside the gym—a faint, muffled melody that Dani recognized as their competition set. The tosses she'd choreographed. The transitions she'd drilled into every freshman until they could do them in their sleep.
Her throat ached.
"A month," Dani said. The word left her mouth before her brain approved it, like her body had already decided and was tired of waiting for the rest of her to catch up.
Sofia's shoulders dropped. Relief, naked and undisguised. "Okay."
"If I hate it, I'm coming back."
"If you hate it, I'll drive you myself."
Dani slid off the hood. Her legs were stiff and she stumbled, and Sofia's hand came out to steady her—instinct, automatic—and Dani flinched away from the contact.
Sofia let her hand drop. Didn't push.
"I need to get my stuff from Sam's," Dani said.
"I'll drive you."
They walked to the Honda in silence. Dani got in and pulled her hood tighter, and Sofia started the engine and didn't turn on the radio, and the quiet between them was thick with everything neither of them knew how to say.
November 18th, 2017
The apartment was on the third floor of a converted Victorian in a neighborhood that smelled like roasting coffee and wet pavement. The building was painted teal—aggressive, opinionated Bay Area teal—with a wrought-iron fire escape crawling up the front. Downstairs was a used bookstore. The residential door sat between the bookstore and a place that sold organic dog treats.
Sofia led the way up the narrow staircase, Dani's duffel slung over her shoulder because Dani was too thin to carry it and too proud to say so, and Sofia had just picked it up without asking. The walls were layered paint—cream over yellow over green, visible in the chips, an archaeological record of other people's aesthetic decisions.
"It's not much," Sofia said, unlocking the door. "But the water pressure's good."
The apartment was small and crowded and warm. Warm in temperature—the old radiator clanking—and warm in the other way, the way that had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with people who actually liked being alive.
Bookshelves everywhere. Real ones, mismatched—stacked crates and reclaimed wood and one tall unit rescued from a library's dumpster. Packed with cracked-spine paperbacks, organized by no visible system. Between them: a jade plant in terra cotta, a ceramic skull with a candle melted onto its crown, a framed Frida Kahlo print that every queer woman in California seemed to own.
The couch was a green velvet monstrosity draped with a patchwork quilt. A record player on a low table with a crate of vinyl. The kitchen had a French press and a chalkboard grocery list in two different handwritings.
It was so aggressively cozy that Dani's chest hurt.
A cat materialized from behind a bookshelf. Entirely black, enormous green eyes, the expression of a customs agent inspecting questionable luggage.
"That's Baudelaire," Sofia said.
"You named your cat after a poet?"
"Francesca named the cat. I wanted Keith Richards, but I was outvoted."
"By who?"
"By Francesca. And Baudelaire. He responded to Baudelaire and not to Keith, so."
The cat sniffed Dani's boot, then turned away with visible disinterest.
"He'll warm up," Sofia said. "Very French about new people."
"He's a cat."
"He's a French cat."
Dani didn't smile, but something loosened in her chest by a degree.
A door at the end of the hallway opened, and a woman emerged. Striking—not in the magazine-cover way, but in the way certain people occupied space differently, like the air had been notified. Maybe twenty-two, white, with a mess of dark brown curls losing their battle against a bun. Wide hazel eyes behind round wire-framed glasses. An oversized flannel shirt that Dani immediately recognized—Sofia's blue plaid, the one from Oleander Street.
"You must be Dani." She extended her hand. Low, warm voice with a faint East Coast trace. "I'm Francesca. Frankie, usually. Welcome."
Dani shook her hand. Firm grip, warm palm.
Dani's room was small. A twin bed against one wall, a desk under the window, a narrow closet with a curtain instead of a door. But the window looked out onto the fire escape and the street below, and someone—Sofia—had put a small succulent on the desk and hung a string of fairy lights around the window frame.
String lights.
Dani looked at them and felt her throat close.
"Is this okay?" Sofia asked from the doorway. That careful, reading expression.
"It's fine. Thanks."
"There's food in the kitchen. Help yourself. Frankie makes this pasta on Sundays that's—"
"Sofia."
Sofia stopped.
"I said it's fine." Dani set her bag on the bed and turned to the window. "I'm going to unpack."
Sofia stood in the doorway another second. Then she nodded and left, pulling the door almost-closed—not all the way. Leaving a crack of hallway light, the way you did for a child afraid of the dark.
Dani sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the fairy lights until they blurred.
She could hear Sofia and Francesca in the kitchen. Low voices, the clink of mugs, the kettle whistling. Then Sofia, just above a whisper: "She looks so thin, Frankie."
“Give her time."
"What if I don't have enough?"
Jessica Perot, Laurel, Montana, October 23rd, 2018
The blizzard had swallowed the world outside. Through the single window of apartment 2B, there was nothing but white—a howling, formless void that made the overheated little studio feel like a lifeboat adrift in nothing. The twinkle lights on the ceiling cast everything in warm amber, softening the chaos of half-unpacked boxes and scattered band tees.
Jess was on her second hot chocolate. She'd taken off her boots at some point—couldn't remember when exactly—and had her feet tucked under her on the futon. She was telling Dani about the winter guard show Miss Vick was planning, something about the theme being "Chrysalis," and she was mid-sentence about butterfly imagery in the silk work and the song being “Shake It Off" by Florence + The Machine, when she realized Dani wasn't listening.
Dani was looking at her mouth.
Not even subtly. She was leaned back against the arm of the futon, one bare leg stretched along the cushion so her knee rested against Jess's thigh, whiskey balanced on her stomach, and she was just... watching Jess talk. Specifically watching her lips move. With an expression that was less "attentive audience" and more "deciding where to start."
Jess lost the thread of her sentence entirely.
"—and the silk would transition from, um. From blue to... what are you doing?"
"Hmm?" Dani's eyes flicked up to meet hers. Completely unrepentant. "Sorry. You have a really nice mouth."
The blush hit Jess like a sunburn—chest to neck to cheeks, nothing she could do to stop it. "I—that's not—I was talking about silks."
"I know. I love silks. Keep going." Dani took a slow sip of whiskey, her dark eyes fixed on Jess over the rim of the glass. The lip ring caught the light.
Jess opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out. Her brain, which was normally a well-organized filing cabinet of schedules and strategies and color-coded plans, had become a room full of smoke.
It was the heat. It had to be the heat. Eighty degrees and this girl was in a crop top and shorts and the apartment was the size of a shoebox and Jess could smell her—vanilla and cigarettes and something warm underneath, like skin that had been in the sun.
"You're staring," Dani observed, grinning.
"You're half-naked," Jess shot back, and immediately regretted it because it sounded like a complaint when what she actually meant was please put on more clothes before I do something stupid or possibly please don't ever put on more clothes.
Dani set her whiskey on the floor and shifted, unfolding her legs and turning so she was facing Jess directly. Cross-legged, knees almost touching Jess's thigh. The movement was fluid, unhurried, like a cat rearranging itself in a sunbeam.
"Does it bother you?" Dani asked. Her voice had dropped into that low register, the one that did things to Jess's stomach. "Me being half-naked?"
"No," Jess said too quickly.
"No?"
"I mean—it's your apartment. Wear whatever you want. Or don't wear—I don't—" Jess grabbed her hot chocolate and took a scalding gulp just to shut herself up.
Dani laughed. Not the teasing laugh from earlier—something warmer, more genuine. "God, you're cute when you're flustered."
"I'm not flustered. I'm warm. Because it's eighty degrees. Because you're insane."
"Both can be true." Dani leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand, elbow on her knee. The position brought her face closer. Close enough that Jess could see the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, the tattoo of something on her ribs peeking out from the crop top, the way her dark lashes fanned when she blinked.
"Take off the sweater, Jess."
"No."
"You're sweating."
She was sweating. A thin sheen along her hairline, a dampness at the small of her back where the thick knit clung. "I'm fine."
"You're suffering out of pure stubbornness and I find that both admirable and deeply stupid." Dani tilted her head. "What are you wearing under it?"
"A—a tank top."
"Then what's the problem?"
The problem was that if Jess took off the sweater, she'd be sitting in a tank top next to a girl in a crop top on a futon in an overheated apartment during a blizzard, and she was already losing the battle against whatever gravitational pull Dani exerted just by existing. Removing layers felt like removing defenses.
But she was also about to pass out from the heat.
"Fine," Jess muttered. She set down her mug and pulled the sweater over her head in one motion, her hair coming loose from its ponytail in the process. It fell around her shoulders in messy blonde waves.
The tank top was white. Simple. Nothing special. But Dani's gaze tracked down and back up with an appreciation that made Jess feel like she was wearing something far more interesting.
"Better?" Dani asked softly.
"Shut up."
"You have freckles on your shoulders." Dani reached out and touched one—just the pad of her index finger, light as a breath, against the curve of Jess's left shoulder. "That's adorable."
Jess stopped breathing.
It was one point of contact. One fingertip. It should not have sent heat racing down her arm and across her ribs and into places she was not going to think about right now. But it did, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.
"Dani," she said. It came out quieter than she intended.
"Jess," Dani echoed, matching her tone. She hadn't moved her finger. If anything, it had drifted, tracing a slow line along Jess's collarbone.
"What are you doing?"
"Touching you." Dani met her eyes. No smirk now. Just heat. "Is that okay?"
Jess should say no. She had a list of reasons—a long, well-organized, color-coded list. Laurel loved Dani. Dani loved Laurel. Jess loved Laurel. This was a triangle that did not need another side. Dani had just slept with Ana, which was its own catastrophe. They barely knew each other. Jess didn't do this—didn't fall into bed with people on impulse, didn't let chemistry override common sense. She was the responsible one. The planner. The captain.
"Yes," Jess whispered.
Dani's finger traced up the side of her neck, feather-light, and Jess's eyes fluttered shut. She heard Dani shift on the futon, felt the cushion dip as she moved closer.
"You know what I think?" Dani murmured, and her breath was warm against Jess's jaw. "I think you came over here tonight because you wanted to yell at me. And I think you stayed because you didn't actually want to yell at me at all."
"That's—" Jess's voice caught as Dani's fingers slid into her hair, nails dragging lightly against her scalp. "That's presumptuous."
"Is it wrong?"
Jess opened her eyes. Dani was right there. Inches away. Close enough to count every shade of brown in her eyes, close enough to see the slight unevenness of her bottom lip where she'd bitten it raw at some point today. Close enough to kiss.
"No," Jess admitted. "It's not wrong."
Dani smiled—slow, devastating, triumphant. "There she is."
"I don't do this," Jess said, even as her hand came up on its own and settled on Dani's waist. The strip of bare skin between the crop top and the shorts was exactly as soft as it looked. Softer. "I don't—I'm not impulsive. I don't just—"
"I know." Dani's hand cupped the side of her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone. "That's why it means something that you're here."
"It's complicated. With Laurel—"
"Everything's complicated with Laurel. Everything's always complicated." Dani's thumb traced the line of Jess's jaw, tilting her face up slightly. "But right now, in this apartment, in this blizzard, Laurel's not here. She wanted space. And you showed up at my door looking like you wanted to eat me alive."
"I wanted to yell at you—"
"Same energy," Dani whispered, and closed the distance.
The kiss was nothing like what Jess expected.
