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When Rosa took her by her house the next day to pack some clothes, Jodi saw the damage for the first time. The left side of her house was charred, the siding blackened. The bushes between their house and the Burnses’ were crisped. She could see where the fire had jumped to the other house, and her heart dropped when she realized it was Oliver’s bedroom.

Thankfully, it looked like only the outside had been damaged. The Burnses had evacuated early enough, and the fire trucks had arrived quickly.

Caution tape wound around her house, and she had to duck under it to wedge her key in the lock. The fire had crept toward the living room, lighting up the carpet and singeing her father’s favorite chair. Jodi imagined him still in it, drunkenly dozing while the smoke choked him to death. She shook her head clear of the nightmare and turned down the hall toward her bedroom.

Aside from the smoke, her room was clear. The fire hadn’t come this far. She grabbed everything important and filled a duffel bag with all the clothes she could.

Her dad was discharged from the hospital that morning. He’d needed to sober up and get his lungs tested, and if he experienced any hoarseness or difficulty breathing he was supposed to come in immediately. They’d talked on the phone that morning, and every apology felt like a weight on Jodi’s chest. He wouldn’t stop saying sorry. Jodi knew it was an accident, but it also wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been piss-drunk.

“I’m glad you’re staying with Rosa,” he’d said. “I think that’s for the best until the insurance company comes through with the money for repairs.”

Jodi had just agreed.

While she put together a puzzle with her grandma, Jodi’s mind ran through the séance. Jodi tried to make sense of the way Kiera behaved, trying to make it not Emily’s doing.

She wants you to go to Rosa’s .

Well, here she was. If her mother wanted her at Rosa’s…

She wondered if Emily cared about the rose garden at all. Nan had seen a rose during her and Paige’s session. But had it even been Emily?

She called Nan that day, stepping out of Rosa’s kitchen and into the backyard.

“Can you explain possession?”

“Possession?” She could hear Nan shuffling papers and moving around her salon. “Can you be more specific?”

“We… we tried to communicate with Emily last night, and I think she possessed one of us. She was talking through someone.” She didn’t mention the eyes. It wasn’t something she could be sure of.

“Hm. Well, I would say that—” Nan cut off. Jodi almost prompted her when she finally said, “Okay. Emily is here.”

Jodi clenched her jaw.

“She’s curious about a fire?”

“Tell her to fuck off,” Jodi bit out. Then, “Sorry. I’m really, really done with her.”

“Well, she’s not done with you.”

Shivers started down Jodi’s spine. “So it was her last night? Possessing Kiera?”

“She is happy to take credit for it, yes. That’s what I’m getting from her, anyway.”

Jodi swallowed. “Is it going to happen again? Is she… Does she want to hurt us?”

“I’m not getting that. She’s still very concerned for you. Focused on you.”

That didn’t make her feel any better. “When we first came to see you, you said someone was holding out a rose. Did you think that was Emily?”

“There were a lot of voices,” Nan said. “I wasn’t sure, but someone associated roses with safety.”

Jodi rubbed her eyes. “My aunt’s name is Rosa.”

“Ah. Well, that could be it.”

“So, going to the rose garden wasn’t it.” Jodi scoffed.

Nan paused before saying, “If you’d like to come by and talk about it some more, I could give you ten minutes free…”

“Thanks, but I think I’m done talking to spirits.”

Nan wished her well, and Jodi did the same.

Jodi checked in with the rest of them later that day. Zack said Kiera was freaked. When he’d finally updated the group text, he’d said it took an hour for him to calm her down. He’d checked on her early in the morning, and she said she’d dreamt of Emily all night.

When Monday came, Kiera looked like she’d—well, like she’d seen a ghost. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin was pale. Jodi tried to approach her to ask if she was okay, but Kiera had swerved to avoid her.

The weeks seemed to pass quickly during the winter. Jodi started work on the backdrop for West Side Story , but the rest of the semester was just a countdown to the trials.

