Chapter 1 1

The air in the Grand Hall of St. Jude's Prep tasted like old paper and anxiety. It was a thick, suffocating atmosphere that usually made teenagers sweat through their starch-stiffened shirts, but Dallas Ruiz just felt cold. She pulled the cuffs of her faded gray hoodie down over her knuckles, the fabric thinning and frayed at the edges. It was a stark, almost offensive contrast to the sea of navy blue blazers and plaid skirts surrounding her.

She kept her head down as she walked down the center aisle. She could feel the eyes on her. They felt like tiny, prickling insects crawling over her skin.

Trash.

Scholarship waste.

Public school charity case.

She didn't need to hear the whispers to know what they were saying. The words hung in the silence between the scraping of chair legs and the shuffling of feet. Dallas found a desk at the very back, in the corner where the shadows from the high vaulted ceiling pooled the darkest. She dropped her backpack onto the floor. It landed with a heavy, wet thud, sounding nothing like the lightweight designer leather bags of her peers.

Mrs. Higgins stood at the front of the room on a raised platform. She looked like a bird of prey scanning for a field mouse. Her eyes, sharp and bead-like behind rimless glasses, snapped to Dallas immediately. Her lip curled. It was a micro-expression, there and gone in a fraction of a second, but Dallas saw it. She saw everything.

Sit down, Ruiz, Higgins said, her voice projecting effortlessly across the hall. Try not to disturb the students who actually have a future to worry about.

A ripple of laughter moved through the room. It wasn't loud, just a low, polite murmur of amusement. Dallas didn't react. She didn't stiffen. She didn't look up. She simply pulled the wooden chair out. The metal legs screeched against the parquet floor, a high-pitched wail that made three students in the row ahead of her flinch.

Dallas sat. She slumped, actually. She slid her spine down until her neck rested on the back of the chair, her legs stretching out under the desk.

Boone Faulkner was sitting three rows up and to the right. He was the golden boy, the quarterback, the student body president. He was currently twirling a Montblanc pen between his fingers with a dexterity that spoke of years of piano lessons or perhaps just nervous energy. He turned his head, just slightly, catching Dallas in his peripheral vision. His brows knit together. He looked confused, as if he were looking at a puzzle piece that had been forced into the wrong box.

The papers were distributed. The Placement Exam. The test that would determine the academic trajectory of every freshman for the next four years. It was the Holy Grail of St. Jude's.

Dallas flipped the booklet open.

She scanned the first page. It wasn't standard math. It was a series of complex non-linear logic puzzles and pattern recognition matrices designed to test cognitive processing speed rather than rote memorization. Abstract sequences. High-level probability scenarios.

It was adorable.

It was the kind of mental gymnastics she did in her head while waiting for the bus, just to keep the noise of the world at bay. The answers presented themselves to her instantly, floating over the paper like augmented reality. The sequence converges at prime seven. The probability is negligible. The pattern is a Fibonacci variant.

She picked up her cheap plastic ballpoint pen. She spun it once around her thumb.

Then she yawned.

It was a loud, cracking yawn that stretched her jaw. She dropped the pen. She folded her arms on the desk, creating a pillow. She pulled her hood up, tugging the strings until her face was hidden in a tunnel of gray cotton.

And she closed her eyes.

Around her, the scratching of pens began. It sounded like a thousand termites chewing through wood. The frantic energy of three hundred students trying to prove their worth vibrating in the floorboards. Dallas tuned it out. She regulated her breathing. In, four counts. Hold, four counts. Out, four counts.

Time dilated. The darkness inside her hood was safe. It was the only place in this school where she wasn't Dallas the Charity Case. She was just a mind, floating in the void.

The sharp click of heels on wood brought her back.

Click. Click. Click.

The rhythm was angry. Staccato.

Mrs. Higgins stopped right beside Dallas's desk. The smell of expensive, cloying perfume-lilac and old money-invaded Dallas's sanctuary.

Dallas didn't move.

Are you ill, Miss Ruiz? Higgins asked. Her voice was dripping with false concern, loud enough for the entire back section to hear. Or have you simply accepted your inevitable failure?

Dallas opened one eye. The fabric of her sleeve was rough against her cheek. She slowly sat up, her spine popping. She blinked, looking at the clock on the wall. Forty-five minutes had passed.

She looked down at her paper. It was pristine. White. Empty.

Not ill, Dallas rasped. Her voice was rough from disuse. Just bored.

Mrs. Higgins snatched the paper from the desk. She flipped through the pages, the paper snapping aggressively. Blank. Blank. Blank.

A zero, Higgins announced, holding the booklet up like a piece of evidence in a murder trial. You have handed in a blank placement exam. This is an insult to this institution.

The scratching of pens stopped. The room went dead silent. Heads turned. Necks craned.

Dallas stood up. She hooked one strap of her backpack over her shoulder. She adjusted her sunglasses, sliding them onto her face to shield her eyes from the glare of the high windows.

"I didn't want to waste the ink," Dallas said.

She stepped out into the aisle.

You sit back down! Higgins shrieked, her composure cracking. You will finish this exam or you will be placed in the remedial track! Do you understand? You will be with the... the slower students!

That was the plan. The remedial track meant study halls. Study halls meant the basement computer lab. The only place in the school with hardline ethernet ports that bypassed the student Wi-Fi firewall and connected directly to the district's backbone.

I think I'll fit right in, Dallas said.

She walked away.

Mrs. Higgins stood trembling with rage, clutching the test booklet so hard the paper crinkled. She stormed down the aisle, intending to report this immediately. As she passed the third row, her grip loosened slightly, and the back page of the booklet fluttered open, swinging near Boone Faulkner's face.

There, in the bottom right corner, was a drawing. It wasn't a doodle. It was a hyper-realistic, anatomically perfect sketch of a skeletal hand raising a middle finger. The shading was exquisite. The perspective was flawless.

Boone caught the image just before Higgins swept past. He looked at the retreating figure of the girl in the gray hoodie. He stopped twirling his pen.

Dallas pushed through the heavy oak doors and into the blinding sunlight. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out.

Mother calling.

Dallas stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered over the red button. She pressed it, hard.

A group of senior boys in varsity jackets walked past her on the steps. One of them, a linebacker with a neck as thick as a tree trunk, slammed his shoulder into hers.

Watch it, trash, he muttered.

Dallas didn't stumble. She absorbed the impact, shifting her weight so that he was the one who bounced off slightly. She brushed the invisible dust off her shoulder.

She walked down the steps, alone.