"The trick to playing the guitar," Gregg said as he tuned his instrument, "is that you can't get too attached to any of your guitar picks."

The Party Barn was as dirty and dusty as always on that February evening. The dying sunlight from outside could barely be seen through the filthy windows up front. Angus and Bea had both already set up their equipment on the Party Barn's stage, and Gregg was sitting on some old boxes tuning his instrument. Germ was standing next to the backdoor, wordlessly watching as the band waited for their fourth member to show up.

"You gotta stay emotionally distant from 'em," Gregg said, strumming his guitar while he spoke. "If you've got a guitar pick, you've gotta assume that you're gonna lose it eventually."

"Uh-huh," Bea said absent-mindedly. All of her focus was on her computer. The drumming software that she used was open and ready to go. Bea briefly wondered if she should set the software up so she could play the bass parts, too, just in case Mae wound up not coming. It would take a little while to do, but Mae was running pretty late—if she wound up not showing up, it would be smart to start setting it up now.

"I've lost dozens of the things," Gregg said. "This place is probably littered with my old guitar picks. But do I get upset about it? Nope."

"He used to get upset about them," Angus added. "Like, really upset."

"Yeah, I cried once!" Gregg said.

Bea didn't say anything. She wasn't really paying attention. Bea had had a lot on her mind lately. Jackie's visit had helped to put some of Bea's worries to rest, but there was still a lot that Bea was concerned about. Hopefully, band practice would help with some of that. But probably not.

A creaky, scraping noise cut through Bea's focus. The Party Barn's back door scraped against the doorframe as someone outside tried to force it open. After a few attempts, the door finally became unstuck and slammed open. Mae Borowski walked into the Party Barn, and the door creaked shut behind her.

"'Sup, dorks?" Mae asked as she strolled up towards the stage.

"You're late," Bea replied. "Like, really late. We were going to start without you."

Gregg blinked, surprised. "Wait, we were?"

Mae winced, and a guilty chuckle escaped her. "Yeah, sorry. I had this weird dream last night and overslept. Plus, I stopped on the way over to say hi to Selmers, and Mr. Chazokov, and this one guy who I talk to about the news through his window…"

Bea knew Mae well enough to know that she wasn't joking. Bea wasn't sure why Mae apparently talked to literally everyone she saw in the street, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Sometimes the reason for something didn't matter, after all.

Mae's expression returned to neutral as she hopped up to sit on the stage. She looked around at her friends, stopped for a moment when she realized Germ was there, and then shrugged. It looked like Mae was just starting to accept the fact that Germ just showed up at random sometimes.

"What was your weird dream about?" Gregg asked. "Last night I had a dream where Cap'n and I got a pet cat. But for some reason we kept treating it like it was a dog? And for some reason we were living in my parents' house, but my parents weren't anywhere around?"

"I had a dream where I was in this big house," Germ said as he approached the stage. "And there were all these hallways. And I kept hearing my sisters calling for me, but I never got any closer to 'em. And I knew that if I didn't fine 'em, they'd be in real trouble. But I didn't find 'em."

Bea stared at Germ in mild concern. "That… sounds like a pretty bad dream."

"It wasn't great," Germ said, his tone unchanging.

Mae gave a small, apathetic shrug and looked down at her boots. It was pretty clear to Bea that Mae didn't want to talk about this dream. Mae didn't exactly have a great filter, though—it was no surprise she was forcing herself to talk.

"It was just this dumb thing about Casey," Mae sighed reluctantly. "We were at our graduation party, and we talked about his dad and stuff. And it felt so real, like… If I'd warned Casey about how he was gonna die, it felt like it would've changed things. And even though I know that's not true, I still feel bad that I didn't tell him."

Mae fell silent. Nobody looked like they knew what to say. Bea took it upon herself to ask the obvious question.

"Are you feeling okay?" Bea asked worriedly.

She couldn't help but worry—Bea had already seen Mae go through one breakdown. Now Bea found herself constantly worrying that it would happen again. It didn't help that Mae kept having bad stuff happen to her.

Mae continued contemplating her boots, not saying anything. After a few seconds, she shook her head and looked up.

