No one slept that night. Collin pretended to, after Mrs. Weaver finally sent him off to bed. He couldn't get his thoughts to settle. After a few hours of staring at the ceiling, he sat up and booted his laptop.

Iris Weaver had been an honor roll student with a promising future. Her friends described her as shy, generous, kind. Google spat out all sorts of sob-stories about her disappearance. More were to follow, Collin guessed. News teams were going to be pounding down the door as soon as word got out. Everyone would want a glimpse of the girl who'd made it home against all odds.

Too bad they weren't going to find her.

Collin stared at the computer screen, morose. He hadn't know Iris before her disappearance. If the girl with the scar really was Iris Weaver, then neither had anyone else.

The Weavers didn't seem to find anything strange. Collin guessed they'd be happy to get their daughter back even if she returned part-robot bent on destroying all of humankind, so their doting wasn't a reliable measure. His own observations were worth shit. He couldn't shrug off the feeling that there was something rotten going on nonetheless. Iris was too calm, too cold, too fucking stable. Collin didn't like the calculating look in her eyes, either.

Iris and Mrs. Weaver came up the stairs sometime around four in the morning. Collin heard them go into the room next door. Iris' room. Mrs. Weaver left at some point. Collin bet she'd left Iris' door open. He smirked to himself, mood buoyed by a touch of Schadenfreude. Let's see how this Iris dealt with her mother's hovering.

A loud thump jerked Collin awake. He rolled over to lay flat and tipped his head up. The thumping sound repeated. Collin raised an arm and hesitantly rapped his knuckles against the wall that separated his room from Iris. Two sharp knocks answered him, then silence. Collin stared at the wall until his eyes hurt.

The phone alarm startled Collin awake at six thirty. He rolled out of bed, heart beating anxiously. His mind buzzed.

The Weavers were downstairs. Collin hesitated in front of the kitchen door, then pushed through decisively. He'd have to face them sometime. They shared a house, for fuck's sake.

Mrs. Weaver beamed when she saw Collin. "Good morning, dear! There are pancakes. Do you want me to make you eggs, as well?"

"No, thanks. Pancakes is fine," Collin said. He mustered a smile that melted away as soon as Mrs. Weaver turned her back.

Collin pulled a chair and sat down. Mr. Weaver didn't have his nose in a book or the newspaper, as was his morning habit. His eyes were on his wife, his whole face lit up. Collin met the man's smile for a brief second before he dropped his eyes to the plate Mrs. Weaver placed in front of him. He studied the pile of golden dough teetering to and fro under his nose with great apprehension.

"Take your time. I'll give you a ride to school," Mr. Weaver said.

"I'm good," Collin muttered.

"It's no trouble. I'm going that way," the man said.

Collin sneaked a look around the room. Mr. Weaver's commute ran the opposite direction from Collin's high school, as did Mrs. Weaver's. They must have taken off from work. Collin suddenly wished he'd insisted harder against getting driven to school. He didn't want to cost the Weavers any time with their daughter, pod-person or not. He was already the odd man out. No need to draw more attention to it by being even more of a burden.

"Collin, will you be staying out late again today?" Mrs. Weaver asked.

Collin shook his head. He winced internally. He'd completely forgotten about Michael and his buddies. School was certain to be fun.

"That's wonderful! We can have dinner together," Mrs. Weaver enthused. Her smile was a touch strained.

Collin drank his juice and pretended not to notice. Dinner was gonna open with a Talk for an appetizer, and he could guess the topic. His eighteenth birthday was a few months away. He'd been hoping-

Collin cut that train of thought decisively. Hope was for losers. He knew better. He should've known better.

Mr. Weaver dropped him in front of the school. The very, very front. Collin wasn't embarrassed. He didn't give two fucks about what anyone thought. Other people thought he should, though. Therein lay the fucking problem.

"Call us if anything changes, alright?" Mr. Weaver said in parting.

"Will do."

Mr. Weaver waved. Collin waved back. He didn't look at anyone on his way inside. Mostly everyone returned the courtesy, save for a few unfriendly glares. Collin ducked inside and joined the crowd of students trying to get to class.

