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“Jessie?” Darius asked, a note of warning in his voice. “Your nose?—”

I swayed as I opened my eyes. Everyone’s eyes were still focused on the screen—or their phones—or using their phones to take pictures of the screen—as I reached up and swiped blood as red as the velvet I wore away from my upper lip.

“We need to get out of here,” Darius said, grabbing both Lacey and I’s arms, hauling us toward the door, just as our principal’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

“Prom is canceled! Everyone go home!”

“What?” someone shouted. There was a series of groans, a few smattered laughs, and but mostly an undercurrent of people murmuring about what they were reading, what they couldn’t help but read because it was in letters three feet tall.

The lights flickered on, stunning everyone still, destroying whatever magic prom had had, exposing everything for cardboard and balloons. “Chaperones—please escort everyone out of the building immediately!”

The three of us looked to one another, me clutching my nose desperately to keep the blood inside. We each knew what’dhappened, although none of us could admit it. My eyes met Darius’s and I said, “Be-zap.”

CHAPTER 43

Darius started hauling us again immediately. “You heard the man—ladies?” he said, making a beeline for the parking lot. We obediently followed, walking just as slowly as the rest of our dazed and frustrated classmates. It was only nine. The prom was supposed to go on for at least another hour—I had a feeling the parties would go on tonight regardless. I wondered what’d happen to Danny at them. I wondered where Mason had gone. I wondered what was wrong with me, as the blood burbled down the back of my throat, thick and salty.

Darius beeped his doors open when we were fifteen feet away and herded us inside, locking the doors the second they were shut. Then he started to dig around inside his car until he found some Snax Shax napkins for me to shove into my nostrils.

“Lacey,” I said, turning toward her, sounding nasal. “I so did not mean to do that.”

She held her phone out to me with my text on it. “I think I know.”

“Oh God?—”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I got so mad—I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. Darius was uncharacteristically quiet—I hoped he wasn’t judging me.

“No—I mean, it sucks, don’t get me wrong. But—if any of those pictures get out now, people will assume that’s who sent them—so he can’t post them, right?” She reached inside her skirt to start undoing safety pins.

“But he can still send them—” I hadn’t gotten them all, when I’d been so sure. Goddammit.

“No. I was having a good time tonight until then. It made me realize I’m tired of being scared, Jessie. I don’t want to be anymore.”

“Good.” The car slowed to a roll as Darius navigated around another wave of kids leaving the gym. I heard a lot of shouting and cursing and recognized a ton of the voices—the entire drunken baseball team. They wanted to know, ‘Who the fuck did that!’ and to ‘Fuck that lying fucker!’ and my heart started beating a million miles a minute. I could see the swirling lights of data surrounding their cellphones, illuminating them, like they were the torch-holding villagers in a pitchfork mob, and a fresh wave of blood leaked down my throat.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it, okay?” Darius said, and I wanted nothing more at that moment then to crawl over into his lap again and feel safe. He was concentrating on driving though—getting us out of here safely.

I looked back at Lacey in the rearview—with the napkins up my nose I looked like a bloody walrus. “Should we tell Jonah?”

“Last time I saw him he was making out with Sam. I don’t think he cares,” Lacey said, and finished unfolding the bottom of her dress out to a church appropriate length.

We drove back in near silence, me swallowing blood, which seemed commensurate with the horror of the evening. I had no idea what the repercussions would be, only that I sure there would be some.

Darius remembered where Lacey lived and stopped in front of her trailer.

“Talk to you tomorrow, yeah?” Lacey said, after she hopped out.

“Yeah.” I agreed, and she closed her door.

Then Darius took us to his traditional spot, well down the street from my trailer. “That was crazy.”

“Tell me about it.” I tugged the napkins out, relieved no new geysers erupted.

“No really, Jessie, you’ve got to stop.” The overhead light showed his earnest expression.

“Huh?” I lifted my chin, showing him my likely blood smeared face. “I’m fine, see?”