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and not some hack sports nut who needed a position at the school in order to coach the volleyball team or whatever. (Atherton Prep Academy spares no expense.) It was nice to talk to him, though I couldn’t exactly take him seriously like Ethan suggested when he’d spent half the interview asking if the White House would be needing a full-time psychiatrist on staff, and did I want to take a copy of his résumé with me?
    I was tempted to just go straight to my pre-calc class, but Cynthia and I didn’t have any more classes together the rest of the day. I knew she would kill me if I didn’t come find her first, so I headed to the cafeteria.
    I expected to find Cynthia with her family. She has seven brothers and no sisters. They’re a very close, protective family, but she only hangs out with them when I’m not around. She talks about them sometimes, but we never hang out with them, and I mean never . Cynthia and I have been friends for over a year now, and I’ve never even been over to her house.
    She says she keeps us separate because she doesn’t want any of them realizing how awesome I am and stealing me away from her, but I think she just needs a break from all the testosterone. She may be an overwhelming ball of energy, but her brothers make her look like a church mouse.
    I was still about five or six feet away from them when I saw that Cynthia wasn’t there. I tried to escape unnoticed, but the second I turned my back on them their laughter stopped.
    “Leaving so soon, Grace?”
    Cynthia’s brothers were very intimidating—even the younger ones. They were always laughing and goofing off, but were somehow still dangerous. Most people avoided them. I’ve certainly never complained about Cynthia’s desire to keep us apart.
    The one who’d spoken to me was the oldest—a senior named Preston. Preston was definitely the scariest of the group. The Layton brothers didn’t respect any authority at school except for his. I didn’t know a lot about him, but I knew it wasn’t good to have his attention.
    I took a breath, trying to calm myself, and then turned to face him with the best fake smile I could manage. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you guys. I was just looking for Cynthia.”
    There were four of them present at the moment—the younger three still ate lunch in the early shift with the little kids—and all of them except Preston were holding back laughter. My smile wasn’t fooling anyone. I was scared of them and they knew it. They enjoyed it.
    Preston watched me through narrowed eyes, even though the smile never left his face. “Cynthia’s not here at the moment.”
    “Yeah, I can see that. Like I said, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I guess I’ll try the library or something.”
    The second I turned my back on them, I was whisked off my feet into a strong pair of arms. The only reason I didn’t have a heart attack was because the one who had me cradled against his chest momentarily was Cynthia’s twin, Caleb. He still scared me to death, but of the bunch he frightened me the least because I knew he and Cynthia were very close.
    “You didn’t think we’d let you get away that easily, did you?” he asked as he sat back down at the lunch table with me clamped tightly in his arms. He sounded playful but had an edge in his voice that made my anxiety spike.
    I tried to scramble away, mortified that he was holding me in his lap, but he refused to let me. All of them laughed as they watched me struggle.
    “What’s the rush, Disgrace?” Cynthia’s brother Peter asked. Peter was only a year younger than Cynthia, Caleb, and me—and he was by far the most obnoxious.
    “Yeah,” the youngest of the big kids, thirteen-year-old Brett, agreed. “You just got here. Stay and play with us for a minute.”
    “Come on, you guys. Let me go, please? Cynthia wanted me to find her before lunch is over.” My voice was shaking now despite my best efforts.
    “Cyn’s just going to have to deal,” Caleb