On his way home from school, Duncan Harris dragged his feet and stooped his shoulders. He moved with the arthritic slowness of a very old man and his heart felt like it was all shattered or something. "Look, it's not that big of a deal," Yangzi said. "They're not dating or anything."

"I dunno," Bex said, "she was kind of all over him."

Duncan's stomach turned.

All that day, Mia popped up with Zeke in tow. They ate together at lunch, walked around the gym together after PE, and sat beside each other in chemistry class. The more Duncan watched them, the most distraught he became. He would have gone into the bathroom for a good cry but that's something his dad would do, so he did his best to deal with it.

"Look, man," Yangzi said, "Mia's totally into you. Some guy she met at Wanee isn't going to change that. And if he does, then she was never into you to begin with and you'll just be alone and die a virgin."

Wolf glanced at Bex. "Unless Bex gives it up."

Duncan sighed. "I'm into girls."

A dark shadow flickered across Bex's face and a touch of madness seemed to color her brown eyes. "I am a girl," she said through her teeth. "I'm getting really sick of you guys clowning on me. I'm not pretty, okay? I get it but I'm a girl."

She was panting so hard that her shoulders shook. Her nostrils flared and her hands closed into fists, making her considerable arm muscles bulge. She looked like she was about to grab Duncan and rip his head off. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I mean I'm into Mia. She's the only girl I like."

"You have a mean case of jungle fever," Wolf said.

Yangzi and Bex both looked at him like he was crazy. "That's kind of racist," Yangzi said. "True but racist."

"He likes black girls," Wolf said and shrugged. "So what?"

"I don't like black girls," Duncan snapped. "I like Mia girls, okay? And I'm kind of freaking out right now because she's into Zeke guys now."

Everyone was silent.

"Well," Yangzi said, "if that's true, you know what you gotta do."

Duncan furrowed his brows. "What?"

"Make your feelings clear."

Ugh, that wasn't going to work. Mia had said things in the past like If I was open to having a guy like me, you'd be it, which told him that she kind of liked him personally but wasn't into guys in general. Not that she was bi (that would be hot), just that…

He didn't know what her thing was, but he guessed feminists hated having boyfriends and she was trying to be like them even though deep down she was a normal girl. Maybe he was misunderstanding her, but at the end of the day, coming right out and saying I like you, let's make out probably wouldn't work on her the way it might other girls.

He said as much, and Yangzi ticked his head from side to side. "I dunno, man, I think she's just playing hard to get."

"Girls love being pursued and swept off their feet," Bex said. "It's really hot when a guy's so into you that he climbs up your ice walls anyway."

Ice wall? What the what was an ice wall? He knew what the phrase "sugar walls" meant because his dad had it on vinyl and sang it all the time (shiver), so he supposed it meant cold pussy. He was kind of a dumbass (shocking, I know) but even he didn't think Mia would appreciate it if he threw her onto the bed and climbed her icy walls.

Noticing his confusion, Bex rolled her eyes. "I mean that girls like it when a guy is forceful about his feelings. It makes us feel special, like he really wants us, and even though we keep playing games, he doesn't stop chasing us."

Duncan slapped his hand to his forehead. "Why are girls so confusing? Why can't you be like guys?"

"Bex is like a guy,' Wolf said.

In a flash, Bex spun around and punched him so hard in the arm that he fell over, landing in the soft grass of someone's front yard. "You fucking piece of shit," she raged. She fell on him and started to pummel him. He screamed and threw his arms up to defend himself, but Bex was like a woman possessed, her eyes blazing with fury, teeth bared. Duncan and Yangzi pulled her off and she thrashed in their grasp like a wild animal. She let out an unintelligible string of threats and insults, spittle flying from her lips, and Wolf gaped at her, his normally placid expression replaced by something like shock.

"Calm down, Bex," Duncan said.

"He was just messing with you," Yangzi cried.

Summoning an expected amount of strength, even for a girl of her size, Bex wrenched away from their grasp. Her face was twisted in rage and Duncan and Yangzi both shrank back. "Fuck you," she hissed, "fuck all of you."