He made it to lunch without accident. Usually he spent the period outside; today, Collin made straight for the lunchroom and took the table closest to the front. A security guard sat a few tables down. Collin's gaze swept over him, then did a double-take. The man was ripped. Mean mug, arms bulging under the uniform, back as broad as the damn table. He made the chair he sat on look like it belonged in a kindergarten. Collin took out his lunch, at peace. Only a complete idiot would try to start something with Sergeant Rottweiler slobbering in the vicinity.

Collin was halfway through his sandwich when the table rattled. A body dropped in the chair across from him, two more at each side. Collin put the sandwich down. He wrapped it back in the aluminum foil, motions slow and careful.

Michael's jaw tightened. Collin met the boy's eyes.

"What's up."

"Fuck you," Michael spat back. "What'd you take us for, huh?"

He punctuated that very tough statement with a dramatic fist to the table, sending Collin's water bottle tumbling off the edge. Collin watched it roll away dispassionately.

"Excuse me," he said, and made to get up.

A hand grabbed his sleeve. Collin turned cold eyes to the guy sitting next to him, a thin boy with freckles and a mouth too wide for his face. The boy glared back, but withdrew his hand.

"What's this about?" Collin asked.

Michael's mouth turned down in an ugly scowl. "What do you think? You fucking ditched us, you dickhead. What, got cold feet? Ran to mama?"

Nasty laughter followed. Michael was well-aware Collin was in foster care. The entire school knew - the curse of small towns. Collin wasn't bothered. He'd heard every possible jibe and taunt growing up. Michael's rated as piss-poor effort, on par with the boy's entire existence. What had Collin gritting his teeth wasn't anger; it was frustration. He wanted to pound Michael's smug face into the floor. He would have done so months ago, had he not been playing the good son.

"You fucked us over, man." Michael leaned over, getting in Collin's face for extra-dramatic effect. Collin was more bothered by the other boy's breath than anything else. "We're gonna have a little meeting after school. You won't be missing this one. Capisce?"

Michael kicked his chair back and got up. One of his grunts tried to smack Collin in passing. Collin caught the boy's hand before it could connect, twisting at the wrist. The guy squealed like a pig; Collin let him go. He watched Michael shuffle to a table at the back of the lunchroom, joining a group of ten more boys. His hands clenched into fists.

The table shuddered again. Collin blinked at the water bottle that had been slammed down in front of him. His eyes slid to the large hand wrapped around the bottle's top, then darted up to the man looming above him. The jacked security guard regarded him with dead eyes.

"Thanks," Collin muttered.

The security guard walked away. Collin unwrapped his sandwich and resumed his lunch.

The rest of the day sped by, like film turning on a reel. Faces and classes blurred. Voices came thin and distant, barely legible.

Part of it was sleep-deprivation, which hit Collin hard after lunch. He nodded off in sixth period. The teacher had to shake him awake, to the delight of his classmates. A stunt like that would've earned Collin a detention at any of his old schools. All Collin got from Mr. Erson was a concerned look and questions about his sleeping habits. Funny, how much reputation mattered.

Mr. Erson won't be as forgiving tomorrow.

Collin spent eighth period staring at the clock. His right eye hurt. Headaches hit him like that sometimes, when he was particularly tired or worried. Collin consciously relaxed his jaw. Pain and anticipation had his whole body tense, and made his headache worse. A miserable cycle.

The bell sent Collin surging to his feet. He'd gone to his locker after lunch. Everything he needed was in his bag. He could leave now, beat the rush.

Collin slowed his steps. He had started the day with its end in mind, a goal as much as an inevitability. He'd known the good-boy stick wouldn't last. He'd been waiting for the day something made him snap, the moment someone pushed him over the edge. Here it was. Why the fuck was he backing off?

Someone clipped his shoulder, hard enough to make Collin stagger.

"Tick-tock," the guy drawled in passing.

