Vienna Castanoza. November 3rd. The Flat.

I wake to a crippling ache all throughout my legs. My eyelids shudder closed, the throbbing spreading to my torso like a forest fire. I'm in the process of cocooning myself in my blanket when Tristan pokes his head around the door.

"Good, you're awake," he beams. "Thoughts on cereal?"

I smile faintly. "Great idea, buddy. I think Reagan's got some Coco Pops upstairs."

Tris nods and scampers off. Fucking morning people. Once I hear the front door click shut, I lift the blankets off my quivering body and suck the saliva from my mouth as I take in the blood-soaked sheet beneath me. Gripping the bedframe like a vice, I stagger to my feet.

"I can't feel my legs when I'm with you," I sing through gritted teeth, tossing the blankets and duvet onto the floor. "Wow, fucking pioneer of musical comedy. Guess I woke up as Bo fucking Burnham."

I love Bo Burnham. I can't believe I just slagged off Bo Burnham.

I snatch the soiled sheets into my fist and begin my slow-motion shuffle to the bathroom, clinging blindly to anything that will hold me up. I toss it all into the bathtub with my trackies and slam the cold tap on, and then I grimace as I remember that any attempt at a downstairs clean-up means a roundtrip expedition to the bedroom.

When I finally claw my way back, pad and designated period underwear in hand, the bathtub looks like a crime scene. I shut off the water and tug the shower curtain closed in case Tristan comes down to pee before school – the kindling for shower-themed nightmares should be Psycho, not the cruel realities of menstruation. When I finally make it up to the Heisenbergs', the screaming of my calves muffled by a fresh pair of trackies, no one is any the wiser.

*

Brazen Williams. November 3rd. Crossley Grammar.

I've been thinking about death a lot.

My family have always been spiritual. I don't like to bring it up - people pin it on the immigrant thing, and it's hard to be unapologetically brown in a country that's lorded over your head as not yours - but I've been thinking about it a lot these days, wondering if my life was destined to be this short, and wondering if I've done enough to not have to come back when it ends. Now that the fallout from the Halloween party has settled, there's nothing to distract me from the echo of my father's voice on the other end of the phone. It feels like only a matter of time until things begin to spiral violently out of control. It feels like really, I should care more.

As I muse silently in the Maths classroom, the racket of wasteman chat ebbing in and out of range like the tide, I reaffirm something I realised when I first learnt to tell my sisters apart: people have different energies. Not an aura, necessarily - but most people have something, some leading emotion or effect, that crackles off their skin and, when you get close enough, under yours.

The reason I say this is because Mr Whitman's energy is that of a bunny rabbit on Red Bull.

I peel open an eyelid to find him staring down at me with crossed arms and his usual frenetic bemusement. The other eyelid soon follows suit because there are some seriously deep-set tea stains on his shirt that I'm culturally obligated to investigate.

"Why are you sitting all the way back here?" He flicks a wrist for emphasis; to my disappointment, the stain moves out of sight.

"This is my seat," I explain, already grappling with my newfound inner peace because you'd think he'd have noticed this after two months of teaching me. He's a bit of an odd guy, but he's never struck me as a dope.

His mouth twitches slightly. "Well, most of your classmates seem to have deemed this lesson optional, so it's just you six today. Come sit at the front."

"But this is-"

"Your seat. I know, you've said." Whitman smiles languidly. I gape, affronted, inner peace thoroughly shattered. "Come on, Zen, get a move on."

I kick my bag through the gap between the table legs, glowering up at him. When he blinks, unfazed, I trudge up to the front and hurl myself into the seat furthest from the decaying carcass of our class. I don't mean the useful bits either. No bones or nerves or organs, just fibrous bits of muscle tissue that are frankly a bit rank by themselves. 

Don't look at me like that. These five are the kind of Gramsters who don't believe in institutional racism and think knife crime tatts are the height of humour.

"Jav gum?"

I shake my head silently, eyes locked on my desk. I've never spoken to this girl in my life but Jesus Christ, the amount of times I've heard her ask this question. 

"Useless."

What's useless, I think bitterly as she turns back to the others, is my respiratory system in the same building as your fucking body spray.

"Neeky av gum?"

"Nah."

"Fuck's sake."

I scowl and the girl whips round to face me so vehemently that the giant pile of hair scraped up onto her scalp bobs with indignation.

"Something you wanna say?"

My voice, and definitely not my courage, seems to have taken its third cigarette break of the day, so all I can manage in response is a disdainful eyebrow raise.

"Right, so shut up then," she snaps, turning to her mates once more.

I curl my lip in similar distaste, glad to be left alone. As the minutes pass, though, my skull becomes an echo chamber. My chat with Quidward the other day did little to put my mind at ease, as attested by the morbid search history on my phone. The prickling in my scapulae has come back in full force. It's the same feeling you get walking past the lockers on your birthday, knowing with an aching certainty that someone's about to attack you from behind. 

The classroom door stutters open, the bottom snagging on the uneven carpeting, and my breath catches in my throat. 

"James!" Whitman exclaims, carefully ignoring everyone else in the room. I deflate heavily as Diavolo comes into view, hype backpack slung over one shoulder and half his shirt tucked into his trouser pocket. "Look at that, we've got seven whole students!"

