Lulu and Jek are science nerds and have been best friends since they were young…or at least they used to be. Lately Jek has been pulling away from Lulu, just as she’s coming to terms with how she really feels about him.Just as she’s ready to see if there could be something more between them.

But Lulu’s thoughts are derailed by a mysterious new guy who’s showing up at local parties. Hyde is the definition of a bad boy, and everybody knows it…but no one can seem to resist his charms. And even though Lulu’s heart belongs to Jek, she can’t deny Hyde’s attraction, either.

She also knows that there’s something not quite right about Hyde. That the rumors of his backwoods parties make them sound a little more dangerous than what any of her friends are accustomed to. And she doesn’t like the fact that Hyde seems to be cozying up to Jek, and that they seem to be intertwined in ways that have Lulu worrying for Jek’s safety.

If Hyde has a dark secret, Lulu is determined to find out what it is, and to help Jek…before it’s too late for both of them.

Jek/Hyde

Amy Ross

For Edna Medora

“If I could rightly be said to be either,

it was only because I was radically both.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson,

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

Quote

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

Author’s Note

Q&A

Discussion Questions

Copyright

CHAPTER 1

Now I remember why I hate costume parties.

I’m pushing my way through the mob stuffed into Jared Kilpatrick’s living room, getting shoved an inch backward for every two inches of progress. The bodies surrounding me are wearing far less than usual, and I’m disgustingly aware of their alcoholic sweat pressing up against my own damp skin through nothing more than a layer of black mesh or bondage tape. The air is rank with an aromatic cocktail of adolescent hormones and cheap drugstore body spray, all heightened by the buzzing excitement of Friday night, Kilpatrick’s legendary Halloween party and the promise of a whole weekend to sleep off its excesses.

I have a plastic cup of beer over my head, and I’m trying to keep it steady, but three boys dressed absurdly as some kind of steampunk submarine are crossing in front of me, forcing their way toward the kitchen while a peg-legged pirate tries to manhandle me from behind. One corner of the papier-mâché sub knocks my wrist and sends a foaming splash down on me, the pirate and his stuffed parrot. I curse under my breath, but my annoyance gives me an extra boost to shove my way forward and finally break through to the sliding doors opening onto the back porch.

The shock of cold autumn air raises goose bumps on my skin, thanks to my beer-damp clothes. This polyester lab coat wasn’t exactly designed for Midwestern fall weather—especially with nothing underneath but leggings and a black bra. Maybe Sexy Mad Scientist wasn’t the greatest idea for a costume, but at least I could throw it together with stuff I had lying around the house—protective goggles, latex gloves, a lab coat borrowed from a neighbor, plus about three cans of hair spray to make me look like I’ve been electrocuted.

I relax against the railing and watch the crowd through the glass doors. There’s something about a party where you know everyone but they all look different. Someone will speak to you in a familiar voice and you turn to find yourself face-to-face with Cleopatra or an evil clown or a giant cereal box. It’s disorienting and leaves me slightly seasick. Everyone is disguised, and everyone wants to be noticed. Not that I’m any different.

I turn away from them and lean out over the backyard as I pull my phone from my pocket. It’s too late in the year for fireflies, but the lawn is dotted with glowing tips of cigarettes and joints clustered in twos and threes, and the effect is not so different. The manicured backyard extends into low bushes and then the gently sloping fields beyond. The nearest neighbors on this cul-de-sac aren’t visible from this angle, but off to the left there’s a twinkling of lights from town, the view partially blocked by the twinned hulking forms of Donnelly and Lonsanto corporate headquarters. On sunny days, their curved, mirrored surfaces catch the sunlight and reflect the clouds and green and gold corn fields, but tonight, picking up the orange glow from the town’s streetlights, they look almost eerie.

“Lulu! You cannot abandon me like that.”

My cousin Camila’s voice nearly startles my phone out of my hand. She’s the only reason I even came tonight—these red-cup ragers are really not my scene. When I first started at London High, I used to hit the local scene with Camila pretty regularly. For a while it was fun and exciting to drink our way through the town’s liquor cabinets and hook up with different boys every weekend, but I lost interest in that stuff pretty quickly. People wonder these days what Camila and I see in each other, and if we weren’t family, I’m not sure we’d see much. We don’t move in the same circles or listen to the same music, and while she’s practically famous in the party circuit around here, I prefer nights curled up in my pj’s, marathoning old TV shows. But she’ll be graduating this spring and starting work, and she acts like this means we’ll never see each other again. I know she’s just being dramatic, but I let her talk me into coming out again with her anyway, “for old time’s sake.”

Tonight she’s dressed as a jockey, which is probably an excuse to wear tight pants and carry a riding crop.

“Sorry,” I say. “Thought you were right behind me.”

“I was, but I got distracted by the guy in the horse mask.” She fondles her riding crop appreciatively. “Apparently he’s been very bad.”

Camila lifts her chin in my direction, as if daring me to make a comment about her shamelessness, but I just shrug. She’s picked up this kind of talk from the rich kids who throw these keggers—they think it makes them sound sophisticated—but she’ll have to try harder if she wants to shock me. I may spend more time at home with my books than hooking up with boys, but that doesn’t mean I’m a prude.

“Sounds promising,” I tell her instead.

“I thought so, but he wouldn’t take off the mask and I got weirded out. What if he’s ugly?”

“He’s wearing a horse mask,” I say, glancing back down at my phone. “Got to be hiding something.”

Camila snaps the phone out of my hand.

“You’re at a kegger with the entire junior and senior classes,” she says over my objection. “Not to mention your favorite cousin. Who could you possibly be texting?” She scrolls through my messages. “I knew it.” She holds up the phone triumphantly. “Can’t take even one night off from the boyfriend.”

“Jek’s not my boyfriend,” I mumble as she hands me the phone back. “He said he might come tonight. No way I’d find him in this mob scene, so I was just—”

“Jek, at a costume party?” Camila giggles. “Now that’d be something. What would he dress up as? A chemical equation?”

I decide not to mention that Jek went as a water molecule to his eighth birthday party.

“I told him he didn’t have to wear a costume.”

Camila swats me lightly with her crop. “Of course you did, spoilsport. All you cared about was him seeing you in yours.” She eyes the plunging neckline of my lab coat meaningfully.

My phone buzzes.

Camila raises her eyebrows. “Well? Is he here?”

I check the message.

“No need to answer,” she says. “The disappointment is written all over your face.”

“He’s watching a movie.” I slide my phone into my pocket. “Might stop by later.”

“That translates to ripping bong-loads, right? Something tells me he won’t be peeling himself off his couch anytime soon. Remind me, why are you so into this loser?”

“Stop it. You could not be more wrong about him.”

“Oh, I see,” she says sarcastically. “So he’s not a huge pothead?”

The truth is, Jek has all but given up weed. But since he’s mostly replaced it with even stronger substances, I’m not eager to argue the point.

“He’s not just a pothead, all right? He’s also a genius. I’ve seen both of you high, and I only remember one of you poring over an advanced neurochemistry text.”

“Fine, fine. I get it. But you’ve been hung up on Jek ever since you were kids, and he still looks at you like you’re his sister. I think it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to make a move, Lulu. Make a move or move on.”

“What do you think I was doing, inviting him here tonight?”

Camila snorts. “He may be a genius, but he needs some things spelled out a little more clearly. Why are you wasting time at this party when you could be over at his house, stripping off that lab coat and unzipping his pants? Even Jek couldn’t miss that signal. Probably.”

“Camila! Geez.” I wrap my lab coat more tightly around me. “It’s not like that, okay? We’re best friends, we always have been, and...and if that’s all he wants, that’s fine. I’m not going to force myself on him.”

“You wouldn’t be forcing him. There isn’t a boy in the world who would turn down that offer. Unless...”

“What?”

“I don’t know...maybe he’s gay.”

“He’s not gay,” I say, maybe a little too sharply. Camila gives me a look and I let out a sigh. “Or, I don’t know. I guess he could be.”

“You of all people should know. Doesn’t he tell you everything?”

I shake my head. “We don’t talk about stuff like that.”

“So that’s it, then,” she muses, leaning back against the railing. “That explains a lot, really. But in that case, Lulu, you should really give it up and focus on the fine-looking boys in front of you.” She gestures at the throng inside the party.

“But how can you be so sure? He’s never shown any interest in me, but he’s never shown interest in anyone else, either. Of any gender. I think his brain just doesn’t work like that.”

Camila gives me a sidelong glance. “It’s not the brain I’m talking about.”

“Shut up. What I mean is, yeah, I’ve known him for ages and yeah I kind of like him, but all he cares about is science.”

“Science and getting high.”

