Saturday, May 11

  Locker Room

  Mission: N/A

  13:48

  We trudged back into the locker room after football practice wrapped up — and by “wrapped up,” I mean after the field was turned into a war-torn wasteland that OSHA would’ve shut down immediately.

  Now, let me ask a very simple, very valid question:

  Why is it that the moment a guy is shirtless, suddenly every other dude within a five-mile radius feels the primal urge to put their excited hands all over him?

  No seriously. It’s a phenomenon. A curse. A plague.

  “Hey… you,” someone said behind me.

  I didn’t even need to turn around. I recognized that voice instantly.

  Blonde Boy. The same dude who was doing the most on the field and the most in the locker room.

  I turned, and yep — there he was, just as shirtless as me. He nodded at me like we were long-lost war comrades.

  “What major do you take?” he asked. “Since you seem to be very… experienced.”

  My brain tried rebooting itself and failed. I quickly scavenged through every single moment of the chaos we’d just survived, desperately trying to figure out what “experienced” meant in this context.

  And then my mouth betrayed me.

  “Lightning?” I blurted.

  He squinted. “Ain’t that with fire? So you must be good at fire too, huh?”

  “Yeah… so what?”

  “Nothin’. Just curious.”

  “Curious?” I repeated. “I’m surprised you’re not curious about Andre over there.”

  “For what? He looks like Malachi — a crazy good agent.”

  “Thanks!” Malachi called from across the room, taking his shirt off with the confidence of a man who has never known shame. Tisiah glanced up at him like he’d just witnessed a crime.

  And then, as if summoned by a hidden ritual, every person in the locker room pulled out their phone and began snapping pictures of Malachi like he was a celebrity walking the Met Gala carpet.

  I was horrified. And mildly afraid.

  “Anyway…” Blonde Boy continued, recoiling from the frenzy like it personally offended him. He focused back on me. “Just wanna make sure you know who I am.”

  “Well, uh… what’s your name?” I managed, clearing my throat. I could feel Tisiah’s eyes burning holes into the back of my neck.

  “Danne,” he said. “Danne Livingston. What’s yours?”

  “Connor.”

  Danne narrowed his eyes and chuckled. “Last name?”

  “I didn’t think that was important.”

  “I told you mine.”

  “But I didn’t ask.”

  “So what?”

  “Bartt,” Tisiah suddenly chimed in — loud enough to echo off the lockers.

  I forced a smile. “Yeah. Connor Bartt.”

  Danne stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded, lips curling.

  “Yeah… your parents definitely hated you,” he said. “But anyway, I just want to make sure you remember me just as much as I’ll remember you.”

  “Glad to make you feel that way… I guess?”

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  “Oh no,” Danne said, stepping closer. “You don’t understand. But I’m sure you will at some point. Because something I have that you don’t is, guess what…”

  “What?”

  “Say an answer,” he hissed.

  “You said ‘guess what,’ so I guessed 'what',” I replied, shrugging.

  “This guy—” he muttered, looking behind him as though the air itself agreed with him, then whipping back. “Just because you’ve got Bartt as your last name, suddenly you think you’re a jokester?”

  Before I could reply, another voice cut in.

  “Do you need something?” someone asked.

  We both turned.

  Andre.

  “Always riding on somebody for no reason,” Andre added.

  Everyone in the locker room collectively gasped like we’d just witnessed a plot twist in a telenovela.

  “Oooooooooooooooh,” they all chorused.

  Mike — oh dear Mike — felt empowered enough to follow up. “To be honest, Andre cooked you on that.”

  “Cooked how?” Danne shot back. “Plus, aren’t you the same guy who literally writes letters — that are never sent, by the way — to September?”

  My eyebrows nearly flew off my forehead.

  Mike fired back instantly. “Don’t you literally lick, rub, sing to and sleep with pictures of Malachi shirtless?”

  The entire locker room went silent.

  Me, Tisiah, and Malachi looked at each other with such wide eyes that we could’ve shot them across the room like cannonballs.

  Danne didn’t respond.

  He attacked.

  He and Mike immediately launched into a fistfight — full punches, blocking, weaving, rolling — the whole WWE package. Every phone in the room came out faster than people take photos at a concert.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about how many useless TikToks within in the EMO system would come out of this.

  Three seconds into the fight and Mike already had Danne in a chokehold, rolling around like two raccoons fighting over leftover pizza. Then Danne flipped him — suddenly Mike was bent down while Danne, behind him, clutched his neck.

