AS MALACHI WAITED for Reza to pack, he called the phone number written on the crumpled-up piece of paper he found in Mila's room.

"Who is this?"

The voice was feminine with a faint accent Malachi couldn't place.

"Is this Peggy Zhào?" Malachi asked.

"Who is this?" she repeated. "You're not a cop, are you?"

"No! My name's Malachi. My best friend's missing. I found this number in her drawer. I wanted to call and see—"

"If you're suggesting I had anything to do with it, you need to contact my lawyer."

"I'm not. I wanted to call and see if you knew anything about her or her disappearance that might help us find her."

"Christ. What's your friend's name?"

"Camila Santos. She went by Mila."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"She might have said her name was Sofía. Sofía Torres."

"Sofía Torres," Peggy repeated with a sigh to rival Malachi's. "Shit."

"You knew her?"

"She trained with me." Trained? Malachi thought. What is this, District Twelve?

"I know it's late, but would you mind meeting up to chat? It's kind of an emergency."

"Meet me at Fort Greene in twenty minutes."

She hung up. Malachi looked at Reza's closed door. He better hurry up.

***

THEIR TROOP HAD ONE RULE: each day they had a meeting, they all met up in the big kickball field to play together during recess.

After lunch, Malachi and Drew buried their lunch boxes in their cubbies and bundled up in their heavy winter gear. It was cold enough for ice to form on the blacktop from the morning's sleety rain, but not cold enough for indoor recess. They trudged outside with the other mess of kids heading out onto the school yard and carefully made their way over the blacktop to the kickball field. Several games of tag were already in the works. A group of girls huddled in a circle whispering over their shoulders. The self-proclaimed "dancers" did cartwheels on the frozen grass, which crunched beneath Malachi's boots. He and Drew stood and waited for the rest of the troop to arrive.

They never did.

After a while, they went off to find them. They must have gotten there before them and already ran off to play. They passed the groups on the kickball field, a couple games of foursquare and basketball on the blacktop, and the popular kids who hung out near the woods. They saw none of the other boys. They headed over to the playground, where they finally spotted the rest of the troop climbing on top of a tall, spidery jungle gym known as the Back Breaker because a girl had fallen off and broke her back a couple years ago. One of the boys—Little Jake—looked over his shoulder, made eye contact with Drew, and yelled to the others. They all dropped to the mulch from the Back Breaker aside from Carter, who was at the top and had to climb down. They scattered.

Drew's lips split into a huge grin. He aimed himself after Big Jake and sprinted after him. Malachi followed behind at a jog, not wanting to spend his recess on the run. Big Jake weaved in and out of the groups of kids and random games, managing not to slip on the blacktop as he dashed across it. As Malachi and Drew slowed to avoid falling, they lost sight of him. They searched the kickball field for the others before giving up and heading back to the playground.

There, they found them all hiding under the rock wall. Again, someone saw them—it was Nick, this time—and alerted the other boys. They scattered. Malachi and Drew gave chase, but lost them again. After giving the school yard another good search, they found them blending into the group of popular kids.

This time, Malachi heard what one of the boys said before scattering.

"The queers are coming! The queers are coming!"

Malachi froze and watched as the other boys, who he'd reluctantly come to consider his friends, scattered around him. Drew, who hadn't heard what Big Jake had said, followed after Tony.

The queers are coming! The queers are coming!

Queer! Queer! Queer!

The word—the sentence—drilled into Malachi's head.

Drew stopped, realizing Malachi hadn't followed. He turned to face him, panting, sweat sticking stray blond strands to his forehead despite the chill. "Are you okay?"

Malachi sat down on the grass. He stared off into the distance, unable to meet Drew in the eye. The icy grass cut through his jeans, making him shiver.

"Malachi." Drew sat cross-legged in front of him, fiddling with the grass. "What's wrong? You can tell me. It's okay."

