Not answering right away, I keep my head down, chopping up Kit Kat bars that will later be folded into our gourmet ice cream. Because she’s distracted and, if I'm lucky, she’ll forget she asked.
‍
I’m not lucky.
‍
Talia gets my attention by snapping her fingers. “Hey, focus.”
‍
“Wait. What?” I blink innocently.
‍
She gives me an indulgent eye roll.

“You know, for someone with a brain Tesla would envy, you can be such a space cadet sometimes.”

I shrug off her comment. Because, hello? Who likes to be reminded they’re a freak.

Still, I smile. “If you’re fluffing my ego, you must need help with your AP Chem homework.”

“Nah.” She waves the hand that is still holding the spoon. A chunk of ice cream starts to slide off, and she leans forward to lick it off. “I’m good on AP Chem. Thanks to your tutoring, I have a very respectable eighty-seven. But I’m still waiting for an answer about Davis’s party.”

Darn it! I have to answer.

Talia beams, clapping her hands together. “Fan-fucking-tastic! We are going to have so much fun!”
‍
I roll my eyes at her glee.
‍
So much fun? Doubtful.

Davis’s parents own a farm outside of town. There will be a bonfire and cheap beer. A lot of kids getting stupidly drunk and blowing off steam. It’s not the worst way to spend a Friday night, but I’m not sure I’ll have fun.
‍
"Why do you care so much about me going to Davis's party anyway?”

"Come on!" she protests, hopping off the counter. "I need you to be my wingman!"
‍
This does get my attention. "When have you ever needed a wingman? I mean, wingwoman?"
‍
"Some of the guys from St. Andrew's will be there."
‍
"Oh, Talia," I mutter, shaking my head.

St. Andrews is the private boarding school in town. Warrensburg itself is tiny, but the town likes to boast that it has the most prestigious prep school west of the Mississippi.

Apparently, it also likes to pretend the entire west coast doesn't exist because I'm pretty sure there are plenty of fancy schools for rich kids in California. But the whole town holds this delusion close to their hearts, so I don't point this out.
‍
Prior to moving here, before my parents decided to cash out of corporate life, we lived on the east coast, where you can't throw a cell phone without hitting a prestigious boarding school. Maybe that's why I see what Talia never sees. That guys from St. Andrews don't flirt with girls from town. They toy with them.
‍
"Talia, those St. Andrews guys are such bad news."
‍
"True," she sighs. "But they are so hot."

She's right about that. They are all good-looking, in that Abercrombie and Fitch kind of way. The way wealthy guys always are. It's how they lure in working-class prey like Talia.

Talia is always crushing on one of them. Or sometimes all of them.

"Forget about how hot they are--"

She snorts at the obvious impracticality of my suggestion.

I ignore her.

“Please." She clasps her hands in mock prayer. "I promise I won't develop unrealistic fantasies about any of those rich, hot guys sweeping me off my feet and delivering me from a life of poverty." 

"I’ll think about it," I admit, shaking my head in self-disgust. I shouldn't let Talia manipulate me like that. 

"So you'll be my wingwoman?" She claps her hands together in excitement.

"No, I didn't say that." She'll know I'll cave if I meet her gaze, so instead, I turn away to wash my hands.

My hands are still wet when I hear my phone ringing from where it's sitting across the room by the register.

"Can you grab that?" 

Talia picks up my phone. 

"It's not a local area code. Who do you know with a three-one-four area code?"

St. Louis. Though I’m not sure why I know that when I don’t know anyone from St. Louis, which is about three hours due east of here.  

I'm drying my hands when Talia answers the phone. 

"Abby? Yeah, she's here." Talia walks over to me, shaking her head to indicate that it's not either of my parents.

She scrunches her lips as she shrugs again, which makes me think she doesn't recognize the voice. 

That in itself is weird. Since we moved to Warrensburg, I've lost touch with all my old friends. So, anyone I know, Talia knows too. 

I toss the towel aside and take the phone from her.

"Hello?"

There's a moment's hesitation, and then a low, deep voice asks, "Alpha?"

What? "No, this is Abby.”

"Alpha, this is Omicron. Have you been activated?"

"Who is this?" But even as I ask, my vision starts to telescope, darkening around the edges as the room begins to wobble. 

"Alpha, this is Omicron. Ursula. Nelly. Nikolai. Edison. Samuel. Thomas." 

"What?" I demand.

"Shit," he mutters.

"Wait—" 

But he's already hung up.

I stand there for a moment, taking in my surroundings before glancing at the phone in my hand. A glare from the fluorescents hits the edge of the screen and hits my pupil, and it damn near blinds me. 

