It wasn’t until Lucy heard Maddie’s and Delia’s voices echoing in her ear from inside their dorm room that they all hung up. The door opened, and tears she couldn’t stop blurred Lucy’s vision. She fell into Delia’s open arms. Delia squeezed her with more strength than Lucy realized she had. Instinctually, Lucy reached for Maddie, who stood to the side, watching. Lucy’s hand latched on to Maddie’s wrist, and Maddie stepped forward, inching closer, tentatively, and then she became the core that held them all as one.

“No more fighting,” Delia said, sniffing back her own tears.

“We stick together,” Maddie said. “We’re a team.”

“We’re much more than that,” Lucy said.

The room only had the beds and one desk chair. So they simply stood. Together.

TWENTY

CO-INVEST • When multiple investors fund a business on similar terms

WHEN MADDIE WOKE, SHE reached under her pillow for her phone, not surprised to see it was after eleven. They’d been up until four.

They’d sat in a circle on the shag rug as Lucy recounted the story again and again. Maddie and Delia simply listened, prepared to keep listening for as many retellings as it took. Turned out, that was three. Three times, each one with more detail, less fear, and increasing waves of anger—from all of them.

Maddie set her phone down and hung her head over the side of the bunk. Delia was still buried under her covers. Lucy too.

Good.

After shutting her ringer off, Maddie propped her pillow behind her and logged in to Pulse. Comatose, Level 1, which made sense considering Maddie’s meager social media presence. Except Maddie wasn’t looking at her profile. She was looking at Lucy’s.

Her fists clenched.

Pompous, arrogant, predatory ass.

Maddie didn’t have to like Pulse to know what it meant to Lucy. She was Crushing It just yesterday. In one day, she’d become Comatose. Without being arrested.

In one day. One day where Ryan Thompson put his hands where they had no right to go. He’d been rebuffed. He must have been angry. Humiliated. Vengeful.

And stupid.

Very, very stupid.

Maddie pumped her clenched fist in the air.

Got him.

*   *   *

An hour later, Maddie saved the graph she’d made of Lucy and Emma’s trajectories on Pulse, cross-referenced with their encounters with Ryan, as best she could estimate. Not courtroom proof, but paired with Lucy’s story, enough to cast some serious suspicion.

Just as she was checking Nishi’s office hours, a boom jarred Delia awake.

“Are we under attack?” Delia cried.

Maddie shifted to the edge of her bed to see out the window. “Only from jackasses looking to lose a hand. Illegal fireworks. Though considering our proximity, maybe we should duck.”

Delia yawned. “Right, it’s July Fourth.”