Sophie had never heard a boy say “ex–best friend” before.

“Wait.” Sophie turned to the girls. “How can we trust him?” She pointed at Winston.

“You can!” he pleaded, taking a step toward them.

Sophie shushed him. “Seriously, he’s Brody’s friend.”

“Hmm. She’s not wrong.” Nessa crossed her arms just like Sophie.

“Have you guys seen me with him the past couple weeks?”

Sophie hadn’t, now that she thought about it. He sat with them at lunch … well, not for the past week. And she didn’t see him in the halls, except with Caleb, sometimes.

“Okay, I haven’t. But why?” she challenged him.

Winston sighed and held a palm to his forehead as if he had a headache. “Because I don’t like them anymore, okay? And I just—”

“You want to leave the Empire and join the Jedis?” Nessa interrupted.

“Yeah,” Winston answered. “That’s right.”

Sophie wasn’t entirely convinced. But it was true that without him and his inside knowledge, they had nothing on Brody at all.

Nessa and Eve turned to Sophie, as if she was the deciding vote on whether to let him stay or not.

Sophie surrendered. “So you’ll help us, then,” she said.

“Wait, with what?” Nessa asked. “What else is there to do?”

“Before tonight, we didn’t know for sure that Brody did this. And we also only thought about getting him caught. Punished. After tonight…” Sophie felt the thoughts that had stirred inside her, unnamed, form themselves. “We know he did it. We were right all along! Right, Winston?”

Winston nodded.

“And we can’t just bring him to Principal Yu. No. That’s not enough. He needs to be”—she took a breath and decided Brody’s fate—“humiliated. He needs to be so humiliated that no one ever cares what he thinks again. Not one, single girl.”

“Or boy,” Winston added.

He was right. “Or boy,” she repeated.

Winston took a seat next to them.

“It can’t just be about finding proof of his crimes,” Sophie thought out loud. “It’s got to be more than that. We have to find undeniable proof that makes the school hate him. Proof that could get him expelled.”

“You’re right,” Nessa agreed. “Nobody’s safe with him around.”

“Exactly. We have to expose him,” Sophie went on. “In front of everyone.” She turned to Nessa, knowing she would understand.

“The show!” Nessa lit up.

“Huh?” Eve’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“Yes! We have to expose him at the show!” Sophie almost hugged Nessa. This was genius.

Nessa jumped up and down a little. “Final curtain call! Tell everyone everything we find!”

“Yes!” Sophie found herself holding hands with Nessa and jumping a couple of times with her. Then she went into planning mode.

Winston was a science guy, so she instructed him to find out the IP address of LordTesla. That could potentially break the whole case. Winston told her he didn’t know that much about computers, but she shrugged him off. He’d do fine. Nessa had the job of not only spying on Brody all the way through rehearsal, just like she had before, but also finding a time to secretly go through his backpack. They had to push harder in every way to catch a guy like him. To Sophie’s chagrin, Nessa insisted that Sophie do makeup and costumes so that she could help, too. Sophie relented. Fine. She’d be a theater kid for a little bit. She wasn’t going back to the Sophies, anyway.