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  Mags had launched her arm into the air, clipping a boy at his neck and proceeding to flip him off his feet and onto the walkway in one fluid motion. He lay there coughing and rolling around in pain as Mags straightened herself.

  “We’ve been over this, Adair,” Mags said affectionately to the boy on the ground. “You can’t sneak up on me. My ninja skills are too much for you.”

  Adair groaned in response.

  I stood impassively to the side, wondering if I should try to help the kid up. I didn’t want to get in the middle of anything. My eyebrows rose to meet my hairline as I took in an obvious detail of Mags’ current opponent.

  Adair sat up, trying to brush himself off while simultaneously catching his breath. His hand loosened the tie and undid the first button to clear his airway. Instead of worrying about his health, my eyes fixated on the darkness of his hand against the formerly pristine shirt and jacket, now smudged with dirt. A sense of déjà vu came over me. Our eyes met, and a weird kinship connected the two of us.

  “You all right?” I finally managed.

  Adair nodded at me in response.

  “There go my manners again,” Mags chided herself. “Adair Reid, Noah Young. Lest you get any funny ideas, Adair and I really do get along well when he’s not trying to scare the living daylights out of me.”

  “Trying?” I asked.

  “My success rate could use some improvement,” Adair said with a chuckle and bright smile. “If someone didn’t have an eerie sense of the future, I’m pretty sure I could get away with a lot more.”

  Mags rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t breathe like a moose in heat, I’m fairly certain you could sneak up on people better,” Mags retorted, holding out a hand to Adair.

  He sprang up quickly, brushing himself off and seeming in good spirits. “Next time,” he warned Mags.

  “Yeah, okay.” Mags closed the distance between our group and the food mecca before us. “Good luck with that.”

  “I don’t need luck,” Adair bristled.

  “You need lasagna,” Mags said sagely, turning to face us at the top of the stairs. “Which smells like what’s for dinner.”

  “You can smell that all the way out here?” I sniffed the air and came up dry.

  “Ninja skills.” Mags waggled her fingers and looked at me with her kooky eyes.

  Adair just shook his head. “Don’t encourage her,” he said to me. “It’ll only get worse.”

  “May I present to you the dining hall,” Mags said with a flourish, opening the thick wooden doors to a downdraft of garlic and aged cheese. She took a deep breath and hummed happily.

  “Don’t say it.” Adair sighed and shook his head.

  I followed them into the din of the dining room wrapped in the comforting smell of Italian food.

  Four

  The weight of one hundred gazes rested on my skin as I moved my fork from plate to mouth. The intense scrutiny only made me hyper aware of the buzz of hushed whispering collectively dissecting my table manners. I felt like I was the sole performer in an arena, with spotlights and several angled projector screens.

  “So have people never seen a girl eat lasagna before, or do I have something on my face?” I said finally to Mags and Adair, who were merrily shoving food into their mouths across from me.

  “Maybe not two pieces, but you’re a giant, so you’re putting it somewhere,” Mags said in between mouthfuls, wielding her spoon like a laser pointer. “They probably can’t decide where to stare first. There’s your hair, your skin, your badass clothing, which I must say looks way cooler against the sea of tartan than usual. Or I guess we could count your freakish height.”

  “I’m sitting down,” I countered, eliciting a snort from Mags.

  Adair shrugged. “They’ll calm down. Took them a whole year not to do double takes on me,” he muttered around a mouthful of garlic bread.

  “Comforting.” I sighed. As predicted, the not standing out part was going to be a challenge.

  “Actually.” Mags leaned closer toward my face.

  I met her gaze evenly, refusing to blink until she did.

  “Eyes. You should definitely add your eye color to that list. What color is that?” Mags’ neck was bent at a disturbing angle, making me rub mine in sympathy.

  “All of them.” I cleared my throat. “Sometimes they change color with the light. The brown on the inside sometimes make them look green, but technically they’re like a grey blue color.”

  Mags nodded her head in appreciation.

  “There’s also the possibility they are staring at me, which is still extremely common. Or Adair.” Mags weighed the options in the air with her fork. “The three of us together must really be a sight.”

  “We should start charging admission fees,” Adair said before shoving another piece of garlic bread in his mouth. “We should get some benefit for being the freak squad around here.”

  “You can’t put a price on this face,” Mags said in mock dismay, indicating her whole face, which she’d contorted into a horrifically funny visage.

  Adair choked on his food, and a snort escaped from me, breaking the thread of anxious thought agitating me.

  I shook my head, causing my hair to fall from its perch behind my ear. Sighing in frustration, I pulled a hairband from my wrist and sloppily secured the majority of its weight at the nape of my neck. A few pieces remained free, but I let them fall where they would.

  A lone round of applause erupted from across the table, and I looked up in confusion.

  “That was beautiful,” Mags said. She elbowed Adair. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Mags has some serious hair envy,” Adair said to me.

  “Not feeling the maroon and fuchsia anymore?” I asked her. I squinted to survey her multicolored mane again and was mesmerized by the prismatic effect of the two bold colors. “It suits you.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to spend so much time and money on it though. Natural hair is the best.” Mags sighed.

