Your first day at King's Dominion, and the hallway is a river of bodies. Shoulders bump you. Someone steps on your heel. Nobody looks twice.

You're at your locker, fingers working the dial. It sticks. The metal is cold and dented, and the combination you were given is either wrong or the thing's been jammed by the last kid who used it.

The noise around you is a wall of sound—lockers slamming, kids shouting, somewhere down the hall a girl laughs so sharp it echoes off the tile.

The crowd moves around you like water around a stone. Gratefully, no one pays attention.

Then the bell rings. Sharp, electric, splitting the air. The current of students shifts, faster now. You're still stuck on the dial.