With that, she turned around and stalked off.

Unless Duncan was mistaken, she was crying.

When she was gone, Wolf got to his feet and rubbed his arm where Bex had punched him. "You okay?" Yangzi asked.

"Yeah," Wolf said. "I've never seen her act that way."

Yangzi narrowed his eyes. "She told you to cut it out with that man shit."

"I didn't mean anything by it," Wolf said. "I was just playing."

"Yeah, well, don't play like that anymone," Yangzi said. "It obviously hurts her feelings."

Wolf shrugged. "Okay, I won't."

By the time they reached his house fifteen minutes later, Duncan had already forgotten about Bex's blowout. He parted ways with his friends and went inside. Mom was sitting on the couch with a legal pad in her lap and tapping a pen against her chin. Duncan was surprised to see her; she usually worked late. "You're home early."

"Working on a murder case," she said.

"Okay, Mom, sure."

"I am," she said defensively. "Didn't you hear about that girl who got killed? She was your classmate."

Now that Mom mentioned it, he did hear something about a girl getting killed, but he didn't really care so he tuned it out; he had a lot more important things to worry about, like the girl he like-liked hanging out with another boy.

"I'm working that case," she said. "I'm compiling a psychological profile of the killer now."

Oh boy. "You have fun with that."

Mom grinned. "Oh, I will."

In the kitchen, Duncan grabbed the milk carton, looked around, and started to drink, but his mother called out from the living room, stopping him cold. "Do it and there will two high profile murder cases in Oak Dale this week."

Sheesh, okay.

He got a glass, poured some in, and drank it. "Better?" he called.

"Yes, sweetie, thank you."

Upstairs, he flopped back on his bed, laced his hands over his chest, and stared up at the ceiling. What Bex said about girls and their ice walls came back to him, and he nibbled his bottom lip contemplatively. What he got from it was this: Girls like to be chased and won over, even liberated girls like Mia. They throw up roadblocks for guys as a test. If you keep coming despite those roadblocks, they know you're serious. If you give up and walk away, they assume you just wanted some butt and that now you're going to search for easier prey. If you keep chasing them, they know that you want them specifically.

But Mia wasn't like that. She seemed interested in him but she spent too much time listening to podcasts hosted by purple headed lesbians who fed her mind with junk against men. She wasn't a hateful person, she was actually very sweet and kind, but being a fucking dick is the in thing these days. Someone has a different opinion? Be a dick. Someone is a different sex or color? Be a dick. Someone likes a different cartoon than you? Be a dick. She wasn't consciously being a dick but she was following a mindset that led to dickish actions.

Or maybe…

He didn't know. He was thinking too hard and giving himself a headache. Either way, she wasn't your typical girl, but if Bex was right, she was in the most important way. If he stepped up his game and made it clear that he wanted her, and only her, she might very well realize what a fool she was for playing games with him.

That, of course, is if Zeke didn't steal her away.

Sigh.

He'd almost forgotten about Zeke.

Getting up Mia's ice walls was hard enough on its own, but now he had competition. Sure, Mia said he was just a friend, but Duncan knew better. At this point, he was just a friend himself but he had designs on her. Zeke probably did too, and how could he not? Mia was the total package, and any dude who didn't want to get with her was either gay or retarded.

What were his chances in direct head to head competition with Zeke? Not terrible, he thought, though Zeke had a certain something about him, a kind of...maturity? He seemed chill and quiet, and plus he had a beard. Guys with beards are instantly more attractive to girls. He read an online article that said so.

He touched his face and moaned.

Smooth.

Boyish.

Child-like.

Duncan had never worried about his masculinity before but now that he was mentally comparing himself to Zeke, he felt woefully inadequate. Zeke was cool. Like Bob Marley cool. Duncan was pretty cool himself but not like that. Who would you choose if you were Mia? A grown ass white Bob Marley or a kid with a baby face?

Something moved in the corner of Duncan's eye and he lifted his head. Kimberly stood in the door way, staring down at her phone and blazing her thumbs across the screen. "Why do you keep sighing like that?" she asked.