I ignore her. “He’s not like the other boys in this town. Doesn’t have his mind in the gutter all the time. He’s got other interests.” Camila wraps her arms around herself, looking dubious, but I don’t let that stop me. “Chemistry is his one true love,” I explain, “and nothing else will ever compare for him. You want to know why I’m interested in him, well...that’s why. I love his passion.”

“Lulu, honey,” says Camila with something like pity. “Wouldn’t you rather have a boy who’s passionate about you?”

I shrug and she shakes her head.

“You’re hopeless, you know that?” She hoists herself up on the porch rail.

I don’t give her an answer, but the fact is, I do know it. My feelings for Jek are just as hopeless as Camila says. I’ve done everything I can think of to get him to notice me, and Jek’s not an idiot. He’s got to know how I feel, and if he hasn’t shown any interest yet, he isn’t going to. The only rational response is to move on.

But I’m not quite ready to be rational yet. Maybe he needs a little more time. Maybe he just needs some encouragement. Maybe if I’m patient, he’ll wake up one day and realize I’m the one he’s wanted all along.

I squeeze my eyes shut, disgusted with my own thoughts. If I said any of that out loud, Camila would be the first to tell me how I’ve had my mind addled by too many rom-coms and fairy tales. I don’t need the lecture, so I keep my thoughts to myself.

Lucky for me, Camila has stopped watching my face and moved on to more exciting spectator activities, like narrating all the town gossip while a dozen little soap operas play out through the window, as if it’s our own personal flat-screen TV.

“Hmm, looks like Val and Erik are still together. Guess she never told him what she did to his car. And Brandon is way too drunk again. Third time this week, from what I heard.”

“Quit it, Camila,” I grumble.

“Come on... Don’t you want to know what’s going on in this sad little town?”

“I don’t like gossip. People are entitled to their secrets.”

“Oooh,” she says, ignoring me. “Natalie Martinez, returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Camila, I said—”

“Shh, I know, but this is different. It’s not about what she did, it’s what got done to her. If some sleazebag attacked her, don’t you think it’s my duty to let everyone know? For the safety of future potential victims, I mean.”

I cast her a doubtful look. Camila’s been known to exaggerate. “Did some sleazebag attack her?”

She shrugs. “Hard to say, really. It was last Saturday night, at Matt Klein’s kegger. I got there late because I was...” She trails off. “Well, never mind what I was doing. The point is, when I got there, she was slipping into one of the bedrooms with this half-Asian guy. Floyd or something. Lloyd? Hyde. I’d never seen him before.”

“That’s your story? People do that all the time, Camila. You do that all the time.”

“I’m not judging, and I’m not done! As far as anyone can tell, she went in perfectly happy and willing, but she came out twenty minutes later looking like she’d seen the devil himself. She started yelling at this guy in front of everyone, calling him a freak, saying she’d never agreed to that.”

“To what?”

“Oh, so now you want to know,” Camila teases.

I turn away from her, annoyed that she caught me in her trap. “So don’t tell me,” I huff. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Yeah, well...whatever it was, it was apparently too kinky for Natalie to say out loud. She did say she was going to call the cops on him, though.”

“Shit,” I say, interested again in spite of myself. “What happened?”

“Somehow it all died out. Natalie left the kegger in tears with a friend, and I expected to hear sirens within minutes, but no one ever came. As far as the gossip mill is concerned, she never told anyone what happened. No one official, at least. But then again, Natalie’s gotten around a lot since her dad got sick last year. Maybe she’s afraid no one would believe her story.”

“What about the guy? Hyde?”

“Beats me. At that point, no one wanted to admit to knowing him, let alone inviting him. I don’t blame them... There’s something funny about that guy. Something off.”

“What do you mean?” I say, no longer bothering to hide my interest. Camila’s too deep into her story to give me a hard time about it.

“I don’t know...” she says, staring off at nothing as if she’s replaying the scene in her mind. “He’s sort of weird-looking.” She shivers. “Something about his face.”

“What, like a scar?”

Camila squinches up her forehead, like she’s trying to remember, but after a second she shakes her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She shivers again and slides off the porch rail. “Come on, it’s freezing out here. Come back inside with me and at least try to have fun?”

I heave a long-suffering sigh, but a few minutes later we are giggling uncontrollably at the sight of Dracula, Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes trading keg stands, and I have to admit I am having a pretty good time—at least until Camila decides to join them, and ends our evening early by getting spectacularly drunk and puking all over Kilpatrick’s kitchen table. After that, I don’t have much choice but to get her as cleaned up as I can, then tug and shove her toward the front door, through a crowd that seems to have only gotten bigger and rowdier in the past couple of hours.

Once I’ve gotten a weakly protesting Camila through the door, I turn and give one last glance around the party on the off chance that my eyes will land on Jek. Camila’s right—it’s pretty unlikely that Jek would show up to a kegger, but he did say he might. But before I get a good look, I’m knocked off balance by some guy shoving his way into the house. I tip backward into Camila, and she goes stumbling down the front steps, where she wobbles a moment before pitching heavily to the ground.

“Watch it, asshole,” I call over my shoulder as I hurry to her side. In return, the guy spits back a slur so vile that I spin around to face him, shock and fury pulsing through me. “What did you call me?”

The dark-eyed boy tosses a bored glance over one shoulder and opens his mouth as if to follow up on his comment. But something about my face must change his mind, because his eyes widen in what looks like panic, and before I know it he has slithered back into the crowd.

“What was that all about?” Camila asks hazily as I help her to her feet.

“I hate costume parties,” I mutter. “Hard to give someone a piece of your mind when they’re dressed as...”

“As what?”

I grasp at a word or an idea for a second, but it slips away from me. “I didn’t get a good look at him,” I tell her with a shrug. “Some kind of angel? Or a demon.”

Camila giggles as I maneuver her into the car.

“Well, which was it?”

“I mean, like a fallen angel,” I explain, but I can’t put my finger on why I think so. I try to conjure up a mental image of him, but I don’t remember him wearing anything special or carrying any props, and his face is now a muddled memory. I can’t quite get a fix on whether his nose was big or small, his cheeks sharp or soft, his skin dark or light—all that stands out in my mind are those intense black eyes, and the strange fear I read in them.

CHAPTER 2

I can’t stop thinking about that guy who ran into me at the kegger. It’s weird to see anyone you don’t know in a town like this, where almost everyone is connected in some way to the Research Park. London’s funny that way.

No, not that London—London, Illinois. Up until the 1970s, it was an unincorporated farming community called Plachett, an hour and a half out of Chicago on winding country roads. It didn’t even have a post office. Then Lonsanto Agrichemical Corporation bought out a bunch of the local farmers and built a major research facility right in the middle of nowhere, and people started moving in and building houses. In 1978, Lonsanto merged with Donnelly Pharmaceuticals to create London Chemical—Big Farm meets Big Pharm, people said. That’s when they built the Research Park, and more housing developments, and in 1984, the town of Plachett incorporated and changed its name to London—for LONsanto and DONelly.

That history makes London feel different from most small, Midwestern farm towns. Most places grow up naturally around a river or a railroad, and they wind up a mishmash of old buildings and new, straight roads and roads that wind off into nothing, fancy brick houses and old wooden shacks. In London, the whole town was planned by the company from the beginning to attract the best scientists in the country, so it’s like living in the pages of a tourism pamphlet. There’s a picturesque Main Street with coffee shops, antiques stores and a microbrewery. The buildings all have solar panels, the flower beds are filled with noninvasive wildflowers, there are bike paths crisscrossing the whole town... When you go to a friend’s house, you always know exactly where the bathrooms are, because every house was based on one of three different plans.

I have to admit, it’s beautiful in the spring and summer, especially on the London Chem grounds, which are basically a big park right on the edge of town, with paths through the trees for bikers and joggers, free and open for anyone to use. Of course, that means us locals have to share space with protesters yelling, “GMO, just say no!” and “No more frankenfoods!” but you get used to them. It’s all worth it for the botanic garden, the butterfly pavilion and the mirrored glass lab buildings in strange, fanciful shapes, all designed by famous architects. The biggest are the twin headquarters of Lonsanto and Donnelly, curved around each other to reflect the symbiosis of the companies. They tell you all this when you visit—when I was a kid, we had field trips to London Chem every semester or so.

That’s another thing London Chem won’t let you forget: how invested they are in education. They paid for both schools in town—the K-8 and the high school where I go now, with its state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, better even than most colleges. That means science is a huge deal at London High, and the top students are super competitive—especially when it comes to the various science fairs and competitions sponsored each year by London Chem. Monday morning after the kegger, the latest award is all anyone can talk about.

“Jayesh Kapoor won the Gene-ius Award again?” Steve Polaczek says, reading the morning announcements off his phone. “I can’t believe it. Who the hell is this guy?”

