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	For the millionth time that semester, Izzy had taken the wrong turn through the school. Lost in thought, as she so often found herself lately, her legs had instinctively tried to take her to one of last year’s classrooms. Frustrated and a bit frazzled, she jogged through the halls toward a set of stairs. The halls were vacant, everyone already in their proper classes, making the echo of her footsteps sound louder than normal.
	She forced herself to focus on where she was going. Her shoes squeaked on the linoleum when she nearly passed the staircase she needed to take, skidding to a short halt before scrambling up the stairs.
	Noticing a boy on the wide stairway ahead of her, she started to step to the side to go around him. She had sat behind him in enough classes to recognized him just from his back as Holden Sandstrom, the sickly boy whose seat often sat empty. But just as she was only a few steps away, the delicate-looking boy lost his balance and tumbled backward.
	Without thinking it over, she dropped her physics book and notebook, and braced herself to try catching him. Though she suspected his weight would only send [i]both[/i] of them tumbling down the stairs, perhaps she could at least soften his fall.
	Instead, when his back met her, it felt as if she had caught little more than a breeze between her arms.
	[i]What the…[/i] Before she could fully register what had happened, Holden had collected himself and raced up the stairs.
	"Hey! Hold on!" she tried calling, taking a couple hasty steps up, but he had already disappeared around the corner. She stared after him for a moment, blinking. He had grown up in the town, as far as she knew, and she had seen him frequently in the halls and classes of the high school. There was no way he could be an aberration… was there?
	Shaking her head, Izzy quickly collected her things, chasing after a pencil that had slipped from the spiral of the notebook. Could he have been affected, like Trevor had, by something the residue of Cerasus’ presence had conjured?
	With her things gathered, she continued to her class, but her mind remained on Holden and his unnatural weightlessness.
 	The rest of the day dragged by. Izzy looked for him in their couple shared classes and the crowds of students that flooded the halls between bells, but she did not see him again, even at lunch. By the time the day finally came to an end, Izzy had given up trying to find him. Even if he [i]had[/i] stuck around school, just avoiding her, he would have gone home by now.
	Now, sitting in the art classroom with Trevor, the tube lights buzzing softly above them, she sat across from him on one of the tables, the end of a pen tapping restlessly against the wood.
	“Remind me again how I let you talk me into this?” she asked with a groan when, at last, he declared a break from their tedious work.
	She leaned back in her chair so it balanced precariously on its two back legs as Trevor removed his glasses. She watched him for a short moment, thinking, yet again, about what had happened to him, and wondering if Holden was dealing with something equally as supernatural. Or, rather, [i]what[/i] he was dealing with. After all, nothing she knew of in the “natural” world could cause such a symptom.
	“Random question for you,” she began as nonchalantly as she could. “Do you know anything about Holden Sandstrom?”
	She linked her hands behind her head beneath her usual high ponytail as her friend answered. The rolled-up sleeves of a camouflage-patterned jacket she had found at a thrift store to replace one of her old ones pulled up slightly.
	“What?” Her chair clanked back to the floor at his inquiry of having a crush. “No. Nothing like that. Like you said, I’ve had a lot of classes with him.” She shrugged. “Thought I’d find out what I could about him. See if he needs help with schoolwork what with all his sick days.”
	“Huh,” she said thoughtfully as Trevor leaned back. Her brows rose slightly when he finished speaking. [i]You have no idea.[/i] “Don’t suppose you know where he lives, do you? Maybe I’ll drop by or something. See if he needs a hand with anything.”