Chapter 1

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The cold December wind whipped at Katey’s long, chestnut brown hair. Her chin rested atop her folded arms over her bent knees, clear green eyes staring into the expanse of forest ahead of her. From the steep, grassy slope behind the Crestucky library, she studied the way the morning light filtered through the swaying pine branches, attuned to every slight movement in the underbrush. Here, in the quiet and away from the rest of the world, she found a tiny sliver of relief. She hoped it would rekindle some part of her spirit that had begun to slowly fade over the last several months, but no such luck. 

She filled her lungs with the Florida winter air and sighed. Any girl might have been ecstatic for her eighteen birthday, but Katey felt nothing. For years, she waited for this day and now, it felt so anticlimactic. She had fantasized about when she would age out of the foster care system and finally be on her own. Social workers had prepared her for the reality of this milestone, and she researched her options. Though Katey had some time before making the leap, since her foster mother agreed to let her stay under her roof until the end of her senior year, the excitement couldn’t touch her now. It was as if she were in a bubble, her senses dulled to the world around her, unreachable and disconnected. Each day, she put on her mask, complete with a fake, cheery disposition, but inside, she was dying. 

Once more, the aching emptiness stole her breath and reminded her that something was missing. Ever since she was a child, she knew her life could never be normal. Jumping from foster home to foster home taught her that nothing in life was as good as it seemed, or nearly so permanent. Yet, more recently, the loneliness got to her. She used to pride herself on being so strong. The adults called it “resilience.” She considered it the refusal to cry when they told her to pack her clothes in a black trash bag for the fifth time. 

Katey’s fingers gripped the sleeves of her hoodie as she willed herself to stay grounded in the moment. If she allowed her thoughts to slip into that dark hole, she may not be able to crawl back out again. 

The rumble of a car engine in the parking lot behind her brought her back into the present. She pulled out her phone to check the time and cussed under her breath. The first period bell would ring in five minutes and there was no way she’d make it before the tardy bell. She jumped to her feet and bolted into a run for her jeep. 

A sprawling town centered on the crossroads between two highways, Crestucky had been Katey’s home all her life. She thought few foster kids could say that. She and her friends blew so much smoke, saying that as soon as they graduated, they’d leave this small town and find some place more exciting. Independence was just around the corner, and though Katey was more than ready to leave, she didn’t have a solid plan. Not yet. 

As predicted, the high school parking lots were full and Katey had to snitch an empty faculty parking stall, nearly all the way on the other side of the campus from her first period class. With her messenger bag banging against her hip, Katey sprinted her way toward the main building and down the vacant halls until she reached Mr. Dubose’s classroom. 

She paused, her hand on the door handle. It was so unlike her to be late and she dreaded the way everyone’s eyes would turn to her the minute she walked in. She didn’t really care what the other students thought of her, just what her teacher would say. 

“No point in delaying the inevitable,” Mr. Dubose called from inside the classroom. “You’re fifteen minutes late.” 
He must have spotted her through the narrow door window as she walked up. Katey braced herself and entered. Mr. Dubose’s classroom resembled a chemistry lab, with rows of eight-foot tables set up in two columns to serve as desks. Along the back wall were sinks and cabinets for storing supplies and equipment. Mr. Dubose taught environmental science during this period, but she wondered if he taught chemistry or biology throughout the day. 

At the head of the classroom sat Mr. Dubose’s desk, neatly organized with an open laptop. A projector screen hung behind his desk and concealed a blackboard that he never used. Her favorite teacher leaned against the front of his desk, arms folded over his broad chest as he watched her with wise brown eyes. His dark hair was cut short, and unlike his full beard, showcased the subtle hints of age with silver threaded around his temples. 
His button-down shirt, tucked into a pair of dark slacks, and sleeves pushed up to his elbows showcased a body better representative of an athlete than a middle-aged high school teacher. At the beginning of the year, she heard other students mutter about how ripped Mr. Dubose was, and how he must have worked out after school or played some sort of contact sport over the weekends. Katey, however, couldn’t imagine him in any other setting. His professional attire never suggested him to be the kind of guy that would exert himself like that, leaving his physique an ongoing mystery. 

Above all, Mr. Dubose conveyed an air of authority that may have intimidated some. To her, it was comforting. His classroom was a safe harbor, a place she felt she could run if she needed help, though the situation never arose. Here, even under his disapproving stare, Katey’s tight chest slowly decompressed, and she could breathe easier.

