"What the hell are you wearing?" Jaxson calls from the end of the stairs.

"Damnit, Jaxson! Silas!" Maeve scolds while packing her lunch in her new Michael Kors bag that I now know she bought with house blood money.

"Mom! Do you not understand you're the one saying dammit but you yelling at my ass!"

Maeve throws a Tupperware lid across the kitchen at him as he enters the kitchen.

"I'm leaving early today. I have a closing this morning and forgot the congratulations basket at the office last night," Maeve says, leaning over to kiss Silas goodbye in his highchair. "Don't forget to have some cars picked out for Thursday afternoon."

"Bye Mom," Jaxson calls as he stuffs the toast she made him in his mouth.

I don't have time to be annoyed by Maeve right now. I'm currently dying of anticipation. I've been messaging Jin and walking him through how to get into the house via the passages. It's not going very well. He's not the best at following directions. Is that a universal guy thing?

"Seriously, what are you wearing?"

"It's my new look," I respond, distracted.

"You look like you're going to work a corner."

"Good, that's the look I'm going for," I say, lifting my leg in the air and pointing my toe.

"Stop!" Jaxson says, throwing the same lid at me that Maeve threw at him. "Seriously, what is going on with you?"

Oh, I don't know, maybe it's the fact that my whole world is falling apart. "Nothing," I say, and continue to click away on my phone.

"Who are you texting?" Jaxson says, trying to lean over to look.

I grab the phone and hold it against my chest. "Excuse you!" I demand.

"Seriously?"

I cautiously bring the phone back down, keeping it directly in my face. Jin's inside! A moment of relief waves over me, but quickly fades as soon as his next message pops up.

It's bad. You need to see this.

I stare at the words as my heart probs. Damnit! When will my bad luck ever end? My last name is Shamrock for christ sakes!

"Vel?" Jaxson says, pulling my eyes from Jin's message.

"Hey, I need to leave. I forgot I have a test to make up for Dwyer. You got Silas?"

"What test?" Jaxson calls as I grab my bag and head out the door.

What is it? I message Jin back.

My room is trashed! We need to clean it up before my parents c.

Shit! They home?

BRB...

I stare awkwardly at the phone while running across the grass to get to the sidewalk.

They're leaving soon. I'm gonna eat w them before they go.

It takes me a solid ten minutes of half-running, half wedgie picking to get home. Do I even call it that anymore? What else would I call it? I don't want to call it Jin's houses because I don't want to involve him in Maeve's treachery. But what else do I call it? Just "house"?

Just as I'm turning to enter the side yard of "house," I see a car pulling out. I fall back, making it look like I'm going to the neighbors. Once the Dodger's sticker is out of sight, I head straight past the mailbox—giving it a passing kick because why not—and head up to the porch.

Here. I message Jin.

"Hey," I say as he swings open the door. I can't help but smile somehow, even though my nerves are on fire. It's been less than an hour, but I'm still excited to see his face. Damnit.

"Hi..." Jin says, his face drained of all excitement.

"How bad?" I ask, entering as he closes the door behind me.

"How long do we have before school starts?" he asks, heading up the stairs.

"Forty-five minutes," I say, following him.

"We're gonna have to hurry then..." Jin says, swinging open the door to "our" bedroom.

Once inside, I see what he meant by trashed—TRASHED. The moving boxes are in tatters with the contents sprawled over the floor. The bed has gashes indented into the sheets and mattress. Then the walls—there's rough patterned shapes dug into them.

"Is that..." I ask.

"Stars," Jin answers.

Shivers shoot down my arms as the baby hair on my arms rise. I walk over to stare at Jin's bed, looking up and down the slashes in the mattress. What if Jin has been laying here when it happened? As I stare, everything seems to grow quiet around me, and my head spins. All I can hear is static in my ears, and all I can feel is my heart pounding in my throat. How do I not remember any of this? I close my eyes and try to remember anything at all.

"I can't," I say quietly.

"Can't what?"

"Can't remember doing any of this."

My eyes open to see Jin's worried face.

"Jin, maybe this is too much for us to handle, maybe I belong somewhere like my mo—"

"Stop!" Jin demands. "We have a plan, and we have science. We'll figure this out."

"How can science figure any of this out? Science says that none of this is possible in the first place! People don't just leave their bodies at night and try to murder people!"

"One problem at a time," Jin says, throwing something at me.

"What's this?" I say, dropping his catch.

"Wow, that was terrible. I need to teach you some baseball skills if we're going to be hanging out. Duct tape the gashes closed. Then we'll flip the mattress."

Seriously?

"Hurry!" Jin demands as he starts sweeping the scattered cardboard shreds into a pile.

I reluctantly bend over to start taping up the mattress as Jin whizzes around.

"Wh...at...about the w...alls?" I ask, my voice now shaking.

"Posters," Jin says, grabbing a ziplock baggie of push pins and quickly unrolling a collection of posters stuffed one inside the next.

I don't know what else to say or think, so I just tape gash after gash as Jin hangs posters. I tape as much as I can and then flip the mattress upside down.

"These are ruined," I say, holding up the tattered sheets.

"That's okay," Jin calls as he hangs posters every which way. "Just throw them in a pile with the boxes and then just put my blanket on. My parents won't notice missing sheets."

A couple more minutes of rushed work passes before Jin, and I take a step back to look at our cover-up job. Besides the posters looking ridiculous, you can't tell it was an attempted murder scene the night before.

"Okay, let's grab these boxes and put them in the dumpster," Jin says, trying to collect as much as possible, causing them to tower over him.

"You're going to fall!"

"My dad always says Calwells are one trip men!" Jin's muffled voice calls from under the boxes.

"Whatever you say." I grab the remaining boxes and follow him outside to the dumpster.

Once everything is thrown in, we collapse on the grass to watch the early morning sun consume the stars.

"Wow, we moved fast," Jin says

"The stars," I think out loud as I see the remaining night stars gleaming in the distance. "They're the ones from my nightlight. I'd recognize their pattern anywhere. Why would Red Lady put those stars on the wall?"

"You've had that night light since you were little, right?"

"Yes, but it just doesn't make any sense; they were the same size and shape and everything. WHY?"

"Just not red," Jin adds.

I turn my face to look at him. "Red?"

"Yeah, your nightlight's stars, they are red. The ones on my wall are just carved in."

"Jin, not that it matters, but my night light stars are green," I assure him as his face looks confused.

"Umm, no, they aren't?" Jin says, sitting up.

"I think I would know what color my nightlight is."

"Are you sure?"

"YES! Don't try and convince me otherwise because I already feel like I'm losing all my marbles."

"All the marbles? Maybe only half..." Jin tries to smile to lighten the mood, but even he can't overcome the heaviness between us.

"No, all the marbles," I say, standing up. "I'm going to go."

"You okay?"

"No! I'm one hundred percent, not okay!" I almost laugh. "It's funny how not okay I am."

"Just focus on keeping some marbles, please," Jin laughs back, "We're going to need them for tonight and our new prediction."

"I'll just see you at school," I say, before turning away. "Don't forget it's open season for all the ginger names," I call back.

"Same goes for the Asian comments!"

"You're Japanese?!" I stop to turn around.

"Exactly," Jin shrugs back with a devious smile.

"Alright...I'll start working on some." I can't help smiling at Jin before heading off, but as soon as I turn to walk past the house, I feel it—all my freaking marbles rolling away.