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“Good. I’d just be a terrible parent if you didn’t live your high school life to the fullest.”

I said the only thing I could think of to end the conversation as quickly as possible. “Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled at me like a benevolent fairy godmother. “You’re welcome, Jessica.”

The next day I got a reluctant Allie out to her bus-stop in time and was trudging over to my own when a familiar car pulled up and honked. I was grinning by the time Lacey’s passenger window rolled down.

“Hey pretty lady. Want a ride?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically and hopped in. I settled myself into her passenger seat, aligned my seatbelt, and looked out at the world as it was meant to be seen. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you. I mean, I’m happy to see you yes, but OMG I would rather gnaw my leg off than ride the bus again.”

“That bad?”

“You have no idea.” Or maybe she did, since Emily had gone out of her way to attack her. “You going be okay today?”

“Yeah. It’s going to fucking suck. But I can’t hide at home forever—and I’m over my mom’s BS.”

I could only guess how bad Lacey’s mom was if she’d rather be at school than at home with her. “Well, I’m glad to see you. And—things’ll blow over soon. With prom coming up, you know someone’ll do something stupid and then everyone’ll forget about this.”

She rocked her hands back and forth on the steering wheel, white-knuckled. “Yeah. They will.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

On our own, neither of us were fully convinced, but if we stuck together we could make it through the day.

“And I, uh, didn’t tell you,” I said as we walked in, “there’s been some additional redecorating of your locker.”

Lacey shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I cleaned it up yesterday but if there’s more, I can help out again.”

“Cool,” she said, with a curt nod. I expected more from her—fear, worry, softness?—but I realized I was watching her put her armor on again. Lacey wasn’t just my best friend—she was also like a Robocop for our shitty times.

If only she came with laser beams or machine gun turrets installed.

I followed her through Redson High’s front doors and entered Lightning Land. Texts flew with abandon, continuous streams of information back and forth from everyone’s phones, the walls pulsing with power, the lights overhead glowing. Snippets of conversations, corners of photos—everything passed through me, and I paid attention to all of it and none of it at once.

I felt a hand on my arm. “You okay?” Lacey asked.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, shaking my head and concentrating on the now. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay. Weirdo,” she said, with a slight grin.

She led the way to our lockers. Some kind janitor had finished the job I’d started, scrubbing all the letters off all the way—and they hadn’t been replaced. Prom was just a week away, maybe we were right and things were already dying down.

So she knelt down to and dialed her dial, while I dialed mine above her, and it was almost like old times—as old as last week, when things didn’t suck quite so bad—and then she gasped as her locker opened and pictures flooded out.

Into her lap and over my shoes—sharp-cornered glossy squares—I recognized the red background from the ZB threat, and saw her on all of them, her mouth was open this time and someone had his thumb in it like she was a hooked fish. I heard her gasping like she was drowning, trying to pick them all up and shove them all back. I looked around quickly—no one else had noticed yet—we were in the pre-class rush.

“Jessie—this—” she sputtered the words, trying to shove all the proof of her assault back into her locker like she could go back in time.

Those texts I’d snooped on yesterday—Danny. That asshole—or Azzho1e. This was supposed to be over—and he was a fucking liar. Even though she’d told him she wasn’t going to talk, he was scared and wanted to keep her quiet. Or, he couldn’t stop himself from kicking her when she was down.

Either way—anger flared in me, bright and true.

I knelt down and grabbed her shoulders. “Do you trust me?” Her eyes went from being glazed to focusing on me alone.

“Get out all the books you need now. Don’t come back here for the rest of the day. We’ll clean out your locker before we go home.”