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CHAPTER 29

EVERYONE’S FUSSING AND shouting, and they’re saying it’s my brother’s fault. That he started it. Logan Hardy’s getting up from the ground, cursing. And— crying ?

I wrap my arm around my brother’s shoulders and push through the crowd. I’m trying to get us out of here, but there are too many people. I can’t even tell which direction to go. My adrenaline levels are through the roof. Where is the damn door? Someone’s screaming in my face. Someone tries to pull my brother away from me.

Then Mr. Chive blows his ear-piercing whistle. “Quiet!” he shouts, shoving his way toward us. “Enough!”

Everyone backs away, and now we’re surrounded by a ring of kids who stare at us like we’re wild animals. I can hear their low, mean murmurs. “ Freak. ” “ Fucking animals. ”

Chive yells, “I said quiet! ” Then he turns to me and Holo and shoves his finger toward our faces. “This behavior is unacceptable! We’re calling your parents!”

I say, “Where have you been, Chive? We don’t have any.”

Suddenly Principal Simon’s right next to me, her face twisted in anger. Spittle flecks her lips. “This is way beyond growling,” she shouts.

No shit, lady.

“Kai—Holo—you’re suspended for the rest of the week!”

Her hand closes like a vise around my bicep. She grabs Holo with her other mitt and leads us outside. “Chief Greene is going to be even more disturbed by your behavior than I am!”

I clench my jaw so I don’t say something I’ll regret. Holo looks like he’s about to cry.

Mrs. Simon makes us stand on the sidewalk right outside the cafeteria. All the kids stare out the windows at us until the chief pulls up in his cop car. It looks like we’re being arrested.

“Lock them up!” someone calls.

“Why’d they call the police?” says someone else. “They should’ve called animal control.”

I can see Logan’s brother, Mac, standing off to the side. He’s not saying anything. His eyes do the talking instead. You’re dead , they say.

“Get in,” the chief says.

Holo and I climb into the back and the chief slams the car into gear. He’s holding the steering wheel so tight it looks like he’s trying to strangle it. Beside me, Holo’s shaking. He may be good at fighting, but he isn’t used to it.

“What happened back there?” the chief finally asks.

Before my brother can answer, I say, “Nothing.”

“Kai, the principal doesn’t call me for nothing .”

I glare at him defiantly in the rearview mirror. “Logan told the truth about us,” I say. We’re freaks. “And so Holo beat the hell out of him.”