Malachi pulled a strand of grass from the ground and tore at it. He still couldn't look Drew in the eye. "Did you hear what they called us?" he whispered.

Drew's eyebrows furrowed. "What?" He scooted closer to Malachi.

"Queers," Malachi whispered. He could barely say the word.

Drew scooted even closer, pressing his knees against Malachi's feet. "What?"

"Queers," Malachi repeated, as loud as he could muster. "They called us queers. They said 'the queers are coming' before they took off."

Drew's face soured like he'd bit into a lemon. "Let them. I mean, we are queers, aren't we?"

Malachi didn't like how nonchalant Drew was about this. Like it was no big deal. It was a big deal to Malachi, whatever it was. A heaviness settled in his chest he couldn't quite name. Tony had seen them holding hands, and now the whole troop thought something was wrong with them. Like they had a contagious disease.

"What does that mean?" Malachi's lips trembled.

"It's just a word," Drew explained. "To say we're different."

Malachi didn't want to be different. He rubbed his hands over his face. All his life, he'd been told he was different. He was sick of it. All he wanted to be was normal. But he knew what he and Drew were wasn't normal. That most boys wanted to kiss girls. Normal was everything he wasn't.

***

PEGGY ZHÀO WAS OLDER than Malachi'd expected. Her voice sounded young over the phone, like she was in her thirties. But she had to be at least twice that. Age marks and wrinkles accented her sagging skin. Her gray hair fell to her waist in tangled, thin strands. She was even shorter than Mila and just as skinny. Despite her age, there was something youthful about her. A spring to her step, a spark in her eyes. A sense of life. She pulled her leather jacket tight over her Miss Me jeans, her combat boots stretching towards her knees. She had to be freezing, dressed like that. Malachi was freezing and he was wearing twice the clothes she was.

She walked up to Malachi and Reza with a lit cigarette, the smoke rising above her head like swirls of ink. She extinguished it with her boot and plopped it into a trash can ashtray. "Malachi?"

Malachi nodded.

"Pleasure." She sat on the opposite side of the picnic table. "Were you and Sofía—sorry, Mila—siblings? You two look an awful lot alike."

They got that a lot. Malachi didn't see it. Mila was much shorter, much darker, and had an intense, angry look about her, like she was plotting to end the world. Malachi was taller, nearly white-passing, and mostly looked confused and uncomfortable. "Not by blood. Do you mind if I record this? I'm filming everything I find."

"Just don't show my face."

Malachi pulled his camera from his bag, and set it on the table facing Reza. He pressed the record button and showed Peggy Mila's senior photo, which he'd printed. "Was this Sofía?"

She nodded. "No mistaking it. She's got that same scar. And the nose ring."

Mila's scar—one of many. It was a small, barely noticeable white scar in the middle of her forehead. She'd gotten it from gymnastics; she'd slipped and fell on the balance beam, slicing her forehead open.

"How did you know her?"

Peggy linked her fingers together, tucking them beneath her chin. Beneath the table, she spread her legs wide. "I sold her a gun."

"What?" Malachi asked.

"At a gun show. I'm a private dealer. She also had me teach her to shoot. And she sat in on some of my self-defense classes."

Reza looked from Malachi to Peggy and back again. For once, the look in his eyes wasn't of calculated, righteous anger—it was of genuine surprise.

"What?" Malachi repeated.

"I didn't think anything of it until you called me," Peggy quickly added. "Every woman should know how to defend herself. And that's what she said it was all for—self-defense."

"Do you think someone could have been after her?" Reza whispered to Malachi.

Malachi held his head in his hands. Why hadn't she told him any of this? Something seemed all wrong about this. If something was happening, even if she was just taking the classes and learning to shoot for fun, she would have told him. "I don't know."

"Maybe that's why she wanted to learn," Peggy suggested.

"Who could have been after her?" Malachi asked. Mila had plenty of enemies, but none that were bad enough she feared for her life. His mind trickled back to the other piece of evidence he'd stolen from her dorm, that sexual assault survivors' club flyer...

