They call out to me.

  “Holly!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s only a joke!”

  I block it all out and focus on my car.

  I get inside, get going.

  The tires don’t kick up dirt and gravel, but they probably should the way I tear out of there.

  I don’t look back.

  Yellow lines. Dead leaves. Headlights. I see it all through the blur of tears as I finally realize the inevitable: The world will soon know the truth. There’s nothing at all I can do to stop that.

  My life is over.

  Like Cole’s. Exactly like Cole’s.

  Jesus!

  He should be alive. I shouldn’t have—

  I breathe. Deep and long. I can’t fall for that sort of thinking.

  I spend the rest of the drive focusing on breathing, on trying to keep myself calm. When I turn onto my road and see my house in the distance, I tell myself what I know to be true. Ending Cole’s life was the right thing to do. The best thing to do. The only thing to do. Even if I feel awful about it.

  Feeling awful is what makes me a good human. And as a good human, I know I have to confess. Be honest, but on my own terms. Help the world understand why I did what I did. Forget about Grayson and Logan. Because I am not part of that team anymore. I saved Meeka’s life and now there is only my life left to save.

  I will control this thing.

  This doesn’t make me feel less awful about what I did, but it makes me confident in what I’m about to do. I’ll talk to my parents. They’ll hire a lawyer, who’ll help guide my confession. I’m sure we can find a way out of this. It might not be a total victory, but I’ll get through. I’ll get on with my life.

  I take some long slow breaths as I pull into the driveway.

  I pull out my phone and I open Twitter. I know my phone is not as safe to use as an anonymous computer with a school IP, but I have to do this now. My plan is to delete the account and anything else that might prove to be a liability. That way I can control my confession, but . . .

  No.

  No!

  NO!

  It’s too late.

  Because there’s a response to my DM. Only two words show up on my notification:

  Hey psycho!

  There’s a pic attached.

  LOGAN

  I TAP OUT AN EMAIL to the journalist Kameela Stokes, who helpfully included her email address in her byline. My subject line is Boy Seeking Boyatee.

  Dear Ms. Stokes,

  I am a high school student in Plainview, Vermont, who is doing a project on memes and I came across your article on the Boyatee. It was very good. I’d be interested if you have any updates on him: what he’s up to now, where I might find more information about him, that sort of thing. Anything you can pass my way would be a great help.

  Kind regards,

  Logan

  P.S. You may be interested in my important work with Logan’s Heroes. I’ve included a link to more information below.

  There’s no doubt that Holly would reprimand me for using my real email and real name, but I’m not too worried about it. This is a big-time journalist who probably lives in New York or LA. She’s not going to be suspicious of some kid all the way up in Vermont who’s doing a high school project. She’ll either ignore me or humor me and get on with more important things.

  Of course, I know she’s not going to dox the kid—that’s against journalistic ethics and the stated intentions in the article—but if she does humor me with some new tidbit, she might confirm what I suspect.

  I suspect the obvious. That Cole is the one who turned that Boyatee video into a meme. Or, at the very least, he’s the one who first spread it. Why else would he be so obsessed with the thing? I’m thinking Gus Drummond might’ve even been involved too. Because the height of the Boyatee meme was about three years ago. Freshman year, when he and Cole were best friends. Those guys always knew where to find the craziest stuff online. They called each other the Meme Gods of the Meme Empire or something like that. It seemed harmless enough, but I wasn’t hanging out with either of them then. Maybe they were more vicious than I could ever imagine.

  I know Gus a little bit. When he moved to town in sixth grade, I went to his place a few times and played Zelda. He lived in a town house, which seemed weird. I thought only old people lived in town houses, but it wasn’t the first or last time I’ve been wrong about something. Gus, his sister, and his mom spent their days and nights in a three-bedroom unit next to the golf course. There was a community pool and tennis courts. It seemed pretty cool back then, but the idea depresses me now. They shared their walls with someone else. They didn’t have their own yard. That’s not a home. And I’m pretty sure they still live there.

  I have a couple classes with Gus this year. Physics and English. He’s pretty good at physics, but English is where he shines. I remember he said something really insightful about The Catcher in the Rye and how it was a hero’s descent into the underworld, similar to ones in Greek mythology. Mr. Huntington was impressed, but I’ve always known Gus was into mythology and ancient cultures. He was the first kid in our class to read all the Percy Jacksons. His backpack was always weighed down with books on Egyptian pyramids and Norse sagas. He had posters on his bedroom wall of mythological family trees, and he always dressed as some sort of god for Halloween. His full name is Augustus, and he likes to remind people it’s the name that all Roman emperors adopted.

  I wouldn’t call Gus a nerd necessarily, but he’s always been a bit odd. Or quiet, though not in a skeevy loner way. I think he ran cross-country for a little while. I’m not sure if he still does. All in all, I’m pretty sure he’s a good kid, though the fact that he was Cole’s best friend makes me believe they must have had some things in common, which doesn’t reflect well on him.

