“It’s possible the school, whoever, doesn’t know anything,” Nevaeh murmurs. “That it’s hearsay.”

“We were never stopped with a box full of feather boas,” I say.

“What if they found our stash of costumes?” Katherine says. “Our props. Our decorations.”

“They don’t have our names on them,” Nevaeh says.

I sit on the bench, stare at my scuffed-up, salt-stained boots. I can’t make myself stand up yet.

Nevaeh slams her locker shut. “Are we ready?”

“No,” I say. “Am I being too obvious if I say this sucks?”

“A little obvious,” Katherine admits.

“At least I’m staying on brand.”

We burst into the cold, bright day, which seems way too cheerful for our grim mood. There’s no sense rushing across campus to get yelled at, so we dawdle, try to enjoy the thin sunshine, and hesitate at the bottom of the admin building’s stone steps.

“Still time to flee,” I tell them.

“Let’s just get detention over with,” Nevaeh says, poking me ahead of her, up to the heavy double doors of the admin building. We shuffle in single file, our boots squeaking on the marble floors of the foyer. My heart is humming, and the guilt, that these two are here with me, is a drumbeat under everything.

We crack open the door to the dean’s office. The waiting area has hulking furniture and heavy curtains and thick carpet we leave salt stains on. From the high corners of the room, plaster cherubs are frowning down at us. There’s that dark, electric feeling before the worst storms, when you stand on the beach and watch the black waves whip up into a froth, crash at your feet, lashing rain and thunder not far behind.

We are alone in here, no one at the administrative assistant’s desk. Katherine and Nevaeh slide into the hard-backed wooden visitors’ chairs, hand in hand. They both look a little dazed. I can’t sit, can’t stop moving, pacing up and down the length of heavy patterned carpet, clunky boot steps muffled, hair raised at the back of my neck.

“Jack,” I say. He should be here with us. “Have you heard from Jack?” I ask Katherine. She shakes her head.

“I texted him,” she says.

“Maybe he’s already inside,” Nevaeh says, nodding at the closed door that I assume leads to the dean’s actual office.

I’m glad Taylor’s not here, not caught, not in trouble for helping us. But I also wish he were here to say something ridiculous and distracting. Something unexpectedly rallying.

I sit, fighting the urge to hunch down. Trying to think straight. Right, we should have talked before we came inside. Some kind of plan, maybe. I don’t know how much time we have now.

“If they don’t know, really—if they don’t have any evidence, we have to bluff.”

Nevaeh takes a breath. “Burlesque club? What burlesque club?”