“What’s that supposed to mean?” I pressed my lips together. “It doesn’t even come close to answering my question. I mean, aren’t I taking a risk by making my villain softer, when everyone else in the class is going way hard with it?”

  Mr. Tart thought about it for a moment, and then he said, “You are, but I think that we should take the concept of taking risks and look at it in a different light. In this new light, it means that sometimes, there are movies where the bad guys make it to the end, and then they win. Think about your favorite horror movie, the real classics!”

  “Like the one where the guy keeps coming back to life?” Dad had liked that one. Even when it got kind of silly, and they sent him to space.

  “Sure,” said Mr. Tart, waving his hand. I got the feeling that he didn’t have any clue what movie I was talking about. He didn’t strike me as a horror-movie kind of guy, even if they were cult classics. “Like that one. Now, what do you watch those movies for?”

  “The blood, I guess. And because it’s fun seeing everyone get killed off.” It was a normal thing for any horror-movie buff to say. I only felt weird about it because I now had six kills of my own to deal with.

  Mr. Tart nodded; gold check mark, that was what he had been hoping to hear.

  “Exactly. It’s going to be the same thing with your illustration project,” he assured me. “People want to see your girl be bad. She is bad! And while she can have a friend, that friend shouldn’t be enough to make her good.”

  “What if I want her to be good?” Why was that so hard for these people to understand? I tried to reason with him, “Maybe she killed those other people, and she realized that trapping their souls didn’t make her less lonely after all.”

  I pulled the concept art of the old lady back up. Her smile was bright, but there was a significant lack of warmth to her eyes. I would have to work on that.

  “Look at her.” I pointed. “She’s supposed to remind Ghost Girl of her aunt, right? So she’s got all these souls trapped in dolls, and they haven’t made her happy. But she meets this woman, and then she goes, ‘Wow, hey, maybe I can just be a normal ghost and get a friend out of it!’”

  Mr. Tart frowned a little at that. “I don’t think that would work, Quinn. I see where you’re coming from, but I really think that it’s best to embrace the stars that your teacher added, and to try building the next part of the story up around them.”

  I made a frustrated sound. This wasn’t fair! I had come up with a great way to change things up. Weren’t genre switches supposed to be popular, anyway? This should have been a great twist! “It’s like a redemption arc, though. People like those, Mr. Tart. They’re super popular. Like—” I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a movie he would have recently seen. “Savage? Did you see that movie, with the hotel and the basement and then at the end, it turned out that the killer wasn’t really bad, and he was able to save the final girl?”

  Mr. Tart gave me a blank look.

  Okay, so he hadn’t seen that movie. I guess that fit with the trend of this town being way behind the times.

  “I just meant, you know, maybe she could be bad. But then she could be less bad,” I tried.

  Mr. Tart gave me the world's most placating smile. “I know that everyone isn’t a fan of these darker projects, but when it comes to this line of work… you know, most illustrators get very little creative say over the projects they're given.”

  My heart sank. They really weren’t going to let me change Ghost Girl’s personality. Even worse, now I had to try and keep her super evil with the old lady there. How was that even going to work?

  Mr. Tart continued, “I know that your goal is probably to draw your own work, and that’s amazing. One day, you’ll get there, too. I can see a lot of hidden potential in you, Quinn! You just need to know that when you first start out, you’re going to be working for someone. That person is going to tell you what they want out of the story. And that’s sort of what we’re looking to prepare you for with this project.”

  “But—”

  With a shake of his head, Mr. Tart shut me right up. He even went so far as to hold up a hand. I was a little stupidly relieved to see that he wasn’t wearing a wedding band; at least there weren’t any Dream Widow Tarts running around in my mind manor.

  “Quinn, I know things are hard. And you have made so much progress with the adjustments in your life.”

  My stomach sank.