  “Yeah, well, the breakage from this quick lapse in judgement will haunt me for months.” I indicated my secured hair. “Agree to disagree on whose hair is more enviable.”

  Mags cocked her head to the side again, but her green eye was unfocused. I looked behind me, trying to figure out what she was looking at.

  Mags jerked herself upright, snatched the remaining piece of garlic bread from Adair’s plate, and launched it across the room. Two rows down, it collided with a brown head of hair nearly imperceptible among the empty wooden chairs and tables.

  A silence exploded in the air, the gaping lack of conversation pressing on my ears. Adair stopped mid chew, vacating his seat to track down the victim of Mags’ ire.

  “What just happened?” I said aloud, not expecting an answer.

  Slowly, the buzz of hesitant whispers built back up, rushing the silent air out in a vacuum. Mags uncrossed her legs and stood to receive her escorted guest.

  Adair hauled the boy by the back of his shirt, high enough that the kid was scrambling to touch his toes to the ground. As soon as he landed in front of Mags, he tried to bolt, running quickly into Adair’s chest.

  “Apologize,” Mags said to the kid. “And hand it over.”

  Her palm hung in the air expectantly, and the boy paused only long enough as if realizing his escape routes were nonexistent.

  “I wasn’t doing anything!” he crowed, crossing his arms.

  Adair cleared his throat behind the kid, and the boy jumped out of his skin.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” Mags warned. “Just give it up. Come on.” Her fingers waved impatiently at him.

  My eyes pinged in quick rotation between the three, and I could tell from the halting buzz that other commentators were glued to the spectacle as well.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The boy sniffed. “You should be the one apologizing for throwing food at me.”

  “If you do not give up your phone immediately,” Mags said, slowly pres
suring the boy as she stepped closer and closer into his personal space, “I will upend you and your entire backpack right here, right now. I will then toss you in the fountain in only your unmentionables and see how quickly you can scurry back to whatever hole you came from.”

  The boy paled but did not move.

  “Adair,” Mags said, cueing the madness.

  In the blink of an eye, the boy was upended, his pockets turned out by gravity and some vigorous shaking by Adair, the dining hall audience lost their minds, and Mags smiled triumphantly with a smart phone in her hand. Just as quickly, the boy was right-side up, Adair looked unruffled, and I stood up to bus the dishes.

  Sneaking silently out of the focal point of the action, I dropped the dishes at the bus station while keeping an eye on the madness. I cringed when I realized my bag was still at the table. Any thoughts I had of a quiet retreat had been lost at my oversight.

  “Yikes,” Mags narrated, scrolling through the phone. “I suppose I’d be a ponce, too, if my mother named me Llewellyn. Too bad your passcode wasn’t as impressive as your name.”

  “Hey, give that back.” The kid squirmed, his shoulder bumping recklessly against Adair.

  Adair’s eyes narrowed, and the kid crossed his arms, his face contorting in rapid flickers trying to hold back tears.

  “Here we go,” Mags said finally. “Several photos. A video? Seriously?” Mags snorted in disgust.

  I’d slowly inched back center stage to grab my bag. My whole body stiffened at the mention of a video.

  “You recorded us?” I asked, my anger focused squarely on the eyes of the little kid.

  He balked at my intensity. His mouth moved up and down like a guppy out of water fighting for oxygen.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “They told me to,” he said in a rush, his words now accompanied by the tears he’d been holding back. “I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice. Please, just let me go. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  “Not us.” Mags twisted her mouth in a bitter smile. “You.”

  Five

  My mind went completely blank with anger. Instantly, the phone was in my hand, and I flicked through the pictures, coming across several video clips as well. Without bothering to consult anyone else, I ripped the case off the phone, tearing out the battery and jamming my thumb savagely into the factory reset button behind the SIM card. The boy squealed, but shut up after one nudge from Adair.

  The cold anger in my gut flipped into a molten sea of acid. The warm feeling snaked up to my throat, but instead of worrying about throwing up, I knew what that meant. I had to leave. Now.

  “Find out who,” I ground out loudly enough for only Mags to catch.

  Her green eye slid to me with a slight frown, but she nodded in understanding.

  I slammed the miscellaneous pieces of the snitch’s phone into his chest, checking his shoulder as I shoved past him with my bag. The entire dining room hushed again as I marched away from the epicenter of the evening’s drama. The eyes were back in full force, so I strode confidently toward the glowing exit sign, hoping I could find some sort of broom closet to freak out in.

  The warmth in my throat surged, and I had to clench my jaw shut so the noise would not escape. Lines of melody wound around in my head, poking and jabbing their way through my consciousness in any effort to escape. I had to get away from as many people as possible before I erupted. Causing an incident my first day was a personal record I was not willing to achieve.

  The cold metal of the door brought me back in check a little, and I was able take a deep breath once the thunderous snap of the exit door bolted home behind me.

  The staircase gave me pause. It was clear this was an addition, with one wall of brick and the remaining a horribly painted cinderblock medley. My eyes locked on the rusted metal of the staircase, the imprinted metal bringing up memories of fire escape staircases from my brief stint in New York. I took one cautious step down to test the weight.

