Monday morning, my stomach writhed with nerves as I stood in front of the mirror, taming my wild red curls into a tight braid that snaked down to the middle of my back. I wrapped it twice with a black elastic band. Makeup was minimal—just a slick of lip gloss, a soft line of brown eyeliner to bring out the gold in my hazel eyes, and a whisper of peach blush on my fair cheeks, like I’d just come in from the cold. I pulled on my favorite jeans, and the Arctic Monkeys tee for some “vintage irony”. My sneakers were laced with the new pair Mom had bought—no more frayed ends and tragically short length on the left. I stared at my reflection. Breathe. Just breathe. This is it. Today changes everything.

  Downstairs, the apartment was quiet. Mom had left a note on the counter: Coffee’s on. Eggs in fridge if you want. Be good. I poured cereal into a bowl, ate standing up, then stuffed the backpack with my school books.

  I walked to school because feet don’t cost anything. Past rowhouses with brick steps scrubbed into submission, kids dragging instruments in soft cases, a guy carrying two Dunkins like a peace offering. The harbor wind pushed at my jacket; the Domino sign did its ember thing. I tried to breathe through the voices in my head. Yeah, right Sketch, I’m not crazy at all.

  Patterson Ridge High loomed ahead, a three-story brick fortress built in the seventies and never updated, despite the promises. Solid, normal, with flags snapping in the wind, and a mural on the side that cheerfully insisted we believe in ourselves. Through the metal detectors with a hundred other kids, backpacks thumping against lockers, voices bouncing off tile. The air smelled like hand soap, damp shoes, and too much body spray. A poster in the main hall declared, Be the Signal in the Noise! like that meant anything. One advertised a winter coat drive, while another claimed this Thursday as “Throwback Day,” which would mean seven Kurt Cobain flannels and a lot of neon.

  “Di!” Jess, my sort-of friend, fell in step with me, her backpack dangling from one shoulder. She and Mara were one step up from Sketch but still several down from the Stately Babes in the High School social hierarchy. “Did you see the new drops at Aerie? Valentine stuff is out.” Mara trailed behind, thumbs flying on her phone, yet navigating the hallway like a bat. “Also, did you hear about Tyler? He got his permit. He’s taking me to Harbor East this weekend.” She said it like she’d been invited to the Met Gala.

  “That’s…great,” I said, shoving my disinterest down where it belonged. “New Aerie drop?”

  “Heart-print everything,” Jess said. “Cute, not tacky. Well. A little tacky.”

  We rounded the corner and there they were: a pair of Stately Babes at their usual intersection like they owned the hallway. Dakota—original Babe stock, tall and tan in a way that ignored Baltimore winters—and London, who I privately believed got in because her name was “close enough”. They were laughing at something I was sure would be funny if you were on the right side of it.

  I didn’t go over. Not yet. I needed to wait for Montana.

  Homeroom was a fluorescent box with posters about growth mindset curling off the walls. Mr. Halpern took attendance in a voice that suggested he’d been doing this since the Carter administration. Planted behind the desk with his clipboard he rattled off names. I don’t know why he bothered, he’d had our class long enough that he could glance around and scribble a note with the absentees. The fluorescents hummed their nervous-bug hum while I waited for S.

  “Adams?”

  “Here.”

  “Alvarez?”

  “Here.”

  A tiny metallic tap pinged off the light cover. Then another. Movement snagged the corner of my eye. I looked up.Two of the monsters I saw in the police station were pinging off the light cover in chaotic loops. Chitter, ping, flicker. No one else looked up. Not Mr. Halpern, not the kid next to me chewing his pen cap into shrapnel. Just me, watching the light stutter like a skipped heartbeat and wondering if it would crack and drop the truth on our heads.

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  “Sinclair?” Mr. Halpern’s voice snapped across the room. From his tone I must have missed his first call.

  I dragged my eyes down. “Here.”

  He ticked the list and kept going. One of the things landed upside down on the corner of the fixture, clinging with tiny feet. It flicked a tongue, then launched at its partner. They collided, bounced apart, then played tag out through the open door.