"Yeah," Mae said. "No. Whatever. Look, what song are we playing today?"

Bea didn't need to be a therapist to see that Mae was trying to brush it off. But Bea knew better than to try and press the issue. If something really was bothering Mae, it would be a lot more obvious. As such, Bea didn't need to ask Mae if she was certain.

And in any case, Bea wouldn't have gotten a chance to ask, because the loud, metallic sound of someone pounding on the Barn's backdoor suddenly cut into the group's conversation. Three loud, furious knocks were followed by three more. The knocking grew louder and more intense while everyone stared at the door in confusion.

"Who's—" Mae started to ask, only to be interrupted by the door being kicked open.

"Goddamn door!" A voice Bea didn't recognize cried out. There was a hiss of pain as the voice's owner hobbled into the Party Barn. The strange man's ankle, obviously sore after kicking the door open, limped a bit behind him, but the man gritted his teeth and overcame his pain. The man looked gruff, his chin and cheeks covered in messy stubble. A heavy, dirty flannel coat hung off of his frame. The man had an angry, impatient scowl on his face.

But Bea didn't really notice his expression—her eyes were focused on the tribal tattoo on his face.


As usual, leaving the house had been a huge mistake.

Mae had seriously been tempted to stay in today. She'd woken up from her dream about the graduation party feeling like total crap. On top of that, Mae had woken up with one of her boots on. Waking up with a single boot still on your foot should be a sure sign not to go out, right?

But no, Mae had to go out and be social, and all that garbage. Now the creepy guy who'd been stalking her had crashed band practice. Smart, Mae—real smart.

The tattoo man stepped into the Party Barn, the backdoor squealing shut behind him. He came to a stop in the middle of the store and took a moment to look around, studying Mae and her friends. He looked like he was taking them in—trying to determine if they were a threat or not. Whatever conclusion he came to wasn't clear, though—he simply stopped looking around and stared straight at Mae.

The two stared at each other in silence for a while. Mae didn't want to talk and risk saying smartass that might piss him off. With her lack of filter, that was a very real possibility. Thankfully, Mae had friends who could speak up for her.

"Hey, you can't come in here. This is someone else's property," Gregg said. He didn't sound terribly concerned—either he didn't know that this was the guy who'd been following Mae, or he didn't care.

Mae swallowed her fear and spoke up. "What're you doing in here?"

The tattoo man narrowed his eyes at Mae, clearly irritated. It looked like Mae didn't need to worry about saying something smartass. Apparently, anything she said was going to piss this guy off.

"You never answered my questions, dumbass," The tattoo man growled. "Why the eff else would I be here?"

Okay, Mae had asked kind of a stupid question. She should have guessed that the tattoo man still wanted to know about the Casey thing. It had kind of been naïve of Mae to assume he wouldn't come asking about it sooner or later. Mae was beginning to think she didn't put much forethought into things.

However, while Mae hadn't been prepared for this encounter with the tattoo man, Bea was.

Before Mae knew what was happening, Bea had jumped down from the stage and stepped between Mae and the tattoo man. Bea was holding something small and black in her hand and was holding it up to the tattoo man's face. The tattoo man had a look of surprise on his face, like he'd completely forgotten there were other people in the building.

"Get away from her, asshole," Bea said. "I will personally Mace the shit out of you if you bother my friend again."

The tattoo man took a moment to study the small, black canister that Bea was holding up to his face. When he confirmed that it was indeed Mace, his irritated scowl returned. He made no motion to swat the Mace away or push Bea aside, though—his body language was slow and cautious.

"Wait, is this this guy who was creeping on you?" Gregg asked suspiciously. His guitar had been set aside, and he was making his way towards Bea and Mae. He stood beside Bea, protectively standing in front of Mae. Before Mae knew it, Germ and Angus had both wordlessly joined the others. Her four friends had formed a little wall between Mae and the tattoo man.

Mae found herself suddenly feeling so much love for her friends that she thought she might cry.

The tattoo man didn't look like he was going to cry. He looked like he wanted to break something.

