Olivia Bennett - The Allegra Biscotti Collection

“Hey, give it back, Vanderbeck!” Jackson demanded.

“No way, dude!” Clayton replied.

Emma noticed Lexie twisting around to see what was going on behind her. She watched as Lexie’s eyes shifted from Jackson to Emma sitting beside him and back to Jackson again. She whipped around to whisper something to Ivana. Then the two of them turned to look. Emma slid down in her seat to avoid two sets of icy stares. Will they please start the stupid assembly already?

“Come on, Clay,” Jackson said. “You can have it when I’m done.”

“No, you can have it when I’m done,” Clayton quipped, settling himself comfortably in his chair and opening the stolen book to the first page.

Jackson grumbled something under his breath. His leg bounced up and down as he patted his thigh with his hand. Emma didn’t dare look over, but she bet he was biting his lip. Without warning, Jackson lunged across Emma to grab his book back from Clayton.

The edge of his forest-green shirt brushed her cheek, and she got a faint whiff of something that smelled unfamiliar yet pleasant. It took her a second to realize that the scent came from Jackson. The part of Emma’s face where his shirt had touched suddenly tingled. Now she had another Real Jackson detail to add to her slowly growing inventory: Jackson smelled awesome!

“Sorry ’bout that,” Jackson said.

Shocked by the sound of his voice, Emma glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at her, so she wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was even speaking to her.

“No worries,” she croaked.

“Did you finish your world history paper yet?” he asked, his face buried in his comic book.

“Sort of,” she said. Then she panicked. That sounded like she was ending the conversation. That was the last thing she wanted. So she quickly added, “I’m probably about halfway through. I need to finish it tonight since it’s due tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Now what? Emma wondered. She focused her eyes on the comic book. “What are you reading, I mean, instead of studying for bio?”

Jackson finally looked at her with his sky-blue eyes, sending an electric current through Emma. He reached across with his left hand to rake his brown wavy hair away from his face, but it just flopped forward again, covering his right eye.

“It’s a graphic novel called Night below the Surface .” Despite the ruckus of the auditorium, his voice was soft and low, as if he were sharing a very special secret only with Emma. “It’s kind of a series. I’m pretty into it. This is the second one—it just came out.”

Emma could hardly believe she was having a real live conversation with Jackson. She had to keep it going as long as possible. Who knew when an opportunity like this would come up again?

“Sounds interesting. Can I see?”

“Sure.” He handed it to her. “You into graphic novels?”

“No—well, not yet.” Emma flipped through the pages. The illustrations were in black, white, and charcoal gray with touches of various shades of blue and yellow here and there… they were dark and dramatic but beautiful. “What’s it about?”

Jackson shifted around to lean forward on the armrest between them to get a better view of the pages. They weren’t touching, but they were close enough—the closest she had ever been to him—to make Emma’s heart start pounding wildly, maybe even loudly enough for him to hear. Luckily, the noise level in the auditorium was still pretty high.

“It’s about this group of teens who were the only survivors of the apocalypse,” he explained. “They started their own society, but they have to live underground in this urban jungle to stay hidden away from the forces of evil roaming the surface.

“See those two? They’re the main characters—a brother and a sister. They’re kind of the leaders. His best friend also survived, but we’re not sure yet if he’s still a good guy or if he became a bad guy in the last book. But he’s definitely hiding something —we just don’t know what yet.”

“Wow,” Emma said. “That sounds really cool.” And a lot like what’s going on in my life. As she turned the pages, she felt herself being drawn more deeply into the story—not by the text but by the moody illustrations of this mysterious underground world. She couldn’t get enough of the characters’ sleek, futuristic clothes, especially the sister-leader. She was beautiful and strong and fierce. Emma was dying to hear more—both of the story and Jackson’s voice—but just then Vice Principal Manning tapped loudly on the microphone, making everyone jump.

The magic moment was gone…

Emma handed the book to Jackson. As he tucked it back into his textbook, Emma caught Lexie turning around again to check up on the Jackson situation. But this time Emma did not hide. She deep down actually hoped Lexie had seen Jackson talking to her and showing her the book.

“Hello!” Vice Principal Manning said. “Hi, okay, we’re ready to get started here. Sorry for the delay, everyone. Technical difficulties!”

As soon as the assembly was over, Jackson was out of his seat, joining his soccer team friends already making their way up the aisle. Emma’s heart still beat like crazy from both the excitement of sitting next to him for thirty whole minutes and because now she had a fantastic idea for her designs for Madison magazine.

Holly sidled up next to her. Emma totally expected to see Ivana and the ’Bees right behind Holly, but they were nowhere to be found. They must’ve ducked out a side exit. She smiled at Holly. Maybe things were back to normal with them. Maybe her friendship with Ivana was a passing fad—like Crocs or neon clothes—whose time had faded.

“So how’d it go?” Holly asked eagerly.

“Actually…it was awesome.” Emma beamed. “I promise I’ll tell you all about it, but I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later, okay?” Emma hurried toward the exit. There was no time to waste. She had to get started on her designs. They were going to be like nothing she had ever done before. It was a good thing Holly hadn’t saved her a seat!

“Into post-apocalyptic graphic novels these days, Em?” Charlie asked as he entered Emma’s work space at Laceland the next afternoon. He nodded at her inspiration wall, now covered in pages from Night below the Surface .

Since the second Night below the Surface book—the one that Jackson was reading—had just come out only a few days before, Emma had to go to three bookstores before she could track down a copy for herself. She’d spent all of the night before flagging her favorite pages and sketching madly. She hadn’t even taken her homework out of her bag.

“Not really,” Emma replied. “Just this series. I saw, um, a boy at school reading it, and I thought it might be good as inspiration for Allegra’s collection. It’s cool, right?”

Charlie walked along the wall, looking at the different illustrations Emma had cut out. “So Allegra is going to be making futuristic clothes that could survive the end of our civilization as we know it?”

“Nope. I mean, the clothes are cool and everything, but I don’t think futuristic is really Allegra’s thing,” Emma explained. “Besides, she needs to make them her own— interpret them in her own way—not just make designs that another artist came up with, you know? That would be like, too literal…and not particularly creative.”