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  “Look at you.” He pushes to his feet, leaving me curled on the floor. “You sound almost like a real girl.”

  Laughter. I roll onto my side, putting my back to them. No good though. Their gazes crawl across me like fire ants.

  Do not cry. Do not cry.

  I open my eyes. Ian’s a few feet away. His shirt is gone and he’s staring at me, face puffy from crying and Kyle’s beating. The skin by his hip stands up in ridges, the imprint of a sneaker.

  A toilet flushes and Matthew steps around us still laughing. They’re all still laughing. I can hear it long after the bathroom door slams shut.

  “Are you okay?” I whisper.

  “Yeah.” Ian swipes a forearm across his eyes, the skin along his cheekbone a stinging purple. “My brother used to beat the shit out of me all the time. That was nothing.” He glances toward the stalls. “I think . . . I think they stuffed my shirt down the toilet.”

  I crane my head and, sure enough, water’s spilling onto the tile from the third stall. The whole bathroom will flood. I tuck my arms around me. It’s hardly cold, but my skin is sprayed with chills.

  “We should go,” Ian says, struggling to stand. He sways once and steadies himself. “I don’t think they’ll come back, but, you know, if they do . . .”

  If they do, it’ll go far worse for us. I don’t think either of us can say the words, but we understand. That’s weird to me. It’s weird that he gets it. I thought money protected you from this stuff. I thought it could make you belong.

  Ian offers me his hand, not meeting my gaze. I recognize that feeling too. Shame. Right now, I’m lit with it. I’m plastic in acid, dissolving in it.

  Ian tugs me to my feet, turns away, but not before I see how his ribs are spotted with circular scars.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Lit cigar and my brother’s game of cry uncle . . . I never did.”

  He gives me a shy smile and I smile back. I think we’re both fighting tears. “Want to make a run for it?” I ask.

  “God, yes.”

  I stick my head into the hallway, listening. “Okay, I think it’s clear.”

  We hustle toward the parking lot, swiping our stuff from the floor. Thank God, Matthew didn’t pitch my keys in the trash or something. I pocket them, waiting for Ian to scrape together his spilled homework.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  Ian nods, opening his book bag and pulling out a fleece jacket. “I’m sorry I was late for our project stuff,” he says.

  I snort. “You want to talk about that now?”

  “We could finish it at my house,” Ian continues. We’re through the double doors now, almost around the bend to the parking lot, and he’s so close I can smell his Trident gum. “I’ve already done the first two sections. It shouldn’t take too long to finish everything, right?”

  “Ian, that asshole rolled me around on a public bathroom floor. I’m not doing squat with our project. I’m going home to scrub myself with a Brillo pad and—oh, shit!”

  The parking lot is so empty it’s easy to spot the Mini. It’s even easier to see what they did to it. “Bitch” is scraped across the driver door in huge, looping letters and “trash” is carved underneath, spilling across the quarter panel in one long arc.

  “Nonononononono!” I sprint into the parking lot, Ian chasing after me.

  “Wick! Wait!”

  I don’t. I skid to a stop next to the Mini, kneeling to run my hands along its sides. The gouges are deep. There’s no buffing them away. “My car,” I whisper, feeling wobbly. It was the nicest thing I ever had and they destroyed it.

  The computer!

  I check the backseat and, thankfully, nothing looks disturbed.

  “Why do they hate you so much?” Ian walks around the car in a slow circle, taking in the damage. He lets out a long sigh when he sees the other side and I know I don’t want to look.

  “No idea.” I’m lying and Ian probably knows it. They hate me because of Todd and Tessa and how everyone thinks the trashy girl probably wanted Todd’s attention. Bren may have changed my life, but she will never change who I am to these people. “They’re not too fond of you either.”

  “Yeah. True.” Ian looks toward the road, thinking. “They might not hate you as much, you know, if you stayed down more. If you didn’t fight back so much.”