"Don't count as whole if they're all missing brains," I mutter.

Whitman pivots on the ball of his foot to flash me a sardonic smile. "Lucky you, James, there's a seat next to Zen."

"Two neeks for the price of one." 

I frown. It's one of Pineapple Head's mates, giggling behind the cover of an orange-streaked hand.

"James ain't a neek," Pineapple Head murmurs, raking her eyes over him predatorially. I look away, suddenly in dire need of therapy.

"Not as neeky as Neeky, but still a neek." The Neek Police leans back in her chair with a smirk that consumes her face and squashes her chin into her neck, showing her face and throat to be two exceptionally estranged swatches of colour.

I stare at her, disgruntled. "Is 'neek' the only word you know?"

They pretend not to hear me. The Neek Police pops her collar. She looks dumb, but she has successfully hidden the fake tan stains.

"Shut up, Natalie." Diavolo falls into the seat beside me with a witheringly cursory glance at the others. The girls shoot him a wounded glare, sinking back into their seats slightly. For a fleeting moment, I feel a twinge of respect for James. Then I remember how silent Music Tech was that week, how thin Vienna's skin got when the whispers started, and my fingers curl involuntarily.

"Right, come on, guys, lots to get through today!" Whitman says nervously, nodding towards the scrawl of instructions that span the whiteboard in aggressively red marker.

"Um, Sir?" James calls, hooking Whitman's attention with a simple jut of his chin. He bumbles over with an expectant smile, ignoring me entirely, so I do the same but in Punjabi.

"Vienna won't be in today, Sir. Think she's sick," James says gravely.

Glee snuffs out the wick of my disdain and I smile victoriously, carving a frown onto Diavolo's face.

"Ah, alright." Whitman cranes round to reach his computer keyboard and begins tapping away. "Which one of you's taking her notes?"

The legs of my chair hit the ground with a scrape as I jolt forward. "What?"

"Why would Zen be taking them?" Diavolo asks scornfully.

I scowl, but I match the fervour of his incredulous stare point-for-point.

"Oh, well," he stammers, "You, um, work together. Don't you? I saw you both at the bookstore-"

"You work in a bookstore?" Diavolo gapes. "You're renting a cranium and you work in a bookstore?"

"Big word for a tiny dick," I snap.

"The only tiny dick here is yours," Diavolo grins, surprise still lacing his voice.

"Sorry, did big man say you work in a bookstore?" The noise comes from the boy with the dead trim sitting opposite me, apparently too far away to know who the fuck he's talking to. He snorts into his hand, elbowing the others between snotty snickers. "Could you actually be more of a neek?"

I lean back and cock an eyebrow. "Could you actually shut the fuck up?"

"I'll take her notes, Sir," James interjects, mouth twitching as he tries desperately to look serious. "I'll definitely see her before he does."

I narrow my eyes. "Hope you've told Lacey that."

His eyes flash, all traces of humour wiped clean off his face, and I lift an eyebrow smugly. 

"Say her name one more time."

"Don't have to," I say languidly, weighing up the price of making a sex joke and deeming it out of budget. "Keep her in my prayers every night. She needs God if she's carrying your devil spawn."

I half expect him to start frothing at the mouth, the way he's glaring at me.

"Gentlemen," Whitman says sternly, tapping Diavolo's desk with his best shot at a hard stare. "This is a Maths class. Do some Maths."

We stare ahead in silence until he awkwardly tap-dances his way back to the whiteboard like a dispassionate understudy.

"How the fuck do you know her name?" Diavolo hisses as we fumble for clean pages in our decrepit workbooks.

"Everyone knows," I lie. "Not exactly Grams' best-kept secret."

"Everyone knows I knocked up a Higher," he mutters, slamming his textbook open. "Barely anyone knows who."

"I've got a mate at Crossley High," I say evasively, uncapping my only surviving biro.

"Didn't know you were mates with the Highers," Diavolo replies stiffly. "Didn't know you were mates with anybody."

"Funny guy," I deadpan, tugging his textbook towards me. Mine's buried under my bed somewhere, acting company for my patience and social skills.

Diavolo opens his mouth to say something unintelligent, but someone beats him to the punch.

"I swear to Christ, I will pattern you."

I shoot a sidelong glance towards the sound. It's Pineapple Head's other crony, of fucking course, gripping one of the boys' ties with the tenacity of a hangman.

The guy curls his lip in sleazy expectation. "That's kinda nice, still."

Diavolo growls from the back of his throat and I find myself sneering in firm agreement.

"Settle down, guys," Whitman sighs, forcing his glasses up into his hair and rubbing the divots from the bridge of his nose. "God, what is wrong with you lot today?"

"Sir, he's disrespecting me!" Hangman snaps. "Jou expect me not to stand up for myself?"

"What?" The boy stares at her, slack-jawed. The glint of metal in his mouth takes me straight back to my Year Seven braces days and I shudder. "Don't even chat to me. The fuck you mean?"

"Did anyone ask you?" she snarls. "You need professional help, fam. Sort it."

I nod silently, thoroughly on board.

"Everyone shut up," Whitman groans. "We are so behind the other classes-"

"Sir, I don't feel well," the Neek Police says gravely. "I think I have pneumonia."