We’re in the middle of setting up another mass spectrometry lab in biochem. It’s our third this semester, after Donnelly donated a hand-me-down QTOF. Now we have to use it every other week just to show how grateful we are. Really, London Chem should be thanking us. Sure, we get fancy lab equipment, but they get a massive tax write-off every time they toss something our way.

My lab partner, Danny Carew, claimed he can’t find his goggles and is wandering the room asking people if they’ve seen them, which is a transparent excuse to curry votes for the upcoming student council election. He’s left me to do all the grunt work of setting up, which I’m not really doing because I’m distracted by Steve’s question. I’m itching to answer him, but he and his partner, Mark Cheong, are across the lab bench from me, very clearly not including me in their conversation.

“What do you mean, who is he?” replies Mark lazily. “He’s the guy who wins all these awards.”

“Yes, I know,” says Steve sarcastically. “This time for research into—” he reads from the screen “—metabolic pathways for the artificial synthesis of (S)-reticuline.”

Mark raises his eyebrows. “Impressive.”

Steve dismisses this assessment with a wave of his hand. “Sure, whatever. But who is he? If he’s good enough to win the Gene-ius Award, how come he’s not in any of my classes? I’ve asked around before, and no one seems to know him. Does he even go here?”

Steve’s got a big mouth and loves to act like he’s a real player in the school’s science competitions, but it’s mostly hot air. He placed once as a sophomore, but that’s it. Truth is, he isn’t half as smart as he thinks, and he spends more time obsessing over what everyone else is working on than studying and developing his own ideas. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him in class with his head bent over in deep concentration, only to realize that instead of taking notes, he’s recalculating his GPA in the margins of his notebook.

Mark shrugs. “It’s probably some awkward loser you never even notice. Keeps to himself, you know? A silent, nerdy ghost, haunting the halls of London High,” he finishes in a fake-spooky tone.

I can’t ignore them anymore.

“He’s not a ghost,” I say, my eyes fixed on my notebook.

I can feel their stunned stares immediately. It clearly hasn’t occurred to them that I might know anything about this situation. This happens all the time. I’ve been in classes with these kids for years now, but they still act surprised when they realize I’m in the science track with them. As far as they’re concerned, the science track is for the London Chem brats—the ones whose parents work at the Research Park—not kids like me, the children of farm laborers. I’ve heard all the smooth comments about how great it is that London “supports diversity,” as if there’s no way I could have earned my spot in this class. Sure, biochem isn’t my best subject, but I’m at the top of my electrical engineering and information technology classes, if any of them cared to notice.

I clear my throat. “And you do know him. It’s Jek.”

Before I’ve even registered their reaction to this information, my body tenses up with guilt. I know very well what Jek would say if he heard me: that he doesn’t need or want me sticking up for him. Jek’s dealt with idiots like this his whole life and he’s figured out a way to handle them that works for him, which basically means letting these guys believe whatever the hell they want. It drives me nuts, but I’m beginning to understand that the alternative can be worse. But I just can’t stand the self-satisfied way these boys are so sure they know everything and deserve everything, and are blind to everyone who isn’t them.

After a moment’s silence, Steve lets out a sour laugh. “What are you even talking about?”

I look up from my lab notebook. “You know, Jek?” I nod toward Steve’s phone. “That’s his real name. Jayesh Emerson Kapoor. His initials are J.E.K.”

“The black kid?” says Mark, his tone incredulous.

I grip my pencil to steady my nerves, but I can feel my heart rate rising. Such an innocuous comment, but there’s so much behind it. I don’t know whether I’m angrier at the assumption that these two can read everyone’s race and ethnicity perfectly just from looking, or at their surprise that a black person could kick their ass at a science competition, but I can’t point out either one, since they didn’t actually say any of that.

“His mother’s Indian.” I keep my voice calm and steady. “His father is black.”

“Oh,” they say in tandem, as if that explains it all. “Indian.”

Let it go, Lulu. It’s not your fight. Jek can handle his own battles. Not that he does. He’s happy to fly below the radar and avoid drawing attention to himself. That kind of attention, anyway. It’s been this way since middle school, when he first abandoned his real name and told people—even teachers—to start calling him Jek. I asked him about it once, and he admitted that he was sick of people assuming he was nerdy and uncool because he was Indian. Presenting himself as the only black kid in our grade made him seem a lot more exciting—even if it came with other baggage, like people assuming he’s no good at science, or automatically blaming him whenever there’s any trouble.

Now, only his close friends know that he’s biracial, and that he’s secretly still obsessed with science. For everyone else, he just plays into their expectations: doesn’t advertise his grades, doesn’t talk much in class and when he gets called on, acts like he’s as surprised as anyone when he gets the right answers. And so he gets to be everyone’s cool friend instead of a threat. I wish he could find a way to embrace both sides of his identity and challenge people’s dumb stereotypes, but Jek’s made it clear he’s not interested in being a crusader.

“Does his mom work at London Chem?” Steve asks.

I nod.

He smacks his hand on the lab bench. “I should have known. The guy’s a ringer. His mom probably did the whole project for him.”

It’s the most absurd thing he could possibly say. If that’s his objection, it could be true for almost everyone in the science track at this school. If anything, Jek is the least guilty of this crime, given that his mom sometimes comes to him to consult on metabolic processes or different drug absorption mechanisms. I am this close, this close, to blowing up in this asshole’s face and telling him all about how Donnelly Pharmaceuticals has patents on three processes that Jek initially conceived in previous Gene-ius Award entries, but I’m saved by the return of Danny, who knows me well enough to read the dangerous expression on my face.

“Lulu,” he says gently. “Would you mind checking the storeroom for extra pipettes? If we wait till we reach that step, everyone else will have grabbed them all.”

I’m seething silently as I tug open the door to the supply room. I find the pipettes and grab a handful of them, still preoccupied enough to nearly mow down Maia Diaz on her way into the supply room. Somehow I manage not to drop glass everywhere, and I mumble an apology on my way out when she stops me with a light hand on my arm.

“Lulu,” she says softly when I turn around. “You’re friends with Jek, right?”

I raise my eyebrows, wondering why everyone is so interested in my best friend this morning. “Yeah.”

“Right,” she says, nodding to herself a little. “Can I ask you something?”

I shrug and gesture for her to go ahead. She glances around the room nervously, then grips my arm and tugs me back into the supply room. I’m so caught off guard that I don’t even try to resist. I know I should really get back to Danny, but I have to admit I’m curious about what Maia has to say.

She flicks on the light and pulls the door shut. In the shadowy depths of the supply closet, I see the wall of boxes behind her, all different sizes, and all identically marked with a leafy vine creeping through a double helix—the company logo of London Chem, and our sports team, the Helices. They look like the bewitched brambles of fairy tales, and for a strange moment they almost seem to be closing in on us. I nod for Maia to get on with it before claustrophobia gets to me.

“Matt Klein’s kegger,” she says. “A couple of weeks back. Did you hear what happened to Natalie?”

I hesitate. I hate to admit I had anything to do with that kind of mindless gossip, but playing dumb won’t help. “I heard something about it, yeah,” I say with a nod.

“Look, this is kind of a big secret and I know Natalie wouldn’t want me talking to anyone about it, but there’s something weird going on and I think...I think someone should know.” She pauses. “I think Jek should know. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“I don’t understand. Jek wasn’t even at that party. What’s it got to do with him?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” she says. “The thing is, I never knew Jek’s real name before, but when Steve said it just now it sounded familiar. And I realized, I remembered it from Klein’s party. Natalie was really upset that night, so I took her outside to talk. I wanted her to tell me what happened, and if we needed to call the cops or go to the hospital and get a rape kit. But that guy, Hyde, he followed us out.” She shudders at the memory. “I didn’t even know what had happened between them, but he gave me a bad vibe. Creepy-looking, you know? I don’t know why she’d want to mess around with someone like that. Anyway, he called after Natalie, telling her to be reasonable, to let it drop. I told him to fuck off, but he ignored me. He just looked at Natalie and said, ‘Name your price.’”

“What?” I say, genuinely shocked. I still have no idea what this has to do with Jek, but I’m starting to have very bad feelings toward this guy Hyde. “He just...just like that? He offered to buy her off?”

“I couldn’t believe it, either. I started to tell him exactly where he could put his dirty money, but Natalie stopped me.” Maia looks down at her shoes, then glances up again. “It sounds bad,” she says. “I know. I didn’t want to believe Natalie would accept cash over something like this, but she has a point. Who’s going to believe a brown girl over a white boy when it comes to rape? You know how it goes—everyone’ll say, oh, that poor boy made one mistake and now she’s ruining his life.”

“A white boy?” I think back to Camila’s description of Hyde. “I heard he was Asian or something.”

