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“You don’t want to do it, man!” Liam said.

Danny got on both his knees, still holding Darius down. “Actually,” he growled. “I do.” He twisted him and Darius to face the porch.

If Danny were a normal man—just some other high school kid—I wouldn’t have thought he could go through with it. But after hearing all the stories tonight, I dropped to my knees. “Don’t,” I begged.

“Enough!” Lacey shouted. She flung the USB at him. “There! Let him go!”

Danny dropped Darius, who sat there like a dropped puppet, arms and legs out, and then stomped where the USB had landed and everyone heard it crunch. “There,” he said. “Done.” He surveyed his handiwork, Darius on the ground and us women on the porch. “Have fun explaining this to the police without me,” he said, turning to walk back to his truck, after leaning down to first swoop up his bat.

“I will!” Lacey shouted at his back. He walked on like he hadn’t heard her and she stepped out in the rain. “The cops are still going to show up tonight and I’m still going to talk to them and it won’t matter that there’s no proof because I’m not going to stop talking until I’m dead!”

He kept walking.

“Do you know what that means?” she screamed. “Even if no one else comes forward—no one fights but me—every time anyone ever mentions your name, there’s going to be an asterisk beside it! Because people who don’t know? I’ll tell them. I’ll make a whole website about it tomorrow. You’ll be the famous Danny Fucking Mayweather who also rapes girls.”

“The real question is,” Shana said in a perfectly calm tone of voice. “Will you get the chance to be great? Are you so very good at baseball that fielding you will be worth the hassle of your coaches wondering when you’re going to rape again? Because I’m over hiding your secret for you.”

“Shut up,” Danny said.

“Surely there’s at least fifty other kids out there just as good as you are and one hundred percent less rapey,” Jenny found her voice, and I saw Lacey nod.

Lacey took another step forward and her voice went deathly calm. “Danny Mayweather, I am going to ruin the rest of your life.”

“SHUT UP!” he shouted, whirling, bat held high. “Just fucking shut up, you fucking cunt!”

Thunder reverberated from not that far away. The air around us was crackling now—years of entitlement clashing with unforeseen anger, the tension between sophomores coming into their own versus seniors with one foot out the door, people who played sports-ball against believed losers like Lacey and me—the energy between doing something and not doing anything at all.I felt like I could survey everything and know everyone’s hearts, like time was still—I even felt a little weightless.

Again.

“Oh shit,” I said.

Danny still stood in the center of the clearing, challenging us.

“Danny no!” I screamed.

“Fuck you, Jessica!” he shouted, bat still held high.

I ran for him. He raised it as though he were going to swing at me.

“Don’t!” Liam shouted, I wasn’t sure at who, as I shouted, “Get down!” Darius rose up, and grabbed Danny’s bat from behind, and I hit both of them head on, with all my strength, taking everyone clumsily to the ground.

Lightning cracked overhead, but instead of finding Danny’s bat it hit Darius’s car, dancing along its back as the world around us was electrified. I heard distant shouts and smelled things sizzling, right before I went light-blind.

But when the lightning was done, I knew it. The feeling of weight came back—I was crushing someone as Danny shouted, “Get off me!” I blinked, and saw who I thought was Bruce run up to grab the bat—to hide evidence or to stop Danny from doing anything else stupid, I didn’t know. I rolled to the side in the mud, panting, waiting for my eyes to see.

“Are you okay?” Darius asked. He grabbed me and held me tight.

“One of my new life goals is for you to never have to ask me that again.”

“That’s not an answer,” he said, pulling back.

“I am—are you?”

“Yeah,” he said, standing, taking me up with him. “I told you. The ‘roid rage is real.”

I laughed harshly and kept clinging to his side, as sirens became louder than the storm.

CHAPTER 56