  My heart did that new off-kilter rhythm. I pressed my palms flat on the desk until they turned white. Maybe the light was bad. Maybe I was seeing shadows. Maybe I was overtired. Maybe, maybe, maybe. None of it touched the part of me that remembered the precinct’s humming tube and how no one reacted there, either.

  Announcements slid past—Spirit Week, parking like human beings. A paper airplane sighed down the aisle.

  The bell sent us spilling into the corridor. I shouldered my backpack and told my pulse to behave. Find them. Say it clean. Then you can breathe.

  I turned the corner into the south hallway and saw them.

  The Stately Babes.

  All four of them.

  Montana stood at the center like the fulcrum of a perfectly balanced machine—tall, olive-skinned, hair a dark cascade down her back, face proud by years of being the most beautiful girl in every grade. Dakota, the other original member, stood to her right, golden and sharp, wearing designer jeans and a sweater that probably cost more than my mom made in a week. London, sleek and quiet with a bob cut so crisp it looked airbrushed, leaned against her locker scrolling through something on her phone with disdain. And Tiffany, small but radiant with privilege, a gold charm bracelet ringing against her wrist every time she moved, like a little bell to summon more attention than she already had. They were surrounded by a low orbit of admirers, pulled in by their gravity.

  My heart skipped into a sprint.

  I forced myself forward, braid swinging, chin up. This was my moment. I’d done the dare.

  “Montana,” I said, stopping a few feet away. The Babes turned slowly, like my voice had interrupted something important.

  Montana lifted her hand and the admirers melted away. “Diana.”

  “I did it,” I said. “Friday night. I painted Maryland on the rink wall.”

  One of Montana’s eyebrows climbed, a slow, perfect arch. London lifted her eyes from her screen and her mouth curled like she was tasting something sour. Dakota’s lips parted in mock surprise. Tiffany tilted her head, interested the way you watch a street performer you’re not going to tip.

  Montana shrugged. “We drove by Saturday morning,” she said, voice smooth, cold as winter glass. “Wall was clean. Just red paint.”

  “It rained,” I said quickly. “Overnight. I think it washed it away.”

  Tiffany giggled, the little bell chiming in counterpoint—short, bright. “The rain?”

  London smirked. “Convenient.”

  “I swear,” I said, stepping forward. “It was there, before the rain. But—” I caught myself. Don’t mention the cops, the run, the... Don’t mention anything else. Montana’s eyes narrowed, not with doubt, but with something worse—dismissal.

  She sighed. “You don’t get it. The point wasn’t vandalism. It was about being seen, having the power to flaunt the rules. Owning your choices,” she said. “Not to piss yourself and hope the weather erases the proof.”

  Laughter. Not loud, but perfectly coordinated—like they’d rehearsed it.

  “I did it,” I said, voice cracking. “You said if I did, I’d be in.”

  She glanced at Dakota, who gave a one-shoulder shrug. “If it’s not there, it didn’t happen. A Stately Babe would have gone back and made sure it stuck.”

  “You’re not Stately Babe material. We do what we promise,” Montana said, “and I don’t reward failed efforts.” She tilted her head mockingly.

  Tiffany pressed a hand to her chest. “Honestly, Sinclair, it’s sad. Did you really think you could be one of us? You’re not stately. You’re not badass. You’re just… a mess.”

  Montana spared me a long glance. “Let’s go. I have bio.”

  Dakota’s gaze slid past me like I was already part of the wall. London made a little sound that might have been a laugh. Montana didn’t smirk. She didn’t have to. She turned. The four of them moved as one, the kind of walk that says we’re done here.

  And just like that, they walked away, in step, in sync, leaving me standing there like I’d been erased.

  I watched their backs until they disappeared around the corner. My face felt hot enough to fry an egg. My hands were shaking. It was all for nothing. The rain, the cop, the humiliating community service. All of it for a door that was never going to open.

  Just like Sketch said.