The last Monday of February was the beginning of the hearings. Paige dressed in pastel clothes that she’d bought at Marshalls the day before, giving her the look of someone who had never owned a pair of Gucci sunglasses or six Louis Vuitton purses. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and walked with her gaze down on the sidewalk as the reporters swarmed her at the courthouse steps.

Lucy went next. She wore no makeup. She marched up the steps downtown like someone on a mission. The day before, she’d gotten her rejection letters from both Louisiana and Stanford, despite their offers of early admission in November.

There was little Julian Hollister could do to make himself seem more sympathetic. His lawyer pried his aviators out of his hands and forced his top buttons closed, but he was clearly the same American Eagle model he’d always been.

The three of them pled not guilty. Footage of each of them leaving the courthouse played on all news stations. News trucks clustered around the high school for over a week, catching snippets of interviews from anyone who wanted their five minutes of fame.

“This isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this, and as sad as I am that Emily is gone, I’m glad there’s a wake-up call here,” said a boy with brown hair and braces that Jodi had never seen before in her life.

Reagan Matthews seemed to be everywhere at once. “It’s called getting Thrashed . They’re the Thrashers , and what they do is they choose someone to take under their wing, hang out with, cheat off their homework—whatever, and then they Thrash them.”

“What does that mean? Specifically?” The reporter turned her mic back to Reagan.

“It means they ruin them. Dump them in the garbage, publicly humiliate them. It happened to me freshman year.”

Jodi pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering if this was what a migraine felt like.

A few weeks after the hearings, Lucy’s uncle told them about a Facebook group called Justice for Emily Mills. It was two thousand members strong and full of opinions about the Emily Mills case. According to the group, the Thrashers were guilty until proven innocent, and even then it wouldn’t be enough.

Paige started getting harassed in the parking lot after school by media crews and “concerned citizens.” The school had to hire outside security to keep them off the grounds. A campaign was organized to get Zack expelled. Jodi suspected that the only thing that kept him in school was Greg and Charity Thrasher’s yearly donations. Lucy was getting out of her car in front of her house one day when someone drove by and threw a glass bottle at her. He’d yelled, “How do you like it?” after the glass shattered at her feet. Julian’s water polo scholarships had been pulled, and almost all of his East Coast colleges had rescinded his admission.

On Jodi’s eighteenth birthday, they had a small get-together at Zack’s house. When she arrived, she thought Paige and Julian just weren’t there yet.

“These are from Paige,” Lucy said, smiling brightly and carrying a Tupperware full of homemade cupcakes.

Jodi blinked. “Oh. Is she…?”

“She wants us to FaceTime her.” Lucy’s smile faltered. “She hasn’t had a good day.”

Jodi’s stomach dropped. “What happened?”

Lucy glanced at Zack, who was in the living room searching for something to watch on Netflix. Zack met her eyes and looked away.

“What happened?” Jodi repeated.

Lucy took a fortifying breath. “We all got texts today. About your birthday.”

Jodi reached for her phone on reflex. “What did they say?”

“All different things,” Lucy said. “Mine asked where the party was at. Paige got sent links for gifts for you. Zack got sent some weird info about a play in San Francisco and then the link for front-row tickets.”

Jodi felt the blood drain from her face. Oliver had told her about a musical playing in San Francisco next month. He’d said the pro duction was using a hand-painted re-creation of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte on the backdrop instead of a printed screen, and that she should see it. Jodi had looked up tickets just two days ago, searching for promo codes and discounts before finally deciding she couldn’t go.

“So Paige said she didn’t want to risk it,” Lucy concluded.

“What number was it?” Jodi asked, her throat dry and crackling.

As Lucy read it off, Jodi double-checked the unknown number that had texted her “happy birthday” earlier that day. She hadn’t thought anything of it, assuming it was someone she knew in passing whose number she hadn’t saved. But it was the same number.

She stared out the window, wondering if the person sending these texts had overheard Oliver…

“Hey,” Zack said, appearing in front of her. He rubbed her arm. “It’s okay. We can forget about it for a night. It’s your birthday, Jo.”

Zack grabbed a party horn and blew the paper end into her face until she smiled weakly.