He jerked his chin toward desks in the very front row. “Take your seat, Miss Katey.”

Mr. Dubose’s accent sparked even more whispers amongst the class. His voice held a distinct, yet recognizable British accent. During their orientation, he answered the usual probing questions he received every year, telling his prospective students that he came from a place called Warminster in Britain, but would disclose no further details of his childhood or past life in the United Kingdom. Katey burned with curiosity, but refused to test his limits and ask, as so many did in the first couple of weeks of school. 

Beside her sat Beth, one of her oldest friends from junior high. Environmental Science was the first period they shared since freshmen year, and she hoped this would give them a chance to rekindle their friendship, though their lives seemed to divert in two very different directions. Beth had quickly fallen in with the goth crowd, and her daily choice of dress showed it plainly. Though they shared similar interests in music, Katey wasn’t bold enough to plunge into Beth’s kind of lifestyle. She doubted that she could pull off the thick, black eyeliner and studded jewelry in the same way that Beth could. Neither could she judge Beth for her choices. At least she found a place to fit in. Katey preferred to stay unnoticed, unimpressive, and slip between the rigid, defined lines of high school social groups. If she didn’t plug into a clique, then it’d be easier to disengage when the time came to leave. 
As Katey dropped in her chair, she let the mask settle into place. The soul-crushing darkness lurking beneath her calm expression couldn’t be brushed aside, but she could veil it for the day. Like tossing a blanket over clutter on the floor or draping a towel over a puddle of vomit, Katey could pretend that the mess in her soul didn’t exist, just for a little while, and no one else would know it either.  

Katey met her teacher’s stare and noticed a shift in the way he watched her. His dark brows pinched together ever so slightly, as if in concern for something he couldn’t understand. Katey stiffened, trapped under his gaze like a mouse caught between the paws of a cat, for what stretched like an hour.  What did he see? Was it about her being late or did she wait too long to don her mask? Something in his eyes demanded honesty, demanded a full explanation for whatever it was he thought he saw. Part of her was willing to give it. The other wanted to run back out the door.

Don’t say anything. Don't say anything, she mentally begged him. It was too early and her nerves too raw. If just one person, especially him, were to ask if she were okay, she was liable to break down in tears.

As soon as that strange look appeared, it was gone, and Mr. Dubose turned back to the class, allowing Katey to release the breath she had unconsciously held. No longer the subject of his intense interest, Katey had the time to smother her depression even further. She bolted her mask firmly in place and tucked away the edges of her sadness so it wouldn't show to anyone else who cared to look too closely.

Katey barely paid attention to Mr. Dubose’s review of the subject of population change until he turned on the projector hanging from the ceiling and a slideshow faded into focus on the dropdown screen behind his desk. About that time, he took up a yardstick that he often used as a pointing aid during his lectures and turned to regard another senior in the front row on the other side of the room. He slowly strode toward her, like a lion stalking its prey, and Katey noticed the way her head was bent low and the faint glow of a screen on her face. The student was furiously typing out some message on the phone hidden in her lap when Mr. Dubose smacked the flat end of the yardstick on the tabletop in front of her. She jumped and the class laughed at her expense. 

“Kindly pay attention when I’m talking,” Mr. Dubose said in a humorous tone. “It might be more important than your relationship drama.”

The girl gave him a sheepish look and snapped her phone shut before slipping it into her pocket.

Mr. Dubose returned to stand beside the projector screen. “As I was saying… In nature, groups or families of certain species live in tight-knit units, looking after each other as a whole and the individual. But when resources become short or environmental conditions grow intolerable, that bond can be broken easily.” 

He pointed his remote to the projector and clicked for the next slide. The image of a dueling pair of wolves appeared over the blue slideshow background. Some in the class made disapproving sounds at the bared fangs and bristling hackles. 

“For example,” he continued, “In a pack of wolves like we’ll see on the video, the alpha male will kill the omega wolf for food for the rest of the pack.” He paused and swept an expectant look across the class. 

Unsure of what possessed her to do it, Katey spoke up. “No, they wouldn’t. Even though the omega wolf is the lowest in the pack, they wouldn’t kill them.” All eyes were fixed on her and she could feel her stomach knot under their scrutiny. “The omega is an important part of the pack social order, isn’t it? That’s what the video said yesterday.”