Peggy swept her hair over her shoulder in an effortlessly elegant gesture. "There was something else, too. She had me teach her how to drive."

"Oh." Everything Malachi thought he'd known about Mila—and her disappearance—tumbled out the window. His entire world was upside down.

"She didn't say anything was wrong. She seemed fine. We got along great—she reminded me of myself when I was her age. Christ, like I'm ninety." Peggy chuckled, but Malachi genuinely couldn't tell how old she was. She looked ancient, but there was something so youthful about her. He wouldn't be surprised if she was immortal.

Malachi's head spun. He couldn't stop thinking about that flyer. "Did she get her license?"

Peggy nodded. "She showed me the license when she got it, she was all excited—I saw it with my own two eyes. The name on it was Sofía Torres." She wrinkled her nose as if trying to remember more. "It was a New Jersey license."

Reza tugged on his sweatshirt string. "Maybe if someone was after her, she got scared she'd have to run. And maybe she eventually needed to."

It was like the flyer was burned into Malachi's retinas. His flannel suddenly became too scratchy, too uncomfortable. The tag poked at his skin. He pulled at it, finding it hard to breathe with it on. It was too cold out here. Way too cold. And too noisy from the busy city streets not too far off from the park. And Peggy smelled so strongly of cigarettes it was giving him a headache. He needed to get out of here. Needed to stop talking to her. They were wasting time.

Malachi found himself placing his hand on Reza's arm. "We need to go."

"Now?" Reza looked sideways at Malachi. "She's got a gold mine of information on Mila."

Malachi shook his head. "We need to go. Come on."

He stood up and marched toward the parking lot, where they'd left Reza's old, beat-up sedan. Reza followed him. Before he did, he pressed his hands together and thanked Peggy.

She nodded. "I hope you find her."

***

MALACHI DIDN'T WAIT AT THE END OF CLASS for Drew like he normally did. He grabbed his bag and his coat and ran out of the classroom, determined not to be seen with him. Malachi was the first one to get to the room they held their meetings in. He sat his stuff down, rooted his uniform out of his bag, and dashed off to the bathroom to change.

"Malachi!" Drew rounded the corner, nearly running into him. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

Malachi shrugged and pushed past him toward the restroom.

"Malachi." Drew gently grabbed his wrist. "What's wrong? Are you mad at me?"

Malachi yanked his arm away. "Don't touch me."

Drew's eyes widened. He took a step back. "Is this about that stupid game they were playing at recess? Malachi, it's just a dumb word."

Malachi this, Malachi that. Usually, when Drew said his name, it made butterflies flutter in his stomach. Now, it made him itchy all over like bugs were crawling over him. He tugged at his sweater, the fuzzy polyester too rough against his skin. "Leave me alone."

Hurt arched across Drew's face like Malachi had hit him. Guilt heating Malachi's cheeks, he turned and headed into the restroom. When he came out, Drew wasn't there. He walked back to the meeting room alone. He wanted to curl in on himself and disappear. This was everything he'd been afraid of. He was torn between Drew, the acceptance of the other kids, and his own shame. At least his parents didn't know.

A couple of the other boys were already there, talking and laughing as they dug their uniforms out of their bags. When Malachi walked in, the room fell silent, the quiet oppressive against his ears. He sat by his bag and unzipped it, pretending to look through it. The other boys quickly found their uniforms and filed out, leaving him alone with Mr. Holland.

Eventually, they came back as a unit, sans Drew and sans Malachi. They sat across the room from Malachi and whispered to each other, occasionally shooting him an unreadable glance. The tips of Malachi's ears burned. He'd never wanted to disappear, wanted to hurt someone, wanted to turn back the clock so badly in his life.

Drew came in and coolly leaned against the door. "So." His voice was all cold, his expression as unreadable as the glances the boys had shot at Malachi. "What game were you guys playing during recess?"

