Ten by Gretchen McNeil

nonetheless.
    “I told you it wouldn’t work,” Vivian said. She sat down in the window seat and crossed her legs.
    “You really are a know-it-all, aren’t you?” Kumiko said.
    Vivian thrust out her chin. “Well, somebody has to be the voice of reason.”
    “You think you’re the only one here with a brain?” Kumiko was fired up. “At least Meg had a good idea and was trying to be helpful. You just put on your bossy pants and think that makes you superior. Get over yourself.”
    Vivian slowly stood up and held her head high. “At least I’m not slutting my way through the weekend.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Did she just call you a slut?” Gunner said.
    “It means,” Vivian said, planting her hands on her hips, “if you two weren’t sneaking around—”
    “Nobody’s sneaking,” Gunner said slowly. “T.J. offered to sleep on the sofa.”
    Meg cocked her head. T.J. slept in the living room last night? She could have sworn he was the first one on the stairs after she discovered Lori’s body.
    “I’m just saying,” Vivian continued, “that if you’d slept in your own room last night maybe Lori wouldn’t be dead.”
    “That is it !” Kumiko lunged at Vivian, but T.J. stepped between them.
    “Okay, all right,” he said. “Fighting won’t get us anywhere. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.” He turned to Nathan. “Anything?”
    “Nope,” Nathan said. He closed the lid to Meg’s laptop, stood up, and pulled on the network cable. It snaked out from behind the bookcase in the corner of the room by the bay window. “Looks like it goes through the wall.” Without another word, he ran out of the living room into the kitchen.
    “What the hell?” Vivian said.
    The door to the patio slammed and from the bay window Meg saw Nathan stick his head out the side door that led to the backyard. He paused, then dashed out into the rain.
    Six bodies crammed onto the window seat as they gazed out the window. Rain lashed at the pane, turning the view outside into a blurry, impressionist mess. It was kind of like looking through a kaleidoscope as Meg watched Nathan’s disjointed form pick something up off the muddy ground.
    “What’s that?” Vivian squeaked, pushing herself right up to the window pane. “What’s he got?”
    Meg saw a flash of yellow in Nathan’s hand and held her breath. The yellow network cable.
    Nathan paused for a moment. Meg watched as he looked up toward the roof, then spun around and jogged back into the house.
    Without a word, everyone sprinted into the kitchen.
    “Well?” Vivian demanded. “What happened?”
    T.J. tossed Nathan a towel, and he immediately started drying his face and hands. “Nothing. No go.”
    “Really?” Kenny asked.
    “Sorry, dude. Looks like something sheered the cable in half. A branch or some debris. It’s totally jacked.”
    “Can’t we plug the laptop directly into the satellite?” Vivian asked.
    Nathan shook droplets of water from his hair. “Are you going to climb up on the roof and do it?”
    Vivian pursed her lips. “Do I look like I’d climb up there?”
    “Didn’t think so. I’d say we’re screwed.”
    They were, kind of. No phone, no internet. And the closest town was across the channel. Meg thought of the houses in Roche Harbor that she could see from the garret window, lights twinkling in the distance.
    Lights in the distance. Duh, how could she have forgotten? “The Taylors’ house!” she blurted out.
    Vivian glared at her. “Who?”
    “The house across from us,” Meg said. “Maybe they have a phone.”
    “Of course!” Kumiko said. “They had a raging party last night.”
    “The weather’s crap,” Nathan said, wringing water out of his thermal T-shirt. “Do you think we’d make it across?”
    “Gunner and I can try,” T.J. said.
    “On it.” Gunner bolted back through the living room toward the foyer, T.J. at his heels.
    Meg followed with everyone else close behind. T.J. and