Omicron.

"Abby, are you okay?" 

“Yes," I say quickly...

I realize I’m wielding an ice cream spade like a weapon.

"Are you okay? You're really starting to freak me out."

I look at Talia, trying to choke down my sudden fear because if there's one thing I don't want, it's for Talia to know how freaked out I am. She's such a drama queen. If she knows the kind of crazy going on in my head, she'll start freaking out. And right now, I can't handle that. I just can't.

"I'm fine," I say quickly as I turn away from her too-observant gaze.

I'm still clenching the phone in one hand and the spade in the other. I set the phone down—not on the marble board because that would be a health code violation—but on top of the sneeze-guard over the ice cream. I go to the wet bucket to drop in the spade, but my hand is clenched so tightly on it. 

I don't want to put it down. I don't want to lose the security of having a weapon in my hand. 

A weapon? 

Who thinks like that?

Panicked, I drop it in the bucket and turn back to Talia with a smile that feels brittle on my lips.

"It was a prank call. Total perv."

"Oh, god, that sucks. How did he get your number? Was it someone you know?"

"No." This isn't a lie. The voice was unfamiliar. "I don't know."

How did he get my number? 

For that matter, maybe it really was a wrong number. He didn't talk to me, he said...

"What did he say?" Talia's eyes light up with greedy curiosity.

"He—"

What had he said?

Something. Something weird. Something so startling, it made my blood icy and my whole world tilt.

But what had he said? Now it's gone. 

Or rather, it's going. I can practically feel the memory disappearing from my mind, like words being eaten by a delete key until I'm left only with the vague sense that it was a masculine voice but nothing more.

Again, the lie comes easily once I decide to tell it. "Just the normal perv stuff. He wants to boink my brains out. But, you know—" I flash a wicked grin. "—less polite."

Talia giggles. Like I knew she would. "Too bad it wasn't a St. Andrew's guy, huh?"

I make a non-committal noise as I study my phone, clicking the call info button. 

I still don't recognize the number. The call was only thirty-six seconds. Thirty-six seconds that left me deeply shaken. Thirty-six seconds of my life are as wispy as mist on a cold morning. Worse still, the call ended four minutes ago, and I have no idea what happened in three of those minutes.

I shove my phone in my back pocket. Suddenly, I'm uncomfortable having Talia here with me. I want to be alone. I want her ... away from me.

"Hey, why don't you head out early?"

She looks at me funny.

"I can't leave you here to close."

"Sure you can. Besides, you have that AP Chem test to study for."

"You have that AP Chem test, too," she points out.

"True, but I have—"

"I know," she cuts me off. "You remember everything because of your photographic memory."

"Technically, it's not photographic. It's—" I start to say, but she interrupts me again.

"I know, I know. Your endemic memory."

This time I don't correct her. Talia at least never sounds annoyed when she mentions my eidetic memory. Unlike so many of my other classmates and my teachers.

"I don't mind closing alone," I assure her.

"Your parents will kill me if you're here alone when Saunders comes by."

"They won't know. When mom comes to pick me up, I'll tell her you just left. That you needed to pick up your dad or something. She'll understand."

The series of lies come easily to me. You'd think I lie all the time. Which I don't. Not even to my parents.

But all the pieces of the lie are laid out in front of me, and I see them clearly. Talia's dad sometimes drinks too much. Everyone in town knows it and overlooks it, as long as Talia drives him home when it happens. So, of course, they would understand if she had to take off early to drive him.

True, my parents don't like it when Mr. Saunders stops by. Mr. Saunders is a veteran of the first war in Iraq who has never quite gotten his life on track since he retired from the army. He loves our ice cream, even though he can't usually afford to pay for it. 

When there's only a little bit of ice cream left in a tub, it's standard practice just to throw it out. I never do. I always save it for Mr. Saunders. Even if he can't pay for it, why waste it? 

Talia frowns. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay? Saunders creeps me out."

"Well, he doesn't creep me out." Yeah, he's got that blank-eyed loner thing going, but I see what Talia and my parents don't. He isn't dangerous. He's broken, and that's not the same thing. 

It takes another five minutes to convince her. 

"Call me if you need help studying for the test," I tell her as she leaves, even though I'm praying she won't call. "Remember, the Avogadro Constant is six point zero two—"

"I got it, I got it," she says with a wave. Talia turns at the door and blows me a kiss.

“Can’t wait for Friday night!”

As soon as Talia is out of sight, I turn off the Pandora station my parents keep the radio tuned to. The silence washes over me like a balm, soothing the jittery tension that's been lapping at my nerves.

