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“You never offered a plausible reason you would do that. I’m not about to brush this off and start again just because my presence makes you uncomfortable. And I’m not dropping out of Poisons and Tox. I don’t see why your shit conduct means I have to suffer by taking this class again.” She crosses her arms, blatantly defying her teacher. That’s my good girl.

“No one said anything about you dropping out, Aspen.”

“Good, because I won’t. Nor will I let you make me feel lesser because for some unknown reason my presence frustrates you. If I feel for one second you are singling me out, or Fox, or Tali, or any of my friends, then I’ll be taking the matter up with faculty. Now, unless you want us all late for your class, time to go inside as a competent teacher ready to deliver a lesson plan without angst or anger, if you can do that.”

Aspen spins in my hold, and we walk arm in arm, with her tucked under my shoulder, to our seats in the second row. Moments later, a somewhat flustered Professor Donnelyn enters and avoids eye contact with the student who just schooled her on the art of not giving a fuck. That’s my good fucking girl.

“Tell me more about the numbers engraved on the back of your locket,” I text her as she lies with her head in my lap. The clouds have gathered steadily during the morning, shielding any hints of blue and trapping us under an ominous, billowy ceiling. She thumbs the gold again; it’s a habit I’ve seen when she’s nervous, tired, or uncertain.

“This was my mother’s,” she volunteers with no delay. “My father gave it to her when they first started dating. He didn’t want to call attention to their relationship.” She says the last word with accompanying finger quotes. “So he tried to be subtle. My father is quite old-fashioned. I don’t think this is something she would have chosen for herself, but because the gift came from him, she loved it more.”

I smile down at her. She hasn’t answered my question, but it’s an incredibly romantic backstory. Off in the distance, a rumble of thunder groans its way along, the soundwave vibrating with the threat of an imminent storm. It snaps Aspen out of her daydream. “This is the date my parents first got together. It’s part of a passcode they used to protect their research files, and a set of numbers I still use today.”

Two, zero, zero, two, four, seven.

The sky darkens at her words, or the numbers as I say them in my head. Either way, the foreboding shadows light up with an intense lightning pulse, just as another rolling boom sounds.

“Time to get inside, my little Fox,” she says, sitting up and pretending to haul me up as well. I linger on the ground, content to watch her mock struggles, because now and then, a gorgeous smile breaks out across her full lips before she dissolves into giggles. I’ll take this joyous laughter over those ear-drilling, panicked screams any day. We get to our feet and make it inside just as the first drops lash the earth, rebounding the watery disks. Her hair is charged by the energy zapping around us as we avoid students darting about to escape the deluge. Soon, we’ll all be moving like sewer rats trapped in the subterranean tunnels because the snow will be too harsh to move about in. The energy of the storm has nothing on the crackle between the two of us as I pull her body close, desperate to reclaim the heat of her body where it’s connected to mine. Her heart thumps so fast, she bristles, squealing with childish delight as the rain tumbles down.

“I love a thunderstorm,” she says over the noise of the driving liquid now pooling in places and rebounding off the surface of the fountain. “I love anything in nature. How beautiful life can be with the simplest things, you know?”

I smile at her, adding an enthusiastic nod. I know exactly what she’s getting at. A sunrise bleeding gold and pink into the last sapphire of night, a sunset of tangerine and blood red dripping beyond the mountains and splashing the tamaracks in the same amber glow. A rainbow, even an imperfect one. A water droplet rolling atop the shiny surface of a ficus, the elongated symmetrical petals of a lotus unfurling to perfection. Aspen sees what I see. Perfection. As she drifts away toward her next class after lunch, she rises onto her tiptoes and plants a kiss on the tip of my chin. Before she can sink down again, I lower my face and angle hers to meet mine. Her next kiss lands on my lips, those plump, swollen lips so soft and warm on my own as energy continues to ignite around us. Perfection.

“Hey, beautiful. We miss not having you here on campus. It’s not fair that the professor gets you all to himself.”

“Shhh. Lukaz, keep your voice down. No one knows where I’m staying right now.”

“I do, and I don’t like it.”

Luk and I have been texting back and forth, along with the updates in the group chat.

ELI: 9.07

Did Aspen make it to her classes okay?

JACK: 9.08

Any incidents we need to be aware of?

ELI: 9.08

Did you observe anything else that seemed out of the ordinary?

ME: 9.11

No, Prof, calm the fuck down before you give us all a complex. Aspen is fine; we’ve got this.

“Stay over at ours,” he whines again into the top of her head. Like me, he’s tall enough that she fits snugly under his protective arm. “We will keep you company, inside and out, baby.”

Aspen has been in a pensive mood. She’s identified three of her Larch gifts so far but isn’t confident enough to present her assumptions. Larch law stipulates that if you identify your gift, you can state the botanical to your assumed Larcher along with your theory of why this person was your masked hunter. This was to stop Ashes from going up to every male on campus with the same general question. “Are you my Larcher? Nope, next.” That takes all the fun out of discovery; long after the memories of the Larch fade and muscles recover.

“Oh, hey. Fox told me you are further along with your Larch gifts. Anything you want to share with the group?”

“No,” she huffs, pulling back to seek his eyes. I know my guesses are limited, and I want to be one thousand percent certain before I ask anyone anything.”

“That’s fair. What did you identify?”

“Other than the knapweed on the night of the Larch, the willow is Salix larsiolepix, the Arroyo Willow. That could be anyone.”