Layered cakes, cookies, cupcakes, carefully wrapped caramels, and truffles in fancy boxes litter the kitchen counters. I survey them as I reach up and brush my arm across my sweaty forehead, smearing flour everywhere. My glasses are already covered in it.

The last few weeks have been surprisingly quiet: no more notes, no more shadow figures, no more dudes with weapons chasing me through the darkness.

“This party sounds like hell,” I murmur, frosting the top of a vanilla-lavender cupcake with soft heather-purple icing that Ranger nearly killed me over. I put too many drops of his organic, all natural food coloring in it and turned it Teletubby purple. He looked like he was getting ready to wring my neck. A little extra white icing fixed it up nicely though.

“Hell to hang out with a bunch of hot girls in short skirts? You sure you're bi? Because that's a pretty gay thing to say.” Ranger pulls another tray of cupcakes from the oven as Ross gives him a dirty look. Usually he's simpering around the boys and worshipping at their feet. “What?” Ranger asks, giving him a look right back. “I didn't say it was bad, just that it was super gay. What red-blooded dude doesn't want to hang out with a bunch of sex hungry girls?”

“Sex hungry, please,” I scoff, getting this weird little knot in my belly that I can't explain. It tastes like jealousy. Which, apparently, tastes like currants and orange zest because that's what I'm getting on the back of my tongue. Maybe it was the cupcake I snuck in the corner though? “Like they're throwing themselves at you guys? Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.”

“So many hookups happen at that party,” Spencer says, leaning against the wall with his shirt undone, tie loose and hanging. He's covered in chocolate, too, thumbprints showing exactly where he's reached down to unconsciously straighten his tie.

He moves over to the door, peers out, and then closes and locks it so he and Ranger can sneak cigarettes by the window.

“It's practically a bacchanalian affair,” Church says, sitting next to a row of perfect mocha-chocolate cupcakes with chocolate covered coffee beans perched on the top. He's also sipping a white chocolate mocha that Ranger made him. “Bring extra condoms for your micropenis, Carson.”

“Do they even make them in extra-extra small?” the twins ask, exchanging a look and a snicker. I ignore them and use the little tweezer things that Ranger gave me to place a fondant and sparkle sugar flower on the top of my cupcake.

“Hilarious.” I roll my eyes as Ranger comes to stand beside me, the heat of his body jumping the space between us and making me feel nervous. I just put over a dozen little flowers on cupcakes with no issue, and now my hands are shaking. I end up breaking one of the petals.

“Good god, Carson,” Ranger snorts, moving up behind me and reaching around to guide my hand. He curls his fingers around my wrist, and a jolt of energy shoots through me. My lips part as he uses my fingers to take a tiny brush, dips it in clear icing, and makes a glue to repair the petal. “Helpless dickwad.”

He releases me, and I try not to breathe in his scent, that vanilla and leather smell that makes me want to shift around on my stool. My whole body feels hot when he gets in sniffing distance. Am I total weirdo? I am. Yep. Definitely a weirdo.

“I might not even go to the party,” I say, and all six guys in the room turn to look at me. Ross puts his hand on his hip and smirks.

“Trust me, girl,” he says, and I feel this small blip of shock before I remember he calls literally everyone girl, “there's plenty of gossip and fun there for even a unicorn like me to enjoy.”

“Unicorn?” I ask, and he smirks at me.

“Rare and beautiful little gay boy,” he says, giving a little shimmy that makes me laugh. Ugh. I don't want to laugh. I want to hate the little shit. He's been such a dick to me. Then again, it was all at the hands of his Student Council masters, so maybe I should forgive him?

“Ross just started an online relationship with some guy in California. He's on cloud nine, pooping rainbows and all that crap,” Spencer says, moving over to stand beside me. Ross gives him a look and a sigh.

“Don't try to be gay, Spencer, it doesn't suit you.”

“I'm not gay,” Spencer growls, glaring at Ross with his pretty jewel-like eyes. “I'm freaking bi.”

“Have you ever touched a penis other than your own?” Ross asks, and Spencer wrinkles his nose.

“No, but I would. I'd be damn good at it, too.” He smirks and Ross rolls his brown eyes.

“Mother Mary, help me. You are not bisexual. You're just a confused straight dude.”

Spencer looks down at me, and I glance back, meeting his eyes. He narrows them on me, and I grin sheepishly.

“He's probably right,” I tell him, reaching up to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “You should just leave me alone, and find a nice girl at the party.”

“I've had plenty of nice girls,” he says in a way that makes me bristle like a porcupine. “Not to mention naughty ones. I want to try …” He pauses and chokes on his words for a second. “Dating introverted nerd boys instead.”

“For the love of cupcakes,” Ross murmurs as Ranger picks one up and chucks it across the counter, hitting Spencer right in the face with strawberry-lemon frosting.

He grabs it as it falls and takes a huge bite, holding it out in Ranger's direction like a weapon.

“Bro, keep throwing cakes at me, and I won't sell you weed for the rest of the year.”

“You wouldn't dare,” Ranger growls back at him, and I'm happy to see I'm not the only one he looks at like he's going to kill. “Bring some pre-rolls to the party, and we'll get stoned by the lake again.”

“Last year you were so high, you couldn't even get it up for that pretty blond,” Spencer smirks, popping a hand on his hip as he takes another bite of his cupcake. “Talk about embarrassing. After you blocked them all on social media, the girls were sending me limp dick memes for months.”

Ranger ignores him, fussing over some fancy cream puff things as Church stands up and moves over to join the rest of us at the island. The twins are squabbling over the last M&M cookie; they've eaten all the rest.

“You should party with us,” Church tells me, his eyes so intense, I feel like I should run and never look back. “You know, just in case your knife-wielding admirer joins us.”

Ranger, Spencer, and Ross laugh, but the twins and Church are staring at me like they won't take no for an answer. Makes me want to say no, just to be ornery, but I also sort of, kind of don't want to die, so I'll just deal.

“Yeah, sure. As long as you don't dump spiders on me again,” I repeat, and Church smirks.

“No promises,” he says, but I needn't have been worried about him.

Much worse things were waiting for me at the Valentine's Day party.

Adamson provides the transportation to the party, this fleet of shiny limos that makes my jaw drop as I approach the waiting crowd in the safe bubble of the Student Council. As I move through the students, I wonder if any of them are the culprit. Then again, if the twins and Church are right, and my attacker has something to do with Jenica's long-ago murder, then it's most likely not a student, seeing as they'd have all been kids when she died.