I pushed the greasy bag toward Em when she sat.

“This is why we all love her.” Sabine shot an ironic, predatory smile at me. “Because she feeds us.”

I glared at Sabine, hoping she’d wander off, now that she had my lunch, but she seemed content to stay just to bug me, even though Nash obviously wouldn’t be joining us. And since I had nothing civil to say to the mara, lunch would have been either really quiet or really ugly, if not for my best friend. Fortunately, Emma was a never-ending fount of pointless gossip.

“Did you hear that Chelsea Simms ratted out Mona Barker for smoking pot behind the gym during second period?” Emma said, a ketchup-dipped fry halfway to her mouth.

“Why would she do that?” I asked, cracking the lid on my bottle of Coke. “They’ve been best friends since, what? Preschool?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Emma nodded. “And Mona always shared.”

“Chelsea Simms?” Sabine looked unconvinced. “The newspaper chick? I can’t picture her smoking anything. She looks too…uptight.” She shot a pointed glance my way, but I just glared and ate another fry.

“Yeah, she thinks it gives her some kind of hippie, free-speech, peace-rally quality.”

“Turning in her best friend doesn’t sound much like peace to me,” I said, and Em waved her burger for emphasis while she spoke.

“I heard Chelsea flipped out because she got demoted from editor of the school paper, for running that conspiracy theory story connecting Bennigan’s death with Wells’s and Wesner’s. She found out first period that her best friend got the job. By second period, Mona was starin’ out the back window of a cop car.”

“Da-yum.” Sabine whistled, looking decidedly impressed. I kind of wanted to slap her again.

I finished my fries while they discussed Mona’s chances of surviving jail for even one night—Sabine provided the insider’s perspective—then her chances of surviving her parents the following night, and I’d just stood to throw my trash away when the cafeteria door flew open and Principal Goody stomped outside, her flat-soled shoes clacking on the concrete steps.

Both campus security guards came right behind her.

Emma’s last sentence faded into nothing and I sat back down on the bench as a hush settled over the quad. All gazes tracked Goody and the school cops, who headed straight for the last table on the left, two spots down from us. It was the football table, where Brant Williams sat with several teammates and their girlfriends—all friends of Nash’s who didn’t quite know how to be around him without Scott and Doug at his side.

“Zachary Green?” Principal Goody said, her drill sergeant voice almost comical, coming from such a small, prim woman. “Come with us, please.”

“Come with you where?” Zach demanded, and I couldn’t help but notice that hehadn’t asked what he’d done wrong.

“To my office, then home with your parents. They’ve already been called.”

“What for?”

Oh, now he asks, when his ignorance is too late to be believable.

“For vandalism of school property.”

Instead of demanding specifics, Zach stood and let the old guard tug him toward the cafeteria, and he only dragged his feet long enough to throw a satisfied look over his shoulder at one of the other players still staring after him in surprise.

As the guard hauled Zach up the first step, the cafeteria door flew open again, and Leah-the-pom-girl nearly collided with the entire principal parade. She bounced down the stairs to make room for them to pass, and as soon as the door swung shut, she raced across the half-dead grass toward the seat Zach had just vacated.

“Did you guys see?” she demanded, sliding onto the bench seat next to Laura Bell. “He did it in neon pink. It looks like a flamingo bled all over the lockers.”

“What lockers?” Brant asked, and Leah’s gaze narrowed on the player Zach had glanced back at.

“Yours.” She nodded to Tanner Abbot. “And Peyton’s.” Her focus skipped to his girlfriend—who also happened to be Zach’s ex-girlfriend, after a very messy breakup right before the winter break.

“Ouch. I thought Zach was over that,” Emma whispered, as talk among the players built to a startling crescendo.

“Jealousy festers…” Sabine said, and I nearly choked on the last gulp of Coke from my bottle when she stood, facing the other table. “What’d he write on them?” she called across the quad, and every voice went silent as all heads turned our way.

I wanted to melt into the ground just to escape all the stares, but Sabine stood tall, silently demanding an answer.

Leah hesitated, glancing at Peyton—her friend—in sympathy. But in the end, the spotlight called to her; she could not disappoint her audience. “He wrote, ‘skanky nympho whore’ on hers, and ‘limp-dick traitor’ on Tanner’s.”

For one more, long moment, silence reigned. Then the entire quad broke into laughter and loud, eager commentary, while Peyton and Tanner huddled together in humiliation.

“Never a dull day around here, is there?” Sabine asked, sinking onto the bench again with a huge smile on her face.

She was right about that—nothing had been the same since she’d come to Eastlake.

AFTER SCHOOL, I RODE to work with Emma and Alec, glad she had offered to drive, because I wasn’t sure I could have stayed awake behind the wheel.

Alec looked just as tired, and when I asked, he admitted he hadn’t let himself sleep at all that day, for fear of waking up somewhere other than on my couch, with mud on his shoes and a new hole in his memory.