We were sitting in Kaz's room, waiting for him to get back from detention. Beckett was playing with his yo-yo, Pete was scrolling through his phone, and Leo and Mikayla were playing catch with a stress ball they'd found on Pete's desk.

The door opened and we all watched as Kaz came in. He raised an eyebrow at us as we studied the marks on his face, arms, and hands.

"Someday they'll beat the rebel right out of you," Leo said, shaking his head.

"The day I let them win is the day you lower me six feet into the ground," Kaz said, kicking the door shut. "Tonight after the Blues make their rounds, we get to work. I already let Siggy know."

"What are you doing tonight?" I asked.

"Tonight, O'Malley, we're going to trigger some feelings," Kaz said, emphasizing the "we" of that.

"How about I man the dorms while you go do whatever it is you're planning," I offered.

"No can do, O'Malley," Kaz said, shrugging. "Leo, make sure you drag him with you."

"Got it," Leo said, saluting Kaz.

"Leo!" I said, glaring at him.

"What? I'm not going to be the one to piss Kaz off," Leo said. "What if he steals my skateboard?"

"Speaking of stealing," Mikayla said, giving Kaz an annoyed look and holding her hand out.

"Oh, right." Kaz reached into his bag and pulled out a book, tossing it to Mikayla.

Mikayla set the book down next to her and Kaz sat down. I watched them, wondering how someone as angry as Mikayla could just let it go that Kaz had stolen from her.

But she seemed perfectly at ease to let it go now that she had her book back. None of the others seemed concerned about it, either.

"What are you doing tonight, Kaz?" Beckett asked.

"That's a mystery, Beck," Kaz said, settled into his usual spot next to Beckett. "Just meet us at the usual spot."

"Sure." Beckett snapped the yo-yo into his hand. "Has Emmett come around lately?"

Kaz shook his head. "Nope, haven't seen him."

Beckett let out an annoyed sigh. "He just keeps making threats at home. He's getting on my nerves."

"Don't worry about him," Kaz said dismissively. "He just talks big."

"I know that," Beckett said, crossing his arms. "He's my brother, Kaz. I know him."

"I can't believe you're related to the rest of your family," Leo said, laughing. "Talk about black sheep."

"You're one to talk," Beckett shot back.

"Both of you shut up," Kaz said. "I have homework to do before tonight, so don't bother me."

"Oh shit, I have to do mine," Leo said, getting up.

"Why are you all so obsessed with your homework?" I asked. I mean, damn, I liked having my homework done, but they all got lost in their homework. It struck me odd that kids sent away cared about their grades.

"We're proving a point to these teachers, O'Malley. We're smart kids, not mindless delinquents," Kaz said. The others nodded.

"Okay, okay. I'm going to go finish my work," I said and left the room.

Leo followed me and we went back to our room. Leo put on music and we worked on our homework for a while, neither of us speaking. Leo seemed focus on his work, and I was caught up in the problems on paper in front of me.

After working for a while, I leaned back, homework done. Leo looked over at me as he tucked away his papers.

"Done?" he guessed.

"Finally," I said.

"You know, if you ever don't understand something, Kaz will help you. He's tutored all of us," Leo said.

"Thanks, but I'll pass," I said. The last thing I wanted was a tutoring session with Kaz.

Leo got up and stretched. "I'm going to go make sure Mikayla hasn't murdered her math homework yet. See you later, Killian."

He left our room and I looked around at the empty silence. Dammit, I hated being bored.

I got up and left, going down the hall to Kaz's room. I let myself inside, glad that no one was Skyping with their parents this time.

Kaz was sitting on Pete's desk explaining a problem to him. Beckett was lying on Kaz's bed playing with his yo-yo again.

"O'Malley," Kaz greeted.

I didn't say anything, just went over and sat down at his desk. He turned back to help Pete, patiently explaining how to do the problem Pete was apparently stuck on.

My phone vibrated and I pulled it out. "Hello?"

"Killian?"

Oh shit. Oh, oh shit. Why didn't I look at the caller I.D.?

"Tanner," I said, mind suddenly blank with terror and embarrassment. "Uh, hey, hi."

"I heard your voicemail. Were you, uh, on something?" he asked.

"An embarrassing streak," I said. "Look, just delete it and forget about it. I wasn't thinking straight."

I was never thinking straight, though. If I did think straight, I wouldn't be in this damn Academy.

"Are you okay, Killian?" he said at last.

"Oh, yea, I'm freaking great," I said, voice way too high pitched.

