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asked, voice faint because I could barely suck in a breath.
    Ulric shrugged. “New school policy. Attendance is kind of optional.”
    • • •
    Party central, it turned out, was an outcropping of graffitied rocks overlooking the Hudson River. You had to … get this … climb to get there, and lord help you if you teetered too close to the edge. The kicker—no outdoor plumbing. Not so much as a Porta-John in sight. Totally barbaric. Plus, there was the whole sunlight issue. I stepped carefully over broken glass, crushed cans, rolling papers, and stubs of various kinds and found a shady spot to plant myself. My little pleated skirt rode up to pop-diva-exiting-limo length, and Ulric planted himself across from me to take full advantage.
    “Subtle,” I said dryly. “Sure you don’t want to take a picture? It’ll last longer.”
    He smirked, whipped out his cell phone, and snapped a photo before I could protest, and I sat stunned for a full second thinking damn, damn, damn before I launched myself at him.
    He stood up. Even in my platform Mary Janes I was no match for his height, and I refused to jump for it. I settled for a glare. He was going to be in for a really rude surprise when he tried to check the pic later on. Bobby’d probably have some cool Dark Knight monologue ready about being doomed to walk the shadows or some such thing. All I had was my sense of irony, which, whatever Alanis Morissette says, is not a black fly in your chardonnay.
    “If that shows up anywhere on the Internet, you’re dead meat,” I told him. Let him think he’d misaimed the camera when he checked the pic later.
    “Nope, this is for my private stash,” he answered with a wink.
    I told myself that he wasn’t at all charming. Obnoxious, overbearing, and obvious, yes. Way too cocky for his own good, check. Vaguely hunkalicious, no.
    Two more cars pulled off onto the dirt track created by way too many past vehicles off-roading, and we were joined shortly by three more kids from school who’d apparently brought a “party in a bag”—a six pack of beer; really, really cheap vodka; and more of Byron’s very special air freshener.
    I didn’t want to be a killjoy, but, “Can’t the cops spot us up here?” I asked.
    Ulric moved to put an arm around me, like I might actually be afraid and in need of masculine reassurance. As if. “They roust us about once a month. We’re not due for another couple of weeks. No worries.”
    More and more people, some bearing pizza and other munchies, showed up as the night went on, and I started to wonder where all their parents thought they were. Mine, real or imagined, were out of the picture, but back in Ohio they would have blown a gasket if I’d ditched school and partied the night away. Did these kids have their folks trained? Was the lethargy catching?
    Ulric had barely left my side all night, but the others had drifted away little by little. Bram thought he’d seen Bella, and he and Byron—the B Boys—went to search her out. Lily and Gavin crept off on their own a short time later.
    “You guys do this every night?” I shouted to Ulric over the boom box someone had brought. It was blasting out something with a base beat so heavy I couldn’t hear anything else. And if I couldn’t hear it …
    What I could hear was giving me a pounding headache, and I so wished I could numb the pain with the booze I kept pouring out onto the ground. Back during spy school training, a bunch of us had snuck out to party only to come practically face-to-face with our internal organs when our bodies tried to turn themselves inside out. Apparently, when they said variety was the spice of life , they meant it literally. Death was a crash diet waiting to happen.
    “Nope,” Ulric answered in my ear.
    “That’s it—nope?”
    “The word goes out—where, when, etc., and we show up. Simple as that.”
    “So who sends the word?”
    He grabbed my hand and started leading me away from the thick of things.