18.

A phone call wakes Percy in the morning. The shrill, repetitive tone of it drags him from the realm beyond consciousness and into the reality of his bedroom: gray and blue and frigid, the arctic. His shoes rest right where he left them, leaning by the door, one sneaker turned on its side, muddy sole on full display.

He blindly fumbles for his phone until he locates it on the little side table inches away from his bed, rolling over and letting the glaring light puncture his heavy eyes. He squints; it's his mother. His thumb hovers over the answer button for a lingering moment, and he contemplates answering, pulling the trigger and getting it over with.

Somewhere in the back of his drowsy mind a million different versions of the conversation about to happen play out, because they are all versions he has already heard before.

Percy turns his phone off and the ringing cuts off, silenced. He slides the device back onto the table, and buries further into the covers.

In the dining hall later that day, Indy glances at Sylvia to confirm she is observing the same thing: Gatz, for whatever reason, is in an impeccable mood.

To be certain, they're usually in a good mood. A seemingly endless supply of generous energy and a thirst for life and every part of it is something that just comes with the Gatz package deal, Indy's observed. This mood, however, is even more elevated than most. Their eyes seem brighter, nearly childlike. Excitement is a glow permeating from some obscure layer just beneath their skin.

At their table in the corner, a smorgasbord of Mexican cuisine dispersed between them, Sylvia is the first to crack. "Gatz," she says, and Gatz sits up straighter, still beaming. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Everything," Gatz says, grinning. They wrestle their phone from their pocket and drop it on the table with an unsettling thwack, shoving it towards the three of them. "But especially this."

Indy and Sylvia lean forward; Percy seems more interested in ruthlessly attacking his burrito. On the tiny screen, a deep mauve flyer glows back at them, small digitized versions of oil paintings lined up to make a border around bright gold text reading: New Venice Annual Art Auction.

Sylvia shoves the phone back in their direction with a huff. "Gatz, I hate to break it to you, but none of us have the kind of money to buy anything they're selling."

Gatz bites into a French fry, then holds it between their fingers like a cigarette. "We wouldn't be going to buy anything. Did you not read the little text?"

"No one ever reads the little text," Indy says, bringing the phone closer to her face to read the little text. When she does, her stomach drops, leaving an empty hole in its place, a sensation both dreadful and terribly exciting.

Sponsored by Dobbs & Co.

"Well?" Gatz says. By then, their grin has spread wide enough to rival the Cheshire Cat's.

"Is it—?" Indy can hardly put together the words. "That could be anyone, right? There's certainly more than one Dobbs out there—"

"It's the family you're thinking of," Percy says. He sets his burrito down, efficiently wiping guac from his fingers with a napkin. "At least, I'm pretty sure."

"Yeah?" Sylvia says. "How do you know?"

"Because my parents are hosting the damn thing at our house," Percy says, and Indy's stomach defies physics again as she scans the flyer once more, confirming the address that's less than a five minute's walk from her own childhood home. "My mom's a film critic, but she and my dad both love anything art-related. They work with art dealers all the time to put this sorta stuff on."

"The Dobbs are art dealers?" Indy's brow knits. "I thought Elizabeth worked in law."

"Elizabeth did, yes," Percy goes on, reclining back in his seat, teetering on his balance. "Her parents were deeply involved in the art scene though. Curated galleries in New York before they moved here, my mom says."

Sylvia raises a pink eyebrow. "And you're sure these are the same Dobbs."

"It'd be a freaky coincidence if there were two art dealer couples whose daughter had been murdered."

"Percy," Indy says.

He must prematurely hear the question in her voice before she says it, because when he turns to look at her there is already an exhausted sort of guilt in his expression. Indy wavers, hesitating, but her own desires win out in the end. "You knew about this?" she asks. "Why didn't you mention it?"

Percy says nothing at first, just studying the table below them. The clamor of fellow students' voices erase what silence would have been left behind.

"Come on, man," Gatz groans. "I think it's a fair question."

"I didn't think it would be helpful."

"Bullshit," Sylvia says proudly.

Now Percy turns his head, as if the wall beside them is suddenly worlds more interesting than this conversation. Indy sees it, no matter how much he tries to disguise it—the harsh angle to his shoulders, the muscle in his neck twitching as he swallows. There's a reason he didn't say anything. More likely, there's a number of reasons.

She could be angry. Indy can imagine it, can imagine nurturing the little flame that sits as new and sharp as a hunger pang in her gut, until it grows into a raging and uncontrollable fire that engulfed them all. Today, though, she does not have the energy. Like she has grown used to doing, she smothers it instead.

