“I’m afraid,” the girl says.

She kneels in front of me, our knees almost touching at the end of a short funnel of black-and-white light. A tear slides down her cheek.

The edges of the vision are fuzzy, blurring the leaves of the trees that frame us. The sky all around us is dark.

A hand…my hand. But not my hand. It reaches toward the girl. “Don’t be afraid. This will make us stronger. You’ll see.” I push the girl’s cap back from her face. Gently push the tuft of curls back behind the small stump of dark skin that used to be the girl’s ear. But there’s no lobe left to hold her hair back, and it bounces forward against her face.

The girl closes her eyes. The moonlight casts shadows over her high, broad cheeks. She takes a steadying breath, then blows it out through trembling lips.

I take her hand. I hold her palm up against the moonlight.

Then I press a knife to her skin and cut it.

She gasps, squeezing her eyes shut. A steady trickle of dark blood drips down her arm and I pull her elbow toward me to keep it from reaching her skirts.

I take the blade in my hand. Close my fingers around it like a sheath, then yank the knife through.

I feel the hot burn it leaves behind in my skin.

I drop the knife to the grass. I take the girl’s bloodied hand in mine.

“We are bound to each other. Always.”

Tori woke to a painful pressure against her palm. Blinking against the lamplight, she oriented herself in her darkened bedroom. The house was quiet. It was dark outside. The clock flashed 2:00 a.m.

She’d fallen asleep holding her Pre-calc textbook, the sharp point of her pencil clutched in her hand. She shook it out, recalling bits and pieces of a dream as she sat up in the bed.

Loose papers and notebooks shuffled under Tori, and she scraped them into a pile and set them on the desk. She leaned against it, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair stuck to her damp forehead and sweat ringed the collar of her shirt. The radiator was hot, the air in the room stuffy, and she wanted nothing more than to rip off her long sleeves. But there were three bandages hiding under them now and a trail of pink and purple lines, and she couldn’t look at herself without clothes in this mirror and remember herself without those scars. Couldn’t imagine swim meets and strapless dresses and everything else that came with them. Instead, she threw open her window and let the cold night air rush against her face. Then she crawled back into bed, turned off the light, and tried hard not to let herself dream.

Tori spent the morning trying not to make eye contact with Jesse. For the most part, she wasn’t surprised that Jesse seemed to be doing the same. He hadn’t so much as looked at her during first period study hall, but Jesse’s locker was inconveniently close to the gym, and their eyes locked when she’d come out of the lost and found between classes. Bobby wasn’t anywhere around, and Tori rushed in the opposite direction when Jesse started toward her.

“Let me help you with that,” he said, cornering her in the hall. He plucked her backpack from her shoulder and Tori snatched it back. It was heavy, full of other people’s lost shirts and jeans she’d hoped were large enough for Nathaniel.

“I can manage,” she said, putting it back on and locking both hands around the straps.

“Can we talk?”

“Now’s not a good time,” she said, stepping past him.

“We never got to finish our conversation the other day.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Jesse. Find someplace else to have your party, okay?”

“I’m not talking about the party.” Jesse took Tori by the elbow and pulled her up short, lowering his voice so he wouldn’t be overheard as heads around them turned, trying to listen. “I’m talking about you and me. Not my dad. Not your mom. Not Bobby and Mitch and everybody else. Just me and you.”

Tori wanted to laugh. Every time they talked, all she heard was what he had told Bobby in the library, about how she was all just part of a plan. How he had everything under control. “I’m late. I should go.”

“Relax.” Jesse’s voice was suddenly hard as she began to walk away. “Bernie Wells is old-school. He doesn’t charge by the hour. He won’t care if you and your mom are late.”

Tori faltered. Her backpack slid down her arm between them. Tori shook him off.

“How’d you know about that?”

“About your mom’s meeting with Bernie?” Jesse chuckled to himself. “This is a small town, Burns. Too small. There are no secrets in Chaptico. At least none that stay buried for long.”

“So I’m learning.” Tori stormed down the hall with Jesse close at her heels.

He stepped out in front of her, forcing her to stop and look up at him. “Your mom might as well cancel the meeting with Bernie. He can’t do anything for you all anyway. I’ve got a free period before lunch. Stay and hang out with me.”

“What do you mean, he can’t do anything for us?”

“My dad’s not gonna let this go. My granddaddy wasn’t right in the head when he wrote up that will, and everybody knows it. It was nice, what he was trying to do for you and all. But it was a mistake. He did the same damn thing with old Mrs. Rice’s place. He gave her that dump five years ago and now we’re stuck trying to buy the land back.” A dark thought passed like smoke through Tori’s mind, confirming everything she’d already suspected. Alistair had been the one to force Matilda out of her house. He’d burned it down to make sure she never moved back. “My dad’s right. That house should have stayed in the family to begin with. Same with yours. But once Mr. Schiller proves to the court that Al Senior was incompetent, and everybody sees your family’s got no real claim to the land, the judge’ll make it right.”

Tori felt the color drain from her face. Magda’s dad was Alistair’s lawyer. A fact she’d never bothered to mention to Tori.

“Your dad’s taking us to court,” Tori said through numb lips. Suddenly, her mother’s appointment with Bernie made a lot more sense. There was no unresolved paperwork. Her mother knew, and hadn’t wanted Tori and Kyle to find out.

Jesse paused. “You didn’t know? Mr. Schiller’s been building a case for weeks and my dad gave your mom the papers….And, I mean, Magda…I thought you were friends….” Jesse whistled long and low, and the sound of it grated against her skin. She did her best to walk a straight line while her mind raced in circles. Jesse walked slowly beside her. “Look, there’s no sense worrying about it now. My dad says the whole case could take months to sort out.” He leaned into her, eager and hopeful. “Come to the dance with me. I promise, I’ll talk to my dad. Maybe he’ll rent the place back to you for a while until your mom can figure something else out.”

“Like my mom rented you back your crops?” Tori snapped.

Jesse clenched his teeth. He looked around to make sure nobody had heard. But Tori didn’t care. Her family couldn’t afford any rent, which was the whole reason they had come to Chaptico to begin with. Al Senior may have been a good samaritan, and maybe he was senile. But there was a reason he’d chosen Tori’s family. There was a reason her family was given that land and not anybody else. And she was determined to find out what it was. “I don’t need your help. And I don’t need a date!”

Jesse looked disgusted. “Tell me you’re not seriously going out with that Nathaniel guy. He doesn’t know anybody. He can’t help you. Not like I can.”

“How is any of this helping me?”

“I can introduce you around. You’ll make friends.”

“I’ve got friends.”

“You sure about that?” he asked, letting the silence draw itself out.

Any minute, the bell would ring. Drew would be on his way to History upstairs, and Magda would be heading to English on the far side of the courtyard. She knew their schedules. She knew where they lived and their favorite foods and what they did for fun. That made them friends, didn’t it? But who was she kidding? Friends were polite, easy to be with, and just as easy to get over. True friends were the ones you shared everything with. They’d tell you the things you needed to hear, even if it made you bleed.

Students began filtering toward their classrooms. Jesse looked back at Tori over his shoulder as he drifted along with them. Tori stopped in the middle of the hall and watched as they absorbed him. As they maneuvered to avoid her, muttering “What the hell are you doing here,” Tori stood there, disoriented and lost, asking herself the same damn thing.