Carter squared his jaw and looked Drew directly in the eye, just as cold. "Paul Revere."

"Paul Revere?" Drew repeated with a short, sharp, humorless laugh. "'The British are coming'? The British would have whooped your ass."

Mr. Holland looked up from his phone. "Andrew Holland! Don't you dare say something like that!"

The tension in the air was palpable, so thick you could cut it like a steak knife through warm butter. Malachi didn't want anything to happen, didn't want anything to come out of this. All he wanted to do was pretend it never happened. None of it. Any of it.

Drew cocked his head and looked over at his dad as if noticing him for the first time. "Why not? You always say I should tell the truth."

Malachi covered his ears with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn't like this side of Drew, not one bit. It was scaring him. Not even just the possibility of a fight or being further alienated from the group, but how brash Drew was being. How he didn't seem like he cared about the repercussions of what Tony had seen, of their stupid game at recess, of Drew's dad knowing. How quickly this could all spiral out of control.

Tony looked to Malachi. His expression scared Malachi even more—there was something malicious in his eyes, something evil. Something wrong and dangerous and predatory. Malachi felt like a jackrabbit staring down the muzzle of a coyote, like any second Tony would eat him raw.

"Control your boyfriend," Tony told him.

The group broke into raucous howls of laughter.

Malachi's face burned, and his vision went with it. Blood pounded in his ears and in his chest. That heaviness he couldn't quite name strengthened tenfold, making breathing impossible. He could have collapsed then and there. "He's not my boyfriend," he sputtered, weakly. Quiet enough he knew no one had heard it. But he couldn't bring himself to repeat it—he didn't have the strength. Malachi grabbed his bag and ran from the room as the tears came.

This was what Malachi had been so afraid of.

There was a crushing weight in his chest, rendering him unable to breathe or think about anything other than those three little words. Control your boyfriend. Control your boyfriend. Control your boyf—

Malachi never should have kissed him back.

***

PACKED AND READY to hit the road, Malachi and Reza settled into Reza's sedan.

"You hungry?" Reza asked. "We could stop to get—"

"Just drive." Malachi propped his camera up on the dash and hit "record."

So Reza typed their destination into his phone. His Siri announced:

Starting route to Greenfield, Indiana. In two hundred feet, turn right...

***

AT MALACHI'S SCHOOL, rumors were currency. Word travelled fast. Whispers flared up when Malachi walked by. When he got close, sometimes he would hear kids giggling and whispering to each other, "Be careful, you might catch it." The other kids held their breath when Drew passed him a note in class, which Malachi never read. He threw them all away as quickly and as publicly as possible, trying to distance himself from Drew in every way he could.

During recess, he started playing with his old best friend Aisha and her friends instead of Drew. When Drew asked him about it, he gave him the classic lie—"My mom said we shouldn't be friends anymore." How hurt Drew looked killed Malachi; he looked like a kicked puppy. But Malachi couldn't afford the association. He couldn't afford the risk. The stares and the whispers. Kids screaming that stupid sentence and running in all directions when he got close to them at recess. Some of them even saying something worse, far worse, often peppered with that f-word Malachi's dad liked to use.

Malachi couldn't stand how the kids treated him like he had a contagious disease, like something was wrong with him. He'd gone through it all already when the asshole kids at his school had found out he had autism, and again when they'd found out he was Jewish, and again when they'd found out he was Iranian. All the kids were scared of people different than they were—their parents made sure of that.

He didn't want to have to go through it all again.

And he didn't think Drew understood.

Even Malachi thought something was wrong with him. Because no matter how much he hated Drew, no matter how far he distanced himself from him, no matter how hard he tried to erase him from his memory, he couldn't stop thinking about him.

