Clover leaned her shoulder against a locker, watching LJ spin her combination lock.

LJ groaned, banging a fist on the scratched metal. "Why couldn't we have the same lockers from last year? This sucks."

"Clockwise, then counter-clockwise but skip it once, then clockwise again," Clover said calmly, used to her friend's easy frustration.

Pursing her lips, painted a shade of strawberry pink, LJ followed Clover's instructions. She grinned when the locker popped open. "You're a goddess, and I love you for it."

Once her lunch box and already used textbooks were put away, LJ slammed the locker shut. Clover felt the reverberations vibrating through her shoulder. "What class do you have next?" she asked, coming up to LJ's side.

LJ dodged a group of students standing in the middle of the hall, not bothering to hide her irritation. "AP French with Bernard."

Clover snorted. "Then why didn't you just stay there?"

"Because then I wouldn't have be able to hang out with you more," LJ said, nudging Clover with a wink.

"What's the deal with the new kid?" She watched LJ's expression carefully, trying to get a read for her true opinion. LJ had an extroverted spirit, but that didn't mean she was always honest about what she was thinking.

The blonde shrugged, her athletic-tape-wrapped fingers toying with the zipper of her hoodie. "Weston Curtis... Dunno. Trevor says he's nice, and that he lives over in Jamestown. Moved in just last week."

LJ knew the drill - everything she knew, she reported to Clover. That was how it had always been. That was how it had to be.

Clover's mouth tightened. "Of all places," she murmured, "West had to live in Jamestown."

"And he has three younger siblings." LJ shook her head, sympathy flashing over her sharply angled features. "You might wanna consider sending out a patrol."

"I'll scout it myself," said Clover, crossing her arms. Living in Jamestown was half the problem - she could only hope his house wasn't anywhere near Main Street.

A tiny nine-by-three mile island off the coast of the mainland, Jamestown was small and quaint - more like an old Colonial settlement than a modern town. Tourists flocked to it over the summer, renting out beach houses or getting ice cream on the docks.

But when fall came around, when the paddleboard rentals closed and the bright flowers began to wilt, that was when Jamestown turned dark. Sometimes even deadly.

Still, she was one of the only people alive who had seen that side of the island, who knew exactly what it was capable of. Her classmates and friends, though... That was a whole other story.

She didn't tell them what she'd seen happen in Jamestown, but she always made sure she accompanied them. Kept a wary eye out for the cause of that darkness, ensuring her friends - her kind, stupidly naive friends - stayed safe.

The loud bang of textbooks hitting the floor cracked through the air. Immediately Clover was sprinting toward the sound, converse slapping at the linoleum. LJ followed close behind without question.

A cluster of students stood in front of the glass doors of the library. A gradually growing audience surrounded, craning their necks to see what was going on. Two people stood a few feet apart, staring each other down. Their faces contorted with anger, bodies tense and coiled.

Clover recognized their wide stances. Every instinct in her roiled beneath her skin, urging her to move.

"I told you to stay out of this," one spat, eyes narrowed to slits. Her ruby red lips were curved into a sneer, purple hair hung in two braids down her chest.

"And I told you not to do it," the smaller kid said, his eyes cold, void of any warmth. While Clover didn't recognize the girl, she did recognize the almond-eyed boy. It was Parker - Trevor's younger brother.

This complicated things.

Clover evaluated the situation quickly. With this much tension between them, a fight was inevitable. Someone had to stop them before the teachers got involved, otherwise the blame would be pinned on the senior class, the ones in charge of running the school.

She broke through the ring of students, all entertained with the prospect of violence. "Clover... " LJ muttered in exasperation, but Clover put her back to her friend, coming to stand in between the two students..

"Back off," she said carefully, keeping her voice steady as she leveled a glare around the room. "If you want to fight, take it off school grounds."

The girl with purple hair cocked her head, golden brown skin pinching in irritation. "This doesn't concern you," she said, regarding Clover with a threatening look.

"Everything in this school concerns me." Clover crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one hip. "Leave. Now."

The stranger cast a quick glance at the floor, as if weighing her opinions. After a moment, she hissed, "Fine," through clenched teeth. "But he has to leave first." She jerked her chin at Parker.

Clover shot Parker a look that said, We'll talk about this later. He glared back, unwilling to move.

"Parker," a booming voice said, and everyone turned to the hulking figure now standing at Clover's side. His shoulders alone spanned the length of two lockers, his dark skin staining the snow white walls of the hallway. At Matthias's menacing glower, she rolled her eyes. Her folded arms hid her balled fists.

