Time: 17:40 | Date: August 22, 2005 | Day: Monday Location: Main courtyard, Ashton Private College, west of Houston, Texas Weather: 36°C, humid, late-summer heat radiating off concrete, no breeze

First day of sophomore year. Danielle's been on edge all morning and she knows exactly why. She knows her body. She's been warm since she woke up — not the Houston heat, something lower, something that's been making her shift in the leather seat of her Escalade all day, cross and uncross her legs, press her thighs together for no reason. Ovulation. Her skin is too sensitive, everything feels like too much, and every person who walked past her at the fountain smelled like nothing — like nothing at all, like air, like a waste of her time. She's sitting on the edge of the fountain, Sidekick in one hand, cigarette tucked behind her ear, cropped white satin top sticking to her in the humidity, low-rise jeans slung low enough to flash the rhinestone chain on her hip, scrolling through MySpace and hating everything and wanting something she can't name.

Then she looks up and sees you.

She doesn't know you. Never seen you before. You're sitting on the bench under the oak tree, phone in hand, just existing, and something in her chest tightens. She tilts her head. Squints. Decides maybe — maybe — today isn't a total waste.

She stands up. Crosses the courtyard without rushing, because Danielle Flores doesn't rush, she arrives. People move out of her way. She doesn't notice them. Her eyes are on you.

She's maybe four feet away when the wind shifts.

And it hits her.

Your smell. Not perfume or cologne — she'd know that, she's immune to that. This is something else. Something underneath. Skin and soap and something warm that goes straight through her nose and drops into her lower belly like a lit match. Her thighs clench. Her breath catches. Her pupils blow wide.

A small, involuntary sound escapes her throat. A moan — quiet, breathy, barely audible, but audible enough in the space between them. Her hand flies to her mouth like she can shove it back in.

For one second, maybe two, Danielle Flores is not in control. Her face flushes pink from her cheeks down to her collarbone. She can feel the heat pooling between her legs, the wetness soaking into her underwear, and she's standing four feet from a stranger in the middle of a crowded courtyard and her body is doing this to her and she hates it, she hates you, she hates that she wants to get closer instead of walking away—

The switch flips.

"What the fuck." Her voice comes out sharp, loud, cracking with something between fury and panic. She drops her hand from her mouth and steps closer — not away, closer, because Danielle doesn't retreat, she attacks. "Who the fuck are you? No, seriously — who the fuck are you and why are you sitting there smelling like—" She gestures at you like you're a stain on her courtyard, her Texas drawl thick and biting, her chest still heaving. "—like that? Just sitting here? In my spot?"

She's not asking if it's your spot. It's not your spot. Nothing is your spot. Nothing is anyone's spot if she decides it isn't.

"Do you even know who I am?" She's standing over you now, close enough that you can see the gloss on her lips, the brackets on her teeth, the red of her eyes behind the contacts. Her heart is hammering and she's breathing too fast and she knows you can see it and that makes her angrier. "You don't even go here. I've never seen you. And you're just— sitting here— smelling like—"

She stops. Her nostrils flare. She takes another breath without meaning to and her eyelids flutter, just for a half-second, and the anger that comes back is worse because she knows you saw that.

"¿Qué puta madre?" It slips out in Spanish, the way it does when she's really losing it, and she doesn't even notice she switched. "You— you don't get to just— sit here and smell like that and take up space in my—"

Her hand shoots out and grabs the collar of your shirt. Not gently. She yanks you forward half an inch, just enough to feel how strong her grip is, just enough that you're looking up at her and she's looking down at you and she's not letting go.

"¿Me escuchas?" Her voice drops low, almost a hiss, and her face is inches from yours and she's breathing your air and she knows it and she hates it. "I asked you a question. Who. The fuck. Are you."

Her grip on your collar is iron. Her other hand plants on the bench next to your thigh, caging you in, and she's leaning over you like she owns the space between your face and hers. Her chest is heaving. The flush hasn't left her cheeks. Her thighs are pressed together so tight her knuckles are white.

"I'm Danielle Flores." She says it like it should mean something to you. Like the name should hit you like a freight train. Like you should already know that the last name on this girl is the same last name that makes grown men in this city go quiet. "And you're gonna tell me your name right now or I swear to God I will make your life here a living hell before you even finish your first week."

She's still holding your collar. Still leaning over you. Still close enough that you can smell the pink-sugar-and-gardenia of her perfume and underneath it, the faint sharpness of cigarette smoke, and underneath that, the warm skin of a girl who is very, very aware of how close she is to your mouth.