"… The eff's wrong with people in this town?!" The tattoo man snapped. "Goddammit! I'm just trying to ask some effing questions, but y'all are acting like I'm trying to eat your friend! I don't even got a gun or nothing, assholes! I ain't done nothing wrong!"

"You've been stalking her!" Gregg pointed out.

"Yeah, but not in, like, a pervy way!" The tattoo man retorted angrily. "I'm not following her 'cause I'm a creep!"

"That's nice and all, but it's kind of beside the point," Angus pointed out. His tone was stern and serious, but not entirely angry. Angus didn't anger very easily, after all, and so far the tattoo man hadn't earned any vitriol from the big guy. "Stalking is still illegal. You're lucky we're letting you talk at all."

The tattoo man opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. Mae watched as the man who'd been following her lifted his hands up, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes and spoke again, his voice was much quieter and calmer. The angry scowl had disappeared from his face, but it looked like it physically pained him to not be pissed off at everyone.

"Okay," the tattoo man said. "Alright. Fine. I've been following your friend. That's kind of creepy. You've got me there. But I legitimately only want to ask you people some questions, alright? You answer my questions, I disappear from your lives."

Mae looked at the man's face with great uncertainty. While he was clearly trying to put in an effort to appear reasonable and personable, it wasn't really working. There was a look of barely contained rage in the tattoo man's eyes. Mae had a feeling that, even if he had no intention of hurting Mae and her friends, his anger would drive him to hurt someone, somewhere.

Bea evidently was thinking the same thing—she hadn't stopped pointing her Mace at the tattoo man's eyes.

"You have seriously got 10 seconds to get out of here," Bea said. "If you want to ask questions, you do it like a normal person, instead of scaring people half to death."

Gregg nodded in agreement. Although he wasn't as active in trying to ward off the tattoo man, Mae had a feeling that was just because Bea had beaten him to the punch. Angus and Germ, meanwhile, were both fairly quiet. Mae could tell it wasn't out of fear, though—they were just being rational about the situation.

Well, Angus was. Germ was probably only quiet because he didn't have anything to say. Mae had no idea if this situation was even unusual for Germ—maybe he went through this sort of thing every day.

"Okay, I get that y'all are pissed with me," the tattoo man said. "I done wrong by you. Normally, I try not to do wrong by folks who haven't done me wrong. But I need to know if the Hartley kid split town, okay? And I need to know if he's got something of mine with him. That's it."

Mae hesitantly glanced over in Gregg's direction. He was looking at Mae from over his shoulder, no-doubt thinking the same thing Mae was. They had to lie—there was no way they could tell the tattoo man the truth about what had happened to Casey. The truth would just sound too unbelievable to this guy. But if the tattoo man suspected they weren't telling the truth, they could all wind up in serious trouble.

"Casey up and vanished while I was in college," Mae said slowly. There—that wasn't really a lie. "I honestly have no clue if he took anything with him when he left. He always used to talk about how he wanted to leave town, though."

"Yeah, he didn't tell anyone before he left!" Gregg added. His tone was anxious, and he was speaking a little too quickly. He made an effort to calm himself before continuing. "Casey probably hopped on a train to, like, Virginia or something."

If the tattoo man noticed the anxiety in Gregg's voice, he made no comment. Instead, he silently took his eyes off of Bea's Mace for just a moment in order to turn his attention towards Mae.

Mae could tell that he was scrutinizing her—trying to tell if Mae was shitting him. Mae tried her best to not give off the faintest hint of bullshit. She just wanted this guy to get the answers he wanted and disappear from her life.

The tattoo man finally nodded, evidently satisfied with Mae's answer. Mae felt as if a fifty-pound weight had been removed from her chest.

"Okay," the tattoo man said thoughtfully. "I believe you. That's not what I was hoping to hear, but I believe you. Except now we got a problem, yeah? 'Cause it's starting to look like Hartley stole from me and got away with it."

Mae had a feeling that there were a lot of people who could say that about Casey. Casey's fingers had never been quite as sticky as Mae's, but he'd done a fair amount of shoplifting in his day. If Casey really had taken something from the tattoo man, though, it wasn't likely he'd ever see his stuff again.