Whitman levels his gaze disbelievingly. "What."

"It's true, Sir," Hangman chimes in. "Miss Grimes made us play hockey even though it was snowing."

"When was it snowing?" Whitman tries to massage the creases out of his forehead. Unfortunately, he's about six years too late. "Who's Miss Grimes?"

"Lesbian P.E. teacher," Dead Trim mutters. His mate, the most recent addition to the girls' blacklist, sniggers, obnoxiously enough to show me that what I'd mistaken for braces was actually a grill.

I raise a brow, startled, because his skin is paler than the snow we'd supposedly witnessed. What a world.

"She's Mrs Shaw now, Sir," James says quietly, shooting the cretins across from us a loaded look. Their snickers hollow out as they flick their eyes away from him unsurely. "Got married before you joined."

"Right," Whitman manages, stumbling feebly into his swivel chair. "Well, Natalie, you can... go to the nurse, I suppose."

"I'll take her," Hangman declares.

"Sit down, Reneé," Whitman says incredulously. "It's pneumonia, not the plague."

I snort abruptly. "I mean, it's fucking neither."

The Neek Police slinks out of the classroom, shooting daggered glances at Whitman and mouthing something furiously at Hangman that, ironically, she doesn't manage to decipher.

"Oi," James whispers, elbowing my arm. It slips off the table, knocking my chin off my hand.

"Dickhead," I mutter, massaging the back of my neck. "What now?"

"Can I try on your glasses?"

I level my gaze at him disparagingly. He stares back. With a heavy sigh and no good reason at all, I yank the frames off my face and into his outstretched fingers.

"Ohh yeah."

"For fuck's sake," I murmur, one eye on Whitman as I fight back a smile. He makes it almost easy to forget about his house-of-cards moral code. "You look like Johnny Bravo."

"I look peng," James cackles, raking a hand through his hair as he stares down the lens of his Snapchat camera.

This is probably his most-used action combo. Well, aside from getting slaughtered and falling into girls' vaginas. "Keep doing that and you're gonna go bald," I drawl, realising too late that I sound like my mother.

"I'd be fit bald," James smiles peacefully, tucking his phone away and pushing my glasses further up his nose.

I scoff. "You'd be a weird, overgrown baby." I take a beat to theatrically consider this. "I guess it wouldn't be much of an adjustment."

Whitman glances over at us with lifted brows and Diavolo clears his throat performatively. "Zen, this is a Maths class," he chides, looking critically down at me through my own glasses. "Do some Maths."

"Do your work, James," Whitman drones, tapping away at his computer with lukewarm indifference.

"Yeah, James," I add, turning to the first question at long last.

He slides my glasses onto my workbook and grins. "Neek."

*

Vienna Castanoza. November 3rd. Crossley Primary.

I'm slogging up the hill towards the Crossley Primary playground, a plastic box of burnt leaves locked and loaded in my hands, when the flashing hazards of a Volkswagen Up by the entrance stop me in my tracks. A familiar mop of blond curls pops up from behind it and I groan.

"Fucking hell," Michael says, affronted. "Don't look so happy to see me."

"I'm gassed to see you." I eye the bucketful of good intentions next to him. "It's your deathtrap sidekick that I'm less thrilled about."

"We're a package deal, Vienna," he announces, stepping round the side of our resident Fredo.

I hum vaguely. One of these days, someone's gonna torch this car. I can't wait. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"I wanted to check in with you guys, and you've been AWOL all week," Michael points out.

I duck my head guiltily. "I'll nip downstairs tonight, I promise. I've got a Hail Mary's shift first, though."

Michael narrows his cool gaze. "'Course you do. Where's Tris?"

I lift a brow and nod towards the playground. "Presumably still up there. Where's your street cred? In pieces on the basketball court?"

He visibly deflates, but gestures disparagingly at the box tucked underneath my arm. "The fuck are those?"

"Kale crisps," I mutter glumly.

"Crisp is one word for it." He bites his lip as he peers more closely at them. 

"They look shit, I know," I say grievingly. "My own fault for trying to feed my brother less than eighteen grams of sugar."

"Don't say that, now I feel bad," Michael groans. "Fuck's sake, Vi, it's all fun and games till you saunter in with your emotional manipulation."

"Sorry, I'll just lie next time," I say flatly.

Tris spots us through the wire fence and waves fiendishly. Michael lifts a hand and Tris mumbles something to his friends that incites a round of snickers.

"God, we look more like siblings than you do," Michael muses as my little brother scarpers over.

I swallow roughly. He's not wrong. Tristan's all Mum – honey-streaked hair, snub nose, wide-set eyes with an earnestness which, two times out of three, can turn a jury. Katie was the same, though her gaze was always a little more shrewd.

I used to cry about it as a kid. I'd tug at my eyes and my nose and anything else I could see, desperately trying to reshape them. Mum would pull me onto her knee and tell me that my squarer jaw and tucked ears were just as beautiful, that I should be proud to be half-Thai. 

It worked, at least for a bit. But then I grew up. I found out that I didn't have enough of my father in me to sit with the Asian girls at school. I didn't get the jokes; I didn't have a rice cooker; I didn't know what galangal was. For all intents and purposes, I was white. The grey in my eyes and the sun in my skin sent me slinking back to my corner with my tail between my legs, wishing my father had been around to make his genes count for something.

