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faded leather bracelet that had been my mother’s. Ringo gave it to me when I was ten and old enough to understand just how special it was. I remember the day he clasped it to my wrist and made me promise to never, ever take it off for any reason.  
    “Where did you get this?” I asked. Of course he didn’t answer, and I pulled the necklace around my neck to clasp it on me. “It’s so beautiful. Thank you.”  
    His face snapped towards mine, and a strange expression hovered over it. “You have to get Sheriff Garza. You have to get him.”  
    “You okay?”  
    “Rebecca. Promise me you’ll tell him.” His words were firm, though his cheeks began to shiver. His aggressive wrinkles began to take on the dynamics of gelatin, and the warning signs of an episode were everywhere. “She’s in danger.” I got up to press the call button for Rebecca because I didn’t know what else to do, but as I reached over to press the buzzer, he grabbed my wrist. His gnarled knuckles were surprisingly strong. It wasn’t a grip that belonged to a body that was shaking this much. “They found her.”  
    “Found who?”
    “Texi. They know who she is.”  
    I froze and tried to swallow, but my dry tongue wouldn’t let me.  
    “She’s in danger. Tell Garza to initiate protocol for the Ortizes. Tell Ringo to get her out of here.”  
    “Papa?”  
    But his eyes glazed over, and he stared blankly at the wall past me. His fingers relaxed their grip on my wrist as he slumped into his seat and the shuddering stopped. He moved his stare to the fern, and his breathing calmed.  
      I stood up and tried to hold back a sob. It was hard to see him in the midst of his delusions, let alone be the object of one. Over the past few weeks, he kept talking about how he found me in a transport sphere or that the Change was coming. This was the first time he was convinced I was in danger, and none of it made sense.  
    I rubbed the pendant between my forefinger and thumb and tried not to cry in front of him. The clock that hung above his bed reminded me that it’d still take me ten minutes to walk to school. I was going to be late.  
    I leaned in and kissed his wrinkled forehead, but he was already in his own world. “Love you,” I said as I grabbed my bag from the floor. When I closed the door behind me, it opened up its own door of relief.  

Chapter Four

    I hated pep rallies. Copious amounts of spirit were being wasted with all that energy expanding and contracting over a mindless sport. Butcher-paper posters plastered the walls with: Go! Hornets! Go! , Tear ‘em up Iago! , and GUNner has the GUNS to take us to STAT! I especially loved the last one, because it reminded me that the creativity and spelling capabilities of this year’s cheerleaders were endless.  
    What I couldn’t bring myself to hate was the energy. I reveled in the way it ebbed and flowed as people connected over something and the way the multiplication of people intensified it around us. Energy made me both love and hate being in large crowds because there was too much chaos to the peace and too much peace to the chaos.  
    I scanned the gym and caught Lindsay’s eye in the fray. She balanced on top of the pyramid and wore a smile a mile wide. “Why do you want to be one of them?” I’d asked her once as she shoved her pom-poms into her duffle bag. The yellow strands were abnormally bright next to her coffee-colored skin before she closed them up under the zipper. “Mama was a cheerleader,” she answered. That was the only explanation needed. If cheerleading was the string that strung her to her mother, who was I to judge? Even if it meant she spent most of autumn amongst pom-poms, glitter, and unoriginal chants, I could try to be understanding. But I didn’t know what I’d do if my best friend’s brain splattered over the gym floor, and every time they tossed her up, I held my breath.  
    Yet another reason to hate pep rallies: the potential for