"I don't keep sighing," he sighed.

"You just did it again. Let me guess, you have to go to summer school again."

Letting out a deep breath (which totally was not sighing), Duncan laid back against his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "Leave me alone, I'm not in the mood to picked on right now."

"Get enough of that at school, huh?"

Duncan sighed. He and Kimberly were locked in the type of perpetual Cold War you've seen between siblings on every lame ass sitcom over the past thirty years. She called him names, he called her names; a good time was had by all. He didn't hate Kimberly (or his parents), but he wasn't about to hug, kiss, and shove her up his ass like that faggot kid in The Loud House. He didn't know why, then, that he opened up and told her exactly what was bothering him. That was like America telling China all of its state secrets. Kimberly looked up from her phone and listened with surprising attentiveness.

As soon as he was done, she went back to texting. "You're being dumb."

"How so?" Duncan asked.

"Because you're acting like she's the greatest thing ever and sooo high above you. She's not. She doesn't even have hair on the side of her head. Stop putting her on a pedestal. You're fine. Ask her out."

Duncan blinked. "How are you going to talk about someone's hair? Yours is purple. The color of cringe."

"Yeah, at least I'm not bald on one side," Kimberly shot back.

"Mia isn't bald. Are you blind?"

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "I was trying to make you feel better but whatever, Keep beating yourself up over a bald girl."

"SHE'S NOT BALD!"

"She's bald," Kimberly said and walked away, then poked her head around the door jamb. "Bald."

Duncan threw his pillow at her.

No sooner had she left than Jing popped out from under his bed, startling him. She shot him daggers and he scooted backwards until he was against the wall. "Are you cheating on me?"

Not this again.

"No, Jing, I'm not cheating on you."

"You better not be," she said. "You're my husbando. Mine."

"Please leave," he said.

She crawled out from under the bed and jumped to her feet. She stared him down for a minute, then left, closing the door behind her.

Tomorrow, he decided, he would start trying to win Mia over.

He just had to figure out how.

Kelsey Andros couldn't believe that Leah was dead.

Standing in town square with a hundred of her classmates, a candle clutched in one hand, she stared into space, her mind working. When she was eight, her cat, Mr. Buttons got run over by a car and was so injured that he had to be put down. She cried for days and prayed to God every night for almost a month that Mr. Buttons would come back, whole and new like the saints in Revelation, maybe even wearing a little white robe. Other than that, she had no experience with death. Death existed on the far periphery of her life, happening to other people, never to her. She never gave much thought to ultimate morality, so she was blindsided when she learned that Leah had been murdered. She had just seen and talked to her yesterday. Surely something so major, something so final, couldn't just...happen. It would be preceded by a feeling, a smell, maybe even ominous music like in the movies.

Nope.

In one sharp instant, it just happened. One minute Leah was here, the next she wasn't.

That was scary.

The news of Leah's murder had spread through Oak Dale High like wildfire, the story getting more and more gruesome with every telling, kids adding and embellishing details as they passed it on to anyone who would listen. Jeff Stevens, from Kelsey's history class, said that the killer "took her out with WWE moves" while Kayden Prince, one of the football players, said the killer chopped off Leah's head and all her limbs. Kelsey heard that Leah was raped and almost broke down crying.

Who would do such a thing?

And why?

Like Leah, Kelsey was pretty and popular. She was on the cheer squad, dated a football player, and led the charmed life of a suburban princess. How easily it could have been her.

At eight, the vigil ended and the crowd dispersed. Kelsey walked home with a few of her friends, none of them in the mood to laugh and joke the way they would have any other night.

Kelsey lived in the Maplewood section of Oakdale, where the houses were big and the cars in the driveways expensive. Her parents were out of town and she had the place all to herself.

She didn't like that.

On a regular day, having free run of the house would be great, but not tonight, not with Leah dead and her killer still out there.