They had watched part of a documentary about the importance of a wolf pack in Yellowstone National Park the day before, as part of their lesson on the importance of natural predators and prey and their impact on the environment of a region. Not usually one for documentaries, Katey was entranced by the dynamics of a wolf pack and how it was so much like a family, so much like the one thing she never really had. 

Mr. Dubose’s face split in a wide grin. “Very good, Miss Katey. I was hoping someone would catch that. Apparently, you were the only one paying attention.” He clicked the remote again and a giant red cross overlayed the fighting wolves. “No, wolves do not harm others within their pack unless it’s to reaffirm dominance amongst its members. In other situations in nature, the bigger, stronger animals will eat the younger, weaker ones to eliminate competition for space and mating.” 

A junior in the third row raised her hand. “Wouldn’t the stronger animal get weak if they eat a sicker animal?”
Mr. Dubose leaned against his supply closet door and crossed his ankles. “No, because most predators such as wolves will eat a sick, older caribou and their immune system blocks out that sickness.” Mr. Dubose clicked his remote and the slide changed to a picture of a crowded subway train. “And in just the opposite situation, when conditions are too good, the population may explode. With this overcrowding in the ecosystem, competition grows. And what happens when competition grows?”

Once more, he waited, but no one volunteered an answer. “Come on kids, it’s not that early in the morning. You’re not zombies...” He waited a moment longer, then said, “Stress levels go sky high!” 

A few students snickered when he tapped the tip of his yardstick against the drop ceiling panel above his head. “Competition for space, food, shelter, and other resources can bring out the worst in animals and humans. Fighting will, inevitably, break out. Immune systems within this high-stress environment tend to degrade, making the most insignificant of illnesses deadly. As a result, populations decline. What do we call it when the fittest do not survive?” 

It was so silent, Katey could hear a student in the back shift in his seat. 

“Natural selection,” Mr. Dubose answered, sounding out the words as if he were teaching them to a toddler. With a sigh, he continued his lecture, and Katey once more tuned out much of it, her attention drifting to the pictures above Mr. Dubose’s shoulder. 

They were part of a larger collage of photos pasted on his red supply closet door in front of her desk, the majority of which his body blocked from view at the moment. The photos seemed to have been taken in Europe and Asia, following Mr. Dubose’s past travels over several summers. Katey liked to zone out during the lectures and study the places she had never been, and would likely never visit. Snow-capped mountains, a glittering river snaking through a tranquil valley, ancient monuments and ruins, and architectural marvels from foreign countries captured her imagination. She had heard how some high school graduates went backpacking overseas the summer before college. Could she do something like that one day? 

Mr. Dubose cut off the projector and made his way toward the other side of the room to turn on the television set up in the corner. “Now that I have thoroughly bored you, we’ll finish the Yellowstone documentary from yesterday.” He had his back turned to the class when he said, “Miss Stephanie, if you can’t keep your hands off your phone, it’s mine until the end of the period.” 

Katey looked to the girl who had been caught texting earlier. Her head was up, and Katey only saw her hands buried between her thighs, which was the only hint that she might have had her phone in her hands. 

“But, Mr. Dubose—”

“No buts.” He turned and held out his hand, flicking his fingers in that universal sign that said he wanted what she had. “Give it.” 

Stephanie complied and forfeited her phone to the teacher. Katey wondered how he could have known that she was on her phone. Then again, Mr. Dubose proved from the first day of school that he had a sort of sixth sense about things like that. This wasn’t the first time he had busted someone for pulling out their phone or passing notes in class. Each time, it seemed as if there was no logical explanation for how he knew what was going on halfway across the room, but he did. Katey wanted to think it had something to do with how long he had been a teacher, but some days, she wasn’t entirely sure. 

Katey settled back into her chair and watched the remainder of the documentary with as much fasciation as the day before. A few stolen glances toward Mr. Dubose sitting behind his desk made her stomach twist. Either he happened to look at her at the exact same moment, or he watched her more closely than she watched him. Was he searching for some sign of what he noticed earlier when she sat in her seat? She steeled herself and tried in vain to not look his way again, hoping that her mask wouldn’t slip under his inspection.

The bell rang all too quickly and Mr. Dubose cut off the documentary as students rose to their feet to make their exit. 

“Don’t forget about the meteor shower tonight!” he called out as they funneled out of the classroom. “Get a good seat in the park around midnight. Be good and don’t miss me too much over the weekend.”

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(End of Excerpt)