It feels like my muscles are about to burst through my skin.

It's something to do with the phone call. That much is obvious. But what? I don't even remember the call, so it can't be that important.

Except, the fact that I can't remember is alarming, right? 

The way I'm yo-yo-ing between concern and disinterest. That's alarming, too. Right?

Yes. It is.

Absolutely.

But all I know for certain—for absolute certain—is that I'll feel better after I've talked it out with my mom. When I'm at home. Being home will help.

So, alone in the shop, I text my mom.

Hey, can you come get me early?
She doesn't text back right away. That's fine. I start the end-of-day clean-up routine so that when she does get here, we can leave quickly. We're almost out of Sea Salt Caramel, so I scoop what's left out onto the counter first.

I add a sprinkle of chocolate chips and roasted edamame for extra protein because Mr. Saunders has been looking thin, and I'm worried he's not eating enough.

The routine of scraping ice cream and folding it over itself to crush in the toppings is soothing, and after a few minutes, I feel my rapid pulse slowing.

I scrape Mr. Saunder's ice cream into a cup, put on a lid, and slide it into the freezer so it will be ready when he shows up.

After that, I start moving the other flavors to the deep freeze in the back. There're only fifteen minutes left before closing time, and chances of anyone coming in this late on a Thursday are slim. 

Before I wipe down the tables, I check my texts again and see mom’s reply.

Mom: Can't come now
Mom: Can u walk home?

Trepidation tiptoes up my spine as I stare at the screen.

Can I *walk* home?

Yes, of course I can. But my mother always picks me up. Always. In the summer, when it's eighty-five out and gorgeous, I practically beg her to let me walk home, and she still says no. Now, she wants me to walk home when there're two feet of snow on the ground?

It's not that I can't walk home.

It's that I can't imagine my mother asking me to.

And besides that, what with the "u"? My mother is not the kind of woman who uses slang in text. Ever. Not even when she's trying to make stupid jokes. So what's wrong? Did she have a stroke?

Okay, I don't really think she had a stroke, but something is definitely up.

My stomach knots as I type my answer.
‍
Is something wrong?

There's a long pause before even the ellipses trail across the screen.

Finally, she types.
‍
Mom: No. Everything is fine, honey. Just busy.
‍
‍Well, that sounds a little more like her. Nevertheless, I can feel my anxiety cranking up. I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my skin. I want to move. To get out of here. To just … be somewhere else.

Not somewhere else. 

Home. I need to be home. With my parents. In my room. In the familiar safety of my house and my bedroom. To burrow and nest in all the things that bring me comfort and peace. 

Part of me knows sudden urgency to be at home is irrational.

I jam along with the tunes as I carry tub after tub of ice cream to the freezer. 

Mr. Saunders doesn't show up, which isn't surprising. About half the time, I just leave the ice cream outside the shop, and he picks it up on his way home after last call at the bar.

I'm pulling out a tub of Good Intentions (Cold Comfort's answer to Rocky Road—but with pretzels for crunch instead of peanuts) when the bell on the door chimes. 

"Hey, Mr. Saunders," I begin before I realize it's not him.

Instead, it's a guy about my age, maybe a little older. Dark wavy hair, hazel eyes so bright it almost hurts to look at them. Even though I haven't seen him in here before, he's got that St. Andrew's look to him. 

He's wearing the standard-issue prep-boy dark slacks and white dress shirt. The top couple of buttons are undone. They are untucked and rumpled in lazy disregard for how much it undoubtedly cost. Dark wool pea coat. Expensive and understated. It's a look that requires a certain amount of swagger to carry off. 

But this one ... this guy has an edge. Something in the way his gaze scans the room as he walks into it. Like he's looking for the exits. Or maybe just for trouble.

So not just a St. Andrew's guy, but a guy who got kicked out of one of the more exclusive prep schools back east and whose parents bought him a slot here.

He's aware of me watching him. His step slows, and there's this moment where I can feel him assessing me.

I give myself a little shake and try to distance myself a little to quiet the butterflies stirring in my stomach.

Instead of merely calming me, that thing clicks in my head again.

Age—seventeen to nineteen.
Height—seventy-three inches.
Weight—approximately one hundred and seventy pounds.
Threat—unknown.

I shake my head again.

Snap out of it!

Part of me wishes I hadn't told Talia to leave. I wish someone else—anyone else—were here with me. There is something unnerving in his gaze. Something cold without necessarily being cruel. 

"Can I—" My voice cracks, so I clear my throat. "Can I help you?"

"Can you?" He gives me a sharp look—like there's an answer he desperately needs and expects to find in my eyes.