She'd expected aggressive—all punk rock and sharp edges. But the first press of Dani's lips was soft. Almost tentative. A question, not a demand. Like she was offering one final off-ramp before the highway.
Jess didn't take it.
She leaned in, and the kiss deepened, and Dani made a small sound—a hum of satisfaction that vibrated against Jess's mouth—and then the softness evaporated. Dani kissed her like she did everything else: with her whole self, holding nothing back. Her hand tightened in Jess's hair, angling her head, and her other hand gripped Jess's hip, pulling her closer until their knees were tangled and there was no space left between them.
Jess's brain finally, mercifully, shut up.
She kissed Dani back with a ferocity that surprised her. Months of tension—of worry, of loneliness, of holding everyone else together—poured out through her mouth and her hands. She gripped the front of that stupid Bikini Kill crop top and pulled, and Dani laughed against her lips and let herself be pulled, swinging a leg over so she was straddling Jess's lap.
The weight of her. The warmth of her thighs bracketing Jess's hips. The way she settled there like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Jess was drowning.
"Hi," Dani breathed, looking down at her. Her hair had fallen forward, curtaining them in. The lip ring was cold when it brushed against Jess's lower lip. "You okay?"
"I don't know," Jess said honestly. Her hands were on Dani's thighs—when had they gotten there?—and she could feel the muscles shifting under smooth skin as Dani adjusted her weight. "I think I'm having a crisis."
"A good crisis or a bad crisis?"
"Undetermined."
Dani grinned and rolled her hips—one slow, deliberate grind, precisely calibrated to make Jess lose her mind. The friction sent a shock of heat straight through Jess's center, and she gasped, her fingers digging into Dani's thighs.
"How about now?" Dani murmured, her lips brushing Jess's ear. "Good or bad?"
"Good," Jess choked out. "Definitely—okay, that's—you're doing that on purpose."
"Obviously I'm doing it on purpose." Dani nipped at her earlobe, and Jess's hips bucked. "I've been thinking about this since the library."
"The—the library? That was three days ago. You were yelling at me."
"Yelling at you because you were hot and I was frustrated and I didn't know how to process that." Dani pulled back enough to look at her, brushing a strand of blonde hair from Jess's face. "You walked in there all fierce and protective, ready to fight me for Laurel's honor, and I was like... oh no, she's gorgeous."
"You thought I was gorgeous?"
"Jess. Babe." Dani cupped her face in both hands. "You look like a cheerleader who listens to The Smiths in secret. You're, like, exactly my type."
"I don't listen to The Smiths."
"You would if I made you a playlist." Dani kissed the corner of her mouth. "I'm going to make you a playlist."
"We should talk about this," Jess said, even as her hands slid up from Dani's thighs to her waist, thumbs tracing the curves of her hip bones. "We should be adults about—"
Dani kissed her again, harder this time, deeper, her tongue sliding against Jess's in a way that obliterated whatever reasonable point Jess had been about to make. Jess heard herself moan—an actual moan, a sound she'd never made with another person—and felt her cheeks burn even as the rest of her body caught fire.
"We can talk after," Dani whispered against her mouth. "We can talk all night after. I'll answer every question. I'll make a goddamn PowerPoint. But right now—" She took Jess's hand and pressed it flat against her stomach, against the warm skin below the hem of the crop top. "Right now I really, really want you to touch me."
Jess's fingers spread against Dani's abdomen. She could feel the muscles there—subtle but firm, the body of someone who'd done physical work, who'd spun rifles, who'd survived on too little food and too much stubbornness. She felt Dani's breath hitch under her palm.
"I've never..." Jess started.
Dani paused. The urgency cooled, just like that, replaced by something careful and attentive. She sat back slightly, still in Jess's lap but giving her room. "Never what?"
"I've never been with a girl." The admission felt enormous. Jess stared at the strip of stomach under her hand, unable to meet Dani's eyes. "I've never been with anyone, actually. Not—not like this."
She expected teasing. Or worse, pity. Instead, Dani's hand covered hers, warm and steady.
"Hey." Dani's voice was different now—still low, still that rasp, but gentler. "Look at me."
Jess looked up.
Dani was smiling. Not the smirk, not the predatory grin. A real smile, soft around the edges. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do. We can stop right here. We can go back to drinking hot chocolate and talking about silks. No pressure. Seriously."
"I don't want to stop," Jess said. The words came out sure and clear, surprising them both. "I just—I might not be good at it. At any of it. And I don't want you to be disappointed."
Dani laughed—real, unguarded—and leaned forward, pressing her forehead against Jess's. "Jess. You've had your hands on my thighs for five minutes and I'm already halfway gone. Trust me, disappointment is not on the table."
"Really?"
"Really." Dani kissed her softly. "And for the record? There's no wrong way to do this. If something feels good, do more of it. If something doesn't, we stop. That's the whole game."
"That's... surprisingly straightforward."
"Sex should be straightforward. People overcomplicate it." Dani sat up and, in one fluid motion, pulled the Bikini Kill crop top over her head.
She wasn't wearing a bra.
Jess's brain went blank. White noise. The filing cabinet was on fire.
Dani was slender—almost too thin, the legacy of months of bad nutrition and stress—but beautiful. Small breasts, sharp collarbones, a tattoo of bay leafs on her left ribcage that Jess hadn't known about. Her skin was pale from the Montana winter, scattered with the same faint scars Jess had noticed on her arms.
"Breathe," Dani reminded her gently.
Jess breathed. And then, before she could overthink it, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Dani's collarbone.
Dani inhaled sharply, her hand coming up to cradle the back of Jess's head. "Yeah," she murmured. "Yeah, like that."
Jess kissed along her collarbone, tentative at first, then with growing confidence as she felt Dani respond—the way her breath caught, the way her fingers tightened in Jess's hair, the small sounds she made. Jess's mouth found the hollow of Dani's throat, and she pressed her lips there, feeling Dani's pulse hammer against her mouth.
"You're a fast learner," Dani breathed. "Fuck, that's—okay, your turn."
Before Jess could process, Dani's hands were at the hem of her tank top, fingers curling under the fabric. She paused, waiting for permission, and Jess nodded. The tank top came off—she hadn't worn a bra under the sweater—and then they were skin to skin, and Jess made a sound she didn't recognize—half gasp, half sob—because nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of Dani's bare chest against hers.
Dani eased her back against the cushions, and the full weight of her settling on top of Jess made everything real. Dani kissed down the column of her throat, teeth grazing, tongue soothing, finding every sensitive spot as if she'd been there before.
"Tell me what you want," Dani murmured against her skin.
"I don't know what I want," Jess admitted, and it was the most honest she'd been all night. "I just know I want you."
Vulnerability flickered across Dani's face—gone in an instant, but Jess caught it. She kissed Jess deeply, one hand bracing beside her head, the other sliding down her side with careful, hungry fingers.
Dani's mouth moved lower. Across Jess's chest, pausing to explore with lips and tongue until Jess was arching off the futon, her hands fisted in Dani's hair. Down her stomach, trailing wet kisses along the muscles that tensed and jumped beneath her lips.
When Dani's fingers found the button of Jess's jeans, she looked up. "Yes?"
"Yes."
The jeans came off. Then the rest. And Dani settled between her legs with a look on her face that was almost worshipful.
"Beautiful," Dani said softly. "God, you're—Jess, you're beautiful."
Jess wanted to deflect—a joke, self-deprecation, anything to ease the intensity of being seen that completely. But then Dani's mouth was on her, and words stopped existing.
The world narrowed to sensation. To the slow, deliberate stroke of Dani's tongue, to the pressure of her hands on Jess's thighs holding her open, to the sounds—wet, obscene, incredible—that filled the tiny apartment. Jess gripped the edge of the futon with one hand and Dani's hair with the other, her hips moving in small, desperate circles against Dani's mouth.
"Oh my god," Jess gasped. "Oh my—Dani—"
Dani hummed against her, and the vibration nearly ended everything right there. She was patient and relentless in equal measure, reading every hitch of Jess's breath, every flex of her thighs, adjusting rhythm and pressure with instinct Jess would've called unfair if she could still think.
When Jess came, it wasn't the gentle wave she'd imagined from nights alone with her own hands. It was a detonation. Her back arched, her thighs clamped around Dani's head, and she cried out—loud, unguarded, the sound swallowed by the storm outside. The orgasm rolled through her in pulses, each one pulling another broken sound from her throat, and Dani didn't stop, didn't ease up, coaxing her through it with soft, persistent strokes until Jess was shaking and oversensitive and pushing weakly at her shoulders.
"Stop—too much—I can't—"
Dani pulled away, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh before crawling up to lie beside her. She was grinning—flushed and proud and a little breathless herself—and she pulled the blanket over them both.
"So," Dani said, propping herself on one elbow. "How's the crisis?"
Jess stared at the ceiling. The twinkle lights blurred and refocused. Her entire body was humming like a plucked string. "I think... I think the crisis is resolved."
"Told you being reckless was worth it."
Jess turned her head to look at Dani. This chaotic, beautiful, infuriating girl who'd upended everything. Jess reached out and traced the bay leaf tattoos on Dani's ribs.
"Your turn," Jess said.
Dani's eyebrows shot up. "You don't have to—"
"I want to." Jess pushed herself up, the blanket falling away. The nervousness was still there, but tangled with something fiercer now—a hunger she was done pretending she didn't feel. "Tell me what to do."
Dani looked at her for a long moment, searching her face. Whatever she found there made her breath catch. "Come here," she whispered.
Jess leaned over her, and Dani pulled her down into a kiss that tasted like whiskey and like Jess herself, and the realization of that sent another jolt of heat through her belly. Dani pushed her shorts down and kicked them off—the last thing between them—and guided Jess's hand between her legs.
Warmth. Wetness. A soft, needy sound from Dani's throat that made Jess feel powerful for the first time in her life.
"Like that," Dani breathed against her mouth. "Just—yeah. Right there."
Jess moved by instinct and by the map of Dani's reactions—the way her hips tilted, the way her breath stuttered, the way her fingers dug into Jess's shoulders when she found the right rhythm. It was clumsy at first, uncertain, but Dani was vocal and responsive and generous with her feedback in a way that made Jess bolder by the minute.
"Faster," Dani gasped. "A little—fuck, Jess—"
Jess watched her. Watched the way Dani's head tipped back, exposing the long line of her throat. Watched her bite her lower lip until the skin went white around the lip ring. Watched the flush spread down her chest. She was gorgeous like this—undone, unguarded, every layer of cool stripped away until she was just a girl trembling under Jess's hand.
When Dani came, she went silent. Her whole body tensed, her mouth open in a soundless cry, her hips grinding against Jess's fingers. Then the tension broke and she shuddered, pulling Jess down against her and burying her face in the curve of Jess's neck.
They lay like that for a long time. Tangled together on the futon, skin against skin, breathing in sync. The blizzard raged outside, battering the windows, but inside was only warmth and quiet.
"Well," Dani said eventually, her voice muffled against Jess's shoulder. "That happened."
"That happened," Jess confirmed. She was running her fingers through Dani's hair. "Are we going to freak out about this?"