Jodi sat through the movie, trying to figure out the best way to ask Oliver if he knew who was harassing the Thrashers over text without accusing him.

Once Julian had arrived, long past fashionably late, and was sitting next to her on the couch, she said, “Did you get a text from a dead girl today, too?”

“Yup.” He tossed popcorn into his mouth. She watched his tongue dart out to catch the salt on his lips. “She wanted dick pics though. Weird.”

Jodi snorted and shoved his shoulder.

“I mean, I obliged ,” Julian said playfully. “She said they were for you, but I don’t know if she’ll share them.”

Jodi bit her lip to keep from smiling. “You think I want pictures of your dick for my birthday?”

He tilted his head to her and said in all sincerity, “Dillon. Of course you do. Everyone does.”

Jodi rolled her eyes, feeling her cheeks grow hot. As they turned their attention back to the TV, Jodi saw Lucy watching them with a lifted brow and a smirk.

Jodi looked away quickly, and Lucy turned back to the TV.

The prosecution finally scheduled a deposition with Jodi in March.

After school, she took the bus down to the courthouse and was ushered into the same room. She sat in an uncomfortable chair and faced down Buechler, Yang, and Detective Harding, only this time she didn’t have a lawyer with her.

“Miss Dillon,” Buechler began without much fanfare. “Were you aware that Julian Hollister texted Emily Mills on the day she died?”

“I was made aware of it in our last interview,” Jodi responded. “But I hadn’t known before then, no.”

“Do you know now what it was that he texted her?”

“All I know is what you’ve told me. A message and a link. I don’t know what either of those were.”

Only Yang looked disappointed. The others had schooled their expressions.

“Who is Oliver Burns?” Buechler asked.

Jodi stared at him, closing her mouth from where it dropped open. “He’s a classmate and my next-door neighbor.”

“Have you ever considered him a friend?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, trying to get ahead of where they were going with this. Had Oliver decided to press charges against Julian after all? “We were very close in middle school, and we’ve just recently become close again.”

“What accounts for the gap?” Buechler’s shoulders gave a small shrug.

“High school. We just started running in different circles, I guess.”

“And your circle was the Thrashers.”

Jodi didn’t answer, not if he wasn’t going to form a question.

“Why didn’t Oliver get to hang out with the Thrashers?”

“‘Get to?’” she repeated. “He didn’t want to, I guess. Like I said, we went different ways.”

Harding scratched something on her notes, and Jodi regretted not calling Miranda for this. She was eighteen and she wasn’t being charged with anything, so she hadn’t thought she’d needed a lawyer. Maybe she’d been wrong.

“Do you really think there are any kids at New Helvetia who wouldn’t want to be a Thrasher?” Buechler continued.

Jodi narrowed her eyes. “It’s not a club. I’ve told you before, it’s a friend group. You don’t get an invite or a Skull and Bones hazing. The five of us are friends.”

“But you were friends with Oliver Burns. Why doesn’t he still get to be friends with you once you’re a Thrasher?”

Clenching her jaw, Jodi bit out, “I think you’re twisting things to fit your narrative, when I’ve already told you the answer is as simple as ‘friends grow apart.’”

Buechler had the arrogance to smile at her. “Has Zackary Thrasher ever told you not to hang out with Oliver Burns?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“Has Julian Hollister?”

“No.”

“Has Lucy R—”

“No, and no.”

His lips twitched again, and then he placed both elbows on the table and leveled his gaze at her. “Oliver Burns tells us that Zackary Thrasher and Julian Hollister specifically kept him from speaking to you in freshman year. That Lucy Reed didn’t invite him to a pool party after talking about it in front of him. That Paige Montgomery asked him to do her hair for freshman year homecoming and then never credited him or even spoke to him at the dance.”

Jodi’s fingertips were buzzing. She’d never heard any of this.

“That you, Jodi,” Buechler said, “stopped talking to him altogether after first semester freshman year.”

Her chest was tight, her air thin. They’d stopped talking, but it was mutual. It’s not like she decided it.