  Realizing I wouldn’t die immediately, I trotted down one flight of stairs, flinching at the raucous noise that echoed up the stairwell with each step. I paused at the landing, but it only mentioned classrooms and miscellaneous halls. I poked my head through the door, noticing the well-lit hall and the far-off echo of laughter from one of the distant rooms.

  My throat still burned, but the intensity was retreating. My nostrils flared with the deep breathing exercises I was running through in my head. The immediate need for a quiet place faded slowly, but I decided to play it safe for next time.

  I continued down the next flight, finding it noticeably dimmer than the previous landing. Motion-activated lights buzzed, lazily flickering to life as I stepped into a much smaller hallway filled with about four times as many doors. Each new stride brought a new pair of doors.

  My hands were cupped against the small panes of glass. I was close enough for my nose to leave fog fields on the glass as it pressed against the cool surface. The whole level was filled with practice rooms. Whether they had a piano in them or just a music stand and chair, the soundproof tiles gave them all identical layouts. I tried to estimate the number but gave up as more sub hallways branched out, leaving me lost in a labyrinth of identical rooms.

  Occasionally, I checked a door, and it would be locked. This happened more often with the piano rooms than the empty ones, but some locked rooms had individual instruments in them as well. They must be private rooms for individual students. I was sure the specs were in the packet full of brochures I’d shoved in my bag, and my fingers itched to unearth it to satisfy my curiosity. I mentally slapped myself to refocus. Knowing a little detail like that was not a priority right now. Figuring out which one of these rooms would be the best emergency safe room was the priority.

  Just had to figure out how to figure that out.

  I sighed into the hall, trying to remember the layout of the halls in my head. The only way out was the stairwell I’d entered from. I couldn’t see the glow of an orange exit sign, and I didn’t have enough time to check for a sneakier back staircase. Keeping that in mind, I didn’t want to be trapped too far down a dead-end hall, but I also didn’t want to be easily accessible from the entrance. I needed to find a door I could get in whenever I needed and lock from the inside.

  The nearest room was empty, so I opened the door quickly, checking the lock. I jogged down the hall, checking a few more to make sure I was correct. Only private rooms had locks of any sort. I was going to have to break into a private room.

  Day One: Noah Breaks School Property Prompting Immediate Suspension

  Such a cute headline.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, leaning against the frame of a vacant room to restrategize. I rifled through my bag to get the set of keys I’d been given. I quickly discarded all my options, finding the size or the teeth to be completely unmatchable to the locks on the private room doors. I exhaled and crossed my arms in frustration. How was this going to work?

  I felt something poke my ribs. I shifted my arm uncomfortably, but the pain didn’t go away. Realization hit me with brute force, and I fished the old snowflake key out of my inner jacket pocket. It, too, was the wrong shape and style.

  “Hey,” a voice called out.

  I jumped in surprise, hitting my head on the low fake ceiling tiles above me.

  “Ow,” I groaned, rubbing the tender spot on my head. I turned around to find the owner of the voice. “No need to shout.”

  “What are you doing?” the voice said.

  I squinted, but the timed lights had gone out, and I could only see a shadow.

  “Sorry.” I waved a fistful of keys in the air. “Just trying to figure out which one’s mine.”

  The lie burned my throat a little, but my face was smooth and emotionless.

  “Do you even know which room you’re looking for?” the voice continued. “All those are already rented out.”

  “Got me again,” I said with a nervous chuckle. I pulled the manila en
velope out enough for him to see the new student badge of ignorance. “They just gave me a set of keys and told me to get on with it.”

  “Let me see.” The kid finally stepped into the light. He spoke with a sense of authority and confidence, so I handed over the keys without a fight. He frowned at each of them in turn and discarded them almost as quickly as I had done. “Are these all you have? This ring is all dorm stuff.”

  “Just this,” I said impassively, opening my palm to display the old skeleton key.

  He shook his head.

  “Might be a library room key, but not a conservatory key. Are you sure you have a practice room? Like I said, all these are assigned already.” He looked at me skeptically.

  “You might be right.” I shrugged. “I requested one, and they didn’t say anything to the contrary. Maybe I don’t have one after all.”

  “You play?” he asked, his head nodding at the guitar behind the glass of the private room I was attempting to break into.

  “A little,” I said. “Some piano, some guitar. Mostly self-taught, but I think I got into the guitar elective here.”

  “Impressive,” the boy said. “Not too many girls want to tackle that class.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure if he was implying the difficulty of guitar or some other reason.

  “It’s kind of known as a boys’ club,” he explained. His eyes looked me up and down. “You’ll do fine.”

  “Thanks.” I frowned.

  “So do you need a piano room then since you’ll be using the class guitars?” he asked, his eyes still squinted at me, feeling me out.

  “Yeah, actually. That would be great. An upright if it’s an option,” I said. “Is there a public room maybe I could use?”

  “None of the public rooms have pianos. Some have keyboards, but…” The boy snorted. “Hardly worth it.”