"Look, I'm sorry if we...I know you had to switch schools after your parents caught us. So I'm sorry," he said.

"It wasn't your fault." Hey, it's not like Tanner knew my parents would walk in on us.

"Is the new school good?" he asked.

"Yea, it's great. I'm running with delinquents now. Thieves and drug addicts and angry children. This school is fantastic!" I said miserably. "I totally fit in!"

"I'm sorry, Killian. I really am," Tanner said quietly.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What was I supposed to say? Tanner's parents knew he was gay and accepted him. Knowing him, he probably had a new guy already. His life didn't change just because mine had. I lost my parents and my friends and my normal life while Tanner kept going on like nothing had happened.

I was startled out of my thoughts as the phone slid out of my hand. I looked up as Kaz held it up to his ear.

"O'Malley's thief friend here, he's a bit busy right now. He'll have to call you back." He pulled the phone away from his ear and hung it up, moving to put it in his pocket. He stopped and, with visible struggle, put it back in my still frozen hands. He turned away from me and moved towards Pete's desk and, even watching him, I barely noticed the moment he snatched Pete's wallet and slid it into his pocket.

I looked down at my phone and slowly put it back in my pocket. I got up and moved towards the door, embarrassed and upset.

"O'Malley," Kaz said, grabbing my arm. "Tonight. Be there."

I nodded and left the room, going back to my own room. I shut the door and locked it, curling up on my bed.

My whole life changed just because of a make-out session with Tanner. I could think of a million ways it could've been prevented, but none of that mattered. Here I was. There he was. Everything had changed for me and all that had changed for Tanner was the boy he was fooling around with.

Nothing was fair.

I cried until I fell asleep.

***

"Hey, Killian!"

I woke up as Leo shook me and whispered my name. My eyes were sore in the way they got after I'd cried for a while. I rubbed them, hoping Leo didn't notice.

The room was dark except for a lamp on Leo's desk. He gestured at me to get out of bed.

"Come on or we'll be late meeting up with the others," he said, voice low. "Get dressed in dark clothes."

I climbed out of bed and went over to my closet, wishing I could crawl into it and live there forever. After all, it was wear I belonged.

I changed into dark clothes and waited for Leo as he checked his phone. He noticed I was ready and crept over to the door, pulling it open and peeking out.

He gestured at me to follow him and I did, slipping out into the hallway and cautiously making our way to the stairs. We crept down them and out the side door of the building. Leo led me back to the cluster of trees we'd hidden in the night we broke into Mr. Sternberg's room.

The others were waiting for us there. Kaz had on his backpack, which probably wasn't a good sign.

"Let's go," Leo said as we caught up to them.

Kaz nodded and we started carefully making our way towards the academic buildings. Kaz dropped back to walk alongside me.

"It's none of my business," he said, voice low enough that I knew the others couldn't hear him. "Still, I'll throw in my two cents. If you can't come to terms with why you're here, you'll just end up as angry as Mikayla and Beckett. I'm not saying you have to accept the reasons why you're here, you just have to come to terms with them."

"I shouldn't be here," I said bitterly.

"But you are here, and whatever got you sent here is taking a toll on your emotional state," Kaz said. "When you get tired of being sad, you'll turn to anger. And then there will be a third constantly pissed off person I'll have to deal with. Just be honest with what got you here, and it'll get easier to live with."

He moved back up to the front of the group, falling into step with Beckett. I stared after him, wondering how he could say that. After all, he admitted to getting himself sent here. I hadn't gotten myself sent here. My parents had done that. How could I not be sad and angry about it? What the hell did Kaz Warrick know?

We reached the academic building and Leo picked the lock on the door to get us inside. We snuck through the hallways until we reached Mr. Sternberg's room, Leo getting us inside with skilled ease. Kaz blocked the door again before turning the lights on and looking around the room.

He dropped his backpack onto a desk and unzipped it, taking out a stack of papers. He passed them out to us along with tape.

"Go crazy, kids," he said.

I looked at the papers in my hands. Each paper had one word printed on it in big, bold lettering.

SELF-HARM. SUICIDE. RACISM. RELIGION. SEXUALITY.

"Oh, you're so damn funny, Kaz," Mikayla said, punching Kaz in the shoulder.

Kaz rubbed his shoulder as he peeked at Mikayla's papers. "Well, what an ironic coincidence."

"You're a real piece of shit," she said, but laid the papers out and grabbed the tape. I peeked at her papers.

RAPE. WHITE PRIVILEGE. MURDER. ABUSE. MENTAL ILLNESS.