Collin's hand tightened where it gripped the strap of his backpack. His eye pulsed, the nerves pulled taut deep in his skull. He resumed his steps. Slow now and perfectly steady, in direction of the main exit. Someone would be waiting for him there. Collin would follow. Just long enough to see where they were going, where the rest of them were. Where Michael was. Collin grinned, thin and jagged.

A swell of bodies rushed around him. Collin let them carry him to the exit and through. He stopped there, at the top of the stairs leading to the courtyard. The afterschool crowd split around him, like a river around a rock. Cold green eyes swept over faces and bodies, taking in and discarding them until he found who he was looking for. A wiry guy with dawny wisps of a mustache and a wary tension in his body. He hadn't noticed Collin yet. Collin started down the steps. His grin grew teeth.

Someone tapped Collin's shoulder, staying his gait. Collin whirled around, and faltered.

"Mr. Weaver, what..?"

"I'm picking you up." Mr. Weaver grinned. "Come on! They're waiting on us."

Mr. Weaver led the way to the parking lot tucked in the outmost corner of the courtyard. Collin hurried after the man. Wispy-mustache cut through Collin's path. He drew a thumb under his own jaw, face twisted in what he probably thought was an intimidating expression. Collin flipped him off and kept on walking.

Mrs. Weaver met them at the door. She hugged her husband, then reached for Collin. Collin bore the attention stoically. He didn't know where to put his arms, so he let them hang at his sides. He probably looked like a dumbass.

Mrs. Weaver let him go with a smile. "Iris is watching TV. Mind keeping her company for a little, dear?"

Collin nodded and headed for the sitting room. The Weavers had a hushed conversation in the entryway. Collin caught his name a few times, but nothing else. He walked faster. The TV was turned up obnoxiously loud. Some kind of moronic game show filled the screen with glitter and colors and fake cheer. It drowned out everything else, including Collin's morose thoughts. His right eye pulsed to the beat of the show's theme song.

Collin grabbed the remote, meaning to turn the volume down to a more bearable level. The plastic stick was promptly smacked from his hand.

"The fuck?" he demanded.

Iris Weaver didn't look away from the TV screen. She sat with her back to the kitchen, right hand buried in a bag of chips. The left waved in the air an inch from Collin's nose.

"Shh. He's about to spin the wheel."

Collin rounded the loveseat and stepped in front of Iris, blocking the screen. Iris dragged her eyes up to his face. Collin crossed his arms. Iris took her hand out of the chips and began licking the salt from her fingers.

"That's what you wanna go down over? A TV show?" she asked.

"Who said I'm going down?" Collin snapped.

"Oh, it's happening," Iris said over her middle finger - and that was on purpose, Collin just knew it. "Not sure how far yet. Gotta be enough to keep you there."

Collin opened his mouth. He closed it without saying anything; he'd been repeating variations of the same question - what the fuck, what the hell, WHAT - since meeting Iris. She was trying to freak him out. The most infuriating thing was that it was working.

"They're getting along so nicely," Mrs. Weaver told Mr. Weaver, the both of them on their way to the kitchen. She smiled at Collin. Collin forced his mouth into a plastic grin.

Iris turned in the chair, kneeling up to see above the high back. "Cal's great!" she enthused in a soft, sweet voice Collin recognized from the videos her mother had shown him. "I've always wanted a younger brother!"

Mrs. Weaver melted on the spot. Mr. Weaver's eyes went bright, the man turning away with a cough.

Collin's smile was becoming physically painful. "Name's Collin, sis," he grit out.

Iris looked at him over her shoulder. Her smile turned sly. "Not anymore. We took you in. We get to name you." She cocked her head, mismatched eyes sliding to Collin's throat. "Tag you, too."

The Weavers had retreated further into the kitchen, so Collin let the stupid grin go and scowled to his heart's content. "There's something wrong with you," he bit out and ground his teeth, feeling like an idiot. Of all the things he could've said. This girl got under his skin in the worst way.

Iris slid back into her seat. "Yeah, takes one and blah-blah. Move." She pushed him aside with her foot.

Collin moved. The loser on the show got the answer right. Iris cheered. Collin stared at her helplessly.

His headache was gone.