  Oh boy, here it came. The upside to Mr. Tart was that he was cheerful and generally pretty easy to talk to. The downside was that he thought that he knew everything. The even bigger downside was that I had never once come in for one of these meetings and not had him bring up my dad.

  About two months ago, my house burned down.

  My dad burned down with it.

  That was the only reason I had been shipped off to live in the middle-of-nowhere, Texas with my grandparents. And it was the only reason that I was here, too. He brought it up literally all the time. It made me so mad. I could already feel that anger simmering under the surface.

  “But you have to keep pushing a little harder, to see if we can’t get this figured out. You’re going to be grasping for anything you can control.”

  “You aren’t a therapist,” I snapped at him. “Stop talking down to me.”

  He paused and a red flush went over his cheeks. “You’re right, I’m not a therapist. But I do know a thing or two about this industry, and about the way that this academy works. And these teachers, and this specific project. Which means that when I advise you to leave the stars where your teacher put them, it’s one that you should seriously consider.”

  Technically, I was supposed to finish going over all of the updates for the project I had made. I should have shown him the rest of the work that I had put together, the parts that were illustrations and the thumbs of sketches of the different locations I’d been working on.

  But I just closed the computer.

  “Fine, I’ll consider it,” I said, with a huff. I stood up, the legs of the chairs scraping backward as I began to pack my bag and my computer back up.

  “Quinn,” said Mr. Tart. “You shouldn’t leave like that. We have a lot of other things that we can discuss. We just need—”

  “I’m okay, the stars were all I needed,” I told him, just trying to get out of there. I was so clouded up with misery and anger, I needed to get out of the office before I said something to get me in trouble.

  I slammed the door, hard, as I left. Thankfully, the floor was empty. I was able to make a quick escape to the bathroom and slam that door, too. I wasn’t crying. I was just so angry that my cheeks had gone flush. The same upset was clinging to the sides of my neck, making me look like I had gotten too excited with the blush.

  I turned on the cold water at the tap, and splashed it up onto my face a few times.

  Deep breath in, I told myself. You wouldn’t care if it weren’t for that stupid dream. He’s right. You don’t get to pick these things out for yourself when you’re in the real illustration industry. You have to be okay with that.

  My reflection just kept scowling back at me, clearly not okay with it.

  “Yeah, right there with you, buddy.” I grabbed a paper towel and blotted my face dry, then started to work on fishing my lip gloss out of my backpack. I did a quick touch-up with it, made sure that my temper was at least a little bit more under control, and then headed back out.

  Just in time. The bell for the next class was ringing.

  Blowing my breath out so hard it made my lips wobble, I started quickly down the stairs toward the main floor of the school. The hem of my skirt fluttered against my legs; what would Tabitha want drawn? I hadn’t seen her since our chase on the stairs.

  Did I owe it to her to include a section of the world, just so she could have something nice? What would be nice for her? I knew the least about Tabitha. She had always been a bit withdrawn, and she had definitely been a bit scared of me.

  I hadn’t helped matters when—ugh! I was doing it again!

  Giving my head a physical shake, I forced my train of thoughts to derail. Crash! Straight into the next class instead. That was how the whole day went. Every time I thought about it, I got all angry again—and scared, and freaked out, and upset—until it felt like my emotions were just spinning around in the dryer.

  I was the one sock that kept getting left in there without a pair, or else I was the lint ball that no one bothered to fish out. And yeah, I know, whatever, forever, but it was hard when that forever had started to feel so lonely.

  The Fight

  Trevor could be summed up in just a few words: handsome, funny, and a heartbreaker. All those qualities might have contradicted each other a lot, but that didn’t make them any less true. The fact that he was the only thing in this town that didn’t fit in with the pattern elsewhere? That didn’t make it less true.

  His smile was killer as he made his way over to me, the late sunlight casting dapples of gold into his messy hair. Trevor wore the same boys’ uniform as everyone else; black and red plaid pants and a red polo shirt, with the school’s logo on the collar, but it somehow looked way better on him.