"Are those kale crisps?" Tris gasps, tugging the box from my hands and ripping the lid off with a ferocity honed over many Christmasses. "Oh my God, these are God tier."

Michael carefully pops one into his mouth and eventually gives me a reasonable shrug. "Not bad for cinders."

I yawn, holding open the car door for Tris. "Go on, buddy."

"Buddy?" I hear Michael mutter as he swings into the driver's seat. "That's adorable."

"More adorable than this car, that's for sure."

"Is that any way to talk to your 'cousin'?" he asks as the engine sputters lamentably to life.

"After your performance on the court on Monday, I think you're disowned," Tristan says deploringly.

I turn to face the window, the shake of my shoulders betraying my shot at stoicism. 

"Listen, yeah," Michael says hotly, ignoring his car's screech of protest as he rounds a corner, "I was not built to shoot hoops. You ever seen a weedy blond guy in the NBA?"

"You ever seen a weedy blond guy get assassinated by a basketball?" I mutter. "It's more likely than you think."

Tristan bursts out laughing.

I smile guiltily as Michael's long fingers curl and uncurl around the steering wheel. "You guys are dicks," he says expressionlessly, tapping a moody staccato against the gearstick. "Tristan, I'd like to remind you that I only chaperoned your little date as a favour. I'd also like to explicitly state that I hate you both."

I cackle helplessly as the image of Michael shooting backwards onto the tarmac plays on a loop in my mind. Tris is doubled over in the backseat.

"That's it. You're never getting a lift again."

*

Brazen Williams. November 3rd. The Miller House.

"What the fuck, bro."

I roll onto my stomach on Dale's bed. "I know, right."

"I always thought Dale would be the one they'd write a book about," Caleb says thoughtfully. "You know there's a problem when Zen's life is getting interesting."

I throw a sock at him. It lands on his head with a soft flop, and Caleb slides it onto his bony foot with a quiet smugness that none of us could ever rival.

"How d'you get yourself into these situations?" Raphael asks, tipping half a can of ginger beer down his throat as he settles back against the dresser. "Like, I genuinely want to know."

"So, like... you could die?" Dale frowns, rubbing Savlon onto the cuts on his knuckles.

"I mean, yeah, but that's a risk we're all running. I could also die in a fire. Or a car crash."

When I look up, the four of them are staring at me with undisguised disdain in their eyes. I flatten my lips meekly, suddenly reminded of why I'd been putting off this conversation. "The bossman says it's not that likely?"

Caleb bursts out laughing. "You told Ink?"

I frown, slightly affronted. "He was actually really helpful!"

He snorts. "No kidding."

"That man is a nutter," Jonah says, shaking his head. It's the first time he's spoken since I told them. I examine his face as carefully as I can without looking like a twat; furrowed eyebrows, shrewd eyes and slightly pursed lips. He looks like a seventies sitcom housewife, which feels like a natural progression from his usual aesthetic of 'kid in a Tricolore textbook'.

"He reckons I've got a couple months until the Undead even, y'know, hit me up," I shrug. From the glares that follow I deduce that my attempt to feign nonchalance is not being well received, maybe because I'm about as good at faking it as I am at saying it.

"See, I don't understand that," Raph muses. "Like, how she gonna be a cult leader and them lot be the cast of The Walking Dead? I can't see zombies repping the Vatican anytime soon, know what I mean?"

"Whoever came up with these names," Dale drawls, "Needs to be fired."

I grin.

"Wait. Wait. FAM."

The four of us turn to Jonah, who has hauled himself onto his feet and is clutching onto Dale's dresser in an effort to stay there. Never skip leg day.

"What, dude?" Raph asks when it becomes clear that our expectant stares aren't fulfilling his quota of audience participation.

"The Priestess was the one behind all those knifings in the sixties, right?" Joe says quickly.

"Allegedly," Dale and I point out. He snickers and I wink at him. My guy.

"That was a solid, like, fifty years ago!"

Caleb offers up a series of slow, punctuating claps. "Sick one, Joe. Can you tell he does Further Maths?"

I cough to cover up my laughter as Jonah shoots him a look, desperately trying to hold our focus. "Guys. Fifty years, and she would've been at least our age at that point. That means she's, like, sixty, minimum!"

I frown, ninety-nine percent sure that his numbers are not adding up. We stare at him with half-cocked eyebrows and he groans as if we're the most tedious group of people alive.

Which, to be fair.

"Guys, the Priestess is old!"

Caleb looks at me flatly and I slowly shake my head. Raphael holds Joe's gaze with a quiet aggression. He's tight with his abuela. "Show me the ageism lawsuit. Go on."

"Yeah, man, ain't you seen Hoodwinked?" Dale argues.

Jonah deflates a little. "Yeah, but... like... it means Zen's got a chance, right?"

There is an uncertain chorus of dissent from the rest of the room.

"Wasn't the Godfather really old as well?" Caleb pitches in.

"Plus she's, like, pretty famous, so she's prolly doing something right," Raphael mumbles.

Joe purses his lips. "Well, I'm not prepared to just accept that this might be your last Christmas," he says spitefully, shooting Raph an unappreciative look. 