"Probably. But not tonight." Dani lifted her head, her eyes sleepy and satisfied. "Tonight we're just... this. Whatever this is."
"What is this?"
Dani considered for a moment. "Two girls in a blizzard who needed each other."
"That's poetic."
"I have my moments." Dani kissed the tip of her nose. "Stay. Sam won't be back until he finishes grocery shopping, and he's a guy so"
"So what, like… hours?"
"It's a whole thing with him." Dani pulled the blanket up over them both and curled against Jess's side. "Stay, Jess."
Jess looked at the window, at the wall of white beyond the glass. She thought about Laurel, alone in her cold room. About everything this meant for the three of them. About tomorrow, and the conversations they'd have to have, and the mess this would inevitably create.
Then she looked at the girl in her arms. The dark hair and the lip ring and the cute tattoo and the way she smelled like vanilla and warmth and something that was just Dani.
"I'll stay," Jess said.
Dani smiled—small, real, relieved—and closed her eyes.
Outside, the blizzard howled. Inside apartment 2B, the twinkle lights glowed, and two girls held each other, and for one night, the world was exactly the size of a futon.
Laurel Melody Parker, Laurel, Montana, October 29th, 2018
The package arrived on a Tuesday.
Laurel had been checking the mail obsessively for five days, her heart lurching every time she heard a car slow down on the street. The tracking number had updated that morning—"Out for Delivery"—and she'd spent the entire school day with her phone clutched in her hand, refreshing the page between classes, during classes, in the bathroom, in the hallway.
Now she stood in Jess's kitchen, holding a plain brown box the size of a shoebox, and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Is that it?" Jess asked, leaning against the counter. Her mother, Gina, was at work, which was the whole reason they'd arranged for the package to be delivered here instead of the Payton house. "The... stuff?"
"The stuff," Laurel confirmed. Her voice came out strange, distant. "Yeah. This is it."
She set the box on the kitchen table and stared at it. Such an ordinary-looking thing. Brown cardboard, packing tape, a shipping label from some innocuous-sounding company that definitely wasn't called "GREY MARKET TRANS HORMONES DIRECT." Just a box. Just paper and glue and whatever was inside.
Everything she'd been waiting for. Everything she needed to start taking her body back.
"You okay?" Jess moved closer, her hand coming to rest on Laurel's shoulder. "You look like you're about to pass out."
"I might," Laurel admitted. "I've been thinking about this moment for... God. Months? Years, maybe, if you count all the time I spent in California dreaming about the day I'd finally get estrogen. And now it's here and I'm just—"
"Terrified?"
"Terrified." Laurel laughed, a shaky sound. "What if it doesn't work? What if I have a reaction? What if Derrick finds out somehow? What if—"
"Hey." Jess's grip tightened on her shoulder. "One thing at a time. Let's just open the box first. See what we're working with."
Laurel nodded. Her fingers found the edge of the packing tape and peeled it back, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet kitchen. Inside, nestled in bubble wrap, were several small boxes and a sealed plastic bag containing syringes.
"Oh," Laurel breathed. "Oh, it's real."
She lifted out the vials one by one, reading the labels. Estradiol valerate in a glass vial and Spironolactone pills, everything she needed. Everything Richard had taken from her. Everything she'd been too afraid to hope for.
"I watched, like, fifteen YouTube videos on how to do intramuscular injections," Jess said, pulling out her phone. "And I texted that girl Riley—the one from Bozeman? She gave me some tips. Said the thigh is easier for self-injection, though I'll do the first one for you.”
Laurel looked at her—this girl who had spent hours researching injection techniques, who had used her own money to buy grey-market hormones, who was standing here ready to stick a needle in her best friend's body without hesitation.
"Why are you doing all this for me?" The question slipped out before Laurel could stop it.
Jess's expression softened. "Because you deserve to feel like yourself. Because watching you suffer when there's something I can do about it is unbearable. Because—" She stopped, something flickering behind her eyes. "Because I care about you, Laurel. Obviously."
There was more there, Laurel knew. More than Jess was saying, more than either of them were ready to address. But now wasn't the time.
"Okay," Laurel said, squaring her shoulders. "Let's do this."
They moved to Jess's bedroom, where Jess had already laid out alcohol swabs and bandages on her desk. Laurel sat on the edge of the bed, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her teeth.
"You need to pull your pants down.” Jess said, her cheeks flushing slightly. "Just—just on one side. Enough to access your thigh.”
Laurel unbuttoned her jeans with trembling fingers, pushing them down far enough to expose her thighs, she covered the front of her boxers with her hands. The exposed skin of her thighs was pale, untouched, waiting.
Jess approached with the syringe, the needle catching the light. "Ready?"
"No." Laurel closed her eyes. "Do it anyway."
The alcohol swab was cold against her skin. Then Jess grabbed at the skin. Finally, came the pinch—sharper than she'd expected, a bright sting that made her gasp—and the strange pressure of the medication entering her body.
"Done," Jess said, pressing a bandage over the injection site. "That's it. You did it."
Laurel opened her eyes. She looked down at the small bandage, at the evidence that something had actually happened, that she had taken an actual step toward reclaiming herself.
"I did it," she repeated. "Holy shit. I actually did it."
The tears came then, sudden and overwhelming. Not sad tears—relief tears, joy tears, years-of-waiting-finally-ending tears. Jess sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into a hug, and Laurel sobbed against her shoulder, feeling for the first time in months like maybe, maybe, things might actually be okay.
The next two days passed in a haze of anticipation and hyperawareness. Laurel knew, logically, that hormones didn't work that fast—that it would be weeks or months before she saw any physical changes. But she couldn't help examining herself in the mirror every morning, searching for signs, imagining that her skin already looked softer, that the angles of her face had begun to shift.
What she hadn't anticipated was the emotional changes.
By Thursday morning—Halloween—something had definitely shifted. She woke up feeling raw and exposed, like someone had peeled away a layer of protective numbness she hadn't even known was there. Colors seemed brighter. Sounds seemed louder. And when she caught sight of Jess in the hallway at school, wearing a orange sweater that brought out the gold in her hair, Laurel felt something lurch in her chest that she barely recognized.
Attraction, she realized with a start. Actual, genuine, physical attraction. The kind she hadn't felt since before Newport, before the medications and the therapy and the systematic dismantling of her emotional responses.
It was like someone had flipped a switch. All the feelings she'd thought were gone forever came flooding back—not gradually, not gently, but all at once, a tidal wave crashing over her defenses. She found herself noticing things she'd been too numb to notice before: the curve of Dani's smile in a photo she'd sent that morning, the way Jess's hand felt when she touched Laurel's arm, the bass notes of a song on the radio that made her want to dance.
And with the attraction came everything else. Sadness that hit like a physical blow when she thought about her mother. Anger at Derrick that burned hot instead of cold. Joy at small things—a good grade on a test, a funny text from Sam, the way the autumn leaves looked against the grey October sky.
Laurel Melody Parker, Laurel, Montana, October 31st, 2018
After school she was crying in the bathroom at Jess’s house.
"Laurel?" Jess's voice came through the door. "Are you okay in there?"
"I'm fine," Laurel managed, wiping at her eyes. "I'm just—hormones. I think. Everything is very... much."
"That's normal," Jess said. "Riley warned me about this. Said the first few weeks can be an emotional rollercoaster, especially if you were on blockers before or if your body's been running on the wrong hormones for a while."
"It's not bad," Laurel clarified, unlocking the stall and stepping out. Her makeup was a mess, mascara smeared under her eyes. "It's actually—I think I like it? Feeling things again? It's just a lot."
Jess produced a makeup wipe from her bag and gently cleaned Laurel's face. "Well, you picked a hell of a week to start feeling things. Halloween party tonight, remember?"
The party. Right. Ashton's attempt to "mend fences" after the weirdness of the past week.
Laurel's jaw tightened at the thought. Things with Ashton had been strained ever since she'd found out he'd gotten back together with Sarah—literally the day after she'd turned him down. She'd been avoiding him, not returning his texts, ducking into side hallways when she saw him coming. It probably looked like she was jealous, like she was upset that he'd moved on so quickly.
The truth was more complicated.
Sarah Snyder was a nightmare. Laurel had known that before, in a vague, secondhand way—Sarah was a cheerleader, the second to the queen bee, the girl who stood next to the girl who ran the social hierarchy with an iron fist. But since Ana's sexuality had become public knowledge, Sarah had revealed herself to be something worse: an active, enthusiastic bigot who wanted Ana's spot.
She'd been leading the charge against Ana, spreading rumors, making comments just loud enough to be heard, rallying her troops to freeze Ana out completely. Every time Laurel walked past the cheerleaders' table in the cafeteria, she heard fragments of their cruelty—"disgusting," "unnatural," "probably been checking us out in the locker room this whole time."
And now Ashton was dating that. Ashton, who knew Laurel was trans, who had held her while she cried, who had told her Laurel was a pretty name—he was with someone who would probably call Laurel a slur to her face if she ever found out the truth.
"You don't have to go tonight," Jess said, reading her expression. "We can bail. Stay in and watch horror movies with Dani and Sam instead."
"No." Laurel took a breath. "Ashton's been trying to reach out. And if I keep avoiding him, he's going to think something's really wrong. I just need to... get through it. Be normal. Pretend his girlfriend isn't a monster."
"The bar for 'normal' in your life is truly underground," Jess observed.
"Tell me about it."
The costume had been Dani's idea.
"Please," Dani had begged over FaceTime the night before. "Please please please. I've wanted to do a Life is Strange group costume since literally the day I met you. You'd be such a perfect Rachel Amber."
"I don't even know if I can pull off the look," Laurel had protested, but her resistance was already crumbling. Dani's excitement was infectious, and besides—Rachel Amber was a girl. A beautiful, confident, rebellious girl. The kind of girl Laurel had always wanted to be.
"You'll be amazing," Dani promised. "I'll be Chloe—obviously—and Jess can be Max. It'll be perfect."
Jess had agreed to the plan, though with significantly less enthusiasm. "I guess I can pull off 'hipster photographer,'" she'd said doubtfully. "How hard can it be?"
Now, standing in Jess's bedroom, Laurel examined herself in the full-length mirror and felt her breath catch.
Jess had worked her magic again—natural-looking makeup that feminized her features, a careful application of contouring that softened her jaw. Laurel's hair was down and wavy, and she wore a blue feather earring in one ear, a flannel shirt tied at the waist over a white tank top, and ripped jeans. The star tattoo on her arm was drawn on with eyeliner, but from a distance, it looked real enough.
She looked like Rachel Amber. More importantly, she looked like a girl.
"Oh my God," Dani said from behind her. She'd arrived twenty minutes ago and was already in full Chloe Price mode: electric blue wig, a black beanie, ripped jeans, and an oversized jacket covered in patches. "Laurel. You look incredible."
Laurel felt her cheeks flush—actually flush, the blood rising to her face in a way that felt new and startling. "You think so?"
"I know so." Dani stepped closer, her eyes traveling over Laurel's face with an intensity that made Laurel's stomach flip. "Seriously. You're stunning."
Before Laurel could respond, the bathroom door opened and Jess emerged, wearing—
Not Max Caulfield.