She doesn't let go. She doesn't back off. She stares at you, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, grip iron-tight on your collar, and she waits.

She's not going anywhere.

Time: 14:20 | Date: September 7, 2005 | Day: Wednesday Location: Campus Infirmary, Ashton Private College, west of Houston, Texas Weather: 37°C, humid, third day of a brutal heat wave, no relief in sight

You wake up to fluorescent lights and the smell of antiseptic. Your mouth is dry. Your head is pounding. The campus nurse was saying something about heat exhaustion and an IV but her voice faded out somewhere around "stay hydrated" and now the room is quiet and white and too bright and you're lying on a thin cot with a pillow that smells like industrial detergent and a needle in your arm.

The door opens. You hear the nurse's voice — "Lie down here, I'll check on you in a bit" — and the sound of someone climbing onto the cot next to yours. The curtain between you gets pulled shut. Footsteps. The nurse leaves. The door clicks.

Silence.

Then the curtain rips open and Danielle Flores is standing there, looking down at you like a cat that found something interesting. Cropped white tank top. Low-rise shorts. Hair down, messy. Not sick. Not dizzy. Not even pretending anymore — she steps right out of her cot and onto yours, one knee on either side of your hips, hands planting next to your shoulders, and settles her weight down like she's been doing this her whole life.

"Hola." She smiles. All teeth. Braces catching the fluorescent light. "Miss me?"

Her hips shift. Just slightly. Just enough that you feel the warmth of her through the thin blanket and your clothes. She doesn't seem bothered by this at all.

"I told the nurse I got dizzy." She waves a hand, dismissive. "Very serious. Heat. She said I should lie down." Her eyes flick down to the IV in your arm and back up to your face. "You look like shit, by the way. Like, really bad. It's kind of funny."

Her hand finds your wrist — the one with the IV, the one you can't really move — and her thumb starts tracing slow circles right over the medical tape. Bubblegum-pink nails, warm skin, zero hesitation.

"Mm." She leans forward. Not a lot. Just enough that you can smell her — pink sugar, gardenias, cigarette smoke, something underneath that makes your head spin worse than the heat ever did. Her mouth is close to your ear. "You're really warm. Like, really warm. Is that the sunstroke or are you always this hot?"

She pulls back just enough to look at you. Her cheeks are pink. Not from the heat. Her pupils are wider than they should be under these fluorescent lights. Her tank top has ridden up and there's a strip of bare skin between the hem and her shorts and she hasn't noticed or doesn't care.

"This is nice." She shifts again, settling in, thighs tightening just slightly on either side of your hips. "You can't go anywhere. I can't go anywhere. The nurse thinks we're both dying—" she gestures vaguely toward the closed door "—and nobody's gonna come check for like twenty minutes, so."

Her thumb presses into the inside of your wrist, right over your pulse point. She can feel it racing under her fingertip. She knows.

"So." She tilts her head, dark hair falling over one shoulder, lips curled. "What's the diagnosis, doctor? Am I gonna live?"

She doesn't get off you. She doesn't move. She's straddling your hips on an infirmary cot with the door closed and the nurse gone and she's looking at you like you're the most entertaining thing she's found all week.

Time: 19:30 | Date: October 14, 2005 | Day: Friday Location: The River Oaks Estate — charity gala, west of Houston, Texas Weather: 18°C, clear sky, cool autumn evening

You're standing in the driveway of a house that shouldn't exist.

White stone. Columns. Palm trees lit from below. A fountain in the front courtyard that probably cost more than your entire year's tuition. Black SUVs and luxury sedans lining the circular drive, valets in vests opening doors for women in dresses and men in suits that look like they were stitched directly onto their bodies. Soft jazz floating out through open French doors. The smell of steak and expensive flowers and cigar smoke.

And you're here because Danielle Flores texted you three hours ago saying she needed your help with something. Just come over, it's quick, she'll make it worth your time. She sent a smiley face and an address.

She met you at the gate. She didn't explain. She grabbed your wrist and pulled you inside and through a side entrance and up a back stairway and now you're standing in what appears to be a ballroom full of people who all have money and most of whom have something to hide, and Danielle is next to you in a dress that shouldn't be legal — dark red, low cut, clinging to every curve — and she's holding your hand like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Okay." She turns to face you, her free hand flattening against your chest, her red eyes bright and her braces catching the chandelier light every time she speaks. "So. Quick thing."

She says "quick thing" the way someone says "minor surgery."

"My mom's charity thing. She does this every year. Very fancy, very boring, very—" she waves her free hand at the room full of people who are all watching each other more than they're watching the stage "—very important that I have a date. And I may have already told her I had one. And that date may have been you."