I knew which one she was pissed at, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know if any of the others had pissed her off too. I looked around at the others, hoping to see what else Kaz had printed off, but they were already busy hanging them up around the classroom.

I taped them up on the walls with the others. Kaz shoved everything off of Mr. Sternberg's desk and folded a paper so that it would stay up on it. On it, the paper read "Life doesn't come with a trigger warning".

"He's going to know it's you and he's going to beat the shit out of you," I said, suddenly worried. Why was Kaz doing this? It was clear he was behind it.

"You see, O'Malley, around here kids fear these teachers. And me? I don't like that. I refuse to let them repress students," he said. "So I'll take the fall for it if it means they don't win."

The others looked at him with barely masked admiration. I looked around at them and realized that Kaz really was the one getting them through this hell. They'd all ended up here because of their problems, and Kaz was here to make sure that Conversion Academy wasn't the straw on the camel's back.

I felt a begrudging respect for him, and my mind again went to that story he told me about the deer his stepfather had hit. His words replayed through my mind, but I still couldn't figure out just what struck me as strange about the story.

We finished taping up the words and Kaz then handed us graphic stories of each of the things he'd printed off. We taped them up under the words, working quickly in the silence.

When we had finished that, Kaz zipped up his bag. We left the room and hurried out of the building, starting the walk back towards the dorm building.

"Having fun yet, O'Malley?" Kaz asked, stepping next to me with Beckett in tow.

"Totally. What's more fun than pissing off abusive teachers?" I said.

He pat my shoulder. "Now you're getting it!"

I rolled my eyes and pushed his hand away. "Shut up, Kaz."

He just grinned at me and didn't say anything. We managed to sneak back to our dorm rooms without being caught, and I collapsed against my bed the second I reached it, feeling exhausted despite falling asleep earlier.

The next morning, we all got ready for class and gathered in a group as we walked. Kaz didn't seem at all worried that he was about to take a beating for what we'd done last night. The others didn't seem worried that they would go down with him.

We reached the academic building and went inside. Kids were whispering excitedly around Mr. Sternberg's closed door. They looked at Kaz in amazement as he walked up.

"We got here before Sternberg," Rogan said, going up to Kaz. He held his hand out and Kaz slipped a note into it. "Don't keep this up or people will get suspicious of Seph."

"Siggy will be fine as long as he doesn't screw himself over," Kaz said dismissively.

"If you get him in trouble, I will beat your head against the ground until I'm painting the pavement with your fucking brain," Rogan snarled before storming over to his friends.

"Seph?" I said in confusion.

"Rogan and Joseph Siggeir," Kaz said. "Seph is what Rogan calls Siggy."

"Casimir."

The voice was low and furious. We all turned to face Mr. Sternberg and a man who I didn't know but was going to assume was Beckett's father. He had the same dark, curly hair and the same hazel eyes as Beckett.

"All of you get into Mr. Miller's room!" Sternberg snapped at the crowd of kids. He gestured to Kaz, Leo, Mikayla, Pete, and me. "Except you five."

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Baby bye, bye, B Y E.

The crowd of kids disappeared into Mr. Miller's room and I could almost hear the funeral march playing as Mr. Sternberg and Mr. Townsend eyed us.

"Casimir, I recently spoke with Cam and Joseph about my son going behind my back to spend time with you. Joseph thought it would be best if I just let him do it as long as he asked first, so that he'd stop sneaking around. I see I've made a poor decision," Mr. Townsend said.

"I'd say quite the opposite, Townsend. I helped Beckett with his math homework yesterday. I think you should be thanking me," Kaz said pleasantly.

"Emmett told me that Beckett wasn't in his room last night after he'd gone to bed. He snuck out again. And what do you know? Today we find your work around Mr. Sternberg's classroom." Mr. Townsend leaned close to Kaz, face calm but eyes blazing. "How dare you drag my son into your disgusting little world."

"In my defense, you threw him into my disgusting little world when you swapped his blue vest for a maroon one," Kaz said. "You can't place your kid with delinquents and not expect him to get caught up in the trouble. But what do I know about how father's work, right?"

"The five of you will be escorted down to Headmaster Constance," Mr. Townsend said, straightening up. "And I will be ordering Emmett to keep an eye on Beckett."

The others looked horribly pale aside from Kaz and Pete, so I had a feeling that Headmaster Constance was probably skilled in torture. I felt my own nerves working up wildly.

"The five of us?" Kaz asked, raising an eyebrow. "Funny, since five people weren't involved last night."