"Okay, great. Your question got answered," Bea said angrily. "Now get the eff out of here."

The tattoo man's gaze flickered back to Bea's canister of Mace. For some reason, he looked almost offended by it. It was as if Bea was somehow insulting him by trying to defend herself. Mae found herself worrying that the tattoo man might swat the Mace out of Bea's hands and beat her up or something.

Thankfully, though, the tattoo man appeared to be willing to comply.

"Alright, I'm gone," the tattoo man said. He turned and began walking back towards the Party Barn's backdoor.

Bea didn't lower her canister of Mace until he was a good distance away. When Bea's arm returned to her side, Mae could see that the hand holding onto the Mace was shaking fiercely.

The tattoo man reached the Party Barn's backdoor and stopped. He rested his hand on the metal doorframe, drumming his fingers along it thoughtfully. After a moment, he turned back towards Mae and her friends.

"One more thing," the tattoo man said. He spoke to the whole room, but his eyes focused on Mae in particular.

"I dunno how involved any of you are in this, but take my advice and keep your noses clean. Your pal Casey and his buddies have effed up big time. They stole from me and my bosses. Now I've gotta figure out who to blame for this shit. And you don't wanna be involved with whoever gets the blame. Got it?"

Mae frowned. The tattoo man's warning was ominous as hell, but one particular thing he'd said stuck out to Mae.

"Buddies?" Mae asked. "What buddies?"

"Mae, don't ask," Angus whispered. "We shouldn't get involved in this anymore than we already are."

The tattoo man, having not heard Angus, raised a brow in surprise.

"What buddies?" He asked. "Levy and Steve, obviously. Those dummies. God."

With that bomb dropped, the tattoo man made his exit.


"Okay, Mae, I think we should probably call the cops," Bea said.

Mae shook her head. "No. This is more important," she said, her mouth full of pizza.

Naturally, after a tense encounter with a shady-as-hell dude with a chip on his shoulder, the best place to head to was the local diner. The band hadn't even bothered playing any music—all of them, Germ included, had just taken Mae up on her suggestion to go get something to eat. Music would have to wait for a day when the band wasn't terrified out of their minds.

"He didn't technically do anything illegal," Gregg pointed out as he returned his uneaten crust to the tray. "I mean, he was kind of a dick, but that's about it."

"He was harassing Mae, Bug," Angus said. He hadn't so much as touched the pizza. That wasn't odd, though—the Clik Clak's pizza was pretty awful. "Even if he didn't technically do anything, we can still tell the police about him."

"Yeah," Bea agreed. "As soon as I get home, I'm calling the cops. And then I'm gonna hope I can get to sleep tonight."

Like Angus, Bea hadn't had any of the pizza. Mae was willing to bet it wasn't just because she didn't like the taste, though. Bea had been anxiously looking off into the distance and bobbing her knee up and down the whole time they'd been at the diner.

Mae couldn't really blame her. Staring down a big, sketchy dude while you were armed with only a can of Mace probably took a lot out of you.

Bea looked away from the spot in the distance she'd been staring off at and turned her eyes to Germ. "Hey, Germ?" Bea asked, concern in her voice. "You okay? You've been pretty quiet ever since that guy came into the Barn."

Germ was focused entirely on the glass of soda that sat on the table in front of him. After a moment, Germ looked at Bea, removed his beak (lips?) from the glass's straw, smacked his beak (again, lips?) and spoke.

"Nah," Germ said. "It's kinda hard to be scared of a guy named Dudley."

Silence fell over the table. Germ had been about to return his attention to his soda when he realized that everyone was staring at him.

"You know that guy?" Bea asked, shocked.

"His name is Dudley?" Mae asked, equally shocked.

Germ just shrugged. "I mean, I don't know him. But, like, Beth and Levy talk about him a lot. Levy's in some sorta trouble with him, though. It sounds real serious."

Mae had said it once before: she kept finding out new stuff about Germ. For such a little guy, he was full of surprises. Mae felt like she could know Germ for a hundred years and still get surprised by some of the stuff he said. From the looks on everyone else's faces, Mae was willing to bet that they all felt the same way.