  “So let them stomp all over me?”

  Ian shrugs, bends down. “This yours?” he asks, handing me a Droid cell phone. Definitely not mine. One of the boys must have dropped it. I should repay the favor by breaking it into a million little pieces and returning it.

  Except that’s nowhere near equal to what they just did to my car, to me, to Ian. People like Matthew Bradford and his friends don’t just wreck our stuff. They wreck everything for people like us.

  Stay down? My hand circles the Droid, tightens.

  Ian scuffs his shoe against the pavement, watching me. “What’re you going to do, Wick?”

  I smile at him. “Call my mom’s insurance company.”

  And then I’m going to make Matthew Bradford, Sutton Davis, and Eric Williams pay.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  If finding “bitch” keyed on the side of your car is bad, driving it home is worse. Everyone points, looks at me. I stare straight ahead and pretend I don’t notice, but my face is seventeen shades of red and my neck . . . well, I glanced once in the rearview mirror to check and once was enough. The skin hurts, but it’ll heal. It’s not even that bad.

  And yet I’m still shaking.

  I want my mom. It’s weird actually. She’s been gone for over four years, but the need is so sharp-edged, it feels like I lost her yesterday. I swing around the officer parked by our house. I don’t stop to say hi, but I know he gets a good look at the Mini. By the time I’m turning in the driveway, he has his radio ready. Great. It’s one more thing I can explain to Carson.

  I park my car alongside Bren’s sedan, killing the engine as my adoptive mom walks into the garage. She stops dead, gaze pinned to the Mini.

  Then to me.

  “What happened?” Bren demands.

  I hesitate. There’s no getting around the truth even though I brainstormed lies the whole way home. It’s not that I want Matthew and his cretins to get out of this. I just want to deal with them on my own and yet now, looking at Bren, feeling Matthew’s hands branded on my skin, feeling sudden tears prickling my eyes . . . I want to tell her everything and I want her to fix it. I want someone to save me because I’m too damn tired to save myself anymore.

  Griff once said Bren would help me, that she’d never want me to handle Carson alone. If that’s true, I’d have to tell her.

  I edge a little closer. “It was keyed by some kids at school.”

  “Which kids?”

  “Matthew Bradford, Eric Williams, and Sutton Davis.” I pause, waiting to see Bren’s face flush red in anticipation of the ass kicking she’s about to deliver, but it never happens. When I say the boys’ names, she flinches.

  “Alan Bradford’s son?” Bren asks.

  “I guess.”

  Bren swallows, swallows again. “I have a breakfast meeting with Alan day after tomorrow. He’s the only person who’s returned my calls in weeks and—and—are those bruises? What happened to your neck?”

  “Matthew Bradford,” I whisper.

  Bren makes a strangled noise deep in her throat. “I don’t understand. Did he . . . touch you?”

  Are you stupid? Of course, he freaking touched me! I try to work my mouth around something to say and, suddenly, understand what she means. “No, he didn’t touch me like that.”

  He just humiliated me. He made me feel like trash. He made me—I inhale hard against the tears. If I start crying now, I won’t be able to stop.

  Bren’s shoulders go slack and she rubs her forehead, eyes still locked on my neck.
“Do you want to make a statement? Do you want to go to the police?”

  Yes . . . no. I’m tripping over her tone. This is Bren. Bren. Shouldn’t she be making me? I don’t understand. Her tone is worried about me . . . not angry with them.

  “I’m not sure,” I say at last.

  “Wick, if he hurt you, we have to go to the police.”

  She sounds stronger this time, but still not herself, and as I stare at her hand (shaking) and how it plays with her nonexistent pearls (when was the last time she wore them?), I start to see everything else: how her cardigan hangs looser . . . how there are smudges under her eyes . . . how I wasn’t the only person Todd took things from.