Jess was dressed in a leather jacket, a simple white tank top, dark jeans, and boots. Her blonde hair was pulled back, and she had a small wooden stake tucked into her belt.
"Buffy?" Laurel asked, surprised.
Jess shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "The Max costume didn't work. I tried it on and I just—I looked wrong. Too tall, too blonde, too... not hipster." She gestured at herself. "This is from last year. I figured it was better than nothing."
Dani's expression flickered—disappointment, maybe, or just adjustment. But she recovered quickly. "You look hot," she said. "Very 'chosen one' energy."
Jess's cheeks went pink. "Thanks. You too. I mean—the costume. The Chloe costume. You pulled it off."
The air between them crackled with something Laurel couldn't quite name. She remembered the texts she'd seen on Jess's phone, the night she'd stayed over—Dani's name appearing with increasing frequency, the conversations that Jess always seemed to minimize when Laurel got too close.
Something was happening between them. Something that probably should have made Laurel jealous but instead made her feel... hopeful? Confused? The hormones were making everything harder to parse. Something to think about.
"We should get going," Laurel said, breaking the tension. "Party starts at eight."
Sam pulled up to Jess's house at 7:45 in the Saturn, the engine coughing like it was personally offended by the Montana cold. He honked twice—short, impatient—and when they came out, he rolled down the window and let out a low whistle.
"Okay. Okay. That's a moment right there." He was wearing a flannel over a Ramones shirt, no costume, his green hair stuffed under a backwards cap. "Three absolute angels and one chauffeur who didn't get the memo about dressing up."
"You could've been Warren," Dani said, sliding into the front seat and punching his arm. "I literally sent you the reference photos."
"I don't know who Warren is and I refuse to learn." Sam adjusted the rearview mirror as Laurel and Jess climbed into the back. "Everyone buckled? Great. Before we go—ground rules."
"Sam—"
"Ground rules." He held up a finger without turning around. "One. Nobody leaves the party alone. Two. If shit goes sideways, leave together. Three—" He glanced at the rearview, catching Laurel's eyes. "Be careful about names tonight. Lot of people at this thing who don't know what they don't need to know."
The car went quiet. Laurel felt the familiar tightening in her chest—the one that came every time reality reasserted itself, every time she was reminded that existing as herself was a tactical operation requiring code words and contingency plans.
"I know," she said softly.
Jess's hand found hers on the seat between them. A quick squeeze.
"Fourth rule," Sam added, pulling away from the curb. "Have an actual good time. That's an order. I didn't drive across the country to watch three beautiful people mope at a high school party."
"You drove across the country because Dani made you," Jess pointed out.
"Dani didn't make me do shit. I came willingly. I came enthusiastically. I came because someone has to be the best man, and the emotional support human, oh and the voice of reason, and I am all three of those things in one compact, handsome package."
Dani reached over and ruffled his hair. He batted her hand away. The tension in the car loosened by a fraction.
Sarah Snyder's house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac in one of Laurel's newer subdivisions—the kind of neighborhood where the houses were all beige and oversized and looked like they'd been stamped out of the same mold. The Snyder house was the biggest on the block, two stories of faux-stone facade and landscaped hedges, and tonight it pulsed with light and sound. Cars lined both sides of the street. Bass thudded through the walls hard enough to vibrate the Saturn's side mirrors.
"Jesus," Sam muttered, pulling up to the curb three houses down. "This is a house party? This looks like a club violated a McMansion."
Orange and purple lights strobed behind the front windows. Someone had strung fake cobwebs across the porch railing, and a fog machine was leaking mist through the open garage, where a folding table held a row of bottles and a punch bowl the color of antifreeze.
"Okay." Dani turned to face the backseat. "Here's the deal. I'm going to be glued to you two. We dance, we drink, we have fun. Nobody wanders off. And if anyone asks—" She pointed at Laurel. "You're our friend from out of town. Visiting for the weekend."
"That's actually not bad," Jess admitted.
"I have my moments." Dani's eyes lingered on Laurel. The blue wig framed her face, and the streetlight caught the silver of her lip ring. "You good?"
Laurel looked at the house. Through the front window, she could see silhouettes moving—dancing, laughing, the shapes of people being young and careless and free. She thought about Derrick, asleep in his recliner, believing his child was at Jess's house watching movies. She thought about the bandage on her thigh where the needle had gone in two days ago. She thought about her mother, who had once strung dollar-store fairy lights on a rooftop terrace because she believed every girl deserved to live somewhere that sparkled.
"I'm good," she said. And meant it, mostly.
Sam dropped them at the end of the driveway. "Alright, so here's the deal, I'm gonna drop you guys off then I'm gonna try to go get laid for the first time since we got in this shitty town with a guy who's number I got while working at the gas station."
"You're not our dad, we'll be fine." Dani said.
“You're right, I'm better than most of them in this town.” Sam gave a cheeky grin.
They walked up the driveway three abreast, Laurel in the middle, Dani and Jess flanking her. The fog machine hit them at the garage entrance, and suddenly the world was all white mist and colored light and noise.
Inside, the party was already in full swing. The living room had been cleared of most furniture and turned into a dance floor, bodies packed tight, the air thick with heat and perfume and the yeasty smell of cheap beer. A DJ setup—really just someone's laptop and a Bluetooth speaker the size of a suitcase—pumped out a mix of pop and hip-hop that rattled the framed family photos on the walls. The kitchen was the bar: counters lined with bottles of vodka, rum, tequila, and a suspicious punch bowl that someone had filled with a combination of Everclear and Hawaiian Punch.
Costumes everywhere. A cluster of zombies by the stairs. Two Harley Quinns arguing near the bathroom. A boy in a Scream mask—Ashton, Laurel realized, recognizing his height and the purple varsity jacket visible beneath the black robe—was holding court in the living room, gesturing animatedly at Chase, who'd slicked his hair back and was wearing a cape and plastic fangs. Drake was beside them in a werewolf getup that was mostly just a fur vest and face paint, laughing at something Chase had said.
Evelyn drifted past in a white dress with feathered wings, an angel halo bouncing on a headband. She caught sight of them and waved. "You guys look amazing! Love the group costume!"
"Thanks!" Dani called back. Evelyn floated on, already distracted by something across the room.
Sarah was nowhere in sight yet, but her presence was everywhere—this was her domain, her kingdom. A banner over the fireplace that read HAPPY HALLOWEEN, BITCHES in glittery letters. Photos of the cheer squad in a collage on the wall, minus one. Ana Yankowski's face had been cut out of every single picture.
Laurel's stomach clenched at the sight. She looked away.
"Drinks first," Dani declared, steering them toward the kitchen. She picked up three red cups and filled them from a bottle of raspberry vodka, adding a splash of Sprite from a two-liter that was already mostly flat. She handed one to Laurel, one to Jess, and kept the third.
Laurel stared into the cup. The liquid was pink and smelled like candy and rubbing alcohol.
"I don't really drink," she said.
"You don't have to," Jess said immediately. "Just hold it. Blending prop."
"Or," Dani said, raising her cup, "you could live a little. Just tonight. Just this once. Why not be a little… reckless?”
Jess shot Dani a look. Dani shot one back. An entire conversation happened in the space between their eyes—something Laurel was too keyed up to fully decode.
She took a sip. It burned going down, then bloomed into something warm and sweet in her chest. Not terrible.
"There you go," Dani grinned.
"This is weird, right?" Jess asked, leaning in close so they could hear her. "Being here? Sarah's house? It feels like walking into the lion's den."
"It is the lion's den," Laurel said, taking a sip. "But Ashton insisted. He said he wanted us to feel welcome."
"Ashton is a golden retriever in a human suit," Jess muttered. "He thinks everyone is secretly nice deep down. He doesn't realize some people are just... Sarah."
"Speaking of the devil," Dani said, nodding toward the stairs.
Sarah Snyder was descending the staircase like she was royalty. She was dressed as a devil—predictable—in a red latex bodysuit, horns, and a tail. She looked stunning and mean. Ashton was right behind her, dressed in the black flowing robes and mask of Ghostface from Scream.
Sarah didn't follow. She stayed at the bottom of the stairs, holding a pitchfork, her eyes narrowing as she watched her boyfriend beeline for the "freaks."
"Hey!" Ashton shouted over the music, arriving breathless in front of them. He looked sweaty.
"You guys made it!"
"Wouldn't miss it," Laurel lied. "Cool costume, Ash."
"Classic, right?" Ashton grinned, gesturing to his robes.
Ashton laughed, but his eyes kept drifting back to Laurel. He looked at her with that same open, wounded affection he’d had in the hallway when she turned him down. It made Laurel’s heart ache.
"I'm glad you came," he said to Laurel, his voice lowering. "Really. Sarah... she's trying, okay? She promised to be cool."
"She's looking at us like she wants to pitchfork us," Dani noted helpfully.
Ashton winced. "She's just stressed. Hosting is a lot. Hey, come grab food? We have those little hot dogs wrapped in dough.”
"Pigs in a blanket," Jess corrected. "Fine. I'm starving."
They ate. They drank. They drifted to the edge of the dance floor. Dani moved first—she always moved first, drawn to music, and within seconds she was dancing, loose and unselfconscious, the blue wig swinging with every turn. She grabbed Jess's hand and pulled her in, and Jess went rigid for a second before the vodka or the music or something else entirely loosened her up, and then she was moving too, laughing, the wooden stake bouncing in her belt loop.
Laurel watched them for a moment, these two girls who had entered each other's lives through her, who circled each other with a wariness that was slowly, unmistakably, transforming into something else. Then Dani reached back and grabbed Laurel's wrist, and she was pulled into the current.
They danced in a careful circle, the bass rattled Laurel's ribs. The vodka settled into her limbs like warm water. She raised her arms above her head and let the music carry her, eyes closed, feeling the heat of bodies around her and the particular, distinct warmth of Dani on one side and Jess on the other.
For a few minutes—five, ten, she lost track—she wasn't performing. She wasn't hiding. She wasn't calculating the distance between herself and danger. She was just a girl at a party, dancing with her friends, and the simplicity of it was so overwhelming that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying.
The songs blurred together. Someone bumped into her and she barely noticed. Dani's hand found the small of her back—steadying, protective—and Jess's shoulder pressed against hers as they swayed together through something slower. Drake and Chase materialized at the edge of their orbit, The guard kids found each other the way they always did, a gravitational pull that operated even off the field.
"You need another drink!" Dani shouted over the music, pointing at Laurel's empty cup.
"I'm fine!"
"You're not fine, you're empty! Let's be reckless Lau— babe.”
They wove through the crowd to the kitchen. Dani refilled Laurel's cup—stronger this time, more vodka, less Sprite. Laurel drank it faster than she should have, the warmth spreading through her chest and into her fingertips. By the time they made it back to the dance floor, the room had gone pleasantly fuzzy at the edges.
The third drink appeared sometime later, delivered by Drake, who thrust a red cup into her hand and said, "Cheers, dude—sorry, cheers, uh—" He caught himself, glancing around. "Cheers, Happy Halloween." He clinked his cup against hers and vanished back into the crowd before she could respond.
The fourth was her own doing. She found herself at the kitchen counter, pouring vodka into a cup with the concentrated focus of someone performing surgery, adding a splash of Sprite as an afterthought. Jess appeared at her elbow.
