It was a good thing that his academic record had only been relevant for the initial emancipation, because Trace had barely made it a month in Beacon Hills before getting a super-detention. Super-detention in this case meaning he'd first gotten regular detention for back-talking in math class (hey, who didn't), and then he'd made an ill advised remark at the teacher monitoring detention (look, if she's going to leave herself that open to a 'that's what she said', he can't be blamed for taking advantage, she had lived through the early 2000s and should have known better). In revenge, he got to reshelve the rest of the library books on his own, his fellow delinquents being sent home early.
The joke was on her, though, because while he took care to properly shelve most of the books - especially the books he actually liked - anything that took more than a few seconds to find the placement was instead stashed in one of the many hiding spots he'd found during the previous hours of drudgery. Oh, he knew he'd get found out and probably wind up with a few more detentions for his trouble, but it wasn't like he could have just rolled over and done what she said. (Okay, he could have, but he wasn't going to.) Detention finished at least a half hour early, Trace cheerfully added a few extra smudges to the windows before leaving the library.
He got all of three steps toward freedom when he heard a scream. It wasn't anyone he knew - he only knew one person who could scream that shrilly and he was pretty sure his cousin Jake was still strutting around pretending he was the crown prince of Wenatchee. So by the strictest interpretation of moral obligations, he had no reason to go towards the scream and every reason to go the opposite direction and pretend he was going to get his English homework done sometime this week. Unfortunately, his damnable curiosity was one of the only things stronger than his sense of self preservation, so he strangled his common sense and took off in the direction the noise came from. He knew this was going to end badly, 'curiosity killed the cat' and all. But Trace had learned early on (thanks internet) that the phrase ended with '...and satisfaction brought it back', so he wasn't that concerned. Plus, he wasn't a cat. Although he did wonder if werecats existed (hey, he hadn't known werecoyotes were a thing until it turned out he was one), and if they did, if there was any truth behind the whole nine lives myth.
None of which had anything to do with the current situation. He was starting to understand why his aunt hated him so much.
It looked like he wasn't the only one with faulty instincts. He saw a handful of other people ahead, one of whom- "Please tell me that's cherry filling," Trace burst out, looking at what was almost definitely blood on the guy he didn't recognize. There were already two people next to cherry-filling guy, so he stayed a few feet away and looked around nervously for whatever had spilled all the pie filling in the first place. Had someone thrown a rabid bobcat at the guy?