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“There are no shots,” I say.

“Maya, she can see the shots,” Perrie says.

I shuffle sideways to stand in front of the table and spread my arms out. “Nope.”

“Oh, good, you’ve decided to be mature about things.” Skye scowls at me as she approaches.

I stay in front of the table. “I didn’t mean I’d be mature toyou.And no, I’m not immature,you’reimmature. I’m just real.”

“Let me get to the shots,” Skye says.

“What shots?”

“Oh my god.” She looks to Perrie, who shrugs. “Okay, we’re doing this.”

“What shots? What shots? Wha—You aren’t allowed to touch me, this is a workplace.”

Skye wraps her arms around me and moves me to the side so she can get to the table. “Help!” I yell. “HELP!”

“Maya, shh,” Perrie urges. But it’s too late. The cameras have found us. They have found us, and they are running in to record everything and… oh, wait, they’re gonna record everything. That’sgood.Ha.

“Ow,” I moan, rubbing my arm for the camera. “She attacked me.”

“Oh, come on, I barely touched you,” Skye says, shaking her head as she collects some shots.

“She just came for me out of nowhere,” I tell the operator, who’s still filming me. “Like a jaguar in the night!”

“Somehow, you will recover,” Skye says over her shoulder as she pushes past us. “I have unwavering faith in you.”

“Shut up,” I call after her. “Just… shut up, okay?”

The camera operator ducks her head around the side to look at me. “What happened just now, Maya? Why were you screaming? Use names.”

“Probably better not,” Perrie whispers, but she doesn’t understand. I need the world to know the truth aboutsomething,at least, and if I can’t tell the truth about Jordy, I can tell the truth about this. There will be justice.

“There I was,” I say, “standing at the table, whenSkye Kaplanburst in like a… like a jaguar!”

“You’re sticking with that descriptor, then?” Perrie asks, and the operator shushes her with her hands.

“And she demanded access to the shots! Before I could react,bam,she pounced on me like a…”

“Jaguar?” the camera operator offers.

“No, like a bitch.”

“Okay,” Perrie says, steering me by the shoulders. “They get the gist, I think. I wanna show you something outside.”

When we get outside, there is nothing. She has nothing to show me.

The betrayal grows and grows.

“You cut me off for nothing.” I scowl. “I was telling them all about Skye!”

“You’ll thank me for it tomorrow, I promise.”

Nearby, Jordy is chatting with the love seat girls—who are now all holding shots—while the rest of the camera crew hovers nearby. As soon as he sees me, something changes for the worse. For the way, way worse. I feel like I’m staring into the barrel of a sniper.

Crapcrapcrapcrap—