New Girl
The combination dial of Locker 314 was stuck on seventeen, which felt like a personal insult from the state of New Jersey.
Dana Kowalski gave the rusted metal wheel another aggressive spin, her thumb slipping against the cold chrome. The locker didn’t budge. Around her, the main corridor of Ridgeline High vibrated with the chaotic, fluorescent-lit roar of the first Monday of senior year: three hundred metal doors slamming in discordant rhythm, the squeak of brand-new sneakers against industrial lemon floor wax, and a suffocating fog of Aqua Net hairspray colliding with an ungodly amount of Drakkar Noir. Down near the trophy case, somebody’s dual-cassette boombox was thumping out the muffled, distorted bassline of Run-D.M.C., rattling the glass frames of past sectional champions.
Dana adjusted the strap of her canvas tote, but the motion only caused the neck of her oversized, thrifted charcoal cardigan to slide off her left shoulder, exposing a faded collarbone and the frayed edge of an old Joy Division tee.
She took a slow, steady breath through her teeth. Head down. Ten months. Get the financial-aid paperwork filed for Rutgers, keep Mom from crying into her instant Sanka every morning, and get out.
“You gotta hit it right below the latch, hon. Right on the sweet spot, or the spring stays jammed.”
Dana blinked, turning toward the voice. Locker 316 had flown open with a dramatic bang, revealing a girl who looked like an explosion in a Day-Glo factory. Her blonde hair was teased into a gravity-defying architectural marvel, anchored by a hot-pink lace bow, and at least eight neon plastic bangles clattered down her forearm as she dropped a stack of marbled composition notebooks onto her shelf.
“Chrissy Gallagher,” the girl announced without pausing for breath, snapping a wad of Hubba Bubba bubblegum. “You’re the new girl, right? Kowalski? Mr. Henderson told homeroom we had a transfer from Essex County. Word of advice: Henderson spits when he conjugates French verbs, so sit in the third row. And whatever you do, do not buy the tuna melts in the cafeteria unless you want to spend fourth-period study hall praying over a toilet bowl in the girls’ room.”
Dana managed a tight, defensive half-smile, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her cardigan in place. “Good to know. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Ridgeline’s small, you know? Like, microscopic. Everybody’s been dating each other since seventh-grade roller-skate night at the Skate-O-Rama, so new blood is basically a five-alarm fire.” Chrissy leaned in, her blue eyeliner wings sharp enough to slice glass. “See that guy over there by the water fountain in the pastel pink Ralph Lauren polo? That’s Brett Holloway. Varsity tennis, class treasurer, drives a 3-Series his dad bought him for making honor roll. Stay sharp. He acts like he’s God’s gift to the tri-state area, but he’s got the personality of wet drywall.”
Dana followed Chrissy’s pointed red fingernail toward the fountain, where a boy with golden-brown, feathered hair was laughing loudly with two guys in letterman jackets. Brett caught her looking, instantly flashing an easy, practiced, country-club grin that made Dana’s stomach perform a slow, skeptical roll. She looked away before the smile could land. She’d spent the last six months watching her mother pick up the financial wreckage left behind by a charming man with a pretty smile; charm was the very last thing she trusted.
“And who,” Dana asked, shifting her gaze slightly to the left, “is that?”
Her eyes had drifted past the water fountain to the double swinging doors marked INDUSTRIAL ARTS & AUTO LAB.
Leaning against the scuffed green doorframe, half-shadowed beneath a flickering emergency exit sign, stood a guy who looked like he had wandered out of a different decade entirely. He wore a battered black leather motorcycle jacket, the leather creased and scuffed at the elbows, over a faded black thermal and Levi’s 501s with grease permanently worked into the denim. A cigarette dangled from his fingers—brazenly lit inside the building—before he tapped the ash into an empty Tab soda can balanced on a fire extinguisher box.
His hair was jet-black and wildly textured, curling over the collar of his jacket, and a pale crescent scar split the stubble along the sharp edge of his left jawline.
Chrissy didn’t even have to look twice to drop her voice to a low, conspiratorial murmur. “That’s Vinnie Russo. Total dead end. Don’t even look in that direction.”
“Why?” Dana kept her voice dry, but her pulse gave an uninvited flutter against her ribs. “Does he bite?”
“Worse. He gets into fights behind Sal’s Auto Body, he’s got court dates nobody talks about, and he flunked junior English on purpose just so he wouldn’t graduate last June,” Chrissy whispered, checking her compact mirror. “The administration only keeps him around because his uncle knows somebody on the school board, but he’s trouble on two legs, Dana. Seriously. The guy doesn’t talk to anybody.”
As if he could hear the whisper over forty feet of crowded hallway noise, Vinnie Russo lifted his chin.
His eyes—dark, heavy-lidded, and unnervingly direct—cut straight through the sea of acid-wash denim and neon windbreakers, locking onto Dana.
Dana froze. She expected him to look away, to do the standard high school scan and dismiss her as just another transfer student with thrift-store clothes and too much sarcasm. But he didn’t. He held her gaze with an intensity that felt less like an appraisal and more like a challenge. He dropped the butt of his cigarette into the soda can with a quiet fizz, his knuckles bruised and dark with motor grease, his expression entirely unreadable.
A strange, prickly heat crept up Dana’s neck. She held his stare for three agonizing beats before her survival instincts kicked in, and she jerked her chin upward, breaking contact and turning back to her locker.
“Right,” Dana muttered, her voice dropping into its familiar sarcastic rhythm to mask the sudden flutter in her chest. “Trouble. My favorite.”
“I’m telling you, steer clear,” Chrissy warned, grabbing her spiral notebooks as the first warning bell shrilled through the corridor like a fire alarm. “See you in Henderson’s class, Kowalski. Don’t forget: row three!”
Chrissy vanished into the surge of students rushing toward the stairwells. The hallway began to empty, the noise fading to a dull hum, leaving Dana alone with Locker 314.
“Alright, piece of junk,” Dana muttered under her breath. “Let’s go.”
Setting her jaw, she hooked her fingers into the metal latch, drew her Converse high-top back, and delivered a swift, solid kick right beneath the dial.
Clack.
The rusted mechanism gave way, the narrow steel door popping outward with a metallic shudder.
Dana exhaled, reaching out to pull the door open—and stopped dead.
Sitting on the otherwise empty top shelf, resting dead-center on the clean metal, was a single, clear plastic cassette case.
Inside was a Maxell XLII 90 tape, the dark magnetic ribbon gleaming beneath the fluorescent tubes. On the white cardboard insert, written in thick, blocky, disguised black ink, were five words:
SIDE A: FOR THE GIRL WITH THE ARMOR.
Dana stared at it, her breath catching in her throat. She reached out with a trembling hand, her fingers brushing the plastic, but before she could pick it up, the loose shelf tilted.
The cassette slipped over the edge and fell, clattering loudly against the linoleum floor at her feet.