  Oh. I blink. Her tone is worried because Bren needs Alan Bradford. We need Alan Bradford.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. The apology is so fast it feels greased. It’s only afterward that I catch myself because why should I be sorry? What’s more, why do I feel sorry? I feel like this is somehow my fault, like I’ve let her down.

  I get my bag and new computer from the backseat, carefully tucking my jacket around the bag. This conversation is uncomfortable enough without explaining why I’m dragging around a CPU.

  “Tell me what happened,” Bren says.

  I don’t want to anymore. “Matthew and his friends were bothering someone. I intervened and they . . . Matthew.” I pause, waiting for her as hope—I just didn’t realize what it was until now—drains from me. “It’s no big deal. It was roughhousing, stupid stuff really, and it just got out of hand. They probably thought keying my car was funny.”

  Our eyes meet, and for a very long time, all I can hear is my breathing.

  “Why couldn’t you just get along with them?” Bren asks.

  I freeze, positive I heard her wrong. “I’m sorry I . . . what?”

  “Why couldn’t you just get along with them?” Bren hunches in half, arms wrapped tight around her torso. At first, I think she’s holding herself back . . . then I realize she’s just holding herself up. That’s how much I’ve disappointed her.

  That’s how much I’ve failed.

  Heat chases up my neck. “I can’t get along with them because they’re assholes.”

  “You could have ignored them. You could have pretended you liked them.”

  I recoil. “It doesn’t matter if I pretend. They don’t care. They hate me. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Bren’s eyes go hollow. “There’s always something you can do about it, Wick. This is survival. You have to learn to play right with the right people and you better learn it now because your future will depend on it.”

  Depend on them? I . . . can’t. The realization slams me in the stomach. If that’s my future then I don’t want it.

  I stumble from the car, dashing upstairs and slamming my bedroom door. How can she not understand? I throw my messenger bag onto the floor and set the computer next to my desk, dropping into the chair beside it.

  Is this what life is? Just letting people use you? Bren acts like it’s okay because she knows it’s happening, like she’s in control. She’s not. None of us are.

  See how she was used?

  I sit straight. They’re not my words, but they feel like mine. They’re crawling out of some corner I’ve always kept hidden. Until now. I pivot to face my old computer, powering it on and opening my chemistry notebook. Forget Lily and Bren. If they want to pretend bad things don’t happen, fine. Doesn’t mean I’m going to.

  I flip to the page with the passwords and log in to the police department’s employee site, using Detective Thompson’s information first.

  It doesn’t work. Small, red letters appear to the side of the password box saying “User already in use.” I glance at my phone. It’s almost nine at night. What are the odds Detective Thompson is working this late? He might be. I don’t know the guy personally. Maybe he’s a workaholic.

  Or maybe someone else is in the system like I am.

  I tap my fingers against the side of my keyboard. Whatever. I’ll try the other log-in. I enter Sheriff Denton’s info and another menu opens. I’m in. Thank God for Molly the Receptionist . The main dashboard is set for accessing closed and open cases, tickets, and court appointments. Gotta love when people are organized.

  I click the Closed Case link and use the search function to type in my mom’s case number. It takes the system a beat, but the file populates with some case notes and a summary of contents for her evidence box. No video files though.

  I open the Content Summary link and scan the list. Okay, here we go. In addition to witness statements, there are also “recorded interviews with victim.” No mention of how many though. I’ve received almost forty video files at this point. Could there be more?

  I hit the back button and skim through the case notes. Someone named Lawrence Haralson was lead detective, and a quickie Google search reveals he’s retired and living in Alabama. Detective Sams, his partner, now works for the Atlanta PD.

  Let’s see what else. . . . I scroll to the bottom of the notes, stop. Haralson and Sams weren’t the only people present during the interviews.

  So was Bay.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  My fingers . . . toes . . . face go cold. Numb. Bay knew. He was in on it. Did Carson know? Is that why he picked me to help him? I place both hands on my desk, leaving smeary prints on the wood.

