“Three!” Emily, leading the chant, took a dainty sip from her drink. Lily could’ve sworn she was intentionally slowing the countdown to trip Maria up. “Two! . . . One!”

Lily gazed from face to face. Every single person in this room—except Maria, of course—was useless.

Lily hated Acheron to the depths of her soul. She longed to tell all these losers to shut up and get out of her room before she shoved them out the door herself. She bit her lip and took another sip of seltzer instead.

“Zero!” the group chorused. Maria lowered her empty beer can and wiped her mouth. She laughed as Ryan took the can from her and crushed it in that way guys did when they were being stupid.

The grin on Maria’s face almost looked real. She collapsed onto the bed next to Lily, fanning herself dramatically even though it was freezing in their room.

Lily raised her eyebrows at Maria—their usual look, the one that meant People are watching us, so you can’t sit that close—and Maria slid down onto the floor next to Austin, still giggling.

“Congrats, Ree.” Austin tipped his drink to Maria’s beer can in a toast. A trickle of rum rolled down the sleeve of his black mesh shirt. Austin was the school’s resident dealer, and for some reason he liked to pretend he was goth. “I can’t believe they let you off with a warning. That chandelier’s been up there since the Stone Age. You’ve got the magic touch, Princess.”

Delilah, slumped on the floor next to him, giggled and held up her drink, the liquid glistening in the candlelight that shined across the room. Her own top was so tiny it wouldn’t have had room to ride up. She was on her third Diet Coke of the night, and she was high on oxy. The combination of caffeine, fake sugar, and prescription painkillers had her at maximum intolerability.

“It was crazy,” Maria told Austin. Lily could see her hiding her smile. “Anyway, they told our parents too.”

“As long as they don’t stop you from going to homecoming,” Caitlin said. She’d climbed onto Maria’s bed and wrapped herself around Ryan. Tamika, who’d been dating Ryan up until yesterday, glared at them from the other side of the room. “That’s all that matters, right?”

Lily rolled her eyes. Caitlin, and all the other pathetic excuses for humans in this room, probably thought the dance really was all that mattered.

“What’d your parents say?” Emily asked.

Maria shrugged. Her parents hadn’t said a word. Not to her, anyway.