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loose papers and textbooks, pretending to study as they watched several boys playing basketball.
    They were girls her age, talking, laughing, and occasionally scowling toward a fellow student or teacher that crossed their line of sight. From the outside, it was easy for Lucifer to tell which one was the leader, which one wanted to be, and which one was grateful just to be part of the group. Of course, seeing people for who they were had always been easy for her. It was one of the few benefits of always being on the outside looking in.
    For just a brief moment, Lucifer wondered what it would be like to be among them. To be smiling and laughing, flirting with boys and worrying about homework instead of thieving her way through a litany of horrors the rest of the world knew nothing about. But she quickly dismissed the thought as she subconsciously scratched at the mark on her shoulder. She couldn’t picture herself as an ordinary teenager any more than she could picture herself an astronaut. No matter how much she wanted to.
    Lucifer made her way toward the top row where she could get a good view of everything without attracting too much attention to herself. She sat on the cold, polished wood and leaned back. The sounds of bouncing balls, squeaking shoes, and chattering giggles ricocheted around the cavernous gym, turning to soup in her ears. It must have been deafening when filled with people. How discouraging it must be for a visiting team to be bombarded by the cheering, the screaming, the chorus of hundreds all shouting at them, letting them know that they were outsiders, unwanted, villains. She may not have been able to imagine the crushing cacophony of a full gym, but the feeling was something Lucifer could imagine quite easily. For her, every day was an away game.
    One of the boys slapped the ball away from another player, sending it skittering across the floor toward the group of girls. Lucifer pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head to help funnel their conversation to her ears, but they were too far away for her to hear anything other than a word or two.
    She reached into her trick bag and pulled out the yearbook that Buck had given her. He had insisted on coming with her when she talked with Gina’s friends, and it had taken considerable effort on Lucifer’s part to convince him to let her investigate alone. Lucifer didn’t think that a stranger asking questions with a desperate cop the size of a bull huffing and puffing over her shoulder was likely to get many helpful answers. So he gave her the yearbook so she would have an easier time identifying Gina’s friends.
    She leafed through the pages, scanning the photos Buck had circled in red. Lucifer didn’t recognize any of them from the girls in the gym. But as she flipped through the yearbook, Lucifer noticed that Gina was in almost every one of the circled pictures with her friends. She was beautiful despite having been cursed with Buck’s broad brow. Or maybe because of it. What was obvious was that Gina had a smile that seemed to infect everyone around her. They all wanted to be near her. It was a concept Lucifer was having difficulty imagining. What would it be like to be surrounded by people who all wanted to be close to you?
    Lucifer pushed the question from her mind. It wasn’t going to do her any good to start the day being jealous of a girl who was just kidnapped by a witch.
    Sadly, none of the people in the photos were at the gym. But just as Lucifer was about to put the yearbook away, she recognized one of the boys playing basketball. Lucifer found one of his circled pictures in the book. It was Gina’s boyfriend, David.
    David was tall with a swimmer’s build and a shock of black hair that sprouted from the top of his head in short, wavy curls. It seemed that every time Lucifer turned a page, there was a photograph of him: giving a speech in front of an assembly, laughing with friends in the hallway, driving