“Oliver Burns claims that he was the first person at New Helvetia High School to be ‘Thrashed’ by the Thrashers.”

“That’s not true,” she snapped. “It may have felt that way to him, but we never decided to exclude him. We never purposefully made anyone feel… ‘Thrashed.’”

The word was thick on her tongue. She shifted in her chair, feeling a slimy sensation in her gut.

“So, you had no knowledge of any of this?” Harding spoke for the first time. “You didn’t know your friends were trying to get rid of Oliver Burns?”

“That’s not what happened. I just told you it wasn’t purposeful.” Her skin was tingling, and it felt like the walls were closer than before.

Harding and Buechler stared at her, as if waiting. When she said nothing else, Buechler gestured to Harding. The detective shuffled her paperwork and read through something briefly.

“Has Emily’s death affected you in particular due to how your mother died?” She looked up from her notes and clicked her pen.

Jodi’s lungs caught. “Excuse me?”

“Were you more affected by Emily’s suicide because of your mother?”

“What does my mother have to do with Emily?”

Harding blinked at her, like she was genuinely taken aback. Jodi felt like there was something she was missing.

“They died in such similar manners. I’m just asking if you were affected by that in particular,” Harding said.

Jodi stared at her. Similar manners . She didn’t understand…

Harding continued softly, “Because your mother died by suicide.”

Her veins turned solid. Her vision blurred and returned.

“My mother drowned.”

Yang looked up. Harding went still. Buechler cleared his throat. “Right,” he said, stretching the vowel, “but after an overdose. In the bathtub.”

“It wasn’t an overdose,” Jodi snapped. “She—she’d taken pain pills for her back—she’d been in a car crash a month before—” She knew this story like her own heartbeat. “My mother had a glass of wine to relax in the tub and accidentally fell asleep and slipped under. She drowned.”

The click of a pen. Three pairs of eyes burrowing into her like needles under her skin.

“Cause of death was drowning, yes.” Detective Harding nodded and turned pages in her folder. “You can’t remember it, of course, but it must have been very traumatic to hear about when you were older.” Harding’s eyes slid up to hers. “You’ve been told that you were in the tub with her?”

“Yes.” Jodi’s voice was a thin wire to the other side of the table.

“And your father… broke down the door when he heard you crying and splashing—”

“I know the story.” Her pulse was racing.

“Because she had the door locked,” Harding finished softly.

There was something in her gaze underneath her dark fringe. Pity and condescension, like she was explaining something to Jodi.

“My mother drowned. It was an accident .”

“Did you ever tell Emily how your mother died?”

Jodi couldn’t breathe.

The leather on the chair beneath her, sweating just like the bus seats.

Harding’s cool eyes searching for something inside of her, like sky blue ones used to.

I’ll protect you .

“Yes, I did. It was one of the things she pressured me into telling her about myself. She was good at that.”

“So you’ve said.” Buechler sat forward. “Did Emily know your mother killed herself?”

“She didn’t—”

“You told her the details though? Pills. Wine. Bathtub.”

“I did. She pried them out of me.”

“Did Emily ever show any… abnormal interest in how your mother died?”

Jodi squinted. “Abnormal.”

“Did she ask you to repeat the story, did she ask for more detail, did she bring it up often?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I only told her once, and I said afterward that I didn’t want to talk about it again.”

“And one last question, Miss Dillon,” Buechler said. “Do Julian Hollister, Paige Montgomery, Lucy Reed, or Zackary Thrasher know the details of your mother’s death? The pills, the bathtub. Could they have encouraged Emily to replicate it?”

“No. They don’t know the details. Any of them.” She forced the words out of her, hating how small they made her feel.

Harding clicked her pen closed, like a hammer against a stubborn nail.

Jodi stood on wobbly knees and grabbed her bag. Somehow she got down the hall, twisting around the check-in desk, and out into the sunlight. She started walking, unsure where the bus stop was.

Because your mother died by suicide .

She felt like a fool. How many times had she thought about her mother dying, how many times had she asked Rosa to tell her the story… and it never occurred to her why the bathroom door was locked.

