But that doesn’t make any sense. If she were going to trick me into killing someone, she wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble to convince me. Right?

Feeling better, I weave through the throng. With my luck, he’s already left. Maybe tall, athletic boys have no use for sinfully rich desserts. Maybe that’s how they maintain their washboard abs.

Someone snags my arm.

Disoriented, I glance up and see well-shaped lips, intense brown eyes, hair the same shade as a peacock’s feather.

“Looking for me?” Bandit asks, a dimple appearing on one cheek.

Since when did Bandit have a dimple? And how come I never noticed before? “Um. Yes, actually.” The truth slips out in my distraction. Oops.

He smirks, and for once, I can hardly blame him. The Voice’s demands have turned me into the person he assumed I was all along: a lovesick girl begging for his attention.

He skims my outfit. “So I was right,” he says, his voice low and a little rumbly. “You are wearing a blue dress. I like it.”

I blush. Does he think I chose the dress on his behalf? I didn’t! I’ve had this outfit planned for weeks, way before I ever spoke to him. But his eyes are knowing—and more than a little appreciative—and I just don’t know what to do with that look.

“I brought you a cupcake,” I burst out. “You know, as sort of a consolation prize. For not winning tonight.”

He raises his brows. “You do know that laid out behind you is thirty feet of every dessert known to humankind?”

He has a point. Maybe I should’ve thought through my strategy more carefully. “But this one’s special,” I barrel ahead. “Homemade.”

Too late, I remember that Cristela was saving one of her cupcakes for Bandit. If he catches me passing off her cupcake as one of my own, I’ll never live it down. “Did, uh, Cristela already give you one tonight?”

“Nah,” he says. “She’s been too busy charming her many admirers.”

This would be the appropriate moment to hand him the cupcake. It’s the easiest thing in the world. All I have to do is lift up my arm, offer him the dessert.

Except…I don’t. I’m not sure why. Something feels…off inside me. I can’t explain the what or how of it. But something in my gut is screaming, Don’t do this. You will regret this action for the rest of your life.

Bandit tilts his head, probably wondering why I’m still clutching his gift.

And then my arm shoots out of its own volition, thrusting the cupcake at him.

No, not of its own volition. Of the future’s choice. Holy crap, that’s the older Alice controlling my body. I didn’t know she could do that!

Bandit takes the cupcake, forehead creased.