When Malachi got home from school, both his parents sat at the dining table, Talia nowhere in sight. The apartment was silent and still—the TV was off, no music blared, his parents said nothing. The silence put him on edge, but how his parents sat raised even more red flags. His dad sat at the head of the table like always, but his mom sat beside him. His mom never sat next to his dad. She always sat on the opposite end of the table and avoided looking him in the eye.

Malachi took his shoes off and hung his backpack on the coat rack. He eyed them suspiciously. The hair on the back of his neck raised.

"Malachi, honey." His mom's voice was honey-sweet and just as sticky. "Take a seat."

Alarm bells rung in Malachi's head. Every molecule in his body screamed at him to run, but his feet moved of their own accord. Somehow, he found himself in the seat beside his dad, across from his mom. Fear trickled down the back of his throat. He fiddled with his hands, his eyes boring a hole through the table.

His dad cleared his throat. "How was school?" His voice was strained, tense. Malachi could tell he was beating around the bush. He wished he'd get on with it. He shrugged. His dad continued. "We've heard about some... issues you've been having at school."

Malachi stared at his hands, his eyes bulging out of his head. Time froze as his heart stopped beating. The heaviness in his chest that he'd come to understand would forever be a part of him spread to the outer reaches of his body. They know, Malachi realized with horror. They know I like boys. They know I kissed Drew. They know we hold hands. They know I call him my boyfriend and he calls me his. They know, they know, they know. They know everything.

Malachi's cheeks reddened. He'd never admitted to himself that he liked boys before. It was the first time it'd even occurred to him. He remembered Drew's face, his hair, kissing him, holding his hand—he liked Drew, he definitely like-liked him. Which meant he liked a boy, even though he knew he shouldn't.

Malachi's mom took his hands in hers. A tear glinted at the corner of her eye. "Honey, do you wanna tell us what's been happening?" Malachi shrugged and looked back at his hands, his mom's wrapped around them. Her French manicure, her wedding ring. The ruby glinted as it caught the light. "It's okay, baby. You can tell us."

But Malachi knew he couldn't. Not now, not like this. Not ever.

"Your principal said some kids have been giving you and that Holland boy some trouble," his dad explained. "She was concerned about you both. John Holland came to her with some concerns as well." He cupped his hands in front of him, the same way Malachi had. Malachi tore his hands away from his mother's. "I want to hear your side of the story."

Malachi shrugged again. He felt like Atlas, moving the weight of the sky with his shoulders. "It's not a big deal." Malachi wished he'd thought to coordinate his story with Drew. How much of it did Drew's dad know? How much had he passed on to the principal? How much had reached his own dad's ears?

"Malachi, please," his mom begged. "Tell us what's been happening, from the way you see it. We only want to help you."

"It's nothing. Some kids started some dumb rumor that Drew and I are... are—" Malachi struggled to put it into words. "Together. But it's not true."

"Are you sure?" his dad asked.

Malachi nodded.

"You and Drew aren't anything more than friends?" he pressed.

"No. We're not."

"And you don't..." his dad shifted uncomfortably and tugged at his neckline. "You don't like Drew, do you? Or any other boy?"

Malachi shook his head. Something tore loose inside of him, that heaviness in his chest splitting in two.

"You're not gay, are you?" His dad asked, whispering the word like it was dirty, and in that moment, Malachi hated him, really hated him, felt his blood boil at the sight of him. Hated the way he asked him. Not Are you gay? like Malachi could say yes or he could say no and no matter what he said, his parents would still love him. But You're not gay, are you? like his dad dreaded the very possibility. Like there was only one right answer, and Malachi knew he couldn't give his dad what he wanted.

Malachi shook his head again.

"Good." His dad smiled thinly. "I was worried."

"Malachi," his mom added, "we just want what's best for you. That lifestyle is just—it's something we don't agree with. It isn't healthy..."

But pretending to be someone he wasn't, was? And all just to appease them. But that was all Malachi wanted to do: appease them. So, fighting back tears, he nodded along like he agreed with everything they said.