“Oh,” Madison said, her voice a flat parody of its usual enthusiasm. “Hey, Skye.”

“It was you,” she replied. There was nobody else it could have been. “You told Principal Zaslow that I was—was seeing Mr. More.”

Madison turned toward her, a fake sympathetic look on her face. “I was only thinking of your well-being. He shouldn’t take advantage of you. It’s so wrong. Khadijah and I were talking earlier about how he’s probably, like, brainwashed you or something.”

“You were only thinking of my well-being.” Skye’s voice was shaking again, but now from anger instead of terror. Anger felt better. She embraced it. “So you decided to spread your little stories throughout the entire school. Because you were thinking of me.”

“It’s better to let it all out.” Madison shrugged, cooler than ever as she turned to continue fixing her makeup. “Secrecy just makes it seem like you should be ashamed, when he’s the one who did something wrong.”

Flushes from the other area of the bathroom told Skye they weren’t alone—and if everybody didn’t already know thanks to Madison, they all would soon. Her last day or two at Darby Glen High would be her absolute worst.

Eyes narrowing, Skye said, “You were jealous.”

Madison glared at her. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know you always talked about Mr. More and tried to get him to notice you and took stuff over to his house. You’re angry because you think he likes me instead of you. How pathetic can you be?”

“You’re one to talk,” Madison retorted. “I saw you this morning on your walk of shame.”

“You didn’t see anything!” It was a lie, but Skye didn’t care. It felt good to yell. “You don’t know anything! You’re just a jealous, small-minded loser.”

Madison folded her arms. “And you’re just the slut who slept with a substitute teacher.”

“Don’t mind her, Skye?” Britnee Fong walked out to wash her hands. She smiled at Skye as she went to the sink. “Madison’s just freaking out? You know, because you were the last person at this school who didn’t think she was a total jerk? And now you’re onto her, too? And also, Madison, slut is a sex-shaming word? Plus antifeminist? So maybe don’t say that?”

“I don’t have to take this from the school whore and the fat pig.” Madison threw her blusher in her purse and stalked out of the bathroom.

Skye and Britnee stood staring at each other for a long minute. At first there was no sound but the water pouring from the faucet, unattended. Then Britnee said, “Do you need a ride home or something?”

“I’m okay,” Skye said. “I can catch the bus. But—thank you.”

Britnee shrugged, obviously unable to think of anything else to say, and went back to washing her hands. Skye got out of there without even rinsing off her face.

That was the longest bus ride home she’d ever taken. Skye leaned her forehead against the window, stared at the royal-blue plastic seat in front of her and tiredly wondered which part of her school day was the worst.

Finding out Madison wasn’t even a real friend? Bad.

Finding out Britnee was actually an okay person? Bad and good at the same time, but definitely embarrassing, considering how many times she’d snickered at Madison’s mean jokes at Britnee’s expense.

Having Principal Zaslow ask her about her sex life? Extra super bad.

Getting a phone call from Redgrave telling her that her time was up? Yeah. That one was the worst.

She ran as hard and fast as she could from the bus stop to her house, and her hands shook as she worked the keys, but within seconds she was inside, her back to the front door she’d just slammed. Skye breathed out in relief. At least Balthazar and Bianca had made sure this place was safe for her. If she hadn’t been able to have one safe fortress, one place she knew nobody could harm her, she thought she would have self-destructed weeks ago.

Skye went to the kitchen, ate a couple of restorative cookies, and went upstairs. Almost without realizing it, she went into her closet and looked at the suitcases she had stored on a high shelf. Balthazar wanted her to stay so she could lead some TV-commercial version of the ideal life that he seemed to believe in. Skye knew better than that; maybe it was too easy to romanticize life after you’d stopped living it. Logic told her that while her life might not be better if she fled Darby Glen now, odds were it would at least be longer, and at this point, that seemed like more than enough reason to go.

But Mom and Dad—losing her within a year of losing Dakota—what would that do to them?

For the first time in months, tears of grief welled in her eyes. She’d thought she had cried for her brother so much in the months right after his death that she never would again, but the wound could still open up, raw and painful as ever. Probably it always would. Skye flopped onto her bed and opened the bottom drawer of her bedstand; there, in the very back, were the photos of Dakota she’d stowed there last summer. It had been too painful to look at them then, but she could never, ever have thrown them away.

The picture she’d grabbed showed the two of them together, white-water rafting a couple of years ago. He was always the true adventurer. She was always the wannabe.

Dakota was probably the one person in Darby Glen to whom she could ever have told the whole truth about Balthazar. Sure, he would have flipped out—but he always had an open mind, and stood by her no matter what. He never tried to fit people or relationships into tiny, neat little boxes. More than anybody else Skye had ever met, Dakota had been truly free.