And there I sat, treating them like the enemy. But I was beginning to wonder if they weren’t.

THE CLEARING

I waited until after ten. My grandparents had gone to bed an hour earlier, but I had to make sure they were asleep before descending the stairs. I didn’t dare take the stairs outside my bedroom window. Since this whole building used to be a store and my grandparents transformed the back part into living quarters for us, there was a fire escape right outside my room. I took those stairs often, but the metal clanged with every step. No way would my grandparents not hear me.

Worse, I had two bodyguards by the names of Jared and Cameron just outside somewhere. Surely they didn’t actually stay up all night every night. They had to sleep sometime. But I couldn’t risk going out the back door. Jared’s house, a small apartment my grandparents had used as storage and remodeled for him to live in, sat right behind the store. If he didn’t see me, Cameron—who camped out behind the store in his truck while on sentry duty—surely would. So I decided to sneak out the front door.

I crept down the stairs, through the store, and out the front door. Thankfully, when the lights were turned off, so was the door chime, but I did have to turn off the alarm, which beeped every time I pushed a number. I cringed and waited to make sure no one heard, then headed out into the frigid night toward a waiting car.

“I’m glad you called,” Tabitha said when I shut the door to her Honda. Her car was warm and smelled like Tommy Girl.

“Thanks.” I strapped on my seat belt and settled in. I felt like I’d wandered into the cave of the enemy, but my curiosity had gotten the better of me. Why would Tabitha Sind invite little ol’ me to a party? And where was her entourage? She never went anywhere without Amber, her second-in-command. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe Amber was waiting for us in some remote part of the forest and they were going to beat me to death with rocks and sticks. That would suck.

Tabitha drove down the winding canyon and took the cutoff to the Clearing, which was pretty much party central for high school kids. I’d been there once, but only during the day, never at an actual party. I waited for Tabitha to make a point in her ramblings, hoping she’d fill me in on why she’d invited me, but she went on and on about her hair and her chem test and about who all was going to be at the party. Riley’s Switch had taken state this year and we were apparently still celebrating three weeks later, no matter how cold it was.

“Help me with the bags?” she asked.

We got out and she handed me a paper bag with glass bottles in it.

“My dad will kill me if he finds out I raided his liquor cabinet,” she said, offering me a conspiratorial wink. But all I could think about was how she was going to navigate the uneven ground in those heels.

The party was everything I’d expected it to be: Couples sitting around a campfire, others standing, chatting and drinking. A few yelling powerful fight metaphors into the night, after which everyone had to raise whatever he or she was drinking into the air. Someone had a car stereo on in the background, the music fairly low. Lots of jocks. Lots of hair-sprayed girls. Lots of popular kids who actually got invited to parties fairly often. I straddled a weird kind of fence at school. I wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, but I was friends with most of the kids. And almost everyone I wasn’t friends with was at this party. This was going to be loads of fun.

I strolled to a shadowy area and marveled at how it seemed warmer there, though I still shivered underneath my jacket. In what seemed like seconds later, Tabitha found me. She walked up with a cup in each hand and a clear bottle wedged under her arm.

“Here, try this.”

She handed me a yellow Solo cup, and I examined the colorless contents inside. “What is it?”

A pleased smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. “Strawberry vodka. You’ll love it.” She tipped it toward my mouth, and a warning signal went off in my head, much like the blaring alarm preceding an imminent nuclear disaster, but I did what any normal sixteen-year-old would do. I ignored it. And I drank.

The searing liquid trailed like molten lava down my throat. I gasped and struggled for air, and after a small fit of coughs and a sneeze, I said, “Now I know why they call it firewater.”

She laughed, pretending to be amused, and I gave her a second to come to her point. We weren’t friends. She didn’t invite me here to make small talk. And my curiosity was getting the better of me, no matter how hard I pretended otherwise. So I took another searing drink and held my cup out for more.

I could be cool. I could hang with kids who wouldn’t give me the time of day. Who quite possibly didn’t know my name. I could be normal.

Tabitha refilled my cup, pouring from a tall bottle before Joss Duffy grabbed it from her. She lunged to snatch it back, but he held it at arm’s length, just out of her reach.

“Didn’t you learn to share?” he asked, clearly having had too much already. He lost his footing, caught himself, then raised the bottle in salute.

“That’s from my dad’s liquor cabinet,” she said. “Don’t drink it all. I’ll have to dilute it enough as it is.”

Joss nodded, then winked at me. “Hey, McAlister. Long time no see.” His Riley High letter jacket looked freshly cleaned, the red and black combination striking.

I offered a quick smile. “Actually, we saw each other in sixth today.”

“Oh.” He snickered. “I don’t really pay attention in that class.”