I’m never taking it off, she wrote to him.

lol awesome, he wrote back. And then a minute later, more words popped up: I know what it’s like to want to hide, too, trust me. thats how i spent like all of elementary school

She didn’t know how to respond so she texted back a smiley face emoji.

But Eve wasn’t hiding. She was fighting back.

35

NESSA

Early that week, Brody came back to school.

And by then, the school’s ecosystem had been rearranged.

Eve was still famous, after years of being a nobody, but she wasn’t famous for being the new prettiest anymore. She was known as a monster.

A monster with a mask. Eve had come to school wearing Winston’s Green Hornet mask from Halloween. Nessa had tried to tell Eve that if she didn’t want to be stared at, a green mask with a little wasp on it wasn’t the way to go.

What was even weirder was that Eve had left a few superhero masks out in the bathroom and on tables in the cafeteria and now a couple of other girls were wearing them, too. More than a couple. So strange.

And the Sophies were officially no longer the Sophies because Sophie had left them. Rose Reed now sat in the middle of the Sophies’ table. Even Amina, who’d been higher on the list, seemed to follow Rose’s lead. They all wore pink belts.

And Sophie had solidified a new look: happy. She seemed to laugh a lot more. Especially at things Nessa said, which Nessa had to admit she liked. Sometimes, Sophie even dressed for track practice before it began.

The new Sophie Kane sat with Nessa, Eve, Lara, Erin, and Winston.

Winston no longer spoke to Brody. And he’d stopped speaking to his “ex–best friend” Caleb, as far as Nessa could tell. But Nessa saw Winston glare at Caleb from across the room sometimes. And Caleb glared right back.

Nessa tried to imagine how that could happen to a pair of best friends. What if Eve changed so much one day that they couldn’t even stand each other anymore? It sounded impossible. But Eve had been very different lately. First the whole brunette bombshell thing, and recently those masks. Nessa felt her moving further and further away.

“Evie, you planning on taking that thing off one of these days?” Nessa asked her at lunch.

Eve gave her a tight smile. “Nope.”

“It makes you look kinda … twisted.”

Eve shrugged. “Oh well.”

“And haven’t you gotten into trouble for it at school?” Nessa marveled.

“So? What can they do about it?”

That definitely didn’t sound like the Evie she knew. “Moving on…” Nessa changed the subject. “Any updates on the tech side of things, Byrd?”

“Um, no.”

“I don’t think your science genius brain is doing enough for us here with LordTesla’s IP address. You need to help in another way, too. Do lights for the show. Get involved with the sixth grader working the switchboard. He’s a disaster. Mr. Rhodes is so frustrated.”