I swallow as the last of our laughter dries up.

"I'll figure it out," I say, not sure who I'm trying to convince. "Besides, it's not a big deal. Loads of people in Crossley owe someone their life, right?"

My well-intentioned comment garners me another round of disgustedly sceptical looks. I groan. "Listen, I'm trying."

"We know, dickface," Raph says grimly. "That's why it's sad."

I blink, trying to figure out at exactly what point I asked to be attacked.

"We'll find the money, bro," Dale says reassuringly.

I raise an eyebrow. "Nah, nah nah. You lot are not getting involved."

"Don't be a prick," Caleb says, examining the yellowing bruise on his elbow with morbid fascination. I worry about him sometimes.

"We're already involved, dumbarse," Dale yawns, stretching out on his bed. "We're your mates."

I open my mouth to protest and Dale stuffs his foot in my face. I shove it away and retch, wiping my mouth disgustedly as he bumps his fist against Jonah's.

"Why the fuck am I even worried about you dipshits," I mutter, glugging down my bottle of liquidised spinach. "Fuckin' tryna give me gonorrhoea, I swear down-"

"This geezer does Biology and he's talking about gonorrhoea? Mate, d'you know what the 'S' in STD stands for?"

"Of course not, he got laid, like, once," Caleb sniggers. "Actually, fuck that. Like half a time."

"Shut up Caleb, you can't even spell gonorrhoea," I sneer. "You're an insult to Asia."

"I mean, he's practically Mother Mary," Caleb ploughs on. "Are there statues of you in church, Zen? Do little old ladies call you Madonna?"

"Yeah, well, my dick is twice the size of yours. Dishonour. On. Your. COW."

We lock eyes and Caleb narrows his fractionally. "Don't make me go all Mushu on your ass."

"Arse," Dale whispers.

I scoff. "I'mma be dead in eight weeks, bitch. Don't at me."

"You know what?" Jonah cries, leaping to his feet and promptly falling to the floor again as his legs give way. Raph wordlessly lobs an ice pack at him. "Fuck this! Life's too short to be fannying around drinking vegetables!"

I hitch up an eyebrow. "Fannying?"

"Well, what the fuck do you suggest?" Caleb asks sceptically. "It's four pm on a Thursday and we all smell like ass."

"Arse," Dale says emphatically, flopping back onto his pillow.

"Well, I'm hungry," Raph shrugs, "And I need to pick up, so I'm about to get hungrier."

"I'm coming with," I add hastily. "I wanna talk to your cousin, if that's cool. About, y'know, protection and that."

Caleb gasps. "Zen, are you finally ready to start having sex?!"

"Shut up," I snap. "I literally might be shanked one of these days and I'd like to have a fighting chance."

"Next week, we can do some karate to cool down," Dale chips in.

Raphael and I groan. "Nice one, Zen," he grumbles. "This workout just became fucking fatal."

"I didn't ask to be blacklisted!" I protest. "Guys, do we really gotta do this every Thursday?"

Caleb stares at me pityingly. "Zen, do you want to die a scrawny, brittle little bird whose ego is bigger than his thighs?"

I falter. "Well... no..."

"Then we train every Thursday," Caleb says proudly, tilting his chin to the sky. "For Zen."

"For Zen!" The others echo.

I let out a long-suffering sigh. There's only one place that can fix this. "McDonald's. Now."

That sacred name is enough to send us out the door, our troop of green juices abandoned on the dresser without so much as a murmur of protest.

"Oh, wait, guys, I left my sock."

*

Vienna Castanoza. November 3rd. Hail Mary's.

I eye the reject waffles piled up by the larder and try not to cry. The amount of food waste you see working here is heartbreaking; I've been bringing home offcuts since the day I started. We've still got a stack of pancakes at home from my last shift, though, so I stuff my itching fingers into my jacket pockets before they can do any damage and slip out the back exit. 

The door to the alleyway swings shut behind me, revealing a head of seraphic blond hair and a similarly disorienting smile.

"Oh. Hello," I manage, scrabbling anarchic wisps of hair behind my ears with flustered fingers.

Dale lowers his fag, surveying me with unwarranted warmth. "Hi, Vienna."

I rock back and forth on my heels for a moment. "I'm sure you definitely didn't know this, but it's actually employees-only back here."

His eyes rove mine warily. "I had... no idea."

"Oh, I know," I nod gravely. "It's a good thing there's no one here to see it."

He rolls his eyes, glancing down at his fag hesitantly. "You're trying to quit, right? I can put it out."

I wave a hand dismissively. "Don't worry. I'm not doing a very good job anyway."

"You're trying," Dale reminds me, lifting it to his lips with quivering fingers. "God loves a trier."

I snort. "Like Satan loves a liar."

He blanches. "Is that the rest of that quote?"

"I dunno," I muse. "You here with Zen, then?"

Dale snorts. "Speaking of Satan?"

"That's not what I meant," I lie, kicking the weeds at my feet.

"He's tryna make amends with his mum," Dale says casually. "Buying her please-forgive-me coffee cake."

I hum approvingly. "Guess the world must be ending."

"Oi, we're leaving." A voice drifts over from around the corner. Moments later, like it's being tugged by a string, Jonah's oddly-rectangular head follows suit. "Hey, Vienna!"