Maia shrugs. “Looked white to me. Anyway, Natalie’s father’s been sick a lot, and her uncle, too, from the pesticides they work with. So they haven’t been able to work lately and they have all kinds of medical bills...”

“It’s okay,” I assure her, thinking of similar situations in my own family. “I understand.” Health insurance for the laborers at London Chem is a joke, and of course the company always denies that the chemicals are harmful. But it’s not like anyone has the cash for a lawyer.

Maia nods. “So, Natalie, she...she told him her price. And it wasn’t low. I thought for sure he’d drop his offer or try to bargain, but he didn’t even blink. He just took out his phone. He said all he needed was her app info, and he’d transfer it right away.”

“And she accepted the cash?”

“It was a lot of money.”

“I guess that explains why the story died,” I say, half to myself. “But I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Jek.”

“Because,” says Maia, “the name on the account that sent the money wasn’t Hyde. It was Jayesh Emerson Kapoor.”

I stare at her in the dim light of the supply closet, trying to parse what she’s telling me. “Are you sure?” I say. “That’s not possible.”

“That was the name,” she says firmly.

“Jek,” I say softly to myself. “What the hell? How’d he get access to Jek’s account?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. And I don’t want to stir up drama for Natalie if I can avoid it, but I’m worried for her. Worried that if Hyde hacked into Jek’s account or something, the money’s going to disappear and she’ll wind up with nothing. I wouldn’t put it past him.” She shakes her head in disgust. “Has Jek mentioned anything about any identity theft?”

“Not to me, but...we haven’t exactly been close lately.”

There’s a knock on the door.

“Lulu? You get lost in there?” It’s Danny. Shit, I almost forgot I’m supposed to be in class right now.

I put my hand on the doorknob, but at the last second I turn back to Maia.

“Thanks for letting me know about this. You’re right, there’s definitely something strange going on. I’ll talk to Jek about it as soon as I can.”

Assuming I can get him to talk to me.

CHAPTER 3

I send a quick text to Jek on my way back to the lab bench, telling him I need to talk soon.

I’m not exactly surprised when the school day draws to a close with no reply.

Even at the best of times, Jek’s never been great about responding to texts, calls or any other method of communication. It’s frustrating, but it’s just part of his character. Even as I remind myself of this, I can’t help thinking back to what I told Maia in the supply room: We’re not exactly close these days. I surprised myself a little when I said it—I’ve never expressed that thought out loud before, though I have to admit that it’s not the first time I’ve thought it. Is it true? Or am I reading into things?

Like any well-trained scientist, I force myself to consider the evidence objectively. I don’t see Jek as much as I used to, but we’re both pretty busy with school and everything. Even though we’re both in the science track, our schedules are totally different because he does mostly chemistry, and my focus is on computing. He hardly responds to my texts and messages, but that’s not outside the realm of normal for him. I can’t remember us having any big fight recently. I worry all the time that my crush on him has made him uncomfortable, but I do try to be discreet, and if he’s put off by it, he’s never let on.

Results: inconclusive. Researcher is too close to the subject to remain objective in her analysis. As usual.

Maia’s story about Hyde has at least given me a good excuse to talk with Jek. If he’s not going to answer my urgent texts, I really have no choice but to go to his house and make him listen to me, face-to-face. If it’s true that Jek’s name was on that receipt, then this guy Hyde could be running some kind of scam: hacking, identity theft or maybe something even worse. Jek’s not great with that kind of computer stuff—if it wasn’t for me, he’d leave all his databases unprotected and vulnerable to attacks.

* * *

I pull up outside Jek’s house and notice that shadows are gathering on the columns and gables of the sprawling houses on this side of town. It’s around 5:00 p.m. and sunset is almost an hour off, but the sky is already low and threatening, and lights are coming on across the neighborhood to ward off the darkness of an encroaching storm—a reminder that London’s sunny, warm season has truly ended and we’ll be in the thick of winter soon.

When I was a kid, the winters in London were snowy and bright. I’d wake up to the whole countryside under a smooth white blanket, and Jek and I would go out and pelt each other with snowballs as the sun sparkled against the landscape. We haven’t had a winter like that in years, though. Instead, November to March brings nothing but a dark, gritty rain and heavy pea soup fogs that have an almost brownish cast to them. Some people say this is all part of some top secret London Chem experiment gone wrong, but others say it’s just a normal part of the same global warming that’s affecting everyone. Either way, it will be months before we see real sunshine again.

Up on the hill above Jek’s house, the curving structures of Donnelly and Lonsanto are barely visible, their reflective surfaces blending in with the roiling clouds. I step out of the car and pull my jacket tight against a sharp wind that rattles dead leaves still clinging to the once-lush trees. I’m still not entirely used to visiting Jek here. Up until last year, he lived with his mom, Puloma, off Main Street in a smallish condo cozily decorated in a hodgepodge of styles: posters for old rock shows mixed with tin-and-brass trinkets, colorful silk cushions tossed over rickety chairs and benches. Puloma hired my mom as her cleaning lady back when they first moved to town, and I used to play with Jek while our moms worked—that’s how we became friends. I still remember waking up there after sleepovers, his mom making us breakfast of masala dosa while we watched cartoons.

Then last year Puloma married Tom Barrow, one of the other London Chem scientists, after a whirlwind romance, and she and Jek moved to this house where Tom lives with his three interchangeable blond sons, all somewhere between seven and eleven years old. Their house is much bigger than the old condo, and looks about as bland as all the other houses on the cul-de-sac. The only difference between this house and its neighbors is the addition that extends out from the back and down the hill a bit—originally built for Tom’s former mother-in-law and where Jek lives now. This space, connected to the rest of the house by a short flight of stairs, was Puloma’s main bargaining chip in getting Jek to go along with her new marriage—she promised him that he could turn the apartment’s kitchen into his own personal laboratory. Tom doesn’t exactly approve of him having so much freedom and autonomy, but Puloma has always had a soft spot when it comes to Jek, and she doesn’t let Tom interfere.

I cross the lawn to the side door that opens directly into Jek’s apartment. The addition isn’t really visible from the street, so Tom and Puloma have let the upkeep slide a little: the paint is peeling, and you can see broken blinds through the windows, whereas the rest of the house has pretty lace curtains. The porch light was knocked out a few months ago by a stray baseball from the kids’ afternoon game of catch and no one has bothered to fix it, so the side door remains in heavy gloom even when the rest of the house is cheerfully lit.

I’m almost to the door when it opens and a figure steps out into the thickening darkness. I start to call out a greeting, but my voice dies in my throat when I realize it’s not Jek. The figure startles a little at my cutoff cry.

“Sorry,” I say, stepping into the light cast by the doorway. “I thought you were... I’m looking for Jek.”

The silhouetted figure regards me a long moment, a curious tilt to his head. “You’ve just missed him,” he says lightly. “I can give him a message, if you like.” His voice is husky and low, with a lingering softness on every S. He’s backlit by the open door behind him so I can’t see him well, but there’s something about him that nonetheless feels off—the way he talks, or holds himself, or the strange breathiness of his voice. Or maybe it’s the way he smells: a hint of citrus carried over by the wind, not unpleasant, but flat and artificial, like detergent or air freshener.

“You’re Hyde, aren’t you?” I say, though I can’t explain what makes me so sure. He goes very still.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he says after a pause.

“I’m Lulu,” I say. “Lulu Gutierrez.” I take a step toward him, my mind churning with curiosity. Those things Camila and Maia said about how odd he looked, beyond description, I have to see for myself. “Would you do me a favor?” I ask, stunned at my own daring. “Would you step into the light? I want to see your face.”

Hyde hesitates, and for a moment I think he’s going to laugh at my request, or get offended and tell me to get lost. I could hardly blame him if he did. But he surprises me.

“If you like,” he says, and he takes a step back over Jek’s threshold, letting the lamplight hit him directly.

I’m not quite surprised to discover it’s the boy who ran into me at the Halloween party, but I can’t help the gasp that escapes me now that I see him clearly. I can understand why Camila and Maia disagreed about his race—his features are hard to place. His eyes have a sleepy, heavy-lidded aspect that suggests an Asian background, and his skin has a sallow cast, though that could just be the light. His hair, though, falls in thick, dark curls and his nose has a slight bump to it that could be European or Middle Eastern, possibly.

None of that explains, though, why his face is so off-putting. There’s something unpleasant and alien about his looks, and I search him for what is producing this uncanny effect, like one eye set lower than the other or missing eyebrows, but I can’t put my finger on it. His features seem somehow out of proportion with each other—eyes too small, mouth too big, nose too prominent—but in the next moment the effect shifts, and it’s his chin that seems too sharp for a mouth too soft. Just like at the party, though, the most remarkable thing about him are his eyes—as black and unreflecting as the shadows settling around us.