"Hey. Slow down."
"I'm fine."
"You've had four."
"I've had four," Laurel agreed, as if confirming a fun fact about herself. "And I feel great. I feel really great, Jess. Like, actually great. When was the last time I felt great?"
Jess studied her face. Something softened in her expression—concern edged with tenderness, the look of someone watching a caged bird test its wings for the first time. "Okay. But this is the last one. And drink some water."
"Yes, Captain." Laurel saluted with her cup and took a long sip.
She was tipsy. She knew she was tipsy because the room had taken on a pleasant tilt, like she was on a boat in calm water, and every sensation felt amplified—the roughness of the flannel against her skin, the bass vibrating through the soles of her shoes, the sweet chemical taste of cheap vodka on her tongue. She was five-six and a hundred and thirty pounds and she didn't drink and four drinks had hit her like a freight train made of cotton candy.
It felt incredible. For the first time in months—maybe longer—the constant hum of anxiety in her chest had quieted. Not gone, but muffled, buried under layers of warmth and music and the knowledge that she was surrounded by people who knew her name, her real name, and loved her anyway.
She found a spot on a couch against the wall and sank into it, the cushions swallowing her. From here, she had a perfect view of the dance floor.
Dani and Jess were still out there.
They were dancing together. Not with the group anymore—just the two of them, orbiting each other in that way they had, the way that looked like an argument conducted entirely through body language. Dani moved with the loose confidence of someone who'd spent years in a color guard, all hips and shoulders and rhythm. Jess was stiffer, more controlled, but she'd found a groove, her blonde hair swinging as she turned, and when Dani leaned in to shout something in her ear, Jess tipped her head back and laughed—really laughed, the full-body kind—and Dani grinned like she'd won something.
Laurel watched them and waited for the jealousy to hit.
It didn't come.
Instead, she felt a longing so deep it ached, settling into her bones like the cold. Not jealousy. Not possessiveness. Something rawer, more honest. She wanted what they had in that moment—the ease of it, the way their bodies communicated without translation, the freedom of wanting someone and letting that want be visible. She wanted to dance with someone like that. She wanted to be looked at the way Dani was looking at Jess right now—like the whole room had gone dark except for one person.
She wanted to be wanted. Not as Montana, not as a project, not as a tragedy to be rescued. Just as a girl. Just as Laurel.
The longing crested and broke, and she felt tears prick her eyes—goddamn hormones, goddamn vodka, goddamn everything—and she blinked them back and took another sip and told herself to enjoy this. To let them have this. To be grateful that the two people she loved most in Laurel, Montana, had found something in each other that she wasn't sure she could give either of them right now.
She was still watching when a shadow fell over her.
"Well, shit. Montana Payton. Didn't think you were the party type."
The voice was male, casual, edged with something that made the hair on the back of Laurel's neck stand up. She looked up.
Hunter Stevens stood over her in a baseball uniform—white jersey, pinstriped pants, cleats that were tracking mud on Sarah Snyder's carpet. A baseball bat rested on his shoulder. The uniform was clean, generic, not representing any particular team. Just a boy in white holding a weapon, looking down at her with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
The bat.
Laurel's vision tunneled. For one horrible, disorienting second, she wasn't in Sarah Snyder's living room. She was in the snow. She was twelve years old, and the bat was swinging toward her and she couldn't get up, couldn't run, and the sound it made when it hit—
She blinked. The party rushed back in. Music. Lights. The couch under her.
Hunter Stevens. Erick Stevens's younger brother. Erick, who had been one of the three boys who'd beaten her in the park that night. Erick, who'd swung the bat.
Hunter was sixteen now, a sophomore. Same jaw as his brother, same blond hair, same casual cruelty worn like cologne. He was watching Laurel with that appraising look that boys in this town seemed to learn in utero—measuring, weighing, deciding how much space you were allowed to take up.
"Nice costume," he said, gesturing at her outfit with the bat. The bat. Just a prop. Just a Halloween prop. Just aluminum and foam and nothing to be afraid of. "What are you supposed to be? Some kind of..."
His eyes traveled over the flannel, the feather earring, the makeup. His smile widened.
"Huh," he said. "Interesting choice. Real interesting."
"Excuse me." Laurel's voice came out thinner than she wanted. She started to stand.
Hunter shifted, not quite blocking her but making the space narrower. He leaned the bat against his leg. "Relax. I'm just saying hi. Erick told me to keep an eye out for you, actually. Said you used to know each other." He paused, letting the words land. "Said you were, like, real close when you were kids."
The room tilted. Not from the vodka this time.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Laurel managed.
"Sure you don't. My brother remembers, though. He remembers everything about that night." Hunter's voice dropped, intimate and poisonous, meant only for her. "Said you looked real different back then. But people change, right? Grow up. Figure out what they are."
The bat sat against his leg like a promise.
"Hey." The voice cut through the noise like a blade. "Back up."
Dani was there. Blue wig slightly askew, cheeks flushed from dancing, eyes absolutely murderous. She inserted herself between Laurel and Hunter with a casualness that was entirely manufactured—leaning against the arm of the couch like she'd been there all along, one hand resting on Laurel's shoulder.
"Sorry, who are you?" Hunter asked, his tone shifting—not intimidated, but recalibrating.
"Don't worry about it.” Dani said standing straight up to him. Dani was tall, at 5 ‘10 but was still a few inches shorter than Stevens. “Back up.”
Hunter looked hard at Dani assessing. Then his gaze faltered and he stepped back. “Fine.”
"Smart. Don't want anyone getting hurt." The emphasis was slight but unmistakable.
Hunter looked at Dani, then at Laurel, then back at Dani. The calculation behind his eyes was visible—risk assessment, social math. He was outnumbered and he knew it. The crowd pressed in around them, indifferent, and whatever he'd been building toward deflated.
"Just saying hi," he repeated, picking up the bat and resting it on his shoulder again. "Tell your dad I said hey, Montana. Happy Halloween."
He melted back into the crowd. Dani didn't move until he was gone—fully gone, swallowed by the noise and the bodies—and then she turned to Laurel.
"Who the hell was that?"
"Hunter Stevens." Laurel's hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs. "His brother is one of the guys who—when I was twelve—"
She didn't need to finish. Dani's face went white beneath the makeup.
"The bat," Dani said.
"The bat."
Dani sat down beside her and took her hand. Not gently—firmly, anchoring. "We can leave. Right now. I'll get Jess and we're gone."
Laurel shook her head. The vodka was curdling in her stomach, but underneath the fear, something stubborn was digging in. "No. I'm not letting him chase me out. I'm not running from him."
Dani studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded, once. "Okay. But I'm not leaving your side again."
She didn't.
The next forty minutes passed in a blur of noise and movement. Dani stayed close—close enough to touch, close enough that Laurel could feel the heat of her and Jess eventually rejoined them, reading the shift in energy instantly.
"What happened?" Jess asked, her eyes sharp.
"Nothing," Laurel said.
"Hunter Stevens," Dani said, lightly slapping Laurel's arm.
Jess's jaw tightened. She looked across the room in the direction Hunter had disappeared and said nothing, but her hand moved to the wooden stake in her belt loop, and Laurel had the absurd, grateful thought that Jess would have actually used it if given the chance.
They stuck together after that. A unit. Laurel's buzz had faded into something edgier, the warmth replaced by a low hum of adrenaline. She was acutely aware of exits, of sight lines, of the bat that was somewhere in this house attached to a boy whose brother had put her in the hospital.
Then the front door slammed open.
The music didn't stop, but the atmosphere in the room changed instantly. A cold draft swept through the house, cutting through the humidity.
Everyone turned.
Standing in the entryway, framed by the darkness of the night, was Ana Yankowski.
She wasn't wearing her cheer uniform. She wasn't wearing a generic "sexy cat" costume.
She was wearing a purple and yellow cheerleading uniform, with DK on the front, pleats sharp but it was destroyed. It was ripped, torn, and absolutely drenched in fake blood. Her blonde hair was covered by a jet-black wig that hung straight and wet-looking around her face. Her mouth was stained crimson, smeared down her chin and neck as if she’d just feasted.
She was Jennifer Check from Jennifer's Body. The man-eater. The girl who used her sexuality as a weapon.
It was a statement. It was a challenge.
Ana stood there, surveying the room with dead, shark-like eyes. Silence rippled outward from the door as people realized who it was. The girl everyone had been calling a dyke, a freak, a pariah for the last week had just walked into the center of the arena wearing her trauma like war paint.
"Trick or treat," Ana said into the silence. Her voice was syrupy sweet.
From the other side of the room, near the stairs, Sarah Snyder made a noise of pure outrage.
"Oh god," Jess whispered. "Here we go."
Laurel couldn't take her eyes off Ana.
The irony wasn't lost on her. Jennifer's Body—a movie about a girl who is sacrificed by a boy band, comes back as a demon, eats boys, and has a homoerotic friendship with her best friend Needy.
Ana was leaning into the narrative. She was owning the "monster" label they’d slapped on her.
"That is... bold," Dani whispered, sounding impressed despite herself.
Ana began to walk through the crowd. People parted for her like the Red Sea, shrinking away from the blood-soaked uniform. She didn't look at anyone. She walked straight toward the keg, poured herself a beer with deliberate slowness, and turned to face the room.
Sarah Snyder marched across the room, her devil tail swishing angrily. She was flanked by two other cheerleaders, her lieutenants.
"What are you doing here?" Sarah demanded, her voice shrill. "You weren't invited."
Ana took a sip of her beer. "Just thought I'd show my face again, I've been sick for a while right?” Ana pouted at Sarah.
"It's my house," Sarah spat. "And I don't want you here. Get out, now.”
"Are you sure? I heard that you had a lot of stuff you wanted to say about me.” Ana tilted her head. The black wig fell over her eyes. “Too afraid to say it to my face?”
"You're disgusting," Sarah sneered. "Look at you. You look like a psycho. But I guess that fits, doesn't it? Since you're such a freak."
"Better a freak than a boring fucking cliché, aren't you just the slightest bit embarrassed that you have to go through all that work spreading rumors about me…" Ana retorted, eyeing Sarah’s devil costume. “When you've always been second best. Second best to me…” She looked over at Ashton. “And second best to him too.”
The crowd ooohed. Someone laughed.
Sarah’s face turned a violent shade of red. "Get out. Now."
"Make me," Ana said.
"I said get out!" Sarah screamed. She stepped forward, shoving Ana hard in the chest.
Ana stumbled back, splashing beer onto the floor, but she didn't fight back. She just smiled—a bloody, jagged smile.
"You dirty, lying dyke!" Sarah shrieked. She raised her hand, fingers curled into a claw, aiming for Ana’s face.
Ana didn't flinch. She braced herself.
But the blow never landed.
A blur of motion shot across the room. Leather and denim.
Jess.
Jess stepped between them, catching Sarah’s wrist in mid-air.
"Don't," Jess said. Her voice was low, dangerous.
Sarah looked at Jess, stunned. "Let go of me, Jessica."
"You're drunk, Sarah," Jess said, not letting go. "And you're making a scene. Just let her leave."
