They keep talking, but I’m distracted by Asad, who has slowly started pulling down a ladder attached to the wall next to us, one hand over the other to keep the squeaking quiet.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“What I should have done last time.”

The ladder down, Asad climbs up, pausing when the bottom rung makes a loud creak. We both look to the stage curtain, but it stays closed, and the girls keep talking. He climbs up the ladder until he’s a full person above me and reaches out to the support beams that hold up the heavy grand curtain. Smiling down at me, he holds up his fingers, counting silently—one, two—

“Three!” he says, snapping a metal clasp wide-open, and as he does, the thick, velvet grand curtain plummets to the stage, completely covering both girls and prompting an outburst of squeals.

Asad hurries off the ladder.

“Let’s go,” he says, running down the backstage steps, and I follow him at a full sprint through the aisle, my hand on my wig to keep it from falling off.

We open the auditorium door and are almost home free when—

“Ava!”

Kenzie stands in the middle of the stage, hands perched on her hips and her hair sticking out at inexplicable angles.

Asad pulls me through the door, rescuing me from my paralysis. In the hallway, he pumps his fist in the air as I bend to catch my breath. My heartbeat pounds in every part of my body, threatening to leap from my throat. I haven’t run that fast since Before.

“Who’s hiding in their lighting booth now, baby!” Asad yells down the empty hallway. “Now you have to audition just to stick it up her I’d-like-to-thank-the-Academy butt.”

“How’s that logic again?” I say between winded breaths.

“Kenzie knows you were listening, so if you back down, she wins.”

I shake my head, my heartbeat slowing to a trot from a racing gallop.

“She wins, okay? There is no scenario where she doesn’t win. Besides, I can’t back down because I never signed up. All you did was paint a huge target on my back.”

Asad scrunches up his face as he looks behind me and then turns me around by my shoulders.

“I think that target was already there.”

There, on the last line of the sign-ups, two words reignite my pulse: Ava Lee.

21

I know it was you

No hablo inglés

I’m not doing it.

Doing what?

You KNOW what!

I know nothing

You’re impossible

Thank you

At least think about it. You owe yourself that much

Like I can stop thinking about it. I think about it the whole time Dr. Sharp works his fingertips across my scars at my monthly frisking.