“-very powerful, so I doubt she’ll be able to- Joo, are you listening?”

I snap out of my dazed reverie. Jimin, Jungkook, Dev, Jin, and Tom are staring at me with expressions ranging from annoyance to concern.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Are you okay?” Jin asks quietly.

I nod. “Yeah. Just had a rough night.”

“Stop babying her,” Jimin snaps.

Jin rounds on Jimin, his gaze narrowed. “Oh, sorry, I forgot you don’t know what caring about a friend looks like-,”

“Okay, okay, relax,” Jungkook hastily cuts in. “Joo, we were just saying that there are four Kado council members left.”

“Do they all live in Windsong?” I ask.

Jungkook grimaces. “Uh, my mom does. The other three live in Windsong.”

A distant memory snaps into my brain. “Jimin, isn’t your dad Kado Vice Captain?”

His face is impassive. “Yup. My mom is another council member.”

“Oh, .” My lips flatten. Probably not the nicest feeling to have your ex-girlfriend hunting down both your parents.

“Who’s the Kado Captain?” Dev asks.

The dread doesn’t set into my stomach until I see Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook exchange uncomfortable glances. I look at Tom- and feel even uneasier when I see how fidgety he is, too.

Dev looks just as spooked by their reactions. “Who is it?”

“It’s Taehyung’s dad,” Tom finally says when the three Kado members are silent.

I blink.

“,” Dev says, eyeing me. They’re all watching to see my reaction. I don’t give them one- even though I’m crumbling on the inside.

Taehyung’s dad is the Kado Captain. Why didn’t I know this before? I’m living with the most dangerous Kado family in North America.

I pull my knees up to my chest, curl over myself.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I ask Jin and Tom in a small voice.

They look so incredibly sad as they look at me.

“I was just waiting for the right time,” Jin says quietly.

I know what he’s not saying. I didn’t think you could handle it.

He may be right.

“Lucy’s on a suicide mission,” Jungkook says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how she killed those other council members, but these four... their power is insane.”

“She’s going to kill everyone or die trying.” Dev winces.

“Lucy wouldn’t do that,” Jimin’s face is hard. “She’s not stupid enough to take them on. She has some other objective- I know her.”

“No,” I utter softly. “She doesn’t. That’s exactly what her goal is. She knows she’s going to die- either from the Kado or the uppers. She just doesn’t care.”

Dev, Jungkook, Tom, and Jin all erupt in various cries of worry and frustration and panic, but my eyes are focused on Jimin, who has gone utterly still.

“Didn’t she tell you?” I ask quietly.

“We didn’t speak extensively when she came to visit,” he replies tonelessly.

“This makes things way more complicated,” Jungkook says. “Lucy has nothing to lose. And neither does anyone in the Kado. The council has basically said that the person who captures Lucy gets to be Junior Vice Captain.”

Jimin throws his friend a sharp look. He has finally composed himself.

“Not happening,” he growls. “We’re getting to her first.”

Lake Rye is calm, its waves choppy and black. Even the lights reflected from the Windsong Summer Festival on the dock do little to illuminate what is lurking under its depths. My feet hang off the pier as I aimlessly stare into the night.

I really tried tonight. I put on a cute little skirt and braided my hair and went on the Ferris Wheel with Jin and Dev. Tom bought me pink sugar-spun cotton candy and we finished the whole bag, even though I didn’t want to eat. When we passed Taehyung and his friends huddled in a corner, placing tabs on their tongues, I laughed and looked the other way.

My body is incapable of feeling anything but numbness.

Dazedly, as if in a trance, I remove off my shoes. My socks come off, too.

I slip off the pier and into Lake Rye with barely a splash. I could be a wayward stone being thrown in the water by a toddler, or a fish swashing about for food. My disappearance is simple.

The water is bitingly cold despite the muggy summer heat. The last time I jumped into Lake Rye, I violently thrashed around in a panic, thinking that I was going to drown to death. This time, I simply draw soft breaths under the water. My emerald-green amulet glows on my neck.

My arms tread through the water in a stroke, pulling me deeper down through the current. The lights of the Festival fade to blurry specks, and then disappear all together. The only thing surrounding me is cold darkness. Seaweed tickles my bare legs- or perhaps they are schools of minnows swimming by.

How long could I stay down here for? Would I be able to live at the bottom of the lake? Could I float until my body withered away?