I know it’s rude to stare, but Hyde doesn’t seem offended. He just stands calm and self-possessed before me, a smile twisting his lips as he waits for me to finish my examination. Then he steps outside again and tugs the door firmly shut, casting us both in darkness.

“Now,” he says, “return the favor and tell me how you knew me.”

I swallow against a mounting tremor in my voice before answering. “You were described to me,” I say. “We have friends in common.”

I can feel more than see Hyde’s sneer at this. “I’d be surprised,” he says softly, again teetering on the edge of a lisp. “What friends?”

“Well... Jek, for one,” I point out.

He stares at me coolly. “Jek never mentioned me to you.”

Even though I never quite claimed he had, I still feel called out by this statement. But it’s not like Hyde can know every conversation Jek and I have had. I shake off the creeping sensation Hyde is giving me and remind myself why I came here in the first place: to warn Jek about him.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask, my voice firmer now. “Alone at Jek’s place.”

“What’s it to you?” he replies, unperturbed. “If Jek doesn’t mind...”

“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “None of my business. But maybe I’ll make sure Jek actually knows you’re here.” I pull out my phone, but Hyde makes a sharp gesture before my thumb is even on the screen.

“No,” he says quickly. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

Even in the dark, I can sense the prickling alertness in Hyde’s body. It’s gone in a flash, and his tone becomes lazy and sneering again.

“Text him if you like,” he says, “but it won’t do any good. Jek forgot his phone when he went out earlier. I was just on my way to bring it to him.” He takes Jek’s phone out of his pocket. It’s instantly recognizable, thanks to its distinctive case decorated with colorfully trippy mandalas. I hesitate, still unsure. Jek forgets his phone at home all the time, which is one of the reasons he’s careless about returning texts, but who the hell is this guy to be hanging out in Jek’s room alone? Especially after what Maia told me about Hyde spending Jek’s money as if it was his own—even close friends don’t usually do that.

“All right, then,” I say carefully. “Bring him his phone, and I’ll talk to him later.” If Hyde has really broken into Jek’s house or something equally criminal, his cover story won’t hold up long.

“You do that,” Hyde replies coolly before stepping over to where Jek’s bike is leaning against the garage—it’s one of Jek’s little idiosyncrasies, that he prefers biking to driving. I guess Hyde must share it, because he mounts Jek’s bike and heads off toward the main road without another word.

Again, I’m weirded out that this stranger is so confidently helping himself to Jek’s possessions, but I have to admit that Jek’s pretty casual about his stuff, and generally shrugs it off when someone “borrows” his bike without telling him. Last year his stepdad made a point of getting him a seriously heavy-duty lock on a bright green chain so he’d stop using his missing bike as an excuse for coming home late, but Jek can’t be bothered to use it, so it just hangs uselessly off the frame. Still, it’s a bit weird that the bike’s here, if Jek’s not. The whole situation feels suspicious—maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t feel right just walking away.

I may not be able to contact Jek and ask him about Hyde, but I’m not completely powerless. I head up the hill, around to the pillared and porticoed front of the house and knock on the main door. Some little blond kid opens it after a minute. Jek’s new stepbrothers all have names that begin with C, but I can’t keep them straight. Conner, Cameron, Caden, Carter, Caleb? I have no idea.

“Hi,” I say. “Is Jek around?”

The kid shrugs. “Try his apartment.”

“I did. I was just wondering if he was in the main house.” Jek still joins the rest of the family for dinner some nights, if his mom is cooking, though she clearly isn’t right now—the house smells of cheap jarred tomato sauce, which means the au pair is making dinner. She cooks mostly pasta and grilled cheese and chicken fingers, since that’s all the Barrows will eat, anyway. Back when it was just Jek and Puloma, their house was always filled with the smells of spices Puloma’s parents sent her from the Indian markets where they live in New Jersey. London doesn’t have any Indian restaurants, let alone an international grocery, so I learned to associate those smells with Jek’s house.

“What about Puloma?” I try. “Is she around?”

“Yeah,” the kid says laconically before wandering off toward a room where I can hear his brothers are playing video games. I show myself in and walk around a bit, looking for Puloma. I’ve only been in the main part of the house a couple of times, but I know the layout well enough from others in the neighborhood.

Though Puloma and Jek have been living here for over a year, I can hardly tell that either of them are part of this household. Photos of Tom’s boys line the walls, and the rest has the blandly tasteful mark of a professional decorator: leather couches in neutral colors, faux-rustic coffee tables and way too many decorative throw pillows. Puloma clearly hasn’t added much, and the walls still have blank spots where Tom’s ex-wife reclaimed personal items.

Moving through the living room to a corridor along the back of the house, I find Jek’s mom hunched over a laptop in a room that must be her study. The door is ajar, and for a moment I just stand there, taking in the familiar smell of Puloma’s incense. The decor in this room feels different, like this is Puloma’s space. The furniture is plainer and more grown-up than back at the old house, but it’s accented by vividly colored textiles, shiny tin figurines and an intricately carved marble elephant that I remember playing with as a little girl.

I knock gently and clear my throat.

“Puloma?”

She startles a bit, then turns around.

“Lulu!”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t be silly. Come in. I haven’t seen you in ages. Will you have some tea with me?” Perched on an end table is an elegant brass tea set with a slender spout and jeweled cups, but Puloma ignores this in favor of an electric teakettle and a pair of chunky mugs shoved behind the papers on her desk. She flicks the kettle on and gestures me toward a comfy-looking couch under the window.

“Are you sure?” I say.

“Please. I needed a break anyway, and I never get to see you these days.” I enter and take a seat as she pours the tea. “I guess that’s the downside of giving Jayesh his own door,” she says, handing me one of the mugs. “You always go straight there.”

It’s true that since they moved, I’ve spent more time dealing directly with Jek, and have hardly spoken to Puloma at all. It didn’t occur to me that she might miss seeing me.

“Actually,” I admit, “I came here looking for Jek. Have you seen him?”

Puloma frowns. “Not since last night,” she says. “He must have gone out after school. Is he ignoring his phone again? I hate that.”

“No, I...I don’t know. Just...there’s this guy. I just saw him come out of Jek’s apartment. Is it... I mean, should he be in there when Jek isn’t?”

“Oh,” says Puloma. “That must be Hyde. You don’t know him?”

I hesitate. “Not really,” I say. “I just met him outside.”

“Jayesh told me they were working on a project together. Some experiment that needs to be checked at particular intervals. He gave Hyde a spare key to look in on it when he’s not around.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling a little embarrassed that I was so suspicious. Although based on what Maia said, I’m obviously not the only one he’s rubbed the wrong way. “What do you think of him?” I ask, trying to sound conversational.

Puloma shrugs. “I haven’t met him, really—I just saw him leaving one day while I was unloading groceries. I suppose I could have insisted on an introduction, but I don’t like to hassle Jayesh. Honestly, I’m just happy he has a black friend now—I know he’s always felt so isolated in this town.”

I blink at Puloma in confusion. “You think Hyde is black?”

She puts down her tea and gives a nervous laugh. “Isn’t he? I only saw him for a minute, but I thought he looked...” She trails off awkwardly. “Actually, could you tell me a bit about him? Or maybe whatever they’re working on in there? I know it’s not right to pry, but Jayesh’s life is a mystery to me these days.” She gives me a wry smile.

Puloma and Jek have always seemed to me more like partners in crime than mother and child. For bedtime stories, she used to read to him from biochemistry journals, and while other kids messed around with store-bought chemistry sets, Puloma snuck home the real thing from work. They did experiments together as he got older, and she even named him as a coauthor on two of her papers. She’s always encouraged Jek’s scientific curiosity, even when it led in directions other parents might have disapproved of, so he’s never had much reason to hide things from her.

But then, a lot has changed since Tom entered the picture.

“Um,” I say at last. “I don’t think I know much more than you do.”

Puloma laughs gently. “No, of course. I’m sorry, Lulu—I didn’t mean to make you a spy for me. I trust Jayesh to make good choices, and tell me anything I need to know.”

Puloma clearly thinks I’m being evasive to protect Jek, but I wish that was the case. I’m flattered that she thinks I’m privy to Jek’s secrets, even if it’s far from the truth lately.

“Did he tell you he just won the Gene-ius Award?” I offer. “You must be so proud of him, following in your footsteps.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “Jayesh is nothing like me, really. But that’s a good thing. When I was younger, I wanted to live dangerously. To change the world. But I’ve always been afraid of the consequences. So instead I came here to London, where the work is steady and the pay is good. A compromise for the sake of stability.” I start to object but Puloma cuts me off. “No, don’t get me wrong—I don’t regret it. It’s just that I want Jayesh to know that he doesn’t have to make the same choices just to make me happy. I want him to feel free to be bold, take risks, make mistakes. And not always play things safe. He’s more brilliant than I am, anyway—I can see it already. And the last thing I’d ever want to do is cage or restrict that kind of mind. That’s the privilege of genius—never to ask permission.”