  Wait, no. Full stop. I should not be thinking stupid things like that!

  “Quinn,” he said, smile going a little soft at the edges. “I was hoping we would see each other today. I missed you in Illustration class.”

  All I could picture was what he looked like mottled in bruises. What he looked like burned to a crisp. Bloodied. With a silicone face, with a lantern held in one sculpted hand, out in front of him. Real fire. Fake fire. It flashed like a terrifying montage through the back of my brain; the section of my mind that used to imagine what it would look like when a monster crawled out from under my bed.

  I hadn’t actually seen it.

  I had been too much of a coward to look, after throwing that lantern. But I had heard it. The way he screamed. The crackling, popping of the fire. And I had smelled it, too. The fat in the air had turned my lips waxy, and the scent had been gut churning.

  It was the only kill I regretted; not because Dream Trevor hadn’t deserved it—he had! But because he had died the same way that my dad had died, burned up to a crisp, and the thought of that kind of made me want to puke.

  Well, I couldn’t tell if it made me sick, or if I wanted to give him a couple of hard whacks in this world too. No fire. Just a couple of good smacks upside the head. Needless to say, he wasn’t forgiven.

  It was the end of the school day and everyone was gathered outside, ready to go home. There were other kids milling around, but none of them were paying me a lick of attention. They were all too busy talking with their actual friends.

  I could hear the snippets of conversation. One of them said, “Dog boy gets back out in a few months.”

  Another one laughed and told them, “There’s no way that they’re going to let Mikey out. I heard he stabbed someone.”

  “He didn’t stab anyone. He just stole a bunch of stuff from the Stop N Shop.”

  “They aren’t going to ship you off to juvie for two years just because you stole a couple bags of chips.”

  Mysterious Mikey. I had heard about him a couple of times. He was the biggest piece of gossip in the school, even though he got shipped out of the city two years back. That just showed how little ever happened here.

  I turned away from him, crossing my arms over my chest. I didn’t have any friends. Trevor, he had been my one hope when I moved here—and I had really quickly realized that he was just as bad as all of the others.

  “You don’t normally take the bus.” Trevor sounded overly pleasant, like he was putting in effort to avoid upsetting me. Too late. Just having him this close to me was enough to put me in a sour-lemon kind of mood.

  I chewed on my lower lip. “It’s too hot to walk.”

  God, why did I even bother answering him? That was way more than he actually deserved.

  Trevor nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty up there today. Just wait until summer hits. It’s like a whole different place. Kind of like we’re on the sun.”

  “Great. So in Maryland, when the summer hit it was beach weather, and fun. And out here, when summer hit, it was enough to melt tarmac and fry eggs. That was totally what I wanted to hear,” I snapped. “Look—did you need something?”

  Trevor glanced down at his glossy black standard uniform dress shoes. He scuffed one of them over the sidewalk, shoulders bouncing in a shrug. He didn’t seem to want to meet my eyes.

  That was fine.

  Whatever, forever. I didn’t need Trevor to be my friend. I didn’t need anyone to understand the pictures I was drawing, or my vision for the story, or anything else.

  I pursed my lips and said nothing. Mentally, I tried to will him to leave.

  It didn’t work.

  “Listen.” He finally lifted his head up and looked me in the eyes again, but there wasn’t that overly fake warmth this time. It was a softer look. Hopeful, almost. “I… am really sorry. But I meant it when I said I want to be your friend. So maybe, if you want—”

  “I don’t,” I interrupted, sharply. I wiped sweat off of my forehead, and tucked my pink curls behind one of my ears. “I don’t want anything to do with you, Trevor. Do you know why? Because you’re just as bad as everyone else in this school.”

  “I’m really not,” he promised. “I know it must have seemed like that, but I really do think you’re cool, Quinn. I liked the story that you were making, you’re funny too, and…” he let his sentence trail off, then mumbled, “pretty.”

