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together to make anyone suspect him.
    But there were still many nights when the image of Jay’s dead face still kept him awake.
    Sleep or no sleep, he got up for school. Vivian was gone again. Archer remade the bed his way, got dressed, and headed out to his first class.
    His professor, Mrs. Gonera, was an old hag of a woman, the worst of them all. She insisted on making every paper, every project, a long and grueling process for him. Never in high school did he have issues with English. His writing was articulate, well laid out, precise, controlled. Never a problem—not until he took her creative writing course.
    Gonera passed out their most recent papers. Some exercise in stretching the mind for creativity, reaching for voice and style or…whatever. Everyone got their papers back except for him. That didn’t bode well. Neither did her singling him out as everyone else got up to leave.
    “Mr. Pond, you can stay.” She shuffled through folders on her desk and didn’t even look up. Everyone else stared, though. He waited for the room to clear out, shoving book and binder into his backpack. Only when he and Gonera were alone did he bother getting up and approaching her.
    “Yeah?”
    She looked up at him, Coke-bottle glasses giving her an owl-eyed appearance. “Your paper.”
    “My paper,” Archer repeated. One eyebrow lifted. “What about it?”
    The witch held out his story. He took it reluctantly, noting the complete absence of a grade at the top. “It was complete,” he said. “I followed the guidelines.” To the T, in fact. He always did.
    “My problem, Mr. Pond, is not the completedness of your story.” She sniffed wetly and sat down. “It is the tone of your story. Very dark. Very dreary. Depressing. All those D-words. Is that the kind of writer you want to be?”
    The papers crinkled in Archer’s tightening grip. He counted backward from ten. “I’m not sure I get it. I followed the rules, and there were no rules about the ‘tone’ of the story.”
    “Your focus is a twelve-year-old boy brutally slaughtering demons. In graphic detail. It’s obvious to me much of the story is a metaphor for something else.” She gave him a pointed look. “Rewrite it. Something that can be shared with the rest of the class without disturbing some of your more sensitive peers. You may have a week to turn it in. That’s my attempt at generosity.”
    Archer contemplated shoving the paper down her throat. What was wrong with something darker? With metaphorical writing? His hands trembled.
    “It’s not a word,” he ground out.
    Gonera blinked up at him. “Pardon?”
    “ Completedness. It’s not a word. You’re looking for completeness. ” He shoved the papers into his backpack and stomped out of the room.
    Vivian texted him half an hour after his last class —I have news .
    He was still stewing over Gonera’s comments on his work, but there wasn’t much to be done for it. Teachers were in a position of power. Either he did what he was told, or he flunked. It wasn’t so bad in most classes, but Gonera was an exception. She hated him on some sort of personal level he couldn’t begin to understand.
    When Viv met him at the coffee shop down the street from The Grove, she smiled as she leaned across the small table and ran a finger between his brows to smooth out his frown.
    “Hello, grumpy. What’s wrong?”
    He grunted, but forced his expression to relax. “That story I finished up the other week.”
    “Yeah? What about it?”
    “The harpy says it’s too dark. Need to rewrite it.”
    Vivian wrinkled up her nose. “Lame. Can I read it?”
    He hesitated. If Gonera had been right about one thing, it was the metaphorical aspect of his paper. She couldn’t piece it together, but Vivian might. “I threw it away,” he lied.
    “Stupid, why’d you do that?” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs and folding her hands on the table. “Your stuff is really good, Archer. Don’t let Mrs.