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Lucy hated to admit it, but this party had lived up to the hype There was a kind of joy and ca she’d seen at Geek shows Even if she ary of Gates’s tactics with the parents, as happening here was good for everybody Lucy looked up to the dark sky She didn’t see any parents, but it was so dark At least one of theuard up there They alere

"Let’s go to the fire," Lucy said, and pulled Bart toward thethe tower of wooden pallets and lumber It was pure destruction, but it was beautiful Lucy walked two steps closer than everyone else The heat pressed into her Whipping, snaking, furious tongues of fire filled her field of vision

"Can I get a sip?" Bart said

He took the bottle froht twinkled off the vodka that clung to the crevasses of his lips A gust of wind blew clouds of sparks off the fire The sparks spun past Bart He handed the bottle to Lucy and sonally across the fire fro the loose like that, just losing herself to the pleasure of the moment It didn’t seem so farfetched

"On a scale of one to ten," Lucy said "How lucky do you feel tonight?"

Bart’s eyes widened, clearly surprised by hoard she was being

"Pretty lucky," he said

She laughed

Move Kids fros shook their hands and slapped the way since their shaky start in the school Now, they walked through the quad like they were a real part of McKinley Like they’d always been there They look excited, giddy even

"Move back!" they shouted

A really young-looking Saint girl, maybe thirteen years old, walked up and ushered the Sluts back The Sluts complied since everyone else did, but they were surly about it The Saintsback at the crowd until thestrip, from one end to the other The crowd had been split into two halves

Gates ca The ani Gates on its back He held tight to a leash that was choking its neck and he suy," Bart said

Gates onlybefore he fell off the snarling beast The hog ran away, back into the crowd, squealing, and snorting The crowd parted wherever the hog ran

Gates got up, still grinning From where Lucy stood, Gates was framed by the column of fire behind him He wore a blue pinstripe suit with a crisp white shirt, although they were both stained with dirt now He pushed back his long white hair

"Welcouys likewas immediate, and it hurt Lucy’s ears

"That’s nothin’ Are you ready for the big surprise?" Gates said

The party cheered again, but they were drowned out by a loud, nasty, echoing gargle that caot a special delivery last night Top secret And, it’s a good one," Gates said

The Saints laughed and nodded to each other

The awful noise rattled like an angry chest cold, like a ot louder Closer The crowd started to worry, and Lucy was right with therowl closed in on the froap in the middle of the quad wider

Then Lucy saw it A blur ca out of one of the hallways, and rocketed across the cleared dirt road, blowing a froth of dust into the air behind it For a fraght in front of Lucy, and she could see it clearly

It was Will on a motorcycle

The hallas the barrel of a rifle, and Will was the bullet He crushed his fingers around the Harley’s handle grips He’d crossed the quad in a flash, and sped right into the opposite hallway People scattered ahead Terrified faces bolted past him, bodies leapt out of the way, kids flattened the on the sli The hallway ahead shook in his vision The bike was alive, vibrating underneath hiiant buzz saw

The hall ended at a T-junction with another hallway, and the hard wall rocketed toward hiers around it He strained, hooked his fingers around the brake lever and the clutch, and squeezed, but he turned the bar a little as he did it, and the bike began to wobble underneath hi experience waswith his cousin’s dirt bike one weekend He painted squiggles of rubber across the linoleum floor The tires shrieked like a hurt aniht it, but the ry with him, and threw Will off He crashed to the floor and the bike crashed on its side right behind him Will and the bike skidded down the hall like air hockey pucks His hoodie and T-shirt ripped away and the slide should have torn his skin up too, but Will had wrapped his entire upper body in duct tape, down to one inch strips around each of his fingers and fingertips

The heavy bike wasn’t slowing down It caught up with Will and pushed him forward The back wheel spun in his face At least they’d re of the floor as his body slowed down The bike cruised to a stop, and pushed hiently into the wall On the wall opposite Will was a photocopied party poster with his face on it

Will started laughing, it was just too funny Not only was this whole idea bat shit crazy, but he started to iine what the look would have been on David’s face if he had been at this party He would have had a heart attack

"Buddy, that was a!" Gates said as he ran up "Are you okay?"

"Think so," Will said