Punk 57(19)

I shrug, not looking up. “Nothing. Don’t care.”

Trey and J.D. sit down, one on each side of Lyla, and begin digging into their sandwiches.

“Hey, babe.” Trey presses a fry to my closed mouth. I grab it and fling it over my shoulder, hearing him and J.D. laugh, while I continue my homework.

“I don’t think he’s said anything to anyone,” Ten says. “Mr. Kline asked him a question in Physics, and he just sat there.”

“Who?” J.D. asks.

“Masen Laurent.” Ten gestures to the new kid behind us. “He just started today.”

“I wonder how he’s getting in at night,” Lyla says in a low voice.

I drop my pencil to the table and raise my eyes, looking at her pointedly. “Don’t say ‘he’ like you know it’s him doing the vandalism. We don’t know that. And besides, he just started today. The vandalism has been going on for over a month.”

I don’t want him taking the fall for something I know he’s not doing.

“Fine,” she snaps, rolling her eyes and picking at her shaker salad. “I wonder how ‘the guy’ is getting in at night then?”

“Well, I have an idea,” Ten offers. “I don’t think he leaves the school, actually. The one doing the vandalism, I mean. I think he stays in the school overnight.”

J.D. bites into his hamburger again. “Why would he do that?”

“Because how else would you get around the alarms?” Ten argues. “Think about it. The school’s open late—swim lessons at the pool, the GED class, the teams using the weight room, tutoring… He can leave after school, eat and do whatever, and make it back before the doors are locked around nine. And then he’s got all night. Maybe he even lives here. The attacks are happening nearly every day now, after all.”

I finish my final equation, my pencil digging slowly into the paper. It’s a good point. How else would someone get around the alarms, unless they hide out and wait for the doors to be locked?

Or unless they have keys and the alarm code.

“There are no homeless kids at this school,” I point out. “I think we would know.”

It’s not a huge high school, after all.

“Well, like you said,” Lyla shoots back. “He just arrived, so we don’t know anything about him yet.” I see her look over my head, and I know exactly whom she’s watching. “He could’ve been here for the last month before starting school and no one would’ve known it.”

“So peg the dirty new kid with no friends?” I retort. “What possible reason would he have for vandalizing the school? Oh, wait. I forgot. I don’t care.”

And I lean over my assignment, filling out the header, continuing, “Masen Laurent is not living in the school. He’s not vandalizing the walls, the lockers, or anything else. He’s new, you’re scheming, and I’m bored with this conversation.”

“We can get it out of him,” Trey chimes in. “I can sneak into my stepmom’s office and check his file. See where he lives.”

“Hell yeah,” J.D. agrees.

The sinister tone to their voices unnerves me. Trey gets away with everything, especially since the principal is his stepmother.

I close my book and notebook, piling them on top of each other. “And how would that be any fun for me?”

Trey smiles. “What did you have in mind? Name it.”

I rest my forearms on the table and turn my head over my shoulder, watching Masen Laurent. His stoic expression is confusing. As if everyone around him doesn’t exist.

They bustle about, passing by him, their voices carrying across his table, laughter to his left and a dropped tray to his right, but a bubble surrounds him. Life carries on outside of it, but nothing breaches it.

But I feel, even though he responds to nothing going on around him, he’s aware of it. He’s aware of everything, and a chill runs down my arms.

Turning back to Trey, I take a deep breath, shaking it off. “Do you trust me?”

“No, but I’ll give you a long leash.”

J.D. laughs, and I rise from the table, pushing back my chair.

“Where are you going?” Lyla asks.

I spin around and walk for Masen, answering over my shoulder, “I want to hear him talk.”

I head over to his table, a small round four-seater on the outside of the room, and rest my ass on the edge, gripping the table with my hands at my sides.

The boy’s eyes catch my thighs and slowly rise up my body, resting on my face.

I can hear the beat of drums and guitar pounding out of his earbuds, but he just sits there, the indents between his eyebrows growing deeper.

Reaching over, I gently tug out his earbuds and cast a look over my shoulder at my friends, all of them watching us.

“They think you’re homeless,” I tell him, turning back and seeing his eyes drift from them up to me. “But you’re not eating, and you don’t speak. I think you’re a ghost.”

I give him a mischievous smile and drop the earbuds, placing my hand over his heart. His warmth immediately courses through my hand, making my stomach flip a little. “Nope, scratch that,” I add, pushing forward. “I feel a heartbeat. And it’s getting faster.”

Masen just watches me, as if waiting for something. Maybe he wants me to disappear, but he hasn’t pushed me away yet.