Distantly, I wonder if Taehyung would come for me.

And then suddenly, as if the universe has read my mind, I feel a firm pair of arms wrap around my torso. A warm excitement spreads through my chest as I’m pulled back up to the surface, bubbles bursting through the inky black waters.

“Taehyung,” I breathe when I’m back on the pier, turning to face him-

I freeze.

A very angry-looking Jimin is glaring at me as he wrings lake water out of the bottom of his shirt.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he barks. “Do you know what’s in those waters? You could’ve gotten your legs ripped off by a gorgon. No, forget monsters- a water snake could’ve bitten you, you absolute moron.”

My body deflates.

Jimin eyes me as I remain silent. “Your friends are looking for you.”

“You didn’t take drugs with Taehyung?” I ask quietly.

He purses his lips. “I’m not really a fan of taking molly at a carnival for 8-year-olds.”

I pull myself up, arrange my soaking wet skirt as gracefully as I can. My collared button-down clings to my skin, embarrassingly see-through.

A pile of thick fabric hits me in the face. I confusedly look down at the garment in my hands. Jimin has thrown over his Harvard sweatshirt.

“Just put it on,” he says grudgingly.

I blink. “Thanks.”

“Whatever.”

“You know,” I say, pulling on his sweatshirt. “I like you a lot better when you’re not wearing that fake Stepford smile.”

He tenses for a moment, and then he’s back to his normal sneering self. “You sound like Lucy.”

“Yeah, well, I agree with her.” Both of us trudge back to the carnival, leaving damp footsteps in our wake. “How did you know I was in the lake?”

“I thought you were-,” Jimin abruptly cuts himself off. My eyebrows quirk up.

“Thought I was who? Lucy? She’s talked to you, right?”

“I’m not trying to have an emotional powwow with you.”

“She’s visited me twice- once on uppers, once while sober. I don’t know which was scarier.”

Jimin clenches his jaw, refusing to answer.

“For what it’s worth, I’m on your side. I told her you cared about her.”

His head snaps over. “How would you feel if I went to Taehyung and told him you were still in love with him?”

I shrug and I’m sure Jimin can tell I’m trying too hard to be nonchalant. “I don’t think he’d care.”

“Jumping in a lake isn’t going to do anything. Taehyung’s too drugged out to notice.”

His words send sharp jabs through my chest. I look away, my gaze focused on the grandiose merry-go-round.

“Whoa! Jimin and Joo?” Dread fills my body as Namjoon swaggers over to us, his eyes red. Judging by the dopey grin on his face he must be high out of his mind.

“You moved on from Lucy to her best friend,” Yoongi chortles.

A tall, lean figure shoves past Namjoon and Yoongi, his brown hair irreparably tousled. His pupils are blown out from the molly. Perhaps if he was sober, he would do a better job of hiding the cold fury burning in his eyes.

“What the ,” Taehyung slurs. There’s electric-blue chi radiating off his body in tendrils as he grabs Jimin by the collar of his polo.

Jimin lazily smirks down at him- a concerningly unconcerned reaction to a furious sorcerer. “I’m surprised you’re still standing.”

“Get away from her.” Taehyung grabs my hand, and I feel nothing but disgust. I hate this Taehyung- the one that’s high and sloppily and shows me emotions that disappear after he sobers up.

I twist my arm out of his grasp. “You’re pathetic,” I hiss.

Taehyung grabs me again, this time by Jimin’s Harvard sweatshirt.

“Take it off,” he growls.

“Stop,” I say, but his hands bunch up in the fabric even tighter. He yanks me toward him so aggressively that I trip over my feet. Namjoon and Yoongi go, “Whoa, whoa, Taehyung.”

“Take it off,” he mumbles, his face inches from mine. It feels like I'm staring back at a stranger. I am looking at Taehyung Kim, son of the esteemed Kado Captain, heart-stoppingly handsome and wealthy beyond comprehension. The boy who was raised to take because he could, to be selfish without remorse. I wonder why I ever thought he could care about me at all.

Namjoon and Yoongi pull Taehyung off me. They look grim as they drag a stumbling Taehyung away. Jimin and I watch as they disappear into the crowd of the Festival, their Kiton polos blending in with the hundreds of other well-dressed attendees.

My hands are trembling.

“Do yourself a favor,” Jimin tells me, his stare fixed on the crowd. “After this is all over, go to Berkeley and don’t look back.”