I nod and look down at my tea. I’m glad Puloma has such trust and confidence in Jek, and I want to believe that he’s deserving of it, but my mind turns inescapably to the strange story Maia told me about Hyde using Jek’s bank account. If it’s true that Jek is friends with Hyde, does that mean Jek gave Hyde the cover-up money willingly? But why would Jek want to protect this creepy sex predator he barely knows? That just doesn’t sound like him—Jek has never done anything like that before, or hung around with that kind of person. It’s easier for me to believe that Hyde tricked Jek somehow, like making him think the money was for something else, something innocent. Jek can sometimes be too trusting for his own good.

I’m tempted to tell Puloma about my fears, just to get an adult perspective on the situation. If Jek’s a victim of some kind of con game, she should know. She could help. But she’s right that I’m not eager to become her spy. Everyone has their secrets, and I know as well as anyone what kind of damage people can do by spreading them. If Jek is hiding his work and his friends from his mom now, maybe he has a good reason for it.

After I leave Puloma, I spend the rest of the night flipping my phone in my hand, my fingers swiping to Jek’s name in my address book. I feel like I need to either warn him or reassure myself, but the last person with Jek’s phone was Hyde. Sure, he said he was about to return it to Jek, but what if that was a lie? Not much point in texting my suspicions directly to the criminal. I could call—I’d recognize Jek’s voice, of course, which is nothing like Hyde’s—but Jek always lets calls go to voice mail, so...same problem, there.

Eventually, I put my phone down and go to bed. I can track down Jek at school tomorrow. What damage could Hyde really do between now and then?

CHAPTER 4

Jek is harder to get a hold of than I anticipated. I see him at various points during the school day—across the lunch room, at the other end of the hall between classes—but every time I try to catch his eye, he ducks his head and disappears behind a corner. I know we haven’t been as close as we once were, but it’s not like him to avoid me. I wonder if he’s figured out that I want to talk about Hyde. He might be feeling guilty or embarrassed about what happened. Still, I have to know for sure. This stuff about Hyde is too important for me to just let it drop.

Over the next several days, I try Jek’s house a couple of more times before, on a wild hunch, I keep driving up the hill until I reach the London Chem grounds. I pass the main buildings with their handful of desultory protesters marching across broad green lawns, then continue along the twisting, shadowy wooded paths until I break out into the open farmland stretching brown and muddy on either side of Twin Creek Road. From there, it’s a careful half mile through a filmy gray fog until the hulking form of the old, disused grain elevator comes into view. My hunch about Jek’s whereabouts is confirmed when I make out the burnt-orange of his bike through the fog; it’s leaning up against the side of the building, the green lock and chain hanging uselessly from the frame.

The grain elevator is a relic from when London was a small farming community without Lonsanto’s state-of-the-art agricultural facilities. Modern grain elevators, like the one Lonsanto currently uses on the other side of town, are smooth steel cylinders, but this one is the old kind—a rickety wooden tower, fat at the bottom and narrow at the top, like the silhouette of a giant. It hasn’t been used in years, so it’s gradually falling into ruin, the slats in the wall pulling free to let daylight through, and the roof starting to cave in. Signs warn people from going near the place for safety reasons, but that just makes it all the more appealing as a meeting point for kids looking to make out or get high. The whole area is littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, shell casings and the occasional used condom.

Tonight it’s too grim and damp for most people to want to hang out here, but Jek’s not most people. I’ve known him to bike out here even in the middle of a storm, if he’s craving solitude. I feel a little bad, busting in on his alone time like this, but it’s his own fault for avoiding me all week.

I park my car down a gentle slope so it won’t be immediately obvious to passing vehicles, then follow a muddy path across the old, weed-choked railroad tracks toward the broad entrance where grain was once dropped off for storage. Once inside, I tread cautiously through the dim space, past the rusted, broken-down machinery, until Jek comes into view at the far end. He’s standing in front of a fallen away part of the wall, nothing more than a dark shape outlined against the dingy fog outside. His silhouette is all ridges and angles, like a bird with its wings folded, and only a sliver of his profile is visible past the edge of his raised hood.

As my eyes adjust to the light, I’m able to pick out more details of his expression: his lips pressed firmly together, his brow furrowed. It’s the way he always looks when he’s deep in thought, so fixated on some knotty problem that the rest of the world becomes invisible to him. Some people find it off-putting, but I’ve always loved that look on him—that reminder of the incredible things his mind is capable of. I feel like I know him better than anyone, but when he gets like this, I know his thoughts are taking him way beyond anything I can understand. Maybe beyond what anyone can.

It’s clear he hasn’t heard my footsteps, and for a moment I hesitate to break in on his solitude, but I came here for a reason, so I announce myself with a pointed cough.

Jek springs to life as he whirls, stumbles and catches himself against the rotted planks of the wall.

“Jesus, Lu.” He rubs a hand over his face, then stretches it out in front of him as if checking it for tremors.

“Hello, stranger,” I say. “Feeling a little jumpy?”

He snorts, then lowers himself to sitting on an overturned crate, still panting a little. I pick my way gingerly through the debris on the floor and sit down next to him.

“Sorry to spook you.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath. “No big deal,” he says, flashing a friendly smile. “How’ve you been?”

“Not too bad,” I tell him. “Except my best friend seems to be avoiding me.”

Jek has the decency to look a little guilty at that. “Sounds like a dick,” he says. “Want me to kick his ass?”

“Mmm,” I agree, and I feel an unexpected swell of relief that we can slip so easily into our old friendly banter. “I’d like to see that.”

We’re not touching, but we’re sitting close enough that I can feel the heat of his body through the damp chill of the air, and pick up his usual smell of smoke and chemicals, like a match that’s just gone out. It might be off-putting on anyone else, but on Jek it’s homey and familiar. Stretching my legs, I notice a syringe set among the usual beer cans and cigarette butts on the floor.

“Geez,” I say, nudging it with the edge of my sneaker. “Since when did people start using this place to shoot up? I remember when this town was strictly smoking and snorting territory.”

“Strange days,” Jek agrees, eyeing the object.

“I guess it was inevitable the London Chem brats would get there eventually,” I observe wryly.

Our high school is rated among the best in the country, and officially all the science-track students are serious, hardworking and committed to their studies. Unofficially, everyone knows that these same students take turns throwing extravagant keg parties every weekend where they indulge in the latest fashionable decadence. There’s always a house available, because someone’s parents are off presenting results at a conference or lobbying in Washington on behalf of the company. The parents kind of know what goes on, but by some unspoken agreement they all look the other way. As long as everything is cleaned up before they get back to town, no one ever has to acknowledge the masquerade.

“‘London Chem brats’?” Jek raises an eyebrow at me, and I can’t tell if he’s seriously offended or just kidding around.

“You know I don’t mean you,” I tell him. “You’re not like the rest of them. You’re always too busy geeking out in the lab.”

Jek laughs. “Was that supposed to be a compliment? Anyway, they’re just messing around. Since when do you judge people for having a little fun?”

I give him a sidelong look. “I don’t care what they get up to,” I insist. “I’d just rather not know about it.”

Jek nudges against me with his shoulder. “Afraid it will give you ideas?”

I feel my face heat up at the suggestion. “Nothing like that.”

“No? Maybe you don’t need the help. Maybe you’ve got enough depraved ideas of your own.”

I huff out a breath and turn away from him.

“Aw, come on, Lu,” he says. “I’m just kidding. I know you’re not like that.”

And that, of course, is even worse, as it sets me thinking of all the things I’ve dreamed of doing with Jek. I may not hang around with the party crowd anymore, but that doesn’t mean my mind is completely pure and innocent. There are things in my head that I’d never tell anyone.

Still, it’s tough to hide anything from someone who knows you so well, and I’m convinced Jek will draw the worst—and most accurate—conclusions from the way I’m squirming. But when I glance over at him, he’s looking out into the fog again and I can’t tell if he’s noticed.

We’re both quiet for a moment, listening to the soft patter of rain that just started.

“So what are you hiding from, out here?” I try after a bit.

Jek shakes his head. “Not hiding,” he says. “Just...getting away. Clearing my head before I do something stupid. Stupider,” he corrects himself.

I raise my eyebrows.

“My stepdad,” he explains. “There was an experiment. Everything was going just as I predicted. And then it...wasn’t.”

I hiss in sympathy. I’ve seen the results of some of Jek’s failed experiments.