"Alright, Joe?" I smile as he saunters over, lanky frame blocking the streetlights from view and throwing us all into momentary darkness. Two boys hover at his heels, glancing unsurely at each other as they approach what is quickly becoming the party of the century. It's been a while since I've been around so many white people.

"Guys, this is Vienna. Vienna, this is Raphael and Caleb."

Raphael is slight and frenetic, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and has his hair raked up in a man-bun that holds my interest longer than it should. He doesn't make eye contact, which I think is fair enough. Caleb is jacked, holding the slightly awkward proportions of a superhero, and East-Asian, which makes my heart wobble like a child's. My eyes flicker over Caleb's skin, pale enough to emit light, and I force myself out of my head. "Nice to meet you," I murmur, and I mean it.

"Guys, we going?" Zen comes to stand a few feet away, jaw pulsing with a hostility that will quickly become unrestrainable. He stares at me, waiting for me to flinch, so I lift my chin and hold his gaze with an indifference that triples my pulse.

"Yep." Dale grinds his fag into the ground and pushes back off the wall. It's left grit and grime all over his bomber jacket, but I realise that he probably doesn't care. "See you later, Vienna."

You most certainly will not, I think through a feeble smile. "Take care, guys."

Dale sweeps Zen out of the vicinity with the self-assurance of a matador. Raphael and Caleb trail after them, echoing each other's clumsy goodbyes, and my hands shake as I fist them into the lining of my jacket pockets.

"I'm sorry, man," Jonah sighs, throwing an arm around my shoulder in an awkward side-hug. "Zen said you were sick, we were meant to go Maccy's-"

"It's fine, Joe." I smile thinly. "He doesn't have to plan his life around mine."

"Neither do you," Jonah hisses, checking to make sure the others are out of earshot. "It's ridiculous. Even Diavolo doesn't vex him this much."

"Why do you guys say his name like that?" I frown. "Dee-a-voe-low."

"Spite," he grins. "For all the times he's made fun of Zen's name."

"The definition of stooping to his level." I shake my head, unable to keep my smile at bay. "Go on, your boys are waiting."

"Bois," he murmurs.

"Bois," I agree.

"He can't be angry forever, Vienna," Jonah says earnestly, walking backwards in what is frankly an ambitious move for a klutz.

"He definitely can," I laugh. "Now turn around before you hurt yourself."

"That's what she said," he grins, swivelling round in an unexpected show of obedience.

"That's not how that works!" I call.

I watch him walk away, hands tucked into his back pockets, and then I turn to stare down the back door of Hail Mary's with fraying resolve. I tug a strip of peeling paint from the doorframe and throw it to the ground. It settles over the remains of Dale's fag like a tombstone. 

With a guttural groan, I slap some lifeforce back into my cheeks and let the stifling heat of the kitchen swallow me whole. The reject waffles are gone, I notice, hopefully snared by another epicurean pirate rather than thoughtlessly binned.

"Ah, the prodigal son returns!" 

My eyelids flutter closed as I take a breath before turning to face Vikram, one of the other kitchen porters.

"Honey in your voice but vinegar in your eyes, Vikram," I sniffle, one hand clutching at my chest.

"You've been gone five minutes," he says, apparently unamused by my theatrics. You'd think hating three generations of the human race would make you less-than-ideal for the hospitality industry, but Vikram claims to have been working here since the beginning of time. The groaning jowls tugging at his jaw incline me to believe him.

"I was on a break," I say flatly. "You know we're allowed those, right? Actually, it's our contractual right."

He grumbles something that can only be irrelevant. I wonder how he'd respond if I sent him an ok boomer meme.

The dull ache that's been winding through my stomach all day suddenly subsides, replaced by what can only logically be barbed wire wrapping itself into a neat bow around my uterus. I suck in a breath and grab a plastic cup from the dispenser, fumbling in my pocket for the rest of my paracetamol.

"You shouldn't be in if you're sick," Vikram scolds. "You could infect someone."

"It's not contagious, Vikram," I hiss. "It's called menstruation."

He blanches and I feel a surprising amount of satisfaction. It's amazing how uncomfortable biology can make some people.

"Now if you'll excuse me," I say frostily, "The prodigal son has pancakes to flip."

*

"VIENNA!"

I close the door behind me, a rare giggle bubbling up past the surface as Jamie attacks me from behind. Jamie and Tris are two sides of the same adorably machismo coin, but it occurs to me that I should stop babying them before I stunt their emotional growth and set them on the incel route.

"Yo." I pat his back because that's as much of the hug as I can reciprocate when he's pinning down my elbows like this. 

"You're late," he says suspiciously.

I cock an eyebrow at him fondly. "Thursday's are double work days, remember?"

"Oh yeah. So how was it?"

I smile. "It was okay. Finally got to see Michael again. He says hi."

"Did'ja get any more tatts?"

I shoot him a look. "You know that's not what I do at work, Jamie."

"Mmhmm." He pretends to zip his lips with his left hand and I laugh. Then, gentleman that he is, he tugs my schoolbag off my shoulder and guides me to the kitchen island where Reagan is making tea. If only all the Jameses in the world were like this.

