But I don’t get any farther into the room. At that very moment, there’s a deafening crack from above. I see a flash of something solid and black out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly, whomp: something huge lands on Sadie’s beautiful gray-and-yellow comforter…and shatters into a zillion pieces.

Shards of glass scatter, and I wheel back, afraid I’m going to get cut. It takes me a moment to realize what just fell: a giant lamp from the ceiling. The bulb sparks angrily. Wires twist on the ground like they’re alive.

For a few seconds, everyone around me—Austin, Monique the director, Jasper the cameraman, and Vee—stare in stunned silence.

Finally, Monique speaks. “What on earth?”

“How could that have fallen?” Austin marvels, staring up.

I look up at the rafters where the light came from too. It’s pitch-black. No one’s up there. But this doesn’t feel like an accident either.

Then I look at the light that’s fallen. It’s made of thick metal. If it were to hit someone on the head, it would definitely hurt someone, if not knock them out.

And then I realize: Had I been on time, that light would have hit me.

Chapter Eleven

“Hayley?” My mother pokes her head above the tree house ladder. “Brought you some snacks.” Then she looks around at all of us and frowns. “Everyone okay?” She must notice our tense expressions. “Is this about that light falling during shooting today?”

Of course my mother was informed about the light that fell. I mean, her daughter almost got a head injury, and Paul is pretty much required to call her. My mom fled her shop—she works part-time as a florist, when she isn’t supervising me—and rushed to the set to offer moral support. She even said we could go home.

But there was no way I was leaving the set altogether. That would mean my scene would be delayed, and the show was already behind schedule. So I pushed my fears down deep and shot the scene. But it wasn’t easy. Every second, I was afraid another light was going to fall on my head. I flipped between fearing that Betty was real to worrying that someone was pretending to be Betty…and wanted to hurt me. Who hated me that much?

After my friends were finished with their scenes, I rounded them up, and we came back to the tree house so we could figure out what to do next.