Harry said, “Look,” and passed me his cell. He was a few pictures past me on the feed I’d been scrolling through. He’d expanded the comments left by users. I recognized a lot of the usernames as belonging to our classmates. Lots of WTFs. Lots of exaggerating. Harry tapped one in particular. “He’s a junior.” His comment claimed that a bloody X had been left on his door.
“Where does he live?” I said.
“Not at Carver’s or Denton’s,” Harry answered.
Graham waved impatiently. “Show her the other one.”
“Here,” Harry said.
Another comment, this one alleging that a bloody noose had been left on her doormat.
“She goes to school with us too,” Graham said.
“Unbelievable,” I was saying as the car stopped for Viv. “They’re making stuff up just to have something to add.”
“Drive down Landmark,” Viv demanded, leaping into the backseat, the top half of her face pixelated by her black birdcage veil.
The usually sleepy residential street was clogged with traffic. Cars slowed to a halt with the morbid curiosity that makes motorists gape at ambulance lights. Middle school kids on bikes rode back and forth between the two bloody scenes. An officer stationed on Denton’s lawn was gesturing for a few high school kids to keep walking. Their cells were angled at his reddening face as they snickered and moved toward Carver’s.
“They’re not cleaning it up?” Viv said.
I flattened my forehead against the glass. “Not until they’re sure it’s not an actual crime scene. Like with human blood.”
We drove past Carver’s at a crawl. “The fountain was brilliant,” I said.
“Thank you.” Viv bowed her head. “Can you see the sundial?”
I got up on my knees, could barely make out the central dial on Carver’s lawn before Graham turned right, off Landmark Lane.
“I told you I’d find a dramatic place for IV to autograph its work,” Viv said with hubris.
In class it was the pictures of IV written in blood and spray paint on the sundial, on the welcome mats, on the wood siding, that stirred up whispers and had my classmates hanging into the aisles to gawk at one another’s phones. IV was at it again. Hitting the police chief’s and mayor’s houses. Badass. Flipping the finger at authority.
“That is some dark shit,” Trent told me during third period, thumbing his screen. “I bet they’ll hit homecoming too.”
“How do you know it’s more than one person?” Campbell asked from behind me.
Trent gave him a pitying glance. “No way does one dude pull this off.”
“It could be a girl,” I said, thumbing through my notebook, pretending I hadn’t been committing to memory every last comment.
Trent spared me a pitying glance. “Maybe, but I bet the mastermind’s a dude.”
I scowled. “Why?”
“Girls lack the balls to think of hitting a cop’s house.”
“But it was all bloody,” Campbell said, so eagerly his desk screeched forward. “Girls are comfortable with blood, bro. Trust me, I’ve got sisters.”
I smiled down at my notes.
The whispers continued, evidence of our power. I floated a head taller in the school halls. Blood-warm satisfaction made me buoyant each time my T-shirt snagged the raw edge of the fresh tattoo. I was dangerous. The Order’s invisible hand was tightening its grip on Seven Hills’s throat. Merciless, we would paint the whole town in animal blood.
The four of us ate lunch in the courtyard because Viv wanted us to be in the middle of the action. At the center of the courtyard was a small outdoor amphitheater. Seven or eight cement bleachers rose up in a half-moon shape, the flagpole on the flat expanse of cement used as the stage. The drama department performed their spring shows there, right where Amanda and her crew always ate lunch. By the way Viv glared at their presence, I imagined she felt like an ousted queen, an enemy force permanently occupying her territory.
We sat up on the top row of cement bleachers. I didn’t usually like the noise that came with hanging around the courtyard, but that day the buzz was about IV.
Amanda, Jess, and Rachel spied us and, led by Amanda, flocked over.
“Insane that IV struck again, huh?” Amanda said, standing on the riser below us.
Rachel tossed her ponytail from her shoulder and said, “Hope you guys have an alibi.”
Amanda gave her a cutting look. “God, you banshee—keep your voice down.”
Rachel retreated down a step like a kicked puppy. “I’m just teasing,” she said. “God,” she added, crossing her arms and turning away from us. As far as I could tell, Rachel was a watered-down version of an Amanda-Jess love child. Too aware of where she put her hands to act as cool as Jess thought she was; too eager to be heard to boss people around.
Graham said casually, “We all sat around, shooting the shit, talking about climate change last night.”
“I bet you did.” Jess gave a clipped laugh. Something stirred behind those usually bored eyes as she watched him. Her tongue went to her front teeth, like she was waiting for him to quip back, silently begging him to play, even. Graham had magnetism, but rarely did anyone outside of our circle notice. Usually our peers gave fake laughs at Graham’s shameless wit before shuffling away. Their loss.
Graham became absorbed in removing the butcher paper from his deli sandwich. “Yeah,” he said absently. “Meteorologists say this is going to be an El Ni?o year. I don’t buy it. They said the same thing last year and the one before.”
Jess’s nostrils flared. “They’re probably in the pocket of the rain boot lobby,” she said. I laughed. Graham didn’t glance up.
Harry had deserted his sandwich on its plastic wrap to listen to his headphones, eyes closed. He was waiting for the girls to leave.
Jess bent for a red licorice whip from our shared package. She twisted, offering Graham a view down her top. He looked. If he hadn’t, I might have leaned over to check his pulse.
“I get it,” Amanda said. “Playing coy. Okay. I’ll let the charade go on a bit more. No one knows anything about anything over here. Bye—for now.” A cross between a threat and a so long. She returned to the flagpole flanked by Jess and Rachel.
Lunch slipped by, my last opportunity to tell Viv about my date with Harry, before the homecoming parade. Rather than bloat larger, the urgency of the confession shriveled. Viv knew Harry and I would be at the dance. She probably figured we’d drive together. What did the tiny detail of it being an official date matter when the stakes around us were so much higher?