“Someone would be up,” Lucas says, sounding grim. “At least one of them, right?”
Jude takes a step backward and releases a shuddery breath. “Let’s just go. I want to go.”
Lucas whirls and lifts his chin, looking at Jude. “Why?”
He lifts his hands, eyes too wide. “Because this is pointless! Obviously!”
“It doesn’t feel pointless to look for the rest of our group,” I say.
“Not unless there’s something we shouldn’t see,” Lucas says. “Do you know something about what’s going on here, Rich Boy?”
Jude’s lips thin. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lucas takes a step. “You. I’m talking about you. Tried to paint Sera as the problem, but suddenly, you’re twitching around like you’ve got a secret. If you do, you should know I will break every single one of your talented little fingers to find out what it is.”
Jude’s lips twitch, his gaze flicking toward Lucas’s arm. “And just like that, you make it crystal clear why your particular label was assigned.”
“You have Deceptive written on your wrist,” I say, chin jutting. “Why would that be?”
“Because he’s hiding something,” Emily says, accusation in her soft voice lending a chill to the air.
“It’s an interesting point,” Lucas says, smirking. “Until now, I figured that was because of the ridiculous ‘is he or isn’t he’ crap.”
“Is he or isn’t he what?” Jude practically snarls the words, but no one answers. I think it’s a rhetorical question. He’s good-looking, talented, and super tight-lipped about his romantic preferences. He can’t think that girls and boys all over Chevington High don’t wonder.
Last year, my friend Sophie wanted to send him a letter pledging her support to his coming out, but I told her that was totally weird since (a) they aren’t friends, and (b) we have zero idea if he’s gay.
“Oh, come on,” Lucas says. “Are you going to pretend that not one person has asked the boy with two dads if he’s gay?”
Jude’s eyes narrow, and his voice drops. “What the hell do you think you know about me? What could you possibly know about me?”
Lucas laughs and throws up his hands. “Well, since we’re going daytime TV here—”
“Lucas, don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?” He shakes his head at Jude. “This isn’t a controversy in our school, Jude. Do you not get that? No one’s going to beat your ass or write shit on your locker. But maybe that’s why you want to keep it so hush-hush. Hoping to amp up the drama?”
Jude lunges without warning, and Lucas lowers his chin. The look in his eyes is a threat. In a fraction of a second, I know how this will end. Jude is a brilliant cellist with a chip on his shoulder. Lucas is in the office so much for his temper, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been expelled. He will eat Jude alive.
Jude lands one punch to Lucas’s jaw before I shove my way between them. Emily yelps and ducks away. The guys pull back, but Lucas has long enough arms to go right around me. I hear his palm connect with the side of Jude’s head in a hard slap.
“My hand stays open once,” Lucas says. “Once. Next time, you lose one of those perfect teeth of yours.”
“Stop it!” I shout, plowing both hands into Lucas’s chest. It’s like pushing a truck, but he relents, stepping back with a confused look at me.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask.
Jude shakes his curls out of his eyes. “Nothing we can fix. I think it’s genetic.”
Lucas goes red. “You mother—”
I push at him again. “Hey! We have bigger crap to deal with right now!”
Emily whimpers softly, and Lucas takes a step back, running long fingers through his hair.
“You’re right,” he says, then nods at Emily. “Sorry.”
“You’re apologizing to her?” Jude starts turning toward him, and I can practically see the next fight starting. But then it’s gone. The anger, the violence—it disappears as his mouth falls open, pupils shrinking to pricks of black. “Holy shit.” He breathes the words quietly, backing up so fast that he slams my shoulder into a tree.
I protest, but Lucas follows his line of sight, and then his face goes sour too. His soft mouth goes as thin as I’ve ever seen it. “What the hell…”
I scoot sideways to see what they’re looking at, but there isn’t anything. Just trees and branches and—is that something over the river? Something hanging in one of the trees?
It is. Something’s dangling there. Hard to see in the sunlight.
“Don’t, Sera,” Jude warns me. “Don’t look.”
But I look. Though every instinct in me tells me not to, I can’t tear my eyes from whatever thing is dangling. It’s swaying at the end of a string, swinging gently, fifteen feet above the muddy water. Dark at one end and a strange purpling gray. Like a lonely plum-colored wind chime, long and thin and—
My thoughts flatten to a static hiss when I make out the shape, when I spot the little flash of bright lavender at the top.