Prologue

PROLOGUE

Cassie wasn't sure why he was suddenly being kind to her. But though she hated the way she'd responded—like a flower opening up at the first sign of the sun—she couldn't deny that it had felt good. Or that she was already starting to wonder if she could have her buddy back.

Maybe he's tired of those jerks now, maybe he's starting to remember what they did to us, maybe he wants movies and Mario Kart and swimming at the quarry with me again , she thought, as she wheeled her little cart up onto the stage. The one he'd suggested she use, so she could do her talent for this show.

"You'll be great," he'd said. "People are going to love watching you spin sugar."

And he had sounded so sincere. Like her best friend again. Instead of the friend of those bullies who'd made their lives hell for the better part of their school lives. The ones he'd grown cool enough for, and now spent all his time with. The ones he was standing with right now, when she glanced to where the staging area was, about a second before the curtains opened.

Oh no oh no oh no, she found herself thinking.

But of course it was too late now. And anyway, this couldn't be a trick.

Because, yeah, sure, he was their friend now, instead of hers. But he'd never actively joined in with their cruelty. He just didn't talk to her hardly at all anymore. He just looked away when he saw her coming down the hall. And that wasn't the same as being an asshole, was it?

No, she told herself firmly, as what looked like the entire high school was revealed, sitting in folding chairs, ready to clap for her cake-decorating tricks. Or at least they were ready to clap if she did them right. They would probably boo if things went wrong.

They might even laugh, she knew.

But truthfully, she didn't think that was going to happen. She knew what she could do. Sometimes she could almost feel it, deep down in her bones. A sense of calm and surety. And it was here with her now as she unveiled the plain, tiered cake, and giggled through her introduction. A little snarky, a little self-deprecating, a little weird. The way Seth used to love.

But she didn't think he loved it anymore. Because just as she was about to start, there was a whine from a microphone that wasn't hers. And someone's voice—frantically high, but still completely recognizable. Seth, it was Seth. It was Seth who shouted those two words. The ones the Jerks used to use all the time, but she had never thought he would.

"Fat ass," he said.

And that would have been fine. She could have shrugged that off. She'd been waiting for it from him for what felt like a decade now—but was really only a year or so. Just that small amount of time to turn him from the boy she loved into this. A near-man who would yell that insult at her.

But then her cake suddenly toppled over, spreading all the way down the front of her body. And now everyone was laughing. They roared as frosting slid to her shoes in great clumps. One of them threw something. Another echoed what Seth had said.

And she couldn't shrug that off.

She couldn't be Carrie getting a bucket of pig's blood on her head, without at least some fury. In fact she could feel it now, boiling and burning and brightening inside her, until it genuinely felt like she might do something unhinged. She turned and looked at him, surrounded by his laughing buddies, and found herself thinking of that line from some book. The one about chests and cannons and shooting your heart at someone.

Then she had the strangest feeling, for a second, that this might somehow happen.

That she could do it. That she could kill him that way, if she really thought about it hard enough. And the idea was so terrible, and so strange, she didn't hesitate. She ran. She went straight through the double doors at the side of the stage, all the way out to the parking lot. Fast, so fast she almost didn't hear him call her name. She nearly didn't stop.

The burning bright feeling was enormous now.

It felt as if she might burst because of it.

Then she felt him reach for her. She got a hint of his hand, barely brushing over her right arm. And she had to do something. It was too much to have him touch her, to have him protest, to hear him say something like it was just a joke. She couldn't stand it.

So she did the only thing she could.

She turned and yelled:

"You're a beast, Seth Brubaker!"

Then she shoved him away with both hands. And she ran again, as thunder rumbled across the sky.