Everyone had drifted away from Matt’s car by now. Listening to the message repeat on the radio didn’t comfort anyone. They needed to focus on the here and now. They should prepare for what came next. These students, who belonged in hallways lined with lockers, waited around a parking lot surrounded by acrid smoke. What was next?

Lucy sat in the grass behind the school, knees hugged to her chest. Someone called, and she lifted her head.

“Lucy?” Cecily called again, approaching her friend.

“I’m here.” Timidly, she touched the bandaged injury on her forehead.

Cecily sat beside her best friend on the grass, saying, “I never asked. What happened?” Her voice was full of concern.

Lucy said, “I saw one of them in the hall. I was running when someone ran into me, and someone else slammed me against the wall. They nearly crushed me.” She felt her eyes hollow with the memory of it. “Do you remember when Sagan came to school with that bandage on her forehead?”

Cecily sat in silence, her face stricken.

Nearby, Lucy noticed Stacia eavesdropping with very little subtlety. Well, good. She needed to hear this, too. Lucy said, “I remember wondering what happened. I thought, ‘Oh. I guess Justin happened again.’ Now, all I can think is, ‘That must have hurt like hell, and Justin was a piece of shit for doing it. I’m glad he’s dead.’”

Cecily rolled her eyes, saying, “You don’t mean that. She has responsibility in it, too. She stayed with him. We don’t know—”

Lucy had more to say. “No, it gets worse, because we were pieces of shit, too. We told him everything she did when he wasn’t around, and we were almost eager to tell him when it was something he wouldn’t like. We just wanted him to quit bullying us for a minute, so we let that girl be the whipping boy.”

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Cecily’s eyes widened as she frowned with enough hurt to contort her expression.

Stacia stepped into the spotlight as always, saying, “You can’t talk to her like that. We weren’t there. We don’t know what Sagan did to Justin.”

Lucy looked straight into her face, filled with all that indignation. “And we deserve to die, too.”

Stacia spat in Lucy’s face and stomped away.

Cecily gaped with her brown eyes fuming.

Lucy let the full force of her own self-loathing show on her face.

With a sudden hop, Cecily popped off the grass and ran after Stacia.

So much for the Overachievers Club. R.I.P.

“You did the right thing.”

Lucy glanced up into the brilliant, sunlit sky, and squinted under the shade of her hand to make out Matt’s face. She said, “Thanks, I guess. I don’t think I deserve it.”

The grass crunched under him as he sat beside her. “Well, I wasn’t exactly giving you a compliment. Sometimes doing the right thing, especially if you’re a little late for it, isn’t something to congratulate yourself about.”

Matt’s words stung, but they were the truth. Which, if Lucy was honest with herself, was something she hadn’t heard from another person in a long time.

She wanted to go deeper and share more of the truth. “When his truck flipped over and what happened, happened… My first feeling was relief. I knew that was awful, so I went with my second feeling, which was mostly horror. But I was more horrified with myself. We let him push us around for four years, and I assisted in a terrible cycle of abuse. And you know, maybe sometime down the road I could make amends for that. Before today. That message on the radio… I’ll never get the chance.”

Matt replied in that reasonable tone of his, “There is no making up for it. Own it and move on. Don’t feel guilty for feeling relieved. Justin didn’t have the best impact on the world. But you still could.”

Lucy said, “Thanks, Matt.”

They both sat in silence for a bit. The day seemed to stretch on in its horrific torture, as if they were separated from the world beyond that barrier of smoke plumes. As if the sun had blacked out.

Lucy squinted harder into the sky, and then realization struck her. She cried out, alarming Matt.

“What is it?” Matt asked, peering around.

Someone close stood and pointed toward the sky. “Look! It’s the sun!”

That’s when Matt noticed what Lucy saw. A fraction of the sun was turning dark, and this strange blackness consumed the fiery ball in a gradual filter. The surrounding daylight weakened, diminishing, growing darker through the smoke. All around, people cried in collective terror. The monsters could come outside, now.