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too?”
    There was that chuckle again. It sounded strange, almost nerdy, coming from the big jock. “I just think it’d be upsetting. You saw him in the ambulance. He’s totally freaked. He’ll probably be more stable after he’s been on the meds awhile. Isn’t that how it works for people like him?”
    People like him.
    â€œI know…I just…Jeremy, I know this is crazy, but would you cut school and drive me tomorrow?”
    â€œUh…no.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œCrowbar. Remember?”
    That stung, despite how much sense it made.
    The silence on the line stretched out, broken up by short bursts of static. Siara was about to apologize one more time and hang up when she heard Jeremy sigh.
    â€œFine. I’ll take you,” Jeremy said.
    Her eyes went wide. “Jeremy, thank you so, so much…I don’t know how—”
    â€œOh, wait. I can’t. I’ve got to do something with my parents tomorrow morning. The next day. I’ll take you the morning after the demo. It’ll give everyone a chance to calm down anyway.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œCome on, Siara, that’s the best you’re going to get out of me. And no crowbars.”
    â€œOkay. Thanks. Sorry.”
    â€œYeah. I’ll talk to you soon.”
    She heard the vague electronic click that told her Jeremy had ended the call. She couldn’t believe how pushy she was being.
    â€œSiara?” her mother called from the hallway. “Are you ready? I don’t want to be late, honey.”
    After the demo. After tomorrow night. Funny how Jeremy echoed her father, as if he’d somehow listened in. She felt a draft against her back, then turned to see her window, still half-open, still waiting. She put her hands back on the white wooden frame, deciding. Her fingers felt cold from the outdoor air. Winter was coming.
    She pushed the window shut.
    â€œI’m ready, Mom.”
    There had to be some way to live in two worlds, at least for a little while.

4.
    As if it were a small football, Jeremy Gronson tossed the cell phone toward his bed. It spun on its axis, followed a straight line, hit the thick quilt, and neatly buried itself in the folds.
    Touchdown.
    It had worked. When he dialed Siara’s number on one cell, his second phone also rang. All he had to do was manipulate the life trail of Albert Mendt, a phone repairman working on the line. Jeremy fixed things so that Albert was so busy thinking about having enough money to send his son to college, he “accidentally” crossed a few of the wires he was working on. Then Jeremy had a wrench tumble out of the phone man’s pocket, distracting poor Albert yet again, so that he sealed up his work without double-checking it.
    Now Jeremy could monitor Siara’s calls in case someone unfortunate like Keller tried to get in touch. And of course Jeremy had graciously agreed to take her to Harry after the demo. By then, she, her parents, and two thirds of RAW High School would be dead.
    Dead, dead, dead.
    As if they ever really existed in the first place.
    Having carefully delivered the tea to his appropriately thankful parents some time ago, a more cheerful Jeremy padded back down the thick-carpeted stairs onto the kitchen’s cold marble floor to retrieve his own. The rainbow cup, made by his mother during her ceramics phase, felt hot in his fingertips as he lifted it from the coriander blue counter.
    He thought about how she was like Siara in a way, always doing that strange art stuff, playing with images, as if that would ever get anyone anywhere. Still, the cup was pretty, like Siara’s poem about Sisyphus as a clock. And even that, strangely enough, had turned out to be useful.
    He brought the cup to his lips. It was quite a special brew. Each cup gave him about a day’s worth of effect. As far as the labs he’d hired were able to determine, some ingredients bore a chemical resemblance