"It doesn't matter," Indy says, and everyone turns to her in varying degrees of shock. "We know now. And we're going. I need to talk to this family, to find out more about Elizabeth. To find out more about Lydia—and why no one will speak about her."

"It's this weekend," Sylvia says with a troubled frown, long nails clacking away at something on her phone. "I don't even know if I have an outfit for this."

"Four days is plenty of time to find one," Indy says, and lifts her gaze, holding Percy's in a silent dare. "That okay with you, Percy?"

He exhales, sinking lower in his seat. His eyes slide away from hers. "Yeah. Whatever. It's fine."

No matter how unconvincing, it's a good enough answer for Gatz. They take another French fry, then push the rest towards the center, where Sylvia pounces upon them immediately. "Oh, I knew you'd all be on the same page," Gatz says, exuberance still bleeding from their pores. "A lovely weekend getaway. Count me the fuck in."

After lunch, Percy seems to be doing everything he can to get away from Indy as quickly as possible—making some flimsy excuse about a club meeting and half-jogging towards the doors. Lucky for her and unluckily for him, she's studied all of Percy's escape tactics like a seasoned general poring over war strategies. She catches him with ease, her fingers closing around the rough braided cord of his gym bag just as he makes it outside.

Immediately, there's a defeated slump to his shoulders. "I've only known about it since this morning," he says. "Harvey sent me a text."

"You still weren't planning to mention it."

"I—"

"Don't lie to me, Percy," Indy interrupts. "I know when you're lying."

She does, though it has taken her years to hone the craft. Enough time around Percy, however, and it isn't hard to pick up on: his voice raises just slightly at the end of the sentence, almost as if he's asking a question, and his fingers will drift to the lower hem of his shirt, worrying the fabric between his thumb and index finger.

Percy moves his hands to his pockets. "I needed a second. A breath to think this through. We still need to get those invoices off of Pine, don't we? Isn't it possible we could be doing more than we need to?"

"Since when has that been a bad thing?" Indy says. Her eyes catch on a group of students moving towards the doors, all the bright-eyed, perfectly-coiffed streetwear enthusiast jock types that account for ninety percent of Percy's friends. This proves to be a correct assumption, because they all pause to say hey and exchange friendly handshakes and clap each other on the shoulder as they pass.

After the group has dispersed, Percy says nothing, just emits a soft, tired little sigh as Indy takes him by the elbow and drags him further out of the way of the doors. She tells him, foot tapping out a soft rhythm in the grass, "I have a bad feeling, Perce."

Percy snorts. "Oh yeah? Welcome to the club."

She holds his elbow tighter, the gesture unconscious, holding fast to a rope before her grip slips and she plummets. "I mean I think this is bigger than just the murder case. So wouldn't it be better to have more than we need?"

"Indy," Percy says gravely. "If it's bigger than just the murder case, it's bigger than us."

He takes her hand, moving it from his elbow. Indy just watches him do it, his palm warm, nearly feverish, against her skin.

"I know you want to save everyone, but sometimes that's just not possible," he tells her. One strap of his backpack has slipped from his shoulders; he corrects it, turning away. "It isn't life or death. It isn't the end of the world."

How do you know? She almost asks it, but by then he's already so far away, and she doubts he would turn back to listen. Isn't the point of the end of the world that we probably won't know when it's coming?

Percy pauses a moment where he stands, half-turning around, so Indy can catch the glimmer of the subtle smile on his face. "My parents will be happy to see you, at least," he says. "They ask about you all the time."

"They do?" Indy says, and though she doesn't admit it, inwardly she's taken aback. Tina and Lawrence Mitchell are more mythical figures to her than they are people. What little she knows about them come from snatches of stories and abstruse interactions that feel like legends: distant and likely exaggerated and a little too fantastical to be entirely true. "What do you tell them?"

The grin becomes devious. "Only the worst, of course."

Indy rolls her eyes very slowly. "Goodbye, Percy."

He turns around again, leaving her with a wave. "I'll see you this weekend."

Percy's barely disappeared around the corner when Indy's phone gives an urgent buzz in her pocket. She lets out an unintentional sigh as she removes it, expecting it to be her mother, who is known to regularly text her unsolicited health tips she grabs from random Facebook ads.

The text isn't from her mother, though—it's Jude, and when she reads the name she finds her heart kicking alive in a way it wasn't before. The message is brief, as Jude's messages tend to be, only four words:

orange juice happy hour?