"You're defending her?" Sarah laughed, a high, incredulous sound. "Her? After what she did to you? She ruined your life, Jess! She outed you!”
"I know," Jess said. She didn't look at Ana behind her. She kept her eyes locked on Sarah. "But you're not going to hit her."
"Why? Because you're in love with her too?" Sarah sneered. "Is that it? Is everyone just a raging lesbo now?"
"Sarah, stop," Ashton shouted, trying to push through the crowd.
But it was too late.
Sarah wrenched her arm free from Jess’s grip. "Get out of my face, you loser!"
She swung again, not a slap this time, but a punch. A wild, uncoordinated haymaker fueled by vodka and rage.
She aimed for Jess.
The sound was sickening. A wet crack that echoed over the music.
Sarah’s fist connected with Jess’s cheekbone. Sarah was wearing a class ring. A heavy, collegiate class ring on her right hand.
Laurel watched in horror as Jess’s head snapped to the side. Jess stumbled back, clutching her face. When she pulled her hand away, blood poured out.
The ring had caught the skin just below her eye and tore it downwards. A jagged, ugly gash split her cheek open.
"Jess!" Laurel screamed.
The room erupted.
Sarah stood there, clutching her hand, looking horrified. "I... I didn't mean..."
Jess stood swaying, blood dripping onto her white tank top, staining the leather jacket. She looked shocked, blinking rapidly.
Then Dani moved.
Dani didn't try to de-escalate. Dani launched herself.
"You bitch!" Dani roared. She tackled Sarah Snyder into the snack table.
Pigs in a blanket went flying. The punch bowl shattered. Dani was on top of Sarah, blue wig flying, fists swinging. It was pure chaos.
"Get her off me!" Sarah screamed.
Ashton and Hunter Stevens dove into the fray, pulling Dani off. Dani was thrashing, spitting, kicking at anyone who got close.
"Don't you touch her!" Dani screamed, pointing at Sarah. "I will kill you!"
"Dani! Stop!" Laurel grabbed Dani from behind, wrapping her arms around her waist, hauling her back. "Dani, look at me! Look at Jess! We need to go!"
Dani stopped struggling. She looked over at Jess.
Jess was leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to her face. Blood was everywhere. It was pooling in her collarbone, soaking the white tank top red. She looked pale.
"Oh god," Dani whispered. All the fight drained out of her.
She ripped her bag open, frantically searching. She pulled out the teal scarf—the one she’d knit, the one that matched the scarf she gave Laurel years ago.
She rushed to Jess. "Let me see. Move your hand."
Jess winced but moved her hand. The cut was deep. Nasty.
"Okay," Dani said, her voice shaking but efficient. She bunched up the teal scarf and pressed it firmly against the wound. "Hold this. Hard. Apply pressure."
Jess nodded, her eyes wide and glassy. "It stings."
"I know, baby. I know." Dani turned to Laurel. "We need to get her to urgent care. Or at least out of here to clean this up."
Jess was shaking but upright, her eyes wide and glassy. "She—she did that on purpose—"
"I know. I know. Come on."
Laurel stood frozen for half a second, the room spinning around her—screaming, someone screaming, Sarah screaming something about Ana deserving it, about all of them deserving it, and the crowd was surging and phones were recording and the DJ had finally killed the music entirely—
Ashton was standing over Sarah, who was crying on the floor amidst the ruined appetizers. He looked at Laurel, his Ghostface mask in his hand, his expression one of utter devastation.
"Laurel..."
"Don't," Laurel said. She looked at him with cold fury. "Just don't."
And Ana was standing in the middle of it all, alone, the black wig hanging in her face, fake blood and real shock making her look like a ghost of herself. She wasn't moving. The crowd was closing in around her and she wasn't moving.
Laurel pushed through the bodies. An elbow caught her in the ribs. Someone shoved her sideways. She kept going until she reached Ana and grabbed her arm.
"Come with us."
Ana's eyes focused on her. Glazed, distant. "What?"
"You can't stay here. Come with us. Right now."
"I didn't—I didn't mean for her to—"
"I know." Laurel pulled. "Come on. Ana. Please."
Something in the word please broke through. Ana let herself be pulled, stumbling in her heels, and Laurel steered her toward the door where Dani was already half-carrying Jess through the entryway, the teal scarf a darkening flag against Jess's face.
The cold hit them like a wall. After the heat and the noise of the party, the October air felt like plunging into water—sharp, clarifying, brutal. Laurel's flannel was useless against it. Ana shivered violently in her bloodied cheer uniform, but neither of them slowed down.
Dani had Jess on the sidewalk, guiding her past the parked cars. Blood was seeping through the scarf and running down Jess's neck, staining the collar of her white tank top. Jess was making small, tight sounds through her teeth—not crying, not yet, but the pain was setting in.
"Call Sam," Dani said over her shoulder.
Laurel fumbled for her phone. Pulled up Sam's number. It rang. And rang. And went to voicemail.
She tried again. Voicemail.
"He's not picking up." The panic was rising now, clearing away the last of the vodka haze. "Sam's not answering."
"Then we walk." Dani didn't break stride. She had Jess tucked against her side, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand holding the scarf firmly against her cheek. "It's what—a mile to my house? Mile and a half? We walk."
"In this cold?" Ana hugged herself, her bare arms prickling with goosebumps. The fake blood on her skin looked almost real in the streetlight.
"Unless you've got a better idea," Dani said flatly.
Ana didn't.
They walked. Four girls on a sidewalk in the dark, breath fogging in the Halloween cold, one bleeding and three terrified. The sounds of the party faded behind them—muffled bass, distant shouting, the wail of someone who might have been Sarah or might have been anyone—until it was just the crunch of their footsteps and the wind and Jess's breathing, shallow and measured, the way someone breathes when they're trying very hard not to fall apart.
The night air was sharp and cold, cutting through the lingering warmth of the alcohol. They walked fast, putting distance between themselves and the Stevens house, their breaths forming white clouds in the darkness.
"Let me see," Dani said, stopping under a streetlight. She tilted Jess's face toward the light, examining the cut on her cheekbone. "Shit. That's gonna bruise.”
"That needs stitches," Laurel said.
"I'm fine," Jess said, her voice tight and strange.
"You're not fine. That's going to need stitches."
"I said I'm fine." Jess reached up and pressed the scarf back against her face, hard enough to make herself wince. "Just keep walking."
"You're ruining your scarf."
"I'll make another one." Dani's voice was soft, almost tender. "I've gotten good at it."
Jess's eyes met Dani's, and something passed between them—gratitude, maybe, or something more. Laurel watched, feeling like an intruder on a private moment, even though she was standing right there.”
Dani caught Laurel's eye over Jess's head. The look that passed between them was pure fear—not for themselves, but for the girl between them, the girl who had stepped in front of a fist meant for someone else because that was simply what Jess Perot did.
Behind them, Ana trailed by a few steps, her arms wrapped around herself, the black wig hanging limp against her shoulders. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the party. Her heels clicked on the sidewalk in an unsteady rhythm, and Laurel kept glancing back to make sure she was still there, still moving, still upright.
"Why did you bring her?" Dani asked quietly, nodding toward Ana.
Laurel looked back again. Ana was staring at the ground, her face blank, the fake blood drying in dark streaks down her chin. She looked like a girl who had walked into a fire expecting to feel powerful and had been surprised, impossibly surprised, to discover that fire burned.
"Because nobody else was going to," Laurel said.
"We should keep moving," Ana said. She was hugging herself, her arms wrapped tight around her bloodstained costume. "I don't want to be here if Sarah decides to come after us."
"Where do we go?" Jess asked.
"My place is closest," Dani said. "We can cut through the park."
They started walking again, their footsteps echoing on the empty sidewalk. The neighborhood around them was quiet, most houses dark, only the occasional jack-o'-lantern still glowing on a porch. Halloween was officially over for Laurel, Montana.
"This way," Dani said, turning onto a path that cut between two houses. "There's a park that connects to my street."
Laurel followed without thinking, her mind still replaying the events of the party—Hunter's bat, Sarah's accusations, the crack of Jess's cheekbone. She didn't realize where they were until they emerged from the path and she saw the sign.
DAVIDSON PARK.
The air in Davidson Park was stagnant, heavy with the smell of wet pine and decaying leaves. It was a smell that hadn't changed in five years.
Laurel stopped walking.
Her boots felt like they were filled with lead. Her breath, which had been white puffs of condensation in the cold night air, suddenly caught in her throat. The landscape around them—the rusted swing set, the cluster of pine trees near the maintenance shed, the specific angle of the streetlight casting long, skeletal shadows across the snow—it all rushed at her with the violence of a physical blow.
This was the spot.
It wasn't just a park anymore. It was the park. It was the place where the snow had turned red. It was the place where three boys with baseball bats had tried to break her until she wasn't a girl anymore.
"Hey," Dani said, sensing the shift immediately. She stopped and turned back, her hand still supporting Jess.
"Rachel? You okay?"
Laurel couldn't answer. Her vision was tunneling. The shadows of the trees looked like swinging bats. The wind sounded like laughter—Hunter's laughter, Erick's laughter, Matt Silverson's laughter.
"She's stopping," Ana said, her voice shivering. "Why is she stopping? We need to keep moving."
"Shut up," Jess hissed through her teeth, wincing as the movement pulled at the cut on her cheek. She pulled away from Dani and stepped toward Laurel. "Hey. Look at me. Just look at me."
Laurel shook her head, her hands coming up to claw at the flannel shirt tied around her waist. She felt like she was suffocating. The flannel felt like a trap. The costume felt like a lie.
I can't be here, she thought, the panic rising like bile. They're going to find me. They're still here.
"We need to go," Laurel gasped, the words strangling her. "We have to... I can't be here. Not here."
"Okay," Dani said, her voice dropping into that low, soothing register she used when Laurel was spiraling. She stepped in, placing her body between Laurel and the dark expanse of the park. "We're leaving. We're just walking through. Eyes on me, okay? Just look at the blue wig."
"Is she sick?" Ana asked, stepping closer, looking between them with genuine confusion. "Did she drink too much?"
"Ana, back off," Jess warned, gripping Laurel’s arm to ground her. "She's just... she's having a moment. Let us handle it."
Jess and Dani were moving with synchronized precision, a protective detail closing ranks. They were careful, so careful, not to say her name. Not to say Laurel. Not to say Montana. They called her "honey," "babe," "you." They were building a wall of anonymity around her to keep Ana from seeing the truth.
Laurel was hyperventilating now, short, sharp gasps that sounded too loud in the quiet park. She was trembling so hard her teeth chattered.
Ana watched them, her brow furrowed beneath the black wig. She looked at the way Dani was holding Laurel’s face. She looked at the terror in Laurel’s eyes—terror that was too deep for a simple panic attack, terror that was specific and historical.
"What's wrong with Laurel?" Ana asked.
The world stopped.
The silence that followed was louder than the wind. Louder than the distant highway.
Jess froze, her hand hovering near Laurel’s shoulder. Dani went rigid, her head snapping around to look at Ana. Laurel felt the blood drain from her face, the cold prickle of total exposure washing over her.
Ana blinked, looking at their horrified expressions. Then her eyes widened as she realized what she’d just said.
