EVE: Aaah okay I’ll show you some. It’s all just scribbles really and most of it’s bad. I just started writing this summer. It’s stupid and it doesn’t rhyme

WINSTON: don’t worry just send it!

EVE: Okay. Okay I’m sending you some. Here goes …

41

SOPHIE

Brody must have used someone else’s name to sign into the library that morning. He was a smart-ish guy. He might have planned it all out with that much detail. He must have known that the administrators would look into it, right? So he signed in with a different name.

Unless …

No, it had to be Brody. That’s why he falsely accused Eve of writing the list! He was horrible! And he had tortured every girl in the school at one point or another. Maybe that’s why more and more of them wore the masks that Eve scattered around everywhere.

When Nessa texted the Shieldmaidens to tell them she had evidence that Brody had spray painted Eve’s locker, Sophie hadn’t mentioned what she’d seen in the library.

Something in her told her not to.

And with proof of vandalism, the Shieldmaidens finally had something for their closing night reveal.

A plan had been formulated. Sophie would sew a pocket into Nessa’s costume at final dress that night. For her last scene, they’d slip a cell phone inside it. Lara and Erin would block Brody’s exits so he couldn’t run offstage. Winston would prep Nessa’s phone so that as the bows came to a close, she could just press send, shooting the image of Brody’s coat with the orange stains, along with the image of Eve’s locker, to every phone number and email in the student body. Across the image it would read, “Why would an innocent person do this?”

But what if Brody got in trouble for the spray painting, and then the administration looked into him more closely and found the library sign-in? Sophie had deleted the Word doc, she reminded herself, so she was the only one with the photos. And Winston said Brody had bragged about it. Why would he brag about it if he hadn’t written it himself? It was him, she told herself, and he deserved whatever he got.

He’d called her “white trash.” He’d said she had fleas.

And all because of a pair of puckered lips and a turn of the head.

As Sophie headed to rehearsal that afternoon, Amina Alvi walked toward her. Sophie was the only other person in the hallway. She pretended to look up at something on the ceiling, as if the water-stained tiles were as fascinating as the constellations in the night sky. When that became ridiculous, she began to peek inside each classroom she passed, like she was looking for someone. Anything to avoid eye contact with the girl who had betrayed her in a stairwell—so tacky—and who was now following Rose without a thought as to how Sophie might be doing.

But as they crossed each other’s paths, Amina spoke.