"You and your whole little gang here will be punished," Mr. Sternberg said, barely containing his anger. "I have had enough of you, Casimir. I've spoken to the Headmaster and he can't wait to have a word with you."

"Fair enough. But why drag Mikayla and O'Malley into this? O'Malley isn't one of us. He plays nice," Kaz said. "And Mikayla was mad at me yesterday and refused to tag along."

"So you're admitting that Leopold and Peter were your accomplices last night?" Mr. Sternberg said.

"Who else can pick the locks?" Leo said. "Seriously Sternberg, I thought you knew this by now."

Pete's lips fought against his medication to form a nearly dangerous smirk. "I love pissing off assholes like you, Sternberg."

"And there you have it," Kaz said, gesturing between the three.

"Dad!"

Beckett hurried over to us, looking furious. He stepped up next to Kaz and looked at his father with such fury that I was surprised his little body could even hold that much anger. If I was his dad, I'd invest in anger management for Beckett.

"If you're sending everyone involved last night to the Headmaster, then I'm going too," Beckett said.

"And what would be the point of that? You didn't even know what we were doing. You were just waiting outside as a lookout," Kaz said. "Stop acting like a tough rebel, Beck."

Beckett glared at him. "Stop it, Kaz. We're all going."

"Waste of time to bring along the kid who was clueless to what was happening. Let the real heroes take the credit," Kaz said, turning to Mr. Townsend. "Well, let's get going already. You're holding up Sternberg's class."

"I'll take the three to the Headmaster's office," Mr. Townsend said to Mr. Sternberg. He turned and gripped Beckett's arm, yanking him forward. "You, young man, are going right back to class. Your brother will bring you home afterschool."

"You can't send them and not me! That's not fair!" Beckett snapped, struggling against his father.

Mr. Townsend ignored him and dragged him along. Kaz shrugged at me and Mikayla and followed after Mr. Townsend. Leo steeled himself and followed along with Pete.

"You two, back to class!" Mr. Sternberg barked at us.

We went into the classroom and sat down. I couldn't get my mind off of Kaz through the whole lesson, though.

Why had he saved me and Mikayla? Why had he lied about Beckett's role in everything? What was the point?

Classes were slow all day, dragging by. We saw no sign of Kaz, Leo, or Pete. When class ended, Mikayla and I found each other outside of the building and looked around for them.

"Why?" I said at last. "Why did Kaz protect just us?"

"Everyone knows Leo is how Kaz breaks into the school," Mikayla said. "There was no way he could've protected Leo. And Pete doesn't mind taking punishments. He's so drugged up that he doesn't feel anything if they hit him and the medication that alters his behavior pretty much forces him into a constant state of euphoria, so he doesn't really worry about any mental torture they could try on him. You and I though, Kaz figured he could save us. So he did. And he downplayed Beckett's role so that Beckett wouldn't get in too much trouble. Now he sounds like a used kid, just a little boy who got in over his head and didn't know what he was doing."

She looked away, and I realized that her eyes were watering. Oh no. I was not good at comforting people when they cried.

"Are you...uh..." I let my hand hang in the air awkwardly, wondering if I should pat her back or knock her out to end her misery or something.

"I don't get it, okay? I just don't get it. I don't get why people risk themselves to save others. Do you know how horrible Headmaster Constance is? He's going to tear Kaz apart from the inside out, and Kaz spared as many of us as he could from that," Mikayla said, clenching her fist.

"People risk themselves when they care about someone," I said with a shrug. "Look, I'm not really a fan of Kaz, but even I can see how hard he's been working to help you guys."

"I wish there was something we could do for him. He always takes the fall. Always." She looked at me, and I saw what Kaz was talking about. Mikayla had turned sadness into anger because she was tired of coping with sorrow. With anger, you found an outlet to channel it through. With sadness, you were the outlet it channeled through.

"What if God gave you Leo and Kaz and Pete and Beckett because he was sorry for everything else you'd been through?" I said.

She stared at me and shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "Shit, Killian, I can't stand you." She reached out and tugged at my shirt a little. "Let's go back to the dorm. They'll come back eventually."

So the two of us walked back to the dorm building together, a strange duo as we settled in my dorm room to wait for the others to return. Silence settled over the room as we sat there, and I couldn't stop worrying about Pete, Leo, and especially Kaz. I had no idea who Headmaster Constance was, but Mikayla made it sound like the guy was capable of a lot of unpleasant stuff. The three had been gone for a while, and I just hoped that they would be okay when they finally got back.