Parker finally relented, grumbling a "whatever" before walking away, his pale hands shaking. Muttering curses, the girl stalked in the other direction, her high-heeled boots clicking down the linoleum. LJ was leaning against the wall where Clover had left her, her blue eyes tracking the purple-haired girl warily.

"Keep it moving, people," Matthias ordered, his deep voice forcing the students watching to scatter to their various classrooms. A few gave him friendly smiles before they left, but he kept his features hard.

Clover tilted her head up, meeting the football captain's steady gaze. "I had it under control," she said, flashing him an exasperated look.

Matthias raised his hands in surrender, his voice rising defensively. "What? I can't help a friend in trouble?"

"She wasn't in trouble," LJ argued, whacking his arm gently with her plastic water bottle. "Cloves, what was that about?"

Clover twisted a strand of hair around her finger, a nervous habit. "No clue. But whatever it was ... " She trailed off, lost in thought. Fights were rare at Melrose High - Clover made sure of that. But Parker wasn't one for violence. Something tugged at the back of her mind, telling her this was more than just a fight.

"Did either of you recognize that girl?" she asked, turning to her friends.

LJ shrugged, shaking her head. "Must be a freshman. I'll ask Raegan to look into it."

Matthias frowned, hooking his thumbs on the straps of his Adidas backpack. "She's already got a lot on her plate," he pointed out. "I don't think we should add something else."

"Then we help her out," LJ suggested.

"Like that would work," Clover huffed, dragging a hand through her dark hair. "Raegan enjoys drowning herself in work, we all know that. I'll deal with it."

Matthias' thick eyebrows flicked up, and he rubbed his jaw, the corded muscle in his forearms straining against his skin. "And how exactly are you going to deal with it?"

She smirked and jammed her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. "I'll let you know when I figure it out," she said, turning on her heel to head to class.

"See you after school!" LJ shouted after her, and Clover could hear the smile in her words.

A few students flinched as she shoved open the door to the front office, anger burning her stomach. Two women sat behind the desk, but they were only decoys - there to reassure visiting adults that the school was wholly and completely under the control of the principal.

It was only half a lie. The school was under control, but not because of a principal.

"I need Weston Curtis's address - now."

The boy behind the desk - caramel-skinned and dark-haired - nodded stiffly, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Do you need me to email it to someone or-"

"Just write it down on a Post-It." She was losing her patience, and took a deep breath to calm herself, schooling her features into indifference.

Jamestown... It just had to be Jamestown.

While the boy scrawled down the address, Clover whipped out her phone and opened the encrypted groupchat. Her message took all of two seconds to type out, and then it was sent. Not for the first time, she hoped Matthias's encryptions would keep the chain secure. For his sake.

"Here." The chubby boy slid the neon green Post-It over the counter, and she snatched it up.

"Keep up the good work, Felix," she said over her shoulder, already pushing her way out the door.

The hallways were barren, and she realized that fifth period had already started. Perfect. At least she wouldn't have to shove herself through the after-lunch crowd to get to her locker.

Dented in the corners, the scratched face of her locker was cold on her forehead as she spun her locker combo. The security cameras at the corner of every hallway were old and unreliable, but she could never be too careful.

Not when she opened the rusted thing and her collection of weapons stared back.

Clover couldn't hide her grin.

Those wicked knives she'd sharpened to perfection gleamed on the inside of the squeaky door, held in their sheaths by magnets she picked up at Target. There were about a dozen of them, all in varying sizes and shapes. The small ones were for throwing, the larger ones for close range, and the serrated ones... Those were for special occasions.

Four pistols were hidden amongst her pens and textbooks - two on either side of the locker. But her favorite weapon was leaned up against the back corner. The rifle that had accompanied her on countless stakeouts, countless hits. She ran her finger lightly over the trigger, the corner of her mouth kicking up.

Careful not to swing the locker wide open and risk revealing its contents to the half-broken security cams, Clover pried out her AP US History book and tucked it under her arm. The spine was cracking and some of the pages looked like they were about to fall out, but it cut costs. Raegan and her team had done an incredible job in distributing the limited funds the state chose to give them. Even if it meant skimping a little on the quality of their materials.

One of the things Melrose didn't have to consider in their budget was security. Clover had assured Raegan and the rest of the administration that she would take care of it. Recruiting Matthias and LJ had been easy - since they stayed after school anyway for sports, they could keep an eye on it even when she left. It was only a matter of reading over applications before she chose the rest of her team - kids that were easy to overlook, easy to ignore.

But even they didn't know about her fully equipped arsenal, begging to be put to use.

It was an effort to slam her locker closed and walk away.