"Why, Bianca. I see you've met my roommate."

Bianca's icy eyes narrowed, feline and furious. A disbelieving scoff ripped from her parted lips. In her hands, she clenched a slightly crumbled paper.

"She's the girl?" Bianca said, a hysteric edge heightening her voice.

"Bianca, let's talk about this outside," Xavier insisted in a low voice, his hand pressed protectively against her lower back. On his way out, he shot you a hard, tired look, as if admonishing you for upsetting his girlfriend. You rolled your eyes back at him.

He and Bianca swept outside like a frosty gale, and Rowan hesitated behind them.

"Today's Tuesday," Rowan said, standing awkwardly close to your bed as if desperately trying to bake a conversation.

"It is, Rowan," you sarcastically praised, his proximity in the isolated dorm sending you an uncomfortable jolt. "So glad you noticed."

"On Tuesdays," Rowan fumblingly continued, not catching your mocking tone. "Xavier dreams."

"I dream, too. Sometimes even on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."

"No, no, no." Rowan urgently shook his head, his dark hair flopping out of its neat, slick comb. "He dreams. Bad dreams." Agitated, Rowan earnestly gripped your hands and stared into your soul. You instinctively jerked backward.

"What kind of bad dreams?" You slowly said, ice creeping over your skin like a spider.

"I don't know. But they... upset him. It's very important," Rowan seriously interjected, his voice hushing to a nervous whisper. "It's very important that no matter what he says or does tonight, you don't talk to him. Don't wake him. Pretend to be asleep."

A sharp, confident wrapping on the door rescued you from responding.

"Don't talk to him," Rowan urgently hissed, maneuvering around Enid and vanishing out the doorframe.

"Look who's here," You cheered, clipping across the room in quick, high-heeled steps with your arms extended. You loosely slung your arms around Enid's neck in a hug. You didn't have time for Xavier's weird nightmares or Rowan's bizarre warning.

"You room with boys?" Enid grimaced sympathetically, lips parted. "Ew."

"Tell me about it," you cringed, flopping backwards onto your marshmallow-pink bed. It softly sunk around your outline, cradling you. Enid hopped up, casually dangling her feet over the side and squeezing your heart-shaped pillow across her chest. A grin crescendoed across her face, and her eyes twinkled with starlight and conspiracy.

"So." Eager focus cleared Enid's blue eyes. "Nevermore has two big dances every year. The Rave'N, right before winter break..."

Winter break. The ideas of Christmas and snow danced deep within the dusty recesses of your mind. In the late-August heat, they dangled far away.

"... and the Red Masquerade, in October, right before fall break," Enid decisively finished, playfully hurling the pillow into your lap. "Every year, the school nominates a Red Queen. Bianca always wins."

"So if I win instead," you realized, catching on fast as flames licking up a tree. "It means she's been dethroned."

"Exactly."

"So I have one month to win over Nevermore before the Red Masquerade." You tilted your head to the side and grinned at Enid. "We're gonna need a plan."

"A plan?" Enid giggled doubtfully, comparing the color of her bubblegum nails with your bed. "Do those ever work?"

"Please." You theatrically tilted your chin up with mock self-confidence. "I've seen Mean Girls, it works." You both exploded into peals of laughter.

"You'll need to best her in at least one extracurricular." Enid seriously mused after you'd calmed. "She pretty much swims at the top in everything. Fencing, choir, chess... If you can get even one win over Bianca, the school will notice."

"And friends! That's the fun part; you need to gather friends!" Enid declared. "You already have me, obvi. But you can't beat the queen without a crowd."

Like mastermind screenwriters, you and Enid sewed together a patchwork strategy. Satisfied and confident, you both burned the rest of Tuesday evening huddled around your laptop obsessing over chick flicks.

During a heated make-out scene, you felt a flicker of recognition for the love interest. With his dimples, boyish smile, and light chestnut curls, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Tyler Galpin.

The sheriff's tired scowl and pitying words prowled across your mind like dangerous, lurking wolves.

"He'll find out you're an outcast. And when he does, he'll make your life hell."

"Hey, Enid, you know everybody in Jericho, right? Even the normies?" You hesitantly began. Time to find out who Tyler really was to the outcasts.

"Of course! Why, you want dirt on someone?"

"Tyler Galpin." You evenly said his name, careful to not allow any emotion leak into the two short words.

Enid was not one for muted reactions.

Immediately, she tumbled backward onto her elbows as if shot, shaking the bed like jello. Her eyes expanded into massive blue coins. She gawked at you as if you'd shouted the devil's name instead.

"Uh oh," you cringed, laughing at her visceral recoil. "Alright, let's hear it."

"Tyler Galpin. 19 years old, graduated from Jericho High last spring. Works at the Weathervane," Enid recited, focus and anger sparking her gaze. Her hands snapped into tiny fists. "He and his friends held Xavier down and made him watch while they spraypainted 'FREAK' over his mural in red."

As Enid spitefully listed his crimes, your opinion of Tyler sunk like a stone in a stagnant lake.

"He crushed Jenna's phone when she asked him for a charger at the Harvest Festival. She was crying and he laughed in her face."

"He cut all the wires of Nevermore's Christmas decorations last year."

"He and his friends cornered Ajax in an alley and beat him up last summer. It was an unfair fight, four against one."

"Why do you want to know?" Enid snapped out of her trance, watching you with concern. "Has he been bothering you?"

"No! No." You stared out the window at the black dark. Rain trickled against the pane, splattering in fat droplets and streaking down in forked streams.  "I work with him at the Weathervane. And he doesn't know i'm an outcast."

"Good. I'd keep it that way," Enid advised, "Call me if he ever finds out. He's dangerous because he doesn't even think we're human."

Later that night, you warily shuffled through the facts to the pittering backdrop of a drizzle tapping the roof. Why did Tyler harbor a dark prejudice against outcasts? Had something happened to him? To normies, you'd seen him laugh with genuine kindness. You'd felt his gentle hands guide yours on the espresso machine. The version of Tyler Enid had constructed clashed harshly with the boy you knew, like an elusive, nightmarish double.

"Goodnight, Xavier. 'Night, Rowan." You absentmindedly sighed, head whirling with Tyler's piercing, green eyes and his sins.

"Goodnight."

You'd just sunk into a fragile-coated dream about poisoned coffee when you heard it.

Pained, harsh gasps. Scratchy and panicked, as if drowning. Xavier was dreaming.

And you were going to wake him up.