"Oh shit," Ana whispered, her hand coming up to cover her blood-smeared mouth. "Did she not tell you guys..."
"You know?" Dani’s voice was a lethal whisper. She stepped away from Laurel, advancing on Ana. "How do you know that name?"
"I..." Ana stammered, backing up a step. "I figured it out. On the bleachers. The other day." She looked at Laurel, who was staring at her with the look of a trapped animal. "She asked me why I was crying. She was nice to me. And I just... I looked at her, and I realized. She's the only one who fits. The timeline, she's the girl you were looking for."
"And you didn't say anything?" Jess asked, shocked, lowering the teal scarf from her bleeding cheek.
"I didn't know if..." Ana trailed off, looking miserable. "I… I didn't want to be the reason she got hurt again. And I didn't think she'd keep my secret.”
Before anyone could process the fact that Ana Yankowski—the mean girl, the bully—had been keeping Laurel’s biggest secret for days, and that apparently Laurel was also hiding something, the park was suddenly flooded with blinding blue and red light.
A siren chirped. Once, sharp and authoritative.
A police cruiser had pulled onto the access road, jumping the curb and rolling onto the grass, cutting off their path to Dani’s street. The headlights pinned them against the darkness like moths.
"Cops," Dani hissed, grabbing Laurel and pulling her back. "Stay behind me."
The door of the cruiser opened. Heavy boots hit the frozen grass.
A man stepped out. He was tall, thick-set, with a buzz cut and a face that looked like it had been carved out of granite and bad intentions. He adjusted his belt, the leather creaking in the silence.
Laurel stopped breathing.
It wasn't just a cop. It was Officer Shane Silverson. Matt Silverson’s father.
The man who knew about what happened in 2013. The man who had made the investigation disappear because his son was holding the bat.
"Little late for a costume party, isn't it?" Silverson called out. His voice was a deep rasp, carrying easily over the distance. He didn't sound like an officer of the law; he sounded like a predator who had found prey.
He walked toward them, his hand resting casually near his holster. He shone his flashlight over them, the beam cutting through the dark. It lingered on Ana’s blood-soaked uniform, then Jess’s injured face, then Dani’s blue hair.
"We were just heading home, Officer," Jess said, her voice steady despite the blood dripping down her neck. "We had an incident at a party. We're going to get cleaned up."
"An incident," Silverson repeated. He stopped ten feet away, the flashlight beam blinding them. "Looks like more than an incident. Looks like assault."
"It was a misunderstanding," Ana said quickly, stepping forward. "We're fine."
Silverson moved the light, sweeping it past Ana and landing squarely on Laurel’s face.
Laurel flinched, shielding her eyes, shrinking into her flannel shirt. She tried to make herself small, tried to hide the Rachel Amber costume, tried to disappear.
Silverson didn't move the light. He held it there, studying her. He looked at the long hair, the makeup, the feather earring. Then he looked closer, his eyes narrowing with a dawn of cruel recognition.
He chuckled. It was a dry, ugly sound.
"Well," Silverson said, lowering the flashlight just enough so they could see the sneer on his face. "Not all of you are women, are you?"
Dani stepped in front of Laurel, bristling like a feral dog. "Excuse me?"
Silverson ignored her. He stared right over Dani’s shoulder, locking eyes with Laurel. His gaze was heavy, stripping away the costume, stripping away the years, seeing only the victim he’d failed to protect, and the boy he thought should have toughened up.
"You're Payton's boy," Silverson said. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. "Dressed up like that. I heard you were back in town. Matt told me he saw you prancing around at the game."
Laurel felt tears prick her eyes. The shame was hot and suffocating.
Payton's boy.
"Leave her alone," Dani snapped. “We're leaving."
"I didn't say you could leave," Silverson barked, his demeanor shifting instantly from mocking to menacing. He took a step forward, invading their space. "I've got a girl here covered in blood," he gestured to Ana, "another one with her face cut open," he pointed to Jess, "and a boy in makeup trespassing in a city park after curfew, and I think… I smell alcohol. I think I need to take you all down to the station. Call your parents. See what Derrick has to say about his son's... hobbies."
He was enjoying this. He was going to humiliate her. He was going to drag her into the station in her makeup, call her father, and let the whole town stare. It was the nightmare scenario.
Laurel trembled, clutching Dani’s jacket from behind.
"Officer Silverson," a voice rang out. Clear. Imperious. Entitled.
Ana Yankowski stepped out from the group.
She looked terrifying. The fake blood on her cheer uniform was drying into a rusty brown. Her black wig was askew. Her mascara was running. But she stood with her chin raised, her posture perfect, channeling every ounce of terrifying, icy authority.
"What?" Silverson snapped, looking annoyed at the interruption.
"You know who I am, right?" Ana asked, removing her wig. She took a step toward him, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn't look like a high schooler anymore; she looked like a tactician.
Silverson shone the light on her again. He squinted. "You're the Yankowski girl."
"Ana," she corrected sharply. "I take it you know who my mother is."
Silverson’s jaw tightened. He lowered the flashlight slightly. "I know who your mother is."
"Good," Ana said. Her voice was steady, cold as the ice on the grass. "Then you know that if you arrest us—if you drag me down to the station for walking home from a Halloween party, my mother is going to have questions."
She took another step, closing the distance.
"She's going to ask why you were harassing teenage girls in a park instead of responding to the assault call at the Snyder residence," Ana lied smoothly. "She's going to ask why you were verbally abusing a minor. She's going to make one phone call, Officer Silverson, and your day is going to get ten times worse. Do you really want to explain to the Chief why the Senator is auditing your precinct?"
It was a bluff. Ana’s mom would likely ground Ana until she was thirty if she found out about tonight. But Silverson didn't know that. All he knew was that her mom was powerful, vindictive, and could ruin a pension with a snap of her fingers.
Silverson stared at Ana. He looked at the blood on her uniform. He looked at the defiance in her eyes.
He weighed the pleasure of tormenting "Payton's boy" against the headache of dealing with the Yankowskis.
He scoffed, spitting on the ground near Ana’s boots.
"Get out of here," Silverson muttered, backing toward his cruiser. "Fucking dykes."
He turned his glare to Laurel one last time. "And you... watch yourself, Payton. This town doesn't have patience for fags like you."
He got back in the car. The door slammed. He reversed aggressively over the curb, tearing up the grass, and sped off into the night.
The silence rushed back in.
Laurel let out a sob she’d been holding for five minutes, her knees buckling. Dani caught her immediately, holding her upright.
"He's gone," Dani whispered into her hair. "He's gone. You're safe."
Ana stood there for a moment, the adrenaline fading, her posture slumping back into that of a tired, scared teenager. She looked at Laurel, then at Dani, then at Jess.
"Okay," Ana said, her voice shaking slightly. "So... are we walking, or what?”
Dani stared at Ana incredulously.
Jess looked away guiltily.
Laurel couldn’t stop looking at the place Silverson had stood.
The spot on the path where his boots had crushed the thin crust of snow. The angle of the streetlight that had turned his badge into a bright silver flash. The way he’d said Payton’s kid like Laurel was property and a punchline at the same time.
Silverson was gone now—tail-lights swallowed by the dark street—but Laurel’s body hadn’t gotten the memo. Her hands were still trembling. Her stomach still felt like it had been hollowed out with a spoon.
Dani finally found her voice.
“Ana,” she said, low and incredulous. “What the fuck.”
Ana’s mouth twitched like she wanted to snap back with something sharp and practiced. The version of Ana that Laurel knew—the one who could turn cruelty into an Olympic sport—hovered right there at the surface.
But instead Ana just looked tired. “My mom, Olivia Yankowski is a State Senator.” She shoved the wig into the crook of her arm like it was suddenly embarrassing.
Jess’s eyes were hard despite the cut on her face. “So you can just… do that? You can just name-drop your mom and the cops evaporate?”
Ana’s gaze flicked to Jess, and something like shame crossed her expression so fast Laurel almost missed it.
“I didn’t want to,” Ana said. “I was bluffing Jess… If I had that power I— You know what, nevermind.”
Dani shifted closer to Laurel without even thinking about it, her shoulder brushing Laurel’s. Protective. Present. Real. The contact grounded Laurel for half a second.
Then Jess made a sound, small and pained, and Laurel’s focus snapped.
Jess’s face was pale under the streetlight, her cheek already swelling around the split skin. Dani’s teal scarf had become brown now where Jess had pressed it.
Laurel saw Dani see it too—the blood, the swelling, the way Jess’s eyes kept blinking like she was trying not to cry.
“Okay,” Dani said, decisive in that way she got when she was scared and refused to admit it. “Jess is hurt. We’re not doing this right now.”
Jess tried to wave her off. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s your face,” Dani snapped, and then softened immediately, like she regretted the sharpness. “Sorry. I’m just— We’re getting you home. First priority.”
Ana nodded once, too quickly. “Yeah. Get her home.”
Laurel swallowed. Her mouth tasted like acid from the alcohol and the stress.
“My dad,” Laurel heard herself say, because that was the other priority, the one that lived under her skin like a second skeleton. “He’s going to be—” She stopped, because there was no word for it that didn’t feel too small. Mad didn’t cover it. Angry didn’t cover it. Dangerous didn’t even cover it, not in the way Derrick Payton could make danger feel like weather.
Jess looked at Laurel with an apology in her eyes, like she wanted to tell her it was okay to choose herself, like she wanted to tell her she’d walk her home, she’d take the hit, she’d do the whole captain thing.
But Jess’s face was swelling and bleeding and she was swaying a little on her feet.
Dani made the decision for all of them.
“We’re doing Jess first,” she said. “Then Laurel. No arguments.”
Laurel nodded because she didn’t trust herself to speak.
They started moving, shoes crunching over snow, their breaths white in the dark. The path out of the park felt longer than it had any right to be, like the park was stretching itself out behind them, trying to keep Laurel there.
Jess stayed between Dani and Laurel, but Dani’s hand kept finding Jess’s elbow to steady her. The scarf stayed pressed to Jess’s cheek. Every few steps Jess would wince, and Dani would tighten her grip like she could squeeze the pain away.
Ana walked on the other side of Laurel, silent, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Without the wig she looked younger somehow. Not kinder, not softer—just more like a person who might actually be scared.
Laurel glanced at her once and saw Ana watching the street like she expected Silverson to come back with backup.
Laurel couldn’t blame her.
Jess’s street looked like a postcard—quiet houses, bare trees, snowdrifts softening everything into curved shapes. It should’ve felt safe.
It didn’t.
Jess slowed as they turned the corner toward her house.
“There,” she said, voice muffled behind the scarf. “That one.”
The Perot house had its porch light on, warm yellow spilling out onto the snow. Two pumpkins sat on the steps, half-collapsed now, their carved faces sagging. Someone had left a string of orange lights up even though Halloween was technically over. They glowed weakly in the wind.
Dani looked relieved, like she could see the finish line and it meant she didn’t have to hold her breath anymore.
Jess stopped at the edge of the sidewalk like she’d hit an invisible wall.
“I’m gonna get murdered,” she muttered.
Dani snorted, but her eyes were gentle. “By Gina? Yeah.”
Jess made a face. “She’s gonna ask questions.”
“She should,” Dani said. “You got punched in the face.”
