TWENTY-THREE

AFTER THAT NIGHT, THE WORLD REGAINED ITS PROPER EDGES AND corners.

Mostly.

Charity was back at the lunch table. Leo stopped going out late at night. He’d snapped like an overstretched rubber band back into Prepper Life. Running tutorials on his computer—mapmaking, orienteering, survival science. Finding Water. Surviving Thirty Days in the Sand. Maybe he was worried they’d end up in Florida. At night, in bed, Leo listened to music, giant new noise-canceling headphones gulping his ears, head bobbing, feet tapping.

But no commentary. No give this a listen, bro.

On the run-up to show week, Leo worked and reworked the set list of ten songs. Five covers, five originals. He and Thomas made all final decisions. Griff had been cut out, but he’d happily play AC/DC’s “Stiff Upper Lip” ten times straight if it meant he got to open with Charity. Their room 5 rehearsals continued to be beautiful, flowing, magic—but no French goodbyes. No ear explorations. The atmosphere with Leo and everyone seemed too tense, too barreling-forward, and any extra thing would be like sticking your arm out the window at 100 miles per hour.

The simmer of excitement in the hallways rose to a boil by midweek. At lunch on Wednesday, Thomas hid in the ThunderChicken with his PB&J to avoid being asked about the show.

CAN’T HANDLE IT, DUDES, he texted. Sent a picture of himself in the fetal position, curled up in the backseat with sandwich crusts.

Somehow, the show was growing into a Big Deal.

“Break a leg, boys,” Slim said Thursday, swinging by their lunch table. He smiled over his tray of two white milks and grilled cheese. He looked earnest. Proud, even.

“Thanks, Slim,” Griff said.

“Thanks, buddy,” Leo said. “See you there.”

“Slim seems sweet,” Charity said.

It seemed an okay level of sweet. But the growing excitement gave everything a trembling, up-on-two-wheels feeling. With every backslap, every shout of his name, Griff felt like flinching. Like a shoe would kick into his heel and he’d have to fight to keep on his feet.

Maybe middle school trauma. But maybe something else—like that haunting little animal-brain twitch that shot rats into Grecian streets and drove snakes from their dens in China.

He and Charity had nearly finished Open Water. As the week rolled on, it was clear they had an unspoken agreement. They’d finish the puzzle the day of the show.

“You and me, Tripp,” Charity said with a smile. “Today’s the day.”

Griff was suddenly beaming. A dumb puzzle maybe—but it was tied up in everything. Miraculously, he and Charity had been to the Ruins. They’d said big hellos and French goodbyes and somehow his greatest and most secret desire of knowing Charity Simms had come true. More days with red circles than without. And something about locking an impossible puzzle to completion on the day of a first live show was appropriately brilliant. A perfect, if slightly forced, omen. Until Charity’s eyes hunted across the table at the handful of pieces, and Griff saw the math on her lips, five, six—

“What?” Griff asked.

Her hands moved quickly, twisting, snapping in. The countdown, palpable. Griff grabbed the box. Opened it, touched the empty corners.

Dropped to the carpet. Hand and knees, fingers combing the tight blue-loop pile. A desert of tiny paper scraps, eraser tailings. Griff and Charity sat and locked eyes over the horizon of the table.

“One piece,” Griff said.

They examined the hole. Blank, right where the sunlight should be.

“Close,” she said.

Except that piece was the best part. The climax. That little hole—a tiny tear in the picture they’d built. But big enough. If it were real, the water would come gushing through, fill the school like an aquarium, drown the whole town.

Griff didn’t have to wonder anymore. The universe had just confirmed it:

Something bad was going to happen.