"Come on, don't be a pussy."

Nicholas' voice was so close that his forehead almost grazed against mine. I could smell his breath so sharply that it seemed almost to be an animate thing, that flimsy veil of peppermint, covering so scarcely the unapologetic and acrid cloud of smoke beneath.

Nicholas never hid himself, but he didn't flaunt himself, either. It was common knowledge that he was a bad egg, but he didn't care so neither did anyone else.

I wanted to laugh at the way he used that word so casually towards me, a girl, (and one his age, nonetheless) but I stopped my smile from becoming anything more than a fleeting idea. The truth was, I was being a pussy, and I didn't want him to keep pressing the issue.

I knew that, if he asked me just one more time, with his tone just one inch softer, I would give in.

I wanted to go with him badly, more than I had wanted anything in a long time, and it was taking every speck of my self-restraint not to.

I kept telling myself that I was a good girl, I minded my own business, I did the right thing, and there was no place for me beside Nicholas Evans with his secret key. I was not meant to be lurking then creeping then stalking, leafing through a home that no longer belonged to the neighbors I had always loved. I shouldn't have even been close enough to Nicholas to taste the tobacco and spearmint in the first place…

But now I was, and the scent seemed like it was getting stronger, stronger, strong enough to cover up completely the last vestiges of my sanity…

"We both know there's a mystery there," he whispered "and we're the only ones who can unravel it."

So he was trying to guilt trip me, telling me I was the only one who could help him.

I wonder if that was what he said to Sarah James in seventh grade, sitting in the last seat in the back of the bus, beside her one second and on top of her the next. Sarah's parents had been indignant, groaning and harrumphing and cursing ("That boy is a swine!") because they hadn't known and didn't want to know that it was in fact their daughter who had begged to play in the pigpen…

I didn't want to be like Sarah, whose parents had tucked their tails between their legs as they pulled their daughter away in shame to the safety of a new school and a new atmosphere, hanging low the heads whose faces had just been so red and angry…

And I knew that that wasn't how this was going to turn out. I knew that Nicholas was a player, but me, I wasn't in the game, I wasn't even sitting in the stand, I was just at home, instead, curled up on the floor with some book, any book, that could never be big enough to free me completely from the lingering thoughts of sports and love and delicate teenage debauchery…

Even if there had been any iota of a reason for him to be interested in me like that, why would I even cock my head to get a better look? He lived down the street from me and was a close friend of my brothers, someone who I'd hung around for so long that I'd become desensitized to. I didn't like him or love him or want him or want to.

But he was here and I was here and there was a key in his pocket to the house across the street that Thom Harkine had lived in, not as long ago as it felt, and Thom Harkine, for me, was a very different story.

And then he dropped the words that I had known, inside, were coming.

"Please, Kay."

My lips formed the response before my mind even realized what they were doing. I didn't sound like myself, in that moment.

In that moment, I sounded like Sarah James, taken in by Nicholas' slick loopholes and sweet voice and the underlying cunning in the earnest nonchalance with which he deployed them.

"Okay," I gasped. "Let's go, let's do this, right now!"

He drew his face back, and his pleading pout was now replaced by the smuggest of smirks. "I knew you'd say that," he gloated softly. It was too late to bristle at his triumphant jibes.

I was in with all of my heart.

We were on our way, Nicholas and I, into Ted's house to see what we could find.

We wasted no time, not even a second. He had already started to walk even as he snickered at me, grabbing my sleeve to spur me along.

"My mom said he's away for the whole weekend—I don't know how the hell she knew that, but it works for me. … Us, it works for us. So we're going to use this key that Thom gave me, we're going to get in, and we're going to take it from there. We have to find something—and then we'll finally know! Think of how amazing it'll be, to have all those dark clouds and shit around him gone! No more creepy mysterious neighbor; we'll know who he is, and what he does! It'll be sweet, fucking sweet, and quite frankly, I can't imagine why in hell I didn't think to do this sooner…"

He stopped his excited babble for a moment and raised an eyebrow at me. "I guess it's because I didn't have anyone to go with me. As exciting as it all is, this shit is freaky. I know I was sort of bagging on you before, but Kay, there's no way I'd have ever done this on my own."

If I had been thinking more clearly, that would have sent off warning bells in my head. It would have made me feel irritated, or anxious, or at least something. But as it stood, it didn't. I barely even reacted. My adrenaline had already started to pump. I was already starting to feel capable, powerful… dangerous. I was a real spy, on a real mission, with a real purpose, and if I could do this, well, then I could do anything.

And I would do this, so then I would do, not only anything, but everything.

I had never felt that way before, but there was one thing I knew for certain; I didn't ever want to go back to the person I had been before. The Kay of last year, of yesterday, of even an hour ago seemed miles away from the one I was being now. This Kay was unconquerable and nigh untouchable.

She was breaking into a house with a well-known juvenile delinquent and she was damn happy to be doing it.

I didn't respond to Nicholas. It wasn't that I didn't know how to—it was just that the concept of responding didn't even exist to me in that moment. Nothing did, except for the key and the house and his smell and the way the gravel crunched below our feet as we sprinted on the tips of our toes like we were mice stealing from the pantry, afraid that a fat angry cat would hear us.