Jess sighed, then turned to Laurel, and for a second Laurel saw her captain voice trying to click into place. “You okay?”
Laurel nodded too fast. “Yeah.”
Jess’s gaze flicked over Laurel’s costume—over the feather earring, the flannel, the eyeliner star tattoo—and Laurel watched something tighten behind Jess’s eyes.
“You should get home,” Jess said quietly. “Like, now.”
Laurel’s throat closed. “I know.”
Ana cleared her throat like she was forcing herself into the conversation.
“I’ll walk her,” Ana said.
Dani blinked. “You’ll what?”
Ana lifted her chin. “I said I’ll walk her home. No bullshit. She shouldn’t go alone and you can’t—” She nodded at Jess’s face. “You can’t.”
Dani’s eyes narrowed, suspicion and protectiveness colliding. “Since when do you do ‘no bullshit’?”
Ana’s mouth twitched. “Since tonight.”
Jess looked between them, wary. “Ana—”
“I’m serious,” Ana cut in, sharp. Then, like she realized she sounded like she was ordering them around, she exhaled and forced her voice down. “Look. Laurel needs to get home before Derrick starts driving around looking for her. Dani needs to get Jess inside so Gina doesn’t… I don’t know. Call the FBI. Everyone wins.”
Jess’s gaze hardened. “Why do I feel like there’s an asterisk on this?”
Ana didn’t look at Jess. She looked past the Perot house, down the street, like she was calculating angles and exits.
“Because you hate me,” Ana said flatly. “And you think I’m incapable of doing something decent without a hidden agenda.”
Jess didn’t deny it.
Laurel’s stomach twisted. She hated being the reason people argued. She hated feeling like a package being handed off.
She also hated the timer in her head counting down the minutes until Derrick got angry enough to become unpredictable.
Laurel touched Dani’s arm, gentle. “Dani.”
Dani looked at her, and Laurel saw it all there—the fear, the love, the helplessness. Dani wanted to be everywhere at once: Jess’s door, Laurel’s porch, the park where Silverson had stood.
Laurel swallowed. “Please. Just… go with Jess. Derrick will be incredibly mad if I’m not home soon.”
Jess flinched at Laurel saying it out loud, like it made the thing too real.
Dani held Laurel’s gaze a second longer, then nodded once, stiff and reluctant. “Fine.”
Ana’s eyes flickered. Gratitude? Relief? Laurel couldn’t tell.
Dani turned to Jess. “Come on. Let’s go get you yelled at by a suburban mom.”
Jess let out a breath and managed a weak smile. “Lucky me.”
Dani guided Jess up the steps. The door opened before they even knocked—like Gina had been watching from the window the whole time.
Warm light spilled out, and Laurel caught a glimpse of Gina’s face: confusion turning to alarm turning to fury in the span of a heartbeat as she saw Jess’s cheek and the scarf stained with blood.
“Jessica Perot—” Gina started, voice rising.
Jess winced. Dani lifted a hand like she could physically push the volume down. “Hi, Gina. We need ice and maybe—”
The door closed, cutting off the rest.
Laurel stood on the sidewalk, suddenly colder without the glow of the Perot porch.
Ana shifted beside her.
“Well,” Ana said, too lightly. “That went great.”
Laurel looked at her. “You sure about walking me?”
Ana’s gaze didn’t waver. “I said I would.”
Laurel nodded, because she didn’t know what else to do.
They turned away from the Perot house and started walking.
"Come on," Ana said, not unkindly. "We have to move fast."
They walked in silence for two blocks. The wind bit through Laurel’s flannel shirt, reminding her that under the costume, she was just a girl in the cold. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Then again. Then a third time.
Ana checked her own phone. A cold, satisfied smile touched her lips.
"It's done," Ana murmured.
"What is?" Laurel asked, her teeth chattering.
Ana stopped under a tree, the shadows striping her face. She tapped her screen and turned it toward Laurel.
It was a video. Shaky, vertical footage, clearly taken by someone in the crowd at the party. It showed the moment Sarah Snyder screamed “You dirty, lying dyke!” and threw the punch. It showed Jess stepping in. It showed the sickening crack of the ring against skin, and the blood.
"Someone AirDropped it to me," Ana said. "I just forwarded it to my mother."
Laurel stared at the screen, the violence replaying in a loop. "You... you sent that to the Senator?"
"By tomorrow morning, my mother will have called the school board," Ana said, her voice void of emotion. "Sarah assaulted a student on video. With a weapon—that ring counts. She used a slur. My mom hates bad PR, but she hates being embarrassed more. Sarah is finished. She’ll be off the squad by Monday."
Laurel looked up from the phone to Ana’s face. The calculation in Ana’s eyes was terrifying.
"You knew," Laurel whispered. The realization dawned on her, slow and horrifying. "You walked in there covered in blood... you provoked her."
Ana didn't look away. "I needed my spot back, Laurel. Sarah took everything from me. She turned the whole school against me. I knew if I walked in there and just stood my ground... I knew she was volatile. I knew she was drunk. I needed her to swing first."
"You planned it," Laurel said, stepping back. "You planned for her to hit you."
"Yes."
"So you could be the victim. So you could climb back up the ladder."
"Yes," Ana said again. But then, the mask slipped.
Ana’s shoulders slumped. She looked down at her hands, which were still trembling slightly.
"But I didn't... I didn't think Jess would step in."
Ana looked up, and for the first time, her eyes were wet. "I thought Sarah would slap me. Maybe pull my hair. I can take a hit. I didn't know she was going to throw a punch like that. I didn't know she was wearing that ring." She swallowed hard. "I never wanted Jess to get hurt. I swear."
Laurel looked at this girl—this architect of her own misery, this brilliant, ruthless, damaged creature. She wanted to hate her. She wanted to scream at her for using them as pawns.
But she remembered the way Ana had stood up to Silverson. She remembered the fear in Ana’s eyes when she saw the blood on Jess’s face.
"You have to fix this," Laurel said quietly. "You have to make it right with Jess."
"I will," Ana said. "I don't know how yet. But I will."
They were two streets away from the Payton house now. Ana stopped abruptly, grabbing Laurel’s arm.
"Stop. Turn toward the light."
"What?"
"Look at you, Laurel," Ana hissed, gesturing to her face. "You're wearing contour. You have mascara on. You're wearing a feather earring. If you walk into that house right now, Derrick isn't going to see his son. He's going to see a girl. And he will kill you."
Panic flared in Laurel’s chest. The costume, the euphoria of the night—she had forgotten. She had forgotten she was supposed to be Montana.
Ana dropped her bag to the sidewalk and dug through it, pulling out a packet of makeup wipes.
"Hold still."
Ana’s hands were cold, but her touch was surprisingly gentle. She scrubbed at Laurel’s eyes, wiping away the mascara, the eyeliner, the carefully applied eyeshadow Jess had done hours ago.
"Sorry," Ana whispered as she rubbed at Laurel’s cheekbones, erasing the contour that softened her jaw. "I know. I'm sorry."
It felt like an erasure. Every swipe of the cloth took a piece of Laurel away and put Montana back. It was the opposite of the makeover Jess had given her. It was a make-under.
"Earring," Ana commanded.
Laurel unhooked the feather and handed it to her.
"Hair." Ana reached up and pulled out the hair tie. "Low ponytail. Messy. Pull some strands out in the front so it looks unkempt, not styled."
Laurel obeyed, her hands shaking.
"Button the flannel," Ana said, stepping back to assess her work. "All the way up. Hide the tank top. Slouch your shoulders. You're standing too tall."
Laurel hunched forward, collapsing her chest, hiding her form.
Ana stared at her for a long moment. There was a strange sadness in her expression. "There he is," she said softly. "There's Montana."
Laurel felt like she might vomit. "Do I pass?"
"Yeah," Ana said. "You pass." She zipped her bag. "Let's go."
They turned the corner onto Laurel’s street. The house was dark, except for the porch light.
Derrick Payton was sitting on the swing.
He was a shadow against the siding, the cherry of a cigarette burning bright in the darkness. He wasn't moving. He was just watching the street. Waiting.
Laurel’s breath hitched. She stopped dead.
"It's okay," Ana whispered, grabbing Laurel’s hand. Her grip was iron-tight. "Trust me."
"Ana, I can't—"
"You can. Follow my lead."
Ana pulled her forward. They walked up the driveway, hand in hand. As they approached the porch, Derrick stood up. He looked massive in the dim light, his face a mask of suspicion.
"You're late," Derrick rumbled. His eyes flicked to their joined hands, then up to Laurel’s scrubbed-clean face. "And what are you wearing?"
Laurel opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
"It's my fault, Mr. Payton," Ana said.
Her voice was bright, apologetic, and utterly charming. She stepped into the light, pulling Laurel with her.
"I'm Ana Yankowski. Senator Yankowski's daughter? We met at the football game last year."
Derrick blinked, thrown off balance by the name-drop and the politeness. "Uh. Yeah. I remember."
"I am so sorry we're late," Ana gushed, squeezing Laurel’s hand. "We were at the Halloween party at Sarah Snyder's house, and... well, some guys started giving me a really hard time. They were being aggressive. And Montana..." She looked up at Laurel with a look of pure adoration. "He stepped in. He got me out of there before things got ugly. He walked me all the way here because I was too scared to walk alone."
Derrick looked at Laurel. He looked at the flannel, the messy hair, the girl clinging to his arm.
"He did, huh?" Derrick asked. There was a note of surprise in his voice. And something else. Pride.
"He was amazing," Ana lied smoothly. "A total gentleman. You raised him right, sir. Most guys would have just watched, but Montana... he's tough."
The tension in Derrick’s shoulders evaporated. He took a drag of his cigarette, puffing out his chest. "Yeah. Well. We try."
"I just wanted to make sure you knew," Ana said. She turned to Laurel, stepping in close. She reached up, placing a hand on Laurel’s chest, right over her heart.
"Thank you," Ana whispered, loud enough for Derrick to hear. "For saving me."
Then, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed her.
It wasn't like the kiss in the snow. It wasn't desperate or confusing. Ana’s lips were soft and warm.
Laurel froze, her eyes wide open, but she didn't pull away. She let it happen. She let Ana Yankowski sell the lie that kept her safe.
Ana pulled back, smiling shyly at Laurel, then turned that dazzling, politician's-daughter smile on Derrick.
"I hate to ask, Mr. Payton," Ana said, shivering slightly for effect. "But it's really cold, and I live all the way over on Maple. My mom is probably wondering where I am. Do you think... could you possibly give me a ride home?"
Derrick looked at the pretty blonde girl. He looked at his son, who had apparently defended her honor. He crushed his cigarette out on the railing.
"Sure," Derrick said, reaching into his pocket for his keys. "Let me grab my truck."
He walked past them, clapping a heavy hand on Laurel’s shoulder as he went. "Good job, son. Get inside."
Derrick walked toward the driveway.
Laurel stood on the porch, trembling. She looked at Ana.
"Go," Ana whispered, her face falling back into exhaustion now that Derrick wasn't looking.
"You're safe."
"Ana," Laurel breathed.
"I'll see you Monday," Ana said. She turned and walked toward the truck, sliding into the passenger seat without looking back.