  Well, that explains why Bay always denied my mom’s restraining order requests. It would have taken her away from my father, away from a case that would have padded his résumé.

  I almost laugh. No wonder Carson doesn’t like him—they’re the same.

  Enough of that though. What am I going to do? I start to pull off my jacket and it’s the weight in the pocket that reminds me.

  The Droid.

  I can suddenly breathe. While I don’t know what to do about Bay, I do know what I’m going to do with this. I mash the power button, waking the phone from sleep mode. No security code. Candy, meet baby.

  Dropping onto my bed, I surf through the phone’s settings until I get to its name: Matthew’s Phone. I have the sudden urge to giggle. It’s Bradford’s cell. Oh, this is going to be good!

  I switch to the contact lists. Girls from school. Guys from school. Other names I don’t recognize. Nothing useful. I check his email and it’s a little more interesting. Might be fun to infect his parents’ computers with a virus. Something nasty. If they think the email’s coming from Matthew, they’ll click without thinking.

  Promising. Still not grabbing my interest though.

  What about text messages?

  I flip through another set of screens. Ah, yes, someone’s a disgusting pig. I scroll through the conversations. Matthew’s been sexting with his girlfriend. I wonder if his mommy would be bothered by that? I check her email address and realize Matthew’s mom works for a restaurant chain known for its Christian values. That could be fun. I wonder if her coworkers would be bothered by Matthew’s texts?

  Her work email is listed under the contacts. Maybe I could send an email blast of darling Matthew’s requests. Again, promising, but I want this to hurt.

  On to the video files. He has four or five. The first few are worthless—just Matthew and his friends goofing around. The last one makes me smile.

  Bingo.

  For exactly four minutes and thirty-six seconds, Matthew Bradford, Eric Williams, and Sutton Davis pass the phone around, filming themselves drinking.

  And smoking.

  I replay the video, peer a little closer at the screen. That’s not just smoking. That’s pot.

  I can’t help my grin. Holy shit, this is going to be good.

  The guys are still in their lacrosse jerseys and they’re passing a bottle of Jack back and forth. We’re not talking HD clarity here, but every time they turn around, you can see the names printed across their shoulders. So much for
their reputation as good boys.

  I watch the video twice more, and each time, the knot in my stomach twists harder. This is going to be awesome.

  I take my new computer out of the bag and spend a few minutes hooking it up to the rest of my peripherals. It’ll still need updates before I’m fully functional, but I’m more than ready for this little job. I plug in the last cable, noticing Milo burned some sort of symbol into the plastic casing. It looks like the Cheshire cat’s smile from Alice in Wonderland, the toothy grin after the cat has disappeared.

  I like it.

  After the CPU powers up, I plug the phone into the USB and wait for the video file to download. In terms of what to do, I have a few options. Honestly though there’s only one place that’s perfect for such a windfall: our high school’s YouTube channel.

  I settle into my chair and start working on obtaining access to the school’s account.

  Next morning, I wake up late again and Bren drops me off just before the first bell rings. We don’t talk much on the ride over. I fiddle with the scarf around my neck. Bren switches radio stations. She pulls into the school’s drop-off lane, and just as I’m about to slide out of her car, Bren grabs my hand, holds it tight.

  “I’m sorry for yelling at you, Wick. I completely screwed up. I feel terrible.”

  “I’m sorry about the car.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Except I know she thinks it kind of is. If I weren’t such a freak, if I weren’t such an outsider, if I weren’t so . . . me, this stuff wouldn’t happen.

  “It’s not your fault,” Bren repeats, and I smile like I believe her. “I know you said you don’t want to make a statement, but I’ll support you if you change your mind.”

  I shake my head. No need to change my mind. “I appreciate the ride, but I can drive the Mini like it is. No big deal.” It’s totally a big deal. I’m just not going to admit it. Thankfully, though, Bren shakes her head. “Okay . . . I could walk then.”