  “What the…” the crowd whispered.

  And then — salvation.

  The coaches barged in.

  Coach Wallaby was at the front, already shaking from fury.

  “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING?!” he roared. “You expect to enter tryouts THIS way?! You expect the judges to ACCEPT you into the actual team with THIS attitude?! SHAMEFUL!”

  He stomped toward Mike and got two centimeters from his face.

  “Instead of congratulating each other, understanding each other, or HEAVEN FORBID having a normal conversation, you wanna fight and end up looking like you need your own room!” he barked. “Do you need your own room, Mike?!”

  “No, coach.”

  He turned to Danne. “Should I book a hotel for your troubled couple, Danne?!”

  “No, coach.”

  He sighed like he aged fifteen years in one sentence. “I want to make sure you two get extra-along. I’ll have Principal Renner switch your classes.”

  Danne and Mike stared at him in absolute horror. The rest of us made the exact face people on YouTube thumbnails make — mouths open, eyes wide, eternal shock.

  “You caused this, Bartt,” Danne hissed at me.

  I held my hands up, completely lost. “What did I do?!”

  “I’ll make that dense, thick-skulled name famous for all the wrong reasons,” he growled. Then he turned on Mike. “And you — if you thought this was bad, wait till’ what I do with you later.”

  “Oh COME ON!” we all shouted, but it sounded more like a chaotic swarm of syllables than a real sentence.

  “Hush, would ya?” Danne snapped, throwing his shirt back on before stomping out like he owned the place.

  Everyone stared at each other — stunned, confused, traumatized, entertained — a beautiful mixture of emotions.

  Monday

  I checked the balance of my wand at least a thousand times on the way to the YMPA. I already started imagining everything I could buy — the upgrades, the abilities, the power-ups — but I needed to find Tisiah first.

  I had gained over three levels during practice, giving me a massive 2000 MP. Enough to finally buy something cooler than a glorified bodybuilder mallet that deals more emotional damage than physical.

  Useful? Sure.

  Innovative or cool? Not at all.

  I entered the cafeteria, catching sight of September walking with Malachi. They were across the room, but it still felt like a punch to the stomach.

  I didn’t even feel mad. It was obvious she didn’t want anything to do with me ever since the mole accusation — an accusation that still followed me like a curse.

  I headed to our usual spot on the fourth row near the wall. Tisiah was there — Nikki wasn’t. Greg could appear at any moment like a random Minecraft mob, but for now, I had priorities.

  “Hey, Tisiah.”

  “Hm.”

  I frowned. “Um… Tisi—”

  “Are you planning to go to the YMPS?” he suddenly asked.

  My brain lagged. “The what-now?”

  “The library, Connor,” he clarified. “Library.”

  “Oh. Yeah — yeah, yeah. Where’s Nikki?”

  “Making up a test,” he said, glancing at the cafeteria doors. “Although I think she’s actually retaking it. She isn’t all too smart.”

  “Are you ready to go now?” I asked.

  Tisiah blinked — actually surprised. He was the one who brought it up in the first place.

  “Well, I mean, you haven’t eaten yet.”

  “I’ve been too anxious to eat. Let’s go. And maybe ask Malachi if he found anything on Jamal or Maddie.”

  “So what have you found on Jamal?” someone asked behind me.

  I turned — expecting Greg — but nope, it was Mari.

  “Nothing much,” Tisiah answered.

  Mari narrowed her eyes. “How come?”

  “Have you found anything on Jamal?” Tisiah countered.

  “I’m busy with other things, alright? You’re not the only one with assignments and tests.”

  “So why would you expect me—”

  “What should we do then, Cory?” Mari asked, turning to me with a very specific expression that made me feel more uncomfortable than a dentist appointment.

  “Well,” I stammered, “I was planning to go to the library, maybe talk to Malachi, see what he’s got. The biggest lead we have right now is their plan to attack the tryouts game.”

  “Maddie’s plan,” Tisiah corrected. “Jamal’s trying to figure it out. That puts more suspicion on Maddie.”

  “It’s useless to think it’s just Maddie,” Mari said sharply. “Jamal, Maddie, Elf — they’re all involved. And if they’re trying to take down Malachi? Then we already know what this is.”

  She leaned in.

  “There’s a simple thing we need to do.”

  “What?” we both asked.