Myron looked at Randy. “We need to talk now. Before this gets out of hand.”

Crush smiled, flexed his pecs, stepped forward. “It’s already out of hand.”

Myron didn’t want to take out a kid, not with the parents around. It would cause too many problems.

“I don’t want trouble,” Myron said.

“You already got it, Butt-face.”

Some of the guys oooed at that one. Crush folded his massive arms across his chest. A stupid move. Myron needed to get this out of the way fast, before the parents started noticing. But Crush’s friends were watching. Crush was the resident tough guy. He couldn’t afford to back down.

Arms folded across the chest. How macho. How dumb.

Myron made the move. When you need to take out somebody with a minimum of fuss or mess, this technique was one of the most effective. Myron’s hand started at his side. The natural resting spot. That was the key. You don’t cock the wrist. You don’t pull the arm back. You don’t wind up or make a fist. The smallest distance between two points is a straight line. That’s what you remember. Using his natural hand speed and the element of surprise, Myron shot the hand in that straight line, from the resting point near his hip to Crush’s throat.

He didn’t hit him hard. Myron used the knife edge below the pinky and found the neck’s sweet spot. Few points on the human body are more vulnerable. If you hit someone in the throat, it hurts. It makes them gasp and cough and freeze. But you have to know what you’re doing. You hit it too hard, you could do some serious damage. Myron’s hand darted in and struck cobra-like.

Crush’s eyes bulged. A choking sound got locked in his throat. With almost casual ease, Myron swept out Crush’s legs with his instep. Crush went down. Myron did not wait. He grabbed Randy by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him away. If any kid so much as moved, Myron froze them with a stare-down, all the while hustling Randy into the neighbor’s backyard.

Randy said, “Ow, let me go!”

Screw that. Randy was eighteen, an adult, right? No reason to go soft on him because he was a kid. He took him behind the garage two houses down. When Myron released him, Randy rubbed the back of his neck.

“What the hell is your problem, man?”

“Aimee is in trouble, Randy.”

“She ran away. Everyone said so. People talked to her online tonight.”

“Why did you two break up?”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you.” Randy thought about it, then shrugged. “We outgrew each other, that’s all. We’re both going to college. It was time to move on.”

“Last week you went to the prom together.”

“Yeah, so? We’d been planning for it all year. The tux, the dress, we rented a stretch Hummer with a bunch of friends. The whole group of us. We didn’t want to ruin everyone’s time. So we went together.”

“Why did you two break up, Randy?”

“I just told you.”

“Did Aimee find out you were dealing drugs?”

Randy smiled then. He was a handsome kid and he had a damn good smile. “You make it sound like I’m hanging in Harlem hooking kids on heroin.”

“I’d get into a moral debate with you, Randy, but I’m a little pressed for time.”

“Of course Aimee knew about it. She even partook on more than one occasion. No big deal. I was only providing for a few friends.”

“One of those friends Katie Rochester?”

He shrugged. “She asked a few times. I helped her out.”

“So again, Randy: Why did you and Aimee break up?”

He shrugged again and his tone quieted just enough. “You’d have to ask Aimee.”

“She broke up with you?”

“Aimee changed.”

“Changed how?”

“Why don’t you ask her old man?”

That made Myron pull up. “Erik?” He frowned. “What does he have to do with it?”

He didn’t reply.

“Randy?”

“Aimee found out her father was screwing around.” He shrugged. “It made her change.”

“Change how?”

“I don’t know. It’s like she wanted to do anything to piss him off. Her dad liked me. So all of a sudden”—another shrug—“she didn’t.”

Myron thought about it. He remembered what Erik had said last night, on the end of that cul-de-sac. It added up.

“I cared about her, man,” Randy went on. “You have no idea how much. I tried to win her back, but it just backfired in my face. I’m over her now. Aimee’s not a part of my life anymore.”

Myron could hear the crowd gather. He reached to grab Randy again by the neck, drag him farther away, but Randy pulled back. “I’m fine!” Randy yelled out to his approaching friends. “We’re just talking here.”

Randy turned back to Myron. His eyes were suddenly clear. “Go ahead. What else do you want to know?”

“Your father called Aimee a slut.”

“Right.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Aimee started seeing somebody else?”

Randy nodded.

“Was it Drew Van Dyne?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Nah, not really. With all due respect, none of this does. Look, high school is over. I’m going to Dartmouth. Aimee is going to Duke. My mom, she told me something. She said that high school isn’t important. The people who are happiest in high school end up being the most miserable adults. I’m lucky. I know that. And I know it won’t last unless I take the next step. I thought . . . we talked about it. I thought Aimee understood that too. How important the next step was. And in the end, we both got what we wanted. We got accepted to our first choices.”

“She’s in danger, Randy.”

“I can’t help you.”

“And she’s pregnant.”

He closed his eyes.

“Randy?”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“You said you did something to try to win her back, but it backfired. What did you do, Randy?”

He shook his head. He wouldn’t say. But Myron thought that maybe he had an idea. Myron gave him his card. “If you think of anything . . .”

“Yeah.”

Randy turned away then. He headed back to the party. The music still played. The parents kept laughing. And Aimee was still in trouble.