  It stands to reason that they are the ones who caused the Boyatee’s suffering. And it certainly stands to reason that they—or Cole, at the very least—is the target of the Boyatee’s vengeance. I could ask Gus about it, I suppose. But involving him at this point would be foolish.

  It’s better to go directly to the source.

  * * *

  • • •

  Walk like a man, talk like a man, walk like a man, my son . . .

  I’ve been driving for a few hours and the song is still there, a full infestation. I need a break from it and I’m hoping some other music might chase it away. I tap on the radio, but it’s tuned to NPR and they’re talking politics. I tap it off, because it reminds me of Senator Barnes and the mountain of things I have yet to do.

  I keep driving. Past the rail trail lot. Along the Malvern Loop near the back of Meeka’s property. I feel like I should go until my gas runs out. It’ll mean I have a little more time left without having to face whatever comes next.

  I’ve done this before.

  In the past, when I’ve felt overwhelmed or nervous, I’d drive, for hours sometimes. And when I’d get low on gas, I’d almost always end up outside of Holly’s house. During our on-again, off-again period, I used to park along the road—about ten yards past her long, snaking driveway—and I’d message with her. She didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t tell her because it might’ve freaked her out. Being physically closer to her made me feel emotionally closer. I wouldn’t call it stalking. I had no bad intentions and I wasn’t peeking in her window or anything.

  I don’t want to be at Holly’s now. I’m not sure where I want to be. My head is a—

  I slam the brakes.

  What the hell was that?

  I saw something in the woods. Something big. And gray. Or was it white? Flashing through the trees, leaping even, like the kid. Like, I don’t know what. Like a . . . monster?

  I pull over and put the car in park, but I leave it running. I push open the door.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing. No birds, not even wind rustling the blankets of fallen leaves. I wish I had a flashlight so I could stab it through the trees. But all I have is my headlights, and all they’re showing me is the road and the ditch alongside it.

  I close my eyes for a second. I take a breath. My head is a festering mess. Thoughts like spiders, like rats, like . . .

  I need some sleep. I need to go home.

  * * *

  • • •

  I don’t go home. I pull up to Esther’s house instead.

  I check my email—no response yet from Kameela Stokes. Oh well, probably won’t be any response. A big shot like her must have an overflowing inbox.

  I’d like to sit here for a few minutes, to luxuriate in the silence. But that’s not possible. Because there’s music. It’s coming from a rusty van that’s idling in the driveway.

  There are voices too, an argument, followed by tires on gravel. The van backs into the road at a speed that’s, quite frankly, dangerous. And now the music is blasting. Sounds like a jam band, which fits the vehicle. As does the driver.

  It’s the guy with the dreads. I don’t know if he sees me, but I get a good look at him before he drives off. He’s got that vibe that addicts have. The one Cole’s mom had. Something about his eyes.

  When I turn back to the cluttered and weedy driveway, I spot Esther. She’d been hidden by the van, but she’d obviously been there the whole time. Arguing with that . . . dude.

  She’s staring at me right now, and walking toward my car, and I’m staring at her and smiling, but I’m not entirely happy. While I know I came here to see her, I wish I had a few more moments alone, to sit and imagine impossible scenarios. The type where everything is normal and she’s my girlfriend, where the comfort I seek from her isn’t about distracting myself or saving myself. It’s about bettering myself. I feel like she’s the type of person who makes other people better.

  Tap tap tap.

  She’s at the passenger-side window, her gorgeous knuckles rapping the glass. And she’s all smiles. She’s not mad or creeped out for me showing up like this. She seems genuinely pleased to see me.

  “Logan, my good man,” she says as she opens the door and slides into the passenger seat.

  “Yes, I’m good,” I say. “A good person. Very good person.”

  It’s a weird thing to say and I say it weird, at least that’s what the confusion on her face indicates. “Everything okay?” she asks. “Because you look a bit—”

  “Exhausted,” I tell her. “Too much to do.”

  “I hear ya. Including trying to track me down, right? It’s a full-time job. Tweety told me you stopped by yesterday.”

  The guy’s name is Tweety. Of course it is. “Yeah, I—”

  “I own a phone. I’ve got, like, Insta, Snap, everything,” she says.

  “I realize that. It was . . . I was driving around and, you know, thought I’d pop by again. Sorry to scare you, but I was out here checking my messages before—”

  “No, it’s me who should be sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear stuff like that.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I say, which is the truth.

  “It was nothing. Tweety is . . . nothing.”

  I appreciate her saying that, even if it sounds callous.

  “Life has its challenges,” I tell her.

  “Hell yeah it does,” she says, and then she pats my knee, and her voice switches over to the flawless accent of a charming Southern debutante. “But you are not a challenge, dear Logan. You are an adventure. And I’m positively flattered you stopped by. Young ladies don’t have the opportunity to entertain gentlemen callers as much as we would like.”

  Along with being a computer genius, she stars in all the school’s theatrical productions. The girl is a wonder and I’m sitting with her, alone in my car, and I could lean over and kiss her and she’d probably kiss me back and that’s an amazing feeling, but not enough to knock away the other feelings crawling around inside me.