"Where's Tris?" I yawn, flashing Rea a grateful smile as she hands me my Master Oogway mug and the green-capped milk. I add enough to turn my coffee from Zen's eyes to Naman's skin and jolt at the thought, spilling milk on the counter. No, I scold myself, mopping it up with the cuff of my sleeve. No Naman. We don't know Naman.

Jamie pulls the carton out of my grasp and wordlessly switches it out for the blue milk. He hands this to Reagan, who rolls her eyes and pours a glass of it for her younger brother.

"Guys, seriously," I say, stirring my coffee loudly because it's just not as satisfying if you can't hear the clink. "Where's Tris?"

Rea smirks. "He's having a chat with Uriah about that girl in his class," she says, rolling her eyes, "Because, y'know, Uriah's so good with girls."

"He did have a girlfriend before he came out," I point out.

Reagan scoffs. "He was eight."

Jamie looks between the two of us, his brows knitted together angrily. "I think we're skirting around the problem here."

I raise an eyebrow, inwardly marvelling at his use of the word 'skirting'. "Farrah?"

Jamie scowls. "Yeah. Farrah."

I exchange a look with Reagan, and we both quickly swallow our smiles. "Don't tell me there's been a breach of the bro code."

Jamie's scowl deepens to a baby Zen level. "Don't even get me started."

"Don't. Even. Get. Me. STARTED." Reagan repeats, kissing her teeth as she turns back to the washing up.

I snort gracefully. We've been doing that bit since I was born. "So, how was your day, Jamie?"

He sighs, tucking a couple of chin-length braids behind his ear. Reagan tuts, immediately setting them free. Jamie swats her hand away with a single pointed karate chop, his eyes narrowing deviously, and the daily braid-styling war breaks out once again. Deciding to remove myself from this situation before my coffee becomes a casualty, I relocate to the living-room.

Reagan comes in midway through an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine wearing a very nervous smile. I raise an eyebrow and immediately click the TV off, setting the remote down in the saggiest dip of the sofa. She leans against the wall, pinning her hands behind her back, and swallows about eight times before finally looking me in the eye.

"Dude," I laugh, terror seeping into my voice. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" Reagan says hastily, tracing the textured wallpaper with quivering fingers. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"What's up?" I tuck my feet up and look at her expectantly.

"So. Um. You know I have that YouTube channel, right?"

"Um, no, I didn't, this is the first I'm hearing of it, actually," I say mockingly. "Of course I know. That latest mashup is king, by the way. I had it on repeat all through my free."

"What, the one with the Markham Loyell songs?" Rea frowns.

"It was so fucking good, man."

"Ha, yeah, he is an incredible artist."

"Don't you dare make this about him."

She grins bashfully. I swear, the only time this girl is shy is when we're talking about her successes. 

I roll my eyes, which seems to root her back to the conversation.

"Yeah, so about the channel," she says hurriedly. "Almost all the comments were about wanting to know more, like, about me and stuff." 

She's unpinned her hands and is now wringing them slowly. I've never not been the awkward one before. I could get used to this.

"I'm assuming the rest were Mark's fangirls declaring their unparalleled love for him."

"Oh yeah, naturally."

We grin because yeah, we furiously message each other every time Mark releases a single, but it's different. We connect with him on a cellular level.

It's different, I swear.

"So they were all asking me all these questions," she continues.

I nod, unsure what my role is in this conversation.

Rea smiles hopefully. "Well, a lot of people wanted to see a Sibling Tag. It's had a bit of a revival lately."

My throat chooses this moment to become the Sahara Desert. Thankfully, even my throat is an underachiever, so it peaks somewhere between California and a UK heatwave. "That's so exciting!" I squeak.

"Yeah," Reagan nods shyly. "So I just wanted to know when you lot were all free, because I wanna get it up before next Sunday."

I don't know why I don't manage to hide my surprise better. Seriously. Years of training for moments like these in the bathroom mirror, just down the drain.

"Vi," Rea grins wryly, "We've known each other a lifetime. You didn't honestly think I'd do a Sibling Tag without you two, did you?"

I stay quiet because obviously that's exactly what I fucking thought, Reagan, fucking hell-

"You," Reagan says flatly, "Are a twat."

I smile weakly. "I, um, don't have plans on Friday?"

Rea frowns. "Isn't there a party on Friday?"

I hitch up my eyebrows. "Keeping up with the Year Twelve gossip, are we?"

"You're so funny," Reagan sneers. I grin, because I really am. "Seriously though, aren't you going?"

"Party's next Friday," I yawn, slumping back into the sofa.

"You're going."

"We'll see. I'm not really feeling it. Might try and pick up a delivery shift." I don't mention that I'm trying to keep a low profile after Halloween. The less she knows, the better.

"Vienna," Rea says irritably. "You know you're not the only employee in the world, right? The economy isn't gonna collapse if you go to a fucking party. You ain't Atlas."

I roll my eyes. Man Googled Zeus one time and this is who she's become. "I'm fine. I don't even work, seriously. Half my life is spent staring at walls."

"Stop it," Reagan says abruptly, finally sitting down next to me. I bat my lashes and she furrows her brows sternly, apparently immune to my insurmountable charm. "Vienna, I don't want you to look back on your teenage years and only remember your pay cheques."

