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A series of complicated emotions roiled over her face. “Yeah—which is why I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to feel responsible, is all.”

“Well, she doesn’t. Because she has no idea what went on.” I spun her around like we were dancing. “None of these people do. See?”

Everyone was wrapped up in their own story, living their own lives, making their own memories. No one cared what two silly sophomores were doing, we didn’t matter in the least. It was 49% existentially horrible—but 51% liberating.

We finished our circle and I turned to Lacey, and for the first time since Liam’s party, saw a smile creep across her face.

“Fuck it! I’m at prom!” she shouted, giving a loud, “Woooooooo!” spring-break-style, and we all started dancing to the very next song.

We danced to every song after that, even when they weren’t good or we weren’t good at it—at least we weren’t Bruce, who’d cleared half the floor attempting to do The Worm before a chaperone intervened. And adding Lacey took a lot of the tension away between Darius and I, which was a good thing. We were both willing to sing the words to our favorite songs, occasionally pretending we were holding microphones, and laughing at the end of each karaoke dance.

If this was what prom was like, no wonder kids liked it so much.

“Ladies and gentlemen, can the man behind the curtain have your attention? How is your prom night going?” The DJ shouted overhead at the volume of a monster-truck rally emcee, and everyone inside the gym screamed in appreciation.

“If you’ll just clear a path—it’s time for us to appreciate the glories of your junior and senior years before we crown our court!”

More wild cheering, and even I found myself yelping and clapping my hands like I cared.

Then the Oz images on the projection screen stuttered and a blank screen went up.

Lacey was by my side in an instant, her hand holding mine before the first slide showed on the screen. It was Amy and Robbie on a swing-set, looking gloriously lean and tan, her sun-bleached hair fluttering in the wind, and Amy, Robbie, and all their friends cheered.

Photo after photo. The crème of campus, at their most silly or beautiful. Candid shots in the halls, posed shots after teams played, each moment of triumph lovingly displayed. I realized it wasn’t just cameras taking those photos and storing those memories—that each photo image was doing the same inside our minds, the photons filtering in through our eyes, coloring our perceptions of other people’s lives, pressing other people’s memories into ours like they were our own, giving us endless opportunities to compare that we’d never had before. Were we as happy as they appeared to be? Were we as half as tough, as smart, as beautiful?

And then, out of nowhere, blocking my view—Mason.

Lacey took point. “Outta my way, Mysterious Asshole,” she said, stepping forward, and I was glad she had sensible ass-kicking shoes on. Another photo came on. Rosie and Todd, at some sort of car-wash function—she was in a bikini and he was soaking wet. “So that’s what you do for fun? Take pictures, because you can’t get any on your own?”

He turned toward us, the projector’s light making his eyes glitter cruelly. “I get plenty on my own.”

He didn’t look dismayed in the least. And he’d sought us out—to relish in the last moments of our fear? Or—I threw myself into the other-world. People’s phones hummed, reporting in, GPS information, data back-ups, furtive messages making party plans. I scanned everything I could and caught nothing in mid-air. Another harmless slide went up.

“What I do for fun,” he went on, “is teach stupid whores lessons.”

Lacey shrank back against me as Darius stepped up. “Say that again,” Darius dared him. Other kids heard his tone and stepped back, pre-fight.

Mason leaned forward. “You aren’t the only dealer in town.”

“But I got them all,” I said out loud, trying to convince myself. My eyes latched onto the projector and I followed its cables back with my other-sight. The cables reemerged from the ceiling, down the wall, and plugged into a laptop, guarded by not only two adults, but two upperclassmen from the baseball team. The bottom of my stomach fell out again, just like it had when I was back in Mason’s room. “I deleted them all!” I told him, like saying that could make it true. “And Danny’s dick was in half of them— I said, volume rising, not caring who heard.

Mason returned his attention to me. “Two words,” he said, holding up fingers to count. “Originals. Photoshop.”

Lacey squeezed all the blood out of my hand. “No.”

“Don’t do it, Mason, please,” I begged.

“After I washed away your puke? Hardly.”

The slideshow flickered again. And in the moment between images I knew—I could feel it—one of the photos, like a bullet being shot from a gun. The screen went dark and I knew in a second it would flash Redson red. Lacey gasped, Darius stiffened and I—I—did the only thing I thought I could.

I closed my eyes instead of screaming—sending out energy to flash-fry the computer and make the projector show the onlyslide I was interested in seeing—which was why everyone gasped as they read what was on the screen.

DANNY MAYWEATHER IS A RAPIST.

Then two hundred some-odd cellphones started to ring with a cacophony of ringtones, as everyone within a five hundred foot radius got a text message that said the same thing.

“Oh my God,” Lacey whispered.