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“You said alone—I thought you meant it,” he stepped back, so that he was cast in shadows.

“I said privately. I never said alone.”

“I—I don’t—” he started, and I got scared that after everything we’d done still he might go.

“It’s okay,” Lacey said from beside me, barely audible.

“Really?’

“Yeah.” She let go of a long breath and then sank back into her car. “I’ll wait out here.”

“Okay.” I snapped my attention back to Mason. “Let’s talk.”

He pulled out a keyring, walked into the garage, and I followed him at a deliberate pace.

Mason turned on the lights and kept walking, while I stopped near the door. The garage smelled like metal and oil. There were pits and hoists, racks of tools, drills, compressors, gauges, and an entire machine shop at the back, with huge grinding wheels and metal plates. One wall had a stack of tires leaned against it, and behind that I could tell there was another mural of a bison, just waiting to be revealed.

“What I want to know is where the hell you got a stingray from. Did you blow a cop or what?” He stopped when he reached the back and I stopped looking around, focusing on him.

“What?”

“A stingray. The thing that cops use that mimic cell-phone towers when they’re doing wire-taps. You got it, and you don’t know how you’re using it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, watching him nervously pace.

“Well I’m here, aren’t I? What do you want? For the guys to stop harassing you? I’ll see what I can do.”

“Photos,” I said sharply. “All of them. Everything you’ve got. We’re going after Danny.”

“What? No,” Mason laughed nervously, like this couldn’t be happening to him. “I’ll delete them, but I’m not giving them to you.”

“You’ve been cheating all year long in history Mason. And unless you give me what I want, I’m going to administration with proof. You’ll fail, you’ll get expelled, and all your baseball scholarships will disappear.” I opened one hand like I was letting a bird go. “Poof, there goes Mason’s entire life.”

His nervous pacing switched to stalking-tiger energy, as if I’d flipped a switch. “How’d you get it? Who told you? I beat the shit out of Jeremy, and he swears he didn’t talk.”

Crap—I didn’t mean for anyone else to get hurt—then regrouped. “It doesn’t matter who told me. What matters is it’s true.”

He slowed down and turned toward me, attempting to be suave. “I just can’t turn him in, Jessie. Surely we can make some other arrangement.”

“Like what?” What on earth would be the price of my pride and friendships?

“My dad gets good cars through here, now and then. Your mom’s car’s a beater, right? I mean, look at you, of course it is.”

My jaw dropped and what was worse was that he actually thought it’d work. “So in exchange for you not bullying me anymore, I should let you and your rapist friend go free for…what. A used Volvo? You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding you! Come on!” he shouted. “Don’t you realize what you’re asking? Danny’s been my best friend my whole life!”

“Then you’ve been best friends with an evil person,” I said, voice calm. “Give me the pics.”

Mason threw his hands up. “I didn't even do anything! It’s not fair!”

I took a step closer. “Am I supposed to…be feeling sorry for you? Because you stood nearby while a crime was being committed instead of doing it yourself—and then you had proof—which you didn’t turn in—is that supposed to somehow make you the good-guy? Are you shitting me?”

His jaw clenched but he didn’t answer.

“Its pictures or you fucking fail—you fucking failure.”

In hindsight, I should’ve left off the last three words—I think those were the ones that broke him, and then broke me.