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“They won’t. Unless we win the lottery and can afford an advertising plane.”

Lacey pulled to a stop in front of my trailer. “Something has to change, Jessie.”

“I completely agree. Only I have no idea what that something is.”

“I think I do.”

“What?”

Her gaze behind her glasses was cloudy. “Let me think about it. One more day.”

“K.”

She exhaled like she was blowing out a candle—or blowing dangerous thoughts away—then looked around. “Where’s your bag?”

“Don’t ask.”

CHAPTER 48

After I watched Lacey’s car drive away I sat down on my front porch. I could feel the trailer, lurking behind me—not all of my powers were gone. But like a battery running down, there was less and less charge. It was like getting hit by lightning had opened up a door, and now I was watching it—feeling it—close. I just hadn’t noticed until I’d asked more from it than it could give.

While I was pondering this, a familiar truck drove up. Liam got out and looked over both shoulders, before coming over to talk.

“Heard about your bag,” he said quietly, like someone might listen in.

“Oh you did, did you?” I hadn’t turned my phone back on yet, but I had no doubt pictures of my abandoned backpack were all over ZB.

He walked toward me, head bent, and I had to fight not to back away. I was scared. But there’d be no reason for Mason to send him over, when there was so still much carnage he could wreak himself.

“If I give you something, will they ever know it was me?” he asked, his voice low.

I swallowed my heart back down. “I’d die before I told them, Liam. And you already know how stubborn I can be.”

“I can’t give you anything on Danny. No one ever has anything on him, besides Mason. But Mason? He runs a cheating ring.”

“What? How?” We were almost close enough to kiss each other’s shoulders, without actually touching.

“You know how a lot of our teachers teach more than one of the same class? Mason finds kids who’re taking the same tests earlier on in the day, and bribes or bullies them into texting him the answers so that when he takes the same test in the afternoon he manages to pass. He’s smart enough not to make A’s or anything, no one would believe that—but it gives him good enough grades to pass. He already has scholarships lined up for baseball, he just needs to graduate.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“Other than the fact that he told me? No. But you’re the hacker, right?”

I thought back to everything I’d siphoned off of Mason’s phone and pulled up perfect images of all his texts inside my mind. Sure enough, several of them were listings of numbers along with letters a-e, scantron ready. “Yeah. I am.”

“Good. Fuck his shit up,” he said, then turned to walk back to his truck. I couldn’t help myself, I chased after him.

“What changed?” I asked, as he hoisted himself up.

“You know how there’s no ‘I’ in team? Well there’s no rapist motherfuckers in team either,” he said, reaching out to firmly slam his door.

The second his truck drove off, I ran to Lacey’s.

I went through my neighbor’s yard, down a path between trailers, through another backyard, dodged around a beat-uptruck on blocks, and ran up the hill to the back of her place. I shouted, “Lacey!” just as I started beating on her window. “Lacey guess what!”

She’d only dropped me off ten minutes ago, come on now— “It’s me!” I shouted, in case there were a panoply of other options.

The blinds zinged up, revealing my best friend through the screen’s tight woven mesh—with my other best friend standing beside her.