“A very small explosion,” he says. “Hardly any damage. But Tom heard breaking glass and smelled smoke, and ran down to see what was going on. When he realized I had locked the door between my apartment and the main house, he hit the roof. Said it was a safety hazard. Then he went off about me being so secretive, and how they would all be burned alive in their beds one day on account of me. Things got heated, and I had to get out of there.”

“Sounds like quite a scene.”

He sighs. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

I nudge my knee against his. “Hang in there, kid. Another year and a half, and you’ll be off to college.”

Jek presses his lips together and stares off into space.

“Might take off a bit earlier,” he mumbles.

I freeze. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs. “Just... There’s always Emerson, right?”

“Your dad?” My chest tightens up at the thought that Jek might leave town, that I might never see him again. “You’d really think of moving in with him?”

“I don’t know. He mentioned it again the last time we talked. And it couldn’t be worse than this, right?”

I give a little snort. Most people would probably think life with Jek’s dad sounded like paradise. He made a bunch of money as a stockbroker a few years ago, and since then he’s “retired” to a Caribbean island. But he and Jek don’t exactly have a lot in common—Emerson believes a lot of odd stuff about how science and technology are instruments of state control and repression, and last time Jek visited him, they got into a big fight.

“I know, he’s kind of a crackpot,” Jek concedes. “But maybe it would be good for me to get to know him better. I love my mom, but between her and Tom... Do you have any idea what it’s like to be one of the only black people in this town? Hell, I’m the only black person in my own house. There’s this whole part of myself that’s completely cut off from anyone like me.”

I nod again in sympathy, but the truth is, I know I can’t begin to understand his situation. I deal with plenty of racism around this town, but at least there’s a big Latino population here, including a lot of people who care about me, who understand and support me. I can’t blame Jek for wanting that kind of community, even though it breaks my heart to think of him leaving.

“What about your lab?” I ask. “You wouldn’t have access to equipment and supplies with your dad.”

Jek is quiet for a while, considering that. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” he says at last.

“Jek, come on. You love science. It’s the only thing you’ve cared about for I don’t even know how long. You can’t seriously consider giving that up.”

“Why not?” he says sharply. “Who says I can’t try something new? Just because I’ve always been one way doesn’t mean I have to be like that forever.”

I stare at him. “You’re serious?”

He leans back and some of the tension leaves his body.

“No,” he says. “I don’t know. I’m just talking. What about you? You’ve been tailing me all week, so I figure you must have something big to report. Finally hack that coupon site so we can get free pizza for life?”

“Nothing like that,” I say with a snort. I glance up at him and find his gaze on me, warm and steady. For the first time in weeks, I have his complete attention, but for a moment, I can’t help being distracted by his warm brown eyes and long lashes. His intelligence is so clearly written on his features, but it’s not just that. There’s kindness and generosity, too. And, caught up with it, our whole history together: laughter and games, teasing and skinned knees. Jek looks the same as ever—same baggy, practical clothes, his wild hair tucked up under his usual knit cap—but it’s been a long time since I’ve interacted with him in nonelectronic form, and I’d forgotten how comfortably we fit together. How right it feels just to be with him.

I shake off these thoughts and focus on what I need to tell him. Now that I have him listening, I’m not sure where to begin.

“I met a friend of yours the other day, when I went looking for you,” I try. Jek’s gaze slides away from my face and he looks a little annoyed already. Not surprised, though. “Hyde,” I say, just to be clear. “He was coming out of your place.”

“And?”

“And, well...” I say, frustrated. “I’ve heard things about him. Not good things.”

Jek shrugs. “Hyde’s made some bad first impressions. Ruffled a few feathers. That’s all.”

“I don’t know, Jek. How well do you know this guy, anyway?”

“Better than you do,” he says sharply. “Come on, Lu. You of all people know better than to listen to gossip in this town.”

I can’t help wincing at the comment. Of course Jek knows how I once became the object of London’s rumor mill. Everyone knows about it. But he hasn’t made any reference to it in years—he knows how uncomfortable it makes me. For him to bring it up now means he’s either suddenly transformed into a complete asshole, or he’s desperate to change the subject and deflect attention from himself. But I won’t let him throw me off course so easily.

“This is different, Jek,” I press on. “I’m not just satisfying some prurient curiosity, I’m trying to look out for you. How do you know you can trust this guy? What if Hyde is...”

I’m not sure how to finish. I’m worried Hyde’s a con artist, but Jek is the smartest person I know, even in a town of some extremely brilliant people. How can I sit next to a certified genius and tell him that some stranger has outsmarted him and tricked his way into his finances? But the fact is, there are different kinds of smart, and Jek isn’t always so smart about people. Since Jek doesn’t care about money or possessions, he can’t imagine anyone else would. In the past, I’ve always been around to look out for him. Maybe the recent distance between us gave Hyde an opportunity to manipulate Jek.

I take a breath.

“Have you checked your bank account lately?”

“What?”

For the first time in this conversation, I seem to have surprised him.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you, Jek. I heard...” I’m not sure how much to say. I don’t want to break Maia’s or Natalie’s confidence. “Something happened at a kegger, with a girl. I don’t know what, exactly, but I heard Hyde paid her to drop the issue. Paid her a lot.”

Jek looks away. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“Because he transferred the money from your account.”

Jek looks up sharply. “Who told you that?” He sounds agitated, maybe even nervous. Not the disbelief and anger I was expecting.

I look steadily into his face, trying to read him.

“Is it true? Did you already know about this?”

He leans his head back against the wall. “It’s fine, Lu. It’s... Look, I appreciate your concern, but you don’t need to worry about it. I’ve got it under control.”

“Oh.” I’m baffled. I had expected Jek to be shocked by my revelation, or to offer some totally reasonable explanation for it at least. Not to brush me off. “Okay then.” I feel my temper rise along with my confusion. “I guess that’s cool. I just didn’t realize that your new hobby was bankrolling rapists.”

I stand to leave, fuming, but he stops me with a hand on my arm.

“Lu, I swear. That’s not what it is. You don’t have the whole story.”

“All right,” I say. “So tell me.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. But I... Look, just trust me, okay? It was a misunderstanding. A mix-up. It’s all taken care of.”

“Why can’t you explain it, then?”

“Because it’s none of your business!” he explodes, rising to his feet. I take a step back from him, surprised and hurt by his outburst. The pattering rain fills in the silence between us. Finally Jek lets out a slow breath and rubs his face. “Jesus, Lu,” he says more quietly. “Just stay out of it, all right? If I tell you it’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Fine,” I mutter, moving toward the exit. “Sorry to bother you.” He calls my name as I head out into the rain, but I am about 300 percent done with him right now. Why do I even bother? Let him clean up his own messes.

CHAPTER 5

I fume about Jek on the entire drive home, and it’s only when I pull into the driveway and I’m hit with the scent of my mom’s carnitas emanating from the house that my mood starts to improve. Whatever psychodrama Jek is involved in, it’s not my problem to deal with—especially now that he’s told me to stay out of it.

I park and go in through the back door, which leads directly into the kitchen. My house may not be big like the ones in Jek’s neighborhood, but it’s clean and comfortable—Mom always says, a small house means less to clean. I guess she would know, given how much of her life she has spent scrubbing the big houses on the hill. I used to dream of living in a house with a second story, but Jek pointed out that having a bedroom at ground level meant we could crawl in and out of my window without my mom knowing. Not that either of us have made use of that feature recently.

Moving stealthily through the kitchen, I pull a fork from the drying rack and dip it into the simmering pot.

“Lulu?” My mom’s voice comes from the living room. “You better not be touching that pot before it’s done.”

“I’m not,” I call back, then shove a chunk of meat in my mouth.

“And you’re late,” my mom continues. “You promised to fix my computer right after school.”

With a sigh, I drop my fork in the sink and follow her voice into the living room. A couple of lamps are lit, but as usual the room is dominated by the bluish glow emanating from the large-screen TV that perpetually plays Spanish-language sports and news, thanks to a satellite hookup. My uncle is pretty much always lying on the couch in front of it under a pile of wool blankets—he says it helps distract him from his joint pain.

He’s lying there now, watching a soccer game with the sound off, while my mom occupies her usual spot in the recliner, her laptop on her lap. She passes it off to me before I can even sit down in the remaining seat—a stiff-backed chair that no one likes. Sometimes I wish I’d hidden my interest in computers from the family so they wouldn’t badger me all the time for help with theirs, but just like Jek’s circumstances fostered his love of chemistry, I have my family to thank for my talent—mostly because every laptop, phone and tablet I’ve ever owned has been a hand-me-down or a thrift-shop find. They’ve always been junked up with spyware when I got them, or hopelessly out-of-date. I had no choice but to teach myself how to fix them up.

“I bet you burned yourself,” Mom mutters as I poke gently at the blistered roof of my mouth with my tongue. “You never learn.”

