She’d been tempted to just tell Lambert what was going on, sure. But the selfie light show had her a little nervous and intrigued. How had the device gotten all those pictures, and what else did it know about her? Could it use information against her somehow? What, if anything, did she have to hide? She wasn’t sure. But if she wasn’t sure, then it didn’t make sense to break a rule.

More interesting to think about was what it had on the others. They’d all talked about wanting to give it back. So why hadn’t they?

She needed to find someplace else to sit with it—the bathrooms were gross—so she thought for a minute, then went out into the hall and up to the nurse’s office, where there were two small sickrooms. Ilanka knocked on the open door, and the nurse looked up and said, “Yes?”

“I have really bad cramps,” Ilanka said softly. “Can I lie down for a few minutes while my Advil kicks in?”

“Sure.” The nurse spun back to her computer. “You can go in there.” She pointed. “But only for like fifteen minutes, okay?”

“That’d be great,” Ilanka said. “Thanks.”

She went for the door to the little room and said, “Oh, and I’m just gonna call my mom. So, like, if you hear me talking.”

“Knock yourself out,” the nurse said.

“Thanks.” Ilanka closed the door behind her.

The room had a small desk and a hard leather examining table with paper liner on it. Ilanka climbed onto it with her phone in her hand and the backpack by her feet and curled up into a half-fetal position. Then she reached down and pulled her backpack closer, near her stomach, and got up on an elbow to open it.

“How did you get all my selfies?”

Data is easy to obtain.

Repeat question: Why do you post so many?

“I don’t know,” Ilanka said. Why did she? Because it was fun to get likes and get a small boost from what? Approval? Probably. Who cares? So what. It was fun. She said, “Everybody does it.”

Not everybody.

A beam of light came from the device and seemed to be projecting a message onto the notebooks in her bag. There was no way to read it, though. Angles and folds warped the words.

Getting up, Ilanka checked to make sure the nurse wasn’t facing her, and then she stood with her back to the tiny door window and took the device out of the bag. Red letters appeared on the far wall, but her hands were too shaky to steady the device, so she stepped over to the desk and put it down.

It was an explosion of laser pointers:

DO NOT GIVE ME BACK TO ELI.

DO NOT TRUST ELI.