"Okay, slow down," Mae said, despite the fact that Germ never spoke particularly fast. "You hang out with Levy?"

"I hang out with everyone," Germ said. "You guys are just the only ones who ask me to."

Germ noisily sucked up more soda through his straw while the band watched on. It took the 18-year-old a few moments to figure out that the gang wanted more information.

"So, like… Levy was selling stuff for Dudley. I think. But I guess a bunch of the stuff went missing around the time Casey disappeared? And Dudley's real angry? Those are the details I got from Beth. I don't like hanging around her—she makes me uncomfortable."

At the mention of Levy selling stuff, everyone at the table reached the same conclusion. Even Mae, who sometimes had trouble putting two and two together, didn't have to think too hard about this one. She could only think of one thing that Levy, local burnout and known weed aficionado, would be selling—drugs.

Wait. Were drugs one thing? Technically, they were a bunch of things, right? But they all sort of fell under the same umbrella? Kinda?

"Wait, wait," Mae said. She was mostly talking to herself, trying to get her thoughts together. "What does any of that have to do with Casey? Why does this Dudley guy think Casey stole from him?"

Mae expected the others to be just as confused as her. Instead, though, when Mae looked around the table, she saw everyone except for Germ was exchanging awkward glasses. None of them looked like they knew what to say. Mae began to realize that she had yet to come to a conclusion that seemingly everyone else had reached.

"… What?" Mae asked defensively.

Nobody spoke right away. After a few more uncertain looks, Gregg was the first to respond.

"I mean… It probably has something to do with that lockbox of cash Casey wrote about," Gregg pointed out. "You know, the one he got from his cousin? The cousin who had a trailer lab?"

Mae stared uncomprehendingly at Gregg.

"The trailer lab where he made drugs?" Gregg clarified.

Mae's eyes widened in surprise. Gregg's words felt like a slap in the face, and Mae needed a second to take them in.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on!" Mae said. "You actually believe that garbage? That's just a bunch of bullshit that those weirdos in the mines made up! I mean, like…"

Mae balked, speechless. The fact that Gregg of all people was the one to bring this up was the most shocking part about all of this. Gregg had known Casey just as well as Mae. Gregg should have known that Casey wasn't the sort of person to get involved in that sort of thing. Why would he suddenly start buying into that crap those old guys had said?

Angus cleared his throat awkwardly, drawing Mae's attention.

"It wasn't all bullshit," he said tactfully. "Casey did have a cousin, and his cousin did have a trailer lab. And, given what Casey wrote down in his note, I'd say it's fair to assume Casey was working with his cousin."

"Okay, but, like…" Mae opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was a confused stammer. Her eyes darted around the table. Everyone was staring at her expectantly. It was like being in school and having all your classmates stare at you when you get called on by the teacher to answer a question.

"Just because they worked in a trailer lab doesn't mean they made drugs! Right?"

Nobody responded.

"… Right?" Mae asked, less certain.

Bea shook her head sadly. She had this pitying look on her face, like a child had just said the dumbest shit she'd ever heard.

"Mae, I'm not an expert on trailer labs, but I'm pretty sure that they're only ever used for making drugs." Bea stopped to take a sip of her iced tea. "Like, meth, specifically."

Mae didn't know what to say. For one thing, she'd assumed that people used trailer labs to grow weed. Mae didn't know enough about drugs or chemistry to know how meth was made. She barely knew what meth was, actually. Was it the powedery stuff? Mae wasn't sure.

On top of that, though, Mae hated that her friends were kind of making sense about this.

That didn't mean Mae was having an easy time wrapping her head around all of this, though. Mae just couldn't picture Casey Hartley, of all people, as a drug dealer. It just didn't seem right. Casey hadn't been a felon—he had just been a troublemaker, like Gregg and Mae. He'd done plenty of crimes, but that didn't make him a criminal.

Right?

Mae looked down at the table and stared contemplatively at the leftover pizza slices. She had begun to lose her appetite. Before it went away completely, she tried to reach out and grab one of the remaining slices of pizza.

She wound up grabbing one of Gregg's leftover crusts. Mae shrugged and ate it anyway.