Then Leo tapped her shoulder. “Mr. Harrington’s doing his walk.”

Zoe had never heard of it. But three minutes later, she was staring at a pixelated archer, a floating red apple, and a quiver of infinite arrows. The game was absurdly simple: drag, aim, release. Don’t hit the smiley-faced guy holding the apple.

She did. Not because she cared about high scores. But because that pixelated archer, frozen in time, reminded her that even inside the strictest system—a school, a blocklist, a world that loved saying no —there was always a way to let an arrow fly.