  “Not sure how entertaining this will be,” I say, “because this gentleman caller is mostly looking for a little tech support.”

  “How positively fascinating,” she says with a hand on her chest, and then she goes back to her regular voice, which is even more flawless and charming. “No joke, though, how can I be of service?”

  “Well,” I say, like this is off the top of my head, even though I’ve been practicing it. “What if I had an enemy?”

  “You? An enemy? Oh no, that can’t be. You’re too sweet.”

  “I’m being serious,” I say. “Say there was someone who hated me, and they wanted to hurt me and Logan’s Heroes. You know, like, get revenge on us. And say I had all my files and financials stored on a cloud service. Could they, like, hack into it?”

  As soon as I say it, I realize that even though it’s rehearsed, it sounds breathtakingly ignorant. But Esther humors me.

  “If they have, or could guess, a password, then of course,” she says. “That’s hardly hacking.”

  “Okay, then what about a hard drive?” I say, because I’m still wondering about what’s on Cole’s Heart. “What if all the data was captured and stored on a hard drive?”

  “I’d need to know more about this hard drive,” she says. “Is it connected to a network?”

  I shrug.

  “You don’t know if your very important hard drive is on a network?”

  “I mean . . . someone else set it up.”

  “So ask that person,” she says. “But if it’s networked and that network has vulnerabilities, then sure, someone could hack in. There are kids in hack club that would be up to the task. Penny Kim, Gus Drummond . . . me. I’d need more information to know exactly how they’d do it, though.”

  I nod. “I guess I need more information too.”

  “This isn’t about that picture of you guys that’s going around, is it?”

  “What? No. That’s . . . we started that whole thing. You know, self-deprecation?”

  “Actually, I have no idea what self-deprecation means, but then again, I’m the world’s biggest idiot,” she says with a wink.

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re the universe’s biggest idiot,” I say, and I wink back.

  She smiles and says, “Seriously, I do feel pretty stupid sometimes. At least compared to you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I mean, look at you. You’re making waves. You have a purpose. And me, I can’t even figure out how to get outta this place.”

  “Get outta where? Your home?”

  “The town, the state, the whole country. It’s all going to shit. It’d be great to start over somewhere with a whole new identity. That’s what I need.”

  To be honest, I’d never needed that before. But right now, you’d better believe I’m warming to the idea.

  “That sounds so much . . . easier,” I say. “It’s the opposite of stupid.”

  “If you have the money,” she says. “A big ol’ ‘if.’ It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

  I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I take the case off it and show her that I have ten dollars hidden inside.

  “Enough?” I ask.

  She smiles and says, “Almost.”

  And then we sit there, looking at each other and smiling. It’s an amazing moment. The best. It clears my head and fills my heart and, yes, this is the time to lean in for that kiss. Now or never, right? But just as I start to, she says something I don’t expect. At all.

  “If you don’t mind, could you tell me the best way to contact Grayson?”

  I whimper, but not out loud. In my heart. And I ask, “For . . . what?”

  “Just because.”

  “Just because?”

  “Just because.”

  And she shrugs and my heart takes a dive off a cliff.

  Did I completely misread the vibe she was giving me? Is my head in that bad of a place?

  But what can I do now? I check my phone for Grayson’s contact. I could give her his number. So she could do what with it? Call him or text him and hook up with him instead of me?

  I know he has a Facebook profile that he never uses. He once told me the only reason he created it was so he could use Spotify. His profile pic is of some partially clothed porn star, which he probably thinks is hilarious. I wonder what Esther will think.

  “You should try him on Facebook Messenger,” I tell her, and I hold up my phone to show her his profile. “He uses it all the time.”

  “Cool,” she says. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Of course, the moment is completely ruined. “I should go home,” I tell her.

  She smiles and says, “See you around, Logan.” Then she disappears, slipping out the door and back to the belly of that decrepit house.

  I should go home. I should, but I won’t. I can’t wait around worrying and hoping for any emails. I have to act.

  I have to go back to the trailer.

  GRAYSON

  A HORSESHOE HANGS above the door to the sugarhouse. Wish I could say it’s made of silver or platinum or something worth some cash, but I’m pretty sure it’s aluminum. Dad put it up there a long time ago and that’s where it’s stayed. Good luck, they say. I could use some.

  I pull a cinder block over to the door, stand on it, and take the horseshoe down off the nail. Yep, aluminum. It’s light as hell and I spin it around my wrist as I go inside.

  I know I should be on my tablet or phone, figuring out what this Cavalry website is all about and how our picture ended up there, but I’ve got too much nervous energy. That shit with Gus has me all keyed up and the only thing that’ll help is doing something with my hands. Besides the shop at school, the sugarhouse is where I do most of my work, at least when we’re not in sugaring season.

  There’s this black bear piece I’d been messing around with a few weeks ago, and that’s what I’d been planning to work on. But with this Cavalry shit on my mind and this horseshoe calling out to me, plans have changed.