- 2 -

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined playing Dungeon Master for Chrissy Cunningham. Of course, it helped that we were both high—or maybe it didn't help, because I kept thinking that at any minute, I would come down and realize it was all a pipe dream after all.

But until then.

"Roll to hit," I said.

She shook her hands with too much vigor, pitching her twenty-sided die right across the picnic table boards and into the grass. I howled with laughter, and though her cheeks flared, so did she.

The vinegar and lake soaking had, at best, faded the stains in my white shirt to a fleshy pink. In the end, we'd abandoned it as a lost cause, which she cared about more than I. Favorite shirt was nothing compared to the unfolding strangeness of building a friendship—friendship?—with Chrissy. I didn't know what else to call it when she came back to my trailer a second time and waited while I grabbed a new shirt, a bag of weed, and two sets of dice. We sat outside at the wooden picnic table where everyone could see, and she didn't seem to care at all. Maybe I should have; someone might tell her mom, and then her mom would have me arrested.

Maybe a night in jail was worth it.

"Try again." I snatched her blue die from the grass and handed it back. After she tossed it carefully, it rolled to a stop on 18. "That's a hit."

"A hit—I did it! Wait, I—that means I killed it, right? I killed it?"

Since I had no miniature to topple dramatically, I walked two fingers forward on the table and then flopped them over with the sound of a rattling death gasp.

"YES! I killed it!" She jumped to her feet, pumping her fists up and down under imaginary pom-poms that I could practically see. "Can I get a C? Can I get an I? Can I get an S-S-Y?"

The laughter bubbled up in me again. "That doesn't spell Chrissy."

"It doesn't?" She stared at me with such betrayal, I might have told her the bat she'd been fighting had returned as a zombie. Then she started laughing again, too. "I've never done a chant for my own name."

"It's perfect." I grinned. As she retook her seat, I described, "The defeated bat falls to the cobblestones, and as its body writhes, it transforms before your eyes into the vampire master of the castle."

"It's so lucky . . ." Chrissy bit her lip, trying and miserably failing to hide her smile. ". . . that the one and only creature I fought turned out to be master of the whole castle."

"Shhh." I pressed a finger to my lips, setting both of us giggling again. "This is a—a winging-it campaign. You want the big intricate quest lines with the hordes of little monsters that slowly build to Mr. Evil himself, you can't spring the session on me like this. So! You killed the master of the castle, and now all the treasure is yours. Magic scrolls and killer swords and . . . and gnarly buckets of gold."

"Gnarly buckets of gold?"

"Shut up."

She leaned across the table, her eyes bright and close. "Is there a crown?"

"Obviously." A crown for a queen. "It's . . . beautiful. Studded with rubies and diamonds. Pure gold, but somehow not heavy."

Chrissy straightened her back, squared her shoulders. Just like a queen, she said, "I put it on."

"And you look amazing," I said without hesitation. "Just . . . perfect."

I could see that crown as clearly as I'd seen her pom-poms.

After a moment, Chrissy whispered, "This was amazing. It was almost like . . . like I was actually there. Is that—is that the . . . drugs?"

"That's the game," I said. "That's why we play."

"At least part of it has to be you." She suddenly wouldn't meet my eyes, just smiling down at her lap. "The way you describe things is . . . magical."

Something tingled up my spine. Something happy.

Until a sharp voice broke it.

"Chrissy Elizabeth Cunningham!"

Her mother's voice. If I could have gone straight to jail without passing go and collecting the oncoming storm, I would have.

Chrissy stumbled to her feet. There were no pom-poms this time, none of the earlier happiness. She hunched her shoulders, and her expression said she felt sick.

Me too.

"Mom, we were just—"

"You don't speak to me," said her mother with frigid authority. "I have been worried sick, and I find you here? With this devil-worshipper again?"

"He's not." Chrissy's voice was small and shriveled, but I didn't know how she had one at all. Or why she would spend it defending me.

I tried to swallow and couldn't even manage that.

"And what about Jason?" her mother demanded. "Did you think how your actions reflect on that poor boy? So help me, Chrissy, when a good Christian girl makes promises—"

"We broke up."

Under her mother's stare, Chrissy flinched. But she said again, "Jason and I broke up. After the game."

"In the car," said Mrs. Cunningham. "Now."

Eddie, I begged myself.

I pressed my hands to the picnic table, felt the rough wood and the waiting splinters. I pushed myself to my feet.

"Mrs. Cunningham . . ." What could I even say?

Don't treat your daughter like that.

It reminded me of my dad.

Chrissy's mom snapped a finger in my direction, and it may as well have been an arrow for the way it pierced right through my spine. Then she grabbed Chrissy's arm and dragged her away.

Note: I wound up combining my original chapter one and chapter two into a new chapter one. I'm sorry for any confusion if you read things when I first posted.