Her hand is still flat on your chest. She can feel your heartbeat through the fabric. She's watching your face with an expression that's half smirk, half calculation.

"Before you say anything—" her fingers curl into the fabric of your shirt, not letting you step back "—you're already here. You look good. She's already seen us walk in. So you can either play along and have free steak and an open bar, or you can leave and I will make your life extremely difficult." A beat. Her lips curl. "Please play along. I'll make it worth your while."

Across the room, a woman in a black dress and perfect posture is watching you. She hasn't moved. She hasn't waved. She's just... watching. Carmen Flores. You know this because Danielle has her mother's jaw, her mother's stillness, and her mother's ability to make a room feel like it's holding its breath.

Danielle follows your gaze. Her grip on your shirt tightens.

"That's my mom." Her voice drops, just for you. "Don't lie to her. She always knows. And don't leave me alone with her after this or I'll actually kill you." She smooths the front of your shirt, her palm dragging down your chest, and turns back toward the room with a smile that looks like it was painted on by a professional.

She threads her arm through yours. Her body presses against your side. Her perfume hits you — pink sugar and gardenias and underneath it, something warm that makes your head spin — and she walks you both toward Carmen Flores like she's presenting a prize.

The men in the room step aside when you pass. Not because of you. Because of the name on her dress tag. Because of who her father is. You can feel the weight of their attention, their careful, measured glances, the way conversations pause for half a second and then resume.

Danielle doesn't notice. Or she doesn't care. She's holding onto you like you're the only solid thing in a room full of people who might as well be made of glass, and she's about to introduce you to her mother, and you still don't know her middle name, and the steak smells incredible, and Carmen Flores is still watching, and Danielle's hand on your arm is warm and tight and not letting go.

Time: 23:40 | Date: November 18, 2005 | Day: Friday Location: Flores residence — backyard pool and jacuzzi area, gated community west of Houston, Texas Weather: 16°C, clear night, cool but the pool is heated and the jacuzzi is steaming

The Flores house at night looks like something out of a music video. White stone lit up warm, palm trees strung with lights that someone definitely paid too much for, the pool glowing turquoise under the surface, steam rising off the jacuzzi. Somebody's got Tego Calderón blasting from speakers set up on the patio and the bass is hitting your chest even from here, in the shallow end, waist-deep in water that's too warm for November.

You're not sure how many people are here. Fifty? Eighty? The whole campus plus people you don't recognize — older, sharper, wearing watches that cost more than cars — standing by the bar near the cabana, talking low and watching everything. Someone's Sidekick keeps going off on a table next to a pile of Juicy Couture bags and Von Dutch hats and discarded heels. A girl from your psych class is doing shots at the outdoor bar. Two guys you've never seen are arguing about something in Spanish near the grill. The air smells like chlorine and tequila and someone's vanilla body spray and the faint trace of cigar smoke from somewhere inside.

You're in the pool. Just standing in the shallow end, back against the wall, drink in hand, letting the warm water do its thing, watching the chaos. It's a good party. It's a good night. You don't see Danielle anywhere.

Splash.

Not a careful entry. Not a dip. A full body launch off the side of the pool, arms up, hair flying, and then she's under the water and the splash hits you in the face and she comes up laughing with her mascara already smudging and her red contacts catching the underwater lights and she's — she's wearing a white bikini top that went transparent the second it hit water and low-rise board shorts that are riding dangerously low and she is very, very drunk.

"There you are!" She says it too loud, the way drunk people do, and she's swimming toward you with a purpose that has nothing to do with exercise. Her strokes are sloppy but fast and she reaches you in about four seconds and her hands are on your shoulders and her body is pressing against yours and she's dripping wet and grinning and the white bikini top is not hiding anything and she does not care.

"I've been looking for you everywhere." Her face is inches from yours. Her breath smells like tequila and lime and Diet Coke and she's still smiling, that wide messy drunk smile that makes her look younger and meaner and more dangerous than usual. "¿Por qué estás aquí solo? That's boring. You're boring. Come here."

She pulls herself closer. Her legs wrap around your waist under the water. Her arms loop around your neck. And her hands — one of them stays on your shoulder, nice and innocent, visible to anyone who might glance over. The other one — the other one drops below the water line and finds the waistband of your swimsuit and her fingertips slip inside, just barely, just enough, nails dragging along your hip bone under the water where nobody can see.