Jodi’s feet stopped. Her stomach roiled, and she swallowed back bile.

If her mother had wanted to die, then why was Jodi in the tub?

A text pulled her focus. It was from Julian.

im parked on the corner if you want a ride. the gang is at chavez park

She wiped her wet eyes. They wanted information. Of course they did. Thirty minutes ago, she would have wanted to give it to them. Now…

She walked down a block until a black truck appeared on the street.

“How was it?” he asked as soon as she shut the door.

She hesitated by putting on her seat belt. “Fine. They still don’t know what you texted her.”

He stared at her for too long a moment without putting the truck in gear, so she prompted, “Cesar Chavez Park?”

“What did they say to you? Why do you look like that?”

“Let’s just go to the park,” she said. “So I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Cesar Chavez Park had one safe corner to it, next to the street vendors selling to the downtown commuters. That’s where they found the rest of them—including Kiera, Jodi was irritated to find out.

“Hey!” Zack said. “How did it go?”

Jodi tried to smile. “It was okay.” Her hands shook as she pushed her hair out of her face. Her eyes caught on Kiera, who had no business hearing what happened in her deposition. “There’s nothing really new to report.”

Lucy opened her mouth to ask more, but Julian cut her off. “Let’s get food. We can talk about it over burgers.”

Conversation seemed to pop in and out of her ears as they discussed where to go. She didn’t want to talk about the deposition. She didn’t want to tell them that Emily had died like her mom.

Jodi felt like she’d lost sensation in her legs as she walked with them toward the cars.

“Nuh-uh,” Lucy said, pausing them. “Let’s have a girls’ car.” She pushed Zack toward Julian’s truck, away from the front seat of Kiera’s Camry that he’d been moving to. Lucy gave Jodi a sly wink.

Jodi slid into the seat behind Lucy as Paige rambled about student council to her from the next seat. She watched Kiera triple-check her mirrors and say “Lucy had to parallel park for me” in a perky voice. It took her a handful of seconds to figure out she was talking to Jodi. “This is just my practice car. My dad is buying me a new one for my birthday.”

Jodi looked at the car. It was perfectly fine, even if it did have manual locks and manual windows. In a haze, she realized Kiera wanted to make sure they knew she was rich. She was “one of them.”

They took off, Julian’s truck just behind them in the rearview mirror as they headed for the J Street bridge. Jodi couldn’t concentrate on the conversation. All she could do was focus on keeping it together.

You’ve been told that you were in the tub with her?

If her mother had killed herself, Rosa would have said something. She ranted all the time about her dad. Something would have come up.

Jodi cataloged the insults over the years, coming up with a few moments of Don’t really blame her for wanting out or Stupid choices, always stupid choices with that girl or Your mother was selfish. Wonderful, but selfish.

The construction on the bridge over the river had finally ended—overnight, it seemed. The orange signs had been taken down and both lanes were finally open.

Jodi stared out the window to her right as Lucy turned up the Rihanna. Kiera sang along, shouting the words and making Paige laugh. Kiera with the brown hair, tiny waist, and trust fund. More of a Thrasher than Jodi would ever be.

Why do you think you’re friends? Harding had said. What do you think you add to the dynamic?

Maybe she should let Kiera have them.

Jodi blinked slowly, a pricking between her eyes.

Maybe she was always meant to be Thrashed in the end. She was the final project. The long game.

“Are you okay, babe?” Kiera’s eyes were on her in the rearview mirror. Green. Beautiful. Already calling her babe , like Paige.

Jodi nodded and took a deep breath, ready to shake it off. Her gaze landed on the streetlamps along the bridge. They were already flickering to life, even though it was hours from sunset.

Kiera gasped.

The car swerved left into oncoming traffic. Paige screamed as Kiera overcorrected.

Jodi’s hands shot out, bracing herself on the back of Lucy’s seat and the window as the crunch of steel ground through her bones.

The car was in motion in the air, and the sound of four girls shrieking pounded through her eardrums all the way down. She saw the sky through the window, and then the car hit the water.