  I scowled at him. “You aren’t getting into my grandparents' basement.” I wasn’t letting him manipulate me that easy.

  He held up both hands, like he was trying to appease me. “That’s fine! I don’t even want in there anymore. I was just thinking that, you know, what you said before? It was right. We didn’t do any art, or hang out together at all. And I just thought that maybe… Maybe you would want to change that?”

  My eyes narrowed. I looked him over hard, trying to figure out if he was lying or not. He didn’t look like he was making it up.

  But I had thought that last time, too.

  Before I could make my mind up about Trevor one way or the other, the girls of my nightmares showed up in all their glittery, popular, pink glory.

  “Trevor, what the hell are you doing talking to this freak?” Alice was tall, skinny, and blonde. She always wore heart-shaped glasses and her nails were a different shade of pink every day, it seemed.

  I had stabbed her to death in the dream world. She was the first one I killed. When she spoke to me like that, it made me want to do it again. I could remember what it had felt like when her blood splashed on my skin. It had been hot, and wet, and perfect.

  My mouth was watering. My hands dropped down to my sides, fingers curling into tight white-knuckled fists.

  “Alice,” Trevor started, but there wasn’t time for him to finish the sentence.

  Alice’s best friend and constant cohort, May, chimed in, “If you aren’t careful, you’re going to catch what she’s got!”

  Also in my dream world, May had been pushed out a window. Crack, the glass had gone. Crack, just like my patience. She had gone out the window and then floated off into nothing, because the house was the only thing in the story I had drawn.

  Molly had asked me to change that. So did Harry. A circus. A garden. Places to go and visit. But in my dream, it had just been the house.

  “Don’t push me,” I warned. I could push her again. I wanted to push her again. I wanted to send her straight out into the road, so she could get hit by a bus. It would almost be like sending her flying all over again.

  “Oh, so scary,” teased Alice. “Don’t push you?”

  May cackled, “Why would we do that? You might turn us into a lump-fest, like you did Mrs. Kapow!”

  My cheeks went flush.

  Alice continued, “You already made us into weird characters in your story.”

  “They aren’t you,” I countered. “But I’m glad to know you’re that full of yourself. Do you think any blonde that you see is your copy? It must be hard walking through the store when they have a Barbie promotion going on.”

  Alice’s brows furrowed and her pretty little nose wrinkled up. Even when she was angry, she was still lovely to look at. She slid the pink-tinted heart-shaped glasses she was always wearing up onto the top of her head.

  “You run your mouth a lot for a loser,” she snarled. “Maybe you should start trying to blend in here more, before something happens to really make you stand out.”

  May let out a tittering laugh.

  “Is that a threat?” I demanded.

  Trevor grabbed for my wrist, but I pulled away. “Come on, Alice. Knock it off.”

  “Stay out of this, Trevor. And get some better taste.” May snorted. “All the people in this school, and you’re going to fawn after this pink-hair nobody here?”

  That was it.

  I couldn’t take it.

  For two days now, I had been battling to keep my anger in check, and now—now I knew there was no way I could. My arm jerked up and backward before I even knew what I was doing, fingers balled up into a fist.

  May squeaked and jerked backward, her arms flying up to protect her face.

  “What in blue blazes is going on here?” Mr. Germander shouted from out of nowhere. He was the head of the theater department, and I was pretty sure that he was an improv teacher, too. He had a beer belly, and a southern drawl. A bull-head-shaped belt buckle stood out at the front of his pants, where his white and black pinstriped shirt had been hastily tucked in.

  My arm dropped.

  May shrieked, “She tried to hit me!”

  “You deserved it,” I screamed, and I did it so loud that it hurt my throat. My cheeks were red with anger. People were staring at me, but I didn’t care. “Someone ought to have done that ages ago!”

  Trevor tried to insist, “It’s not what it looks like, Mr. Germander. And Quinn didn’t even actually do anything!”