"It's not like it's debilitating," I frown. "It just, I dunno. It keeps me sane, man. I actually feel capable when I'm working."

We lock eyes accidentally, quickly looking away, and I feel the air shift. "When I'm at home, I just- I feel like I'm always failing something," I mutter.

The frown lines on her forehead crease even deeper. "I wish you guys would move in with us already."

"Rea, we basically live here anyway." I gesture lazily at the wall as if that in some way illustrates my point. It comes off looking like a 1D dance move.

"Is this about Katie?"

I wince and Reagan groans exaggeratedly. "Dude!"

"Look, she's coming back at some point," I reason.

"Vi, you're not even seventeen yet! It's illegal for you and Tris to be living alone-"

I splutter. "That's only because the flat's in Katie's name! And, okay, for several other reasons, but are we seriously pretending to give a fuck about the law right now?"

Reagan laughs even though I know she desperately doesn't want to. "Fine, that was a stretch. But aren't you guys... I dunno, scared, being down there by yourselves?"

I shoot her a look. "Of course I'm scared. I'm a fucking wimp. You know what it would take to scare me outta that place? A spider. That's it." I chuckle, mostly because nobody else is laughing. "Especially when Tris is home. I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to protect him if something happens?" 

Rea looks away guiltily, gnawing at the skin on her thumb, and I hastily attempt to salvage the situation. "But we have you guys," I point out. "We have family living right upstairs. We got so fucking lucky on that one."

We fall silent, the two of us staring holes through the carpet. It's rumpled. Uriah must have hoovered.

"It's just... scary," Reagan says quietly. She sighs again, heavier this time. "I wish we could all just be together. Safe."

"Mate, in the nicest way possible, this place is smaller than the shoe in that nursery rhyme."

She snorts. It's a testament to our shared childhood that she even knows what I'm talking about. "That's something I've never got. I mean, if she was a normal-sized old woman, then the shoe would've had to be wham."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Reagan, maybe she was Thumbelina's nana, I dunno."

"Anyway," she presses on, as if she wasn't equally responsible for the digression, "Uriah and I have been looking around. That new block opposite Thorncliffe Surgery is almost done."

I frown. "The one out past town? There's no way that's council."

"It is!" Rea says brightly. "We could put in an application. We wouldn't have to worry about the building collapsing under our feet which, I mean, massive selling point, plus it might get Tris and Jamie in the catchment area for better schools."

All my instincts to protest are switched off at the fuse with that last bit. Judging by the victorious pulsing of that neck vein of hers, she knows it.

"Rea, these flats are an absolute godsend," I say gently. "Secure tenancy, remember? Besides, we're finally out of arrears, between you and me and Uriah. And, um, Katie."

"Where is she now anyway?" Her forceful disinterest is less convincing than ever.

"Still Madrid," I muse. Reagan huffs furiously. "Hey, at least she's sending us money."

"That's not the point," Reagan scowls. "You can't just up and leave like that."

"She's not gone forever," I point out.

"Exactly!" Rea's off now, pacing around the coffee table like a maniac. We found it in a skip last October. James always said he'd cop us some wood stain to fix it up, but he never got around to it. Rea rams into the table with her leg and there's an audibly painful thud, but she continues to wear treads into the carpet. "What, does she think we're putting a price on forgiveness now?"

"She's still family."

"Family doesn't abandon you," Reagan says fiercely.

The last time Louisa was over - which, to be fair, was a long time ago - Rea told me that we reminded her of them. It's a trope that you see all over the media; the fierce black girl and the white-passing sceptic taking on the big bad world, needing less than half a syllable from each other to trigger laughter that could be heard from the next street over. 

Like most tropes, it doesn't hold a candle to the reality of it. Katie and Rea had built their entire lives around each other. When we were younger, they'd been each other's only constant - everything to each other that the world had tried to take away from them. So when Katie took off without a word of warning, she took most of Reagan's faith in humanity with her. 

"Family does not abandon you," Reagan repeats, tucking herself firmly into the sofa. "Katie and the rest of 'em can fuck right off if they can't see that."

I chew at my lip. I'm two breakdowns away from splitting the skin, I can feel it. "I'll talk to Tris. I mean, next year's their last year before secondary school - I doubt there'll ever be a better time."

Reagan exhales heavily. "And it's just nice to dream, y'know?" She pauses, toeing the carpet with a socked foot. "I mean, it's the only thing they can't tax. It's what keeps me sane."

"Nothing about you is sane," I grin, shoving her leg off the sofa. "But all this money talk is irrelevant since you'll be making bare coin soon anyway, what with your angelic voice."

"Don't act like it couldn't be you. There's a reason you write in my harmonies."

"Um, don't be rude. You know I'm the subversive tech support."

"Come on," she grins coltishly, leaping to her feet. "MTV released an interview with Mark about the whole hair bleach disaster and if I don't watch it within the next three minutes I may implode."

I roll my eyes, sneaking a glance at the sofa to check that I haven't turned it into Moses' playground, and follow her to the kitchen, trying not to think about whether Katie still likes Markham Loyell too. 

A/N. If you'd like to find out whether you like Markham Loyell, might I redirect you to Jailbreak by WittAndBeauty? Under renovation, but indisputably worth the read. ;) x