“What’s wrong with it this time?” I say, ignoring the dig.

“Keeps freezing,” she says. “I have to shut down the whole thing, and I lose my place.”

She gets up to tend to the pot in the kitchen, and I start in on the usual troubleshooting steps even though I’m almost positive she’s let her hard drive get cluttered with malware again.

“Remind me why you play this game,” I call out to her as I work. It’s the most boring game I’ve ever seen: your character has to do all these real-life things like go shopping and plant vegetables and pay taxes, but my mom’s obsessed with it for some reason. “You have to do all these things in real life, so why would you do them in your free time?”

“It’s more fun when it’s someone else’s life,” she calls back.

“Plus,” my uncle Carlos says, “when she screws up in the game, she can just start the level over.” He giggles. “Can’t do that in real life.”

“I heard that,” Mom yells from the kitchen, and Carlos rolls his eyes and returns his attention to the soccer match. He used to be a big soccer player and thought about going pro, though you’d never know it to look at him now. He decided to stay here and put his energy into the family business instead, working his way up from farm labor to running his own feed store. But now he can’t do much. He’s lost so much weight that his skin sags off him, and he feels dizzy whenever he stands up. I remember how he used to pick me up and throw me in the air when I was a little girl. Now he gets winded just walking to the refrigerator. We all know it’s because of the chemicals he worked with every day, but he won’t talk about it. Doesn’t want to admit that the business he built with his own hands is slowly killing him, and the rest of the family, too.

“Where were you all afternoon?” Mom nags, coming back from the kitchen and standing behind my chair to watch my progress with her computer. “You’re always going out after school, when you know it’s the only time I get to see you.”

Mom used to clean for people like Puloma when I was a kid, but a few years ago she took a job cleaning the offices and labs for London Chem. It means she has to work nights, but the pay’s better and it’s steady. And the most important part is it keeps her away from the farm chemicals. Ever since Uncle Carlos got sick, Mom has lived in terror of all the products used on the crops around here.

“I was out with Jek,” I tell her, bracing for her disapproving grunt before she even makes it.

“Always with that boy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, bristling.

She strokes a hand along my hair in what’s meant to be a soothing motion. “Lulu, sweetie, I’ve known Jek since he was a little boy, just like you, and you know I care about him too...but you’re growing up now, and boys like that are only going to get you into trouble.”

I crane around to look at her. “What do you mean, trouble?”

She sighs and leans against the chair back. “I’m not saying he’d ever try to hurt you, but things are different for him. He can do whatever he wants and the world will give him all the second chances he needs. His mother indulges him, his teachers and everyone else. He can afford to screw around. You have to stay focused and work, mija.”

“You’re wrong about him,” I say, even though I know there’s no winning this argument with her. This is more about her own life experiences than anything to do with Jek or me. Just because she made some bad choices, she thinks I’m destined to go down the same path. “No one I know is harder working than Jek.”

Mom scoffs. “Because he plays around in his little laboratory? That’s not work, that’s fun. Work is what you do because you have to, not because you want to. Jek knows nothing about that.”

“Neither does Lulu,” Carlos comments idly, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Why don’t you make her work? She could be useful at the store, but you keep her here like a little princess.”

Mom straightens up and turns on him. “That’s different. Lulu’s job is going to school, and I am not letting you talk her into going to work at that store of yours. She needs to stay focused on her studies so she can go to college and get a good job.”

I’ve heard this fight a million times, but at least it’s distracted Mom enough that I can finish up the virus check and escape to my room, leaving the continuing discussion behind.

My room at least is clean and calm, even if Mom is always hassling me about the mess. It’s not really messy—my bed is made and my laundry pile is manageable. What Mom hates are the old computers, phones and tablets stacked on every surface, many of them with their cases forced open so their electronic guts spill out. It may not be pretty, but it’s the best way for me to learn how all these parts work. Or don’t work, as the case may be—at least a few of these projects of mine will probably never be anything but doorstops. Still, you never know if you don’t try.

I move my latest project—overclocking the CPU of an old flip phone—from the bed and throw myself down on it, brooding over how wrong Mom is about Jek. He isn’t like the other London Chem kids, who only care about drinking and sex and who’s throwing the next kegger. Jek’s family may have money, but he’s always been marked as different, and no one will let him forget it. As one of the only black kids in town, he’s had to hold himself to a higher standard.

But as I lie there listening to the argument in the other room, my thoughts turn back to Hyde. If anyone would be a bad influence, it’s him. Something isn’t right about his friendship with Jek. For as long as I’ve known him, Jek has been private and hard to get close to—his friends have all had to earn his trust over the course of years. It’s not like him to become so close to someone so quickly. And even good friends don’t share banking info. Since Jek is aware of what Hyde did, at least I can be sure it wasn’t theft or hacking...but that doesn’t necessarily mean the money was freely given. What could Hyde have possibly said to convince Jek to front him this cash? Did he tell Jek, “I just assaulted a girl and I need to buy her silence?” Jek would never support something like that, I’m sure of it. Not even for a friend.

So maybe they aren’t friends, then. Maybe there’s some other reason Jek is helping him out...not out of friendship, but fear. Based on what Maia and Camila have told me, not to mention my own conversation with him, Hyde seems like the type who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. It’s possible he is controlling Jek somehow. Threatening him. But how? Threatening to hurt him or someone he loves? Or using some secret knowledge against him? I don’t know what Jek might be hiding, but I know better than most that everyone has their secrets.

I was only nine years old when the whispers started. I didn’t think anything of it at first, and even once I started to suspect they were whispering about me, I dismissed the idea as paranoia. What could anyone possibly have to say about me? Turns out it wasn’t about me—not exactly. It was my mom. Somehow the gossip had trickled down from the adult world to the schoolyard that my mom was having an affair with a client—a married man whose house she cleaned. One of the London Chem scientists.

I still don’t really know if the rumors were true, or exactly how far things went between my mom and this man. I don’t even know who it was—somehow the gossip never touched him, and as far as I can tell, he never paid any price. All I know is that shortly after that, my mom stopped cleaning for a while and spent most of a month on the couch, in a deep depression. We never talked about why, and I don’t want to know any more details than I’ve already heard. Ever since the day Jessie Holbrook finally said to my face what everyone in town had been saying behind my back, I’ve tried to shut my ears to any and all gossip that comes my way.

But I may have to abandon that policy now if I’m going to help Jek with whatever trouble he’s in. I know he told me to stay out of his business, but technically I’m not looking for information on him—it’s Hyde I’m after. A guy like that must have a mile-long list of things he’s hiding. If I could find something on Hyde—something illegal or immoral from his past that would destroy him if it became public—maybe that would neutralize his control over Jek and he’d be forced to back off.

* * *

These ideas comfort me enough to let me fall asleep, but by the next morning, they mostly feel silly. Identity theft, blackmail, threats...it all sounds a little far-fetched. The honest truth could just be that Jek’s changing. That he isn’t the same boy I grew up idolizing, sweet and brilliant and good-natured. I don’t want to believe that he would so easily slip into a friendship with someone like Hyde, but maybe I don’t know him as well as I think I do. Maybe I’ve been hanging on to a version of Jek he’s left behind.

I’ve just about convinced myself to let everything go when Jek texts me Friday afternoon.

9 pm. My place.

It’s like there’s a competition between the boys in this town to see who can send the shortest texts. I want to text back a million questions—what’s at 9:00 p.m.? What are we doing? Does he want to confide in me? Apologize for our little fight the other day? Are we just going to watch a movie and pretend nothing happened? Or does he have some other plan?

Instead, I call Camila to consult with her.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaims when I’ve described his message to her. “It’s finally happening!”

“What’s happening? The message says practically nothing.”

“What do you mean? You’ve hooked him! It’s a date.”

“A date?” I repeat dubiously. “Come on, Camila. When a boy wants a date, he uses complete sentences. In my experience, a message like this is a request for a hookup.”

“Well, what’s so bad about that?” says Camila, not disagreeing. “Don’t you want to hook up with him? Why waste everyone’s time with dinner and some boring movie?”

“You’re such a romantic,” I tell her flatly.

“Hey, I’m a pragmatist,” she replies, unbothered. “No shame in that.”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like Jek. I can’t see him suddenly treating me like a booty call.”

“Lulu, if you’re waiting for him to show up on your doorstep with a dozen roses and a rented limo...”

“Nothing like that!” I insist. “I’ve just never known him to be into this kind of stuff. Not with me, not with anyone. To be honest, I think he might be completely asexual.”

“Well,” she says, “only one way to find out for sure.”

“Mmm? What’s that?”

“Show up tonight at his place. 9:00 p.m.”

She has a point. With Camila’s advice in mind, I stow away all the questions I still have and text Jek back. He wants brevity, two can play at that game.

K.

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