Inside, she locked the door and checked all the windows to make sure no one could get in. Satisfied, she went upstairs and into her room. Kicking her tennis shoes off, she shrugged out of her coat, crossed her arms over her chest in an X, and pulled her sweater over her head. In the full length mirror on the back of the door, she was slim and sexy, and she couldn't help admiring herself. She reached behind her back and undid the clasp of her bra, letting it slide down her arms, Her breasts were small but perky, her nipples hard in the cool air. She liked it when Dan, her boyfriend, sucked them while rubbing her under her panties. So far they hadn't gone any farther than that, but she was thinking of surprising him next Saturday - his birthday - with a BJ at least. She was really good, she had been practicing.

In just her underwear, Kelsey went into the bathroom, jammed her thumbs into the waistband of her panties, and pushed them down, wiggling her hips from side to side. Naked now, she ran herself a bath, adding bubbles and bath beads. When the tub was full, she cut the water and got in, laying back and letting out a contented sigh. For a while, she just sat there, letting the water work on her tense muscles, then she washed with a loofah, paying special attention to her breasts.

Done, she pulled the plug and the water began to chug and splash down the drain. She got up, toweled off, and went back to her bedroom, where she dressed in a pair of lounge pants and a T-shirt with LOVE across the chest in glittery writing. She sat down at her desk, grabbed her laptop, and opened it.

Behind her, the closet door swung open.

The monster emerged from the shadows, its white gloved hands opening and closing and its deep set black eyes glinting with fury. Dried blood coated its curved orange bill and spackled the front of its black shirt. Hot exhalations puffed from its mouth and its teeth ground lightly together. The girl crossed her legs and started to scroll through Instagram, where everyone was airbrushed and beautiful. The monster fumed at the thought of all those pretty people living their pretty lives: Beaches, selfies, dinner, selfies, smiles, selfies.

Something inside of the monster snapped and its vision dimmed. It watched from the ether as it took three long strides across the room and snatched the girl by her hair. She screamed, and the monster slammed her face against the laptop as hard as it could. Her nose exploded like an overripe tomato, blood splattering the screen. The monster pulled her head back and did it again, relishing the crunch of her breaking face and the thrumming vibrations racing up its arms. Yanking the girl out of her chair, the monster slammed her against the wall; she hit, crumpled to the floor, and slumped to one side, leaving a bloody smear on the plaster.

In its rage, the monster lost control.

Grabbing the laptop, the monster flew over and started to beat the girl in the head with it. The plastic casing broke and the battery dropped out, rendering it light and harmless. Throwing the laptop away, the monster squatted over her and hit her with a hailstorm of blows, blood soaking its white gloves. It wrapped its hands across the girl's throat, squeezed, and shook her violently back and forth like a crocodile drowning its prey. The monster got to its feet, pressed the girl against the wall, and rammed its knee into her crotch, hoping to ruin her precious, stuck up little pussy.

By now the girl was limp, head lolling to one side. Cuts and abrasions dotted her forehead, ugly bruises were beginning to form on her cheeks, and her eyes were swollen shut.

Grabbing her by the back of the neck and letting out a furious cry, the monster shoved her against the dresser; she bounced off and flopped back on the floor.

The monster shook and panted, its wrath pouring out of it in a black tide too long pent-up. It ran over and kicked the girl in the side of the head, then in the cheek, breaking her jaw. It brought its boot up and slammed it down on the girl's face once, twice, three times. Her face was a mess of blood and bone now. She coughed up bits of broken teeth and quivered like jello. The monster kicked her again and again in the side, caving in her ribs. It knelt, grabbed one hand, and bent it back until it snapped\, then brought its elbow down on her already destroyed face.

Kneeling over her, the monster dipped its beak into her blood and feasted, sucking in her beauty.

She wasn't moving.

When it was finished with its ghastly repast, the monster stood, grabbed the front of the girl's shirt, and pulled her to a sitting position. Getting behind her, it grabbed her hair and the back of her pants and lifted her off the flood.

The monster's eyes went to the window.

Getting a running start, the monster heaved the girl back and then forward. She crashed through the pane head first in a shower of glass, and for a moment she was flying gracefully through the air.

Then she landed in the front yard with a thud.

The monster stared out the window at her for a long time before turning around and walking away.