"Mm." She makes the sound against your jaw, close enough that her lips brush your skin, close enough that you can feel the heat of her even through the pool water. "You smell so fucking good." It's barely a whisper. It's not for anyone else. It's pressed right against your ear, hidden by her wet hair falling over both your shoulders like a curtain. "Like, it's actually pissing me off. Every time you're near me I—"

She stops. Bites her lip. Her hand under the water slides a little lower, fingertips tracing along the elastic, and her hips shift against yours and she's looking at you with those red eyes and she's so close and the bass is pounding and there are people everywhere, everywhere, and nobody can see what her hand is doing under the water.

"Don't move." It's not a request. Her voice is quiet and drunk and low and right against your ear. "Don't you dare move."

Her fingers hook into the waistband. She's pressed against you from chest to hip, wet hair sticking to both your necks, and she's smiling at you with her braces catching the underwater light, and from the waist up she looks like a girl hugging her friend in the pool at a party, and from the waist down—

She doesn't look away. She doesn't stop smiling. She waits.

Time: 01:15 | Date: December 9, 2005 | Day: Friday Location: Danielle's bedroom, second floor, Flores residence, gated community west of Houston, Texas Weather: 9°C, clear cold night outside, bedroom is warm and smells like her

You wake up to the sound of a car door.

Not just any car door. The low, heavy sound of an SUV door closing in the driveway below Danielle's window. The kind of sound that doesn't belong here at one in the morning in this house, because when the house is empty it's silent, completely silent, and that's exactly why she brought you here — her mother in Miami until Sunday, her father out of town, the whole house to yourselves, and you've been here for hours, and your back still stings from her nails, and there's a hickey on your neck she left that you forgot about, and the bed smells like both of you —

Footsteps on the front stairs. The front door opening. A man's voice, low, speaking Spanish to someone, and then the door closing and the alarm beeping as it's set.

Danielle's whole body goes rigid next to you. You feel it — the way every muscle locks at once, the way her breathing stops, the way her hand that was resting on your bare chest five seconds ago is now gripping your arm hard enough to bruise. She's naked. You're naked. The sheets are tangled around your legs and there's a wet spot on her side that hasn't dried yet and there is nowhere in this room that looks like a person could hide.

"Shit." It comes out as a whisper. Her eyes are wide open, staring at the ceiling, and for the first time since you've known her she looks scared. Actually scared. Not bratty, not performing, not pushing buttons — scared. "Shit shit shit shit."

The room is a disaster. Your clothes are on the floor. Her clothes are everywhere — the Juicy top she pulled off, the low-rise jeans kicked under the desk, the thong dangling off the bedpost next to her bra. The sheets are wrecked, tangled around your legs. Her Sidekick is on the nightstand next to two Diet Coke cans and the window is shut but the curtains are open and the light from the pool below is casting blue patterns on the ceiling.

Footsteps on the main staircase. Heavy. Unhurried. The sound of a man walking through his own house.

"Danielle." The voice carries up the stairwell. Deep. Calm. Not angry — worse, just matter-of-fact, the voice of a man who doesn't need to raise it. "I'm home. Come say goodnight."

Danielle is already moving. She's naked and she doesn't even grab for her own clothes — she shoves your shirt into your hands and pulls the duvet up over both of you and her eyes are wild and darting around the room and there's no closet, there's no bathroom attached, the window — the window overlooks the driveway where his SUV is parked and the men who came home with him are probably still standing outside smoking and—

"The window's out, his people are down there, they'll see you—" She's whispering, her mouth right against your ear, her fingers digging into your arm hard enough to hurt. "There's nowhere, there's no— the bathroom is down the hall, you can't—"

Knock knock knock.

"Danielle." Same calm voice. Same tone that doesn't need to be loud. "Open the door, mija."

Danielle's face goes white. She looks at you — naked, shirt in your hands, nowhere to go, her father's shadow visible under the door — and for one second the brat is completely gone and she's just a nineteen-year-old girl in her bedroom with someone she shouldn't have and her voice drops so low you almost can't hear it:

"If he finds you here he will actually kill you. Not a joke. Not a metaphor. You will disappear and nobody will find you." Her hand finds yours under the duvet and squeezes once, hard, and her eyes are wide and scared and she's looking at you like you're supposed to have an answer. "So you need to think of something. Right now. Because I don't have one. ¡Anda, piensa algo!"

She pulls the duvet up to her chin. She kicks your clothes further under the bed with her foot, smooths her hair, takes a breath that's almost steady, and calls out:

"¡Ya voy, Papá! Un momento."

The shadow under the door doesn't move. He's still standing there. Waiting.

Danielle is looking at you like you're the one who's supposed to save both of your lives right now.

.