I nodded.

“And were there any bugaboos?”

“A letter from my mom, one that no one had shown me.”

“Was she raving mad?”

“No, that was the strangest part. She was lucid. She knew what was happening to her. For that moment, anyway.” I shook my head.

“What?” V asked.

“It’s just that we’d like to think that craziness and sanity are on opposite ends of an ocean, but really they’re more like neighboring islands.”

V stared at me. “Is that what scares you? The thought that Brit Hemphill may be living a little too close to the island of the crazies?”

“Everyone else seems to think I’m already living on Crazy Island.”

“Like who?”

“Clayton. Dad. I never told anyone this, but he came to visit me in the spring, and while he didn’t admit as much, I could tell that’s what he thought.”

“Forget your dad. What do you think?”

I felt my shoulders retreat into a defensive shrug, but then I pulled them back down. V had come clean to me, and it was my turn. I owed it to both of us. “I’m scared,” I said, my voice a tiny croak.

“Of what?”

“That I’m going to end up like her, that it’s my destiny,” I whispered.

“And what makes you think it is?”

“I look like her, I sound like her, I act like her, like she did when she was younger.”

“But I thought your mom was the coolest, that everyone loved her.”

“She was,” I said.

“Then you should be thrilled to be just like her.”

“Not if the end of that path is insanity,” I said. And then it was all out there. Everything. It was said out loud. V didn’t stroke my hand or say my name or hug me. She just watched me, her eyes sharp and glinting and wise.

“Cinders, I would’ve thought you of all people would know better. There are no wicked stepmothers and there are no fairy godmothers, and there are no Prince Charmings. There is no preordained destiny. You get to decide that. You decide your destiny.”

“But what if I have it? Like a sickness. Inside me.”

“Then you have it, and maybe one day it gets you. But you decide how you live your life in the meantime. You can hide in fear. Or you can live life.”

I looked into V’s eyes. She was sitting up straight again, the fragile little girl gone for now. She was my tough-ass friend, my sister. And she was right, in more ways than one. “Maybe it’s time you took your own advice,” I told her.

Her gaze found mine and held it for a second. “Maybe you’re right.”

Chapter 26

If Bebe and Cassie thought I was foolish to attempt it, Ansley and Beth thought I was downright nuts. When I called them with my plan, they were dead against it. I told them it was the only way.

I didn’t have a chance to tell V what I was going to do, but I thought she’d approve. Her words, after all, were driving me.

I broke out the same way I had in March, through the same unarmed door, jammed open with a rock. And Ansley and Beth were waiting for me the same as before, only this time with more trepidation than anticipation.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ansley asked. “You don’t exactly have a good track record.”

“We could bring him your files,” Beth suggested.

“It’s the only way. He’s got this idea of us as these bratty, stupid kids. If I meet him in person, maybe he’ll take me seriously.”

“He might also blow a hole in you with a shotgun,” Ansley said.

“Ans, don’t scare her.”

“Well, it’s Utah. Everyone’s got a gun, and he could mistake her for a prowler.”

“I’m not a prowler. I’m a teenaged girl, and I don’t get the feeling he spooks easily. He won’t shoot me.”

We drove on in silence, through St. George and up toward Zion, where what seemed like years ago I’d spent part of a night with Jed. Instead of cutting into the park, Ansley turned north until the road emptied out again. It was late, around 11:30, but when we pulled down the tree-lined drive to Henley’s giant ranch, the lights on his three-story adobe house were blazing. At least I wouldn’t wake him.

“We’ll wait right here,” Beth said.

“If he starts shooting, duck and run for the car,” Ansley said.

As I walked up the front path, dogs started barking inside the house, and before I could ring the bell, the door opened. Henley was old, with a shock of white hair. He wore tattered old pajamas and held a fat book, his finger bookmarking his page.

“What the hell do you want this time of night?” he growled. “Don’t tell me you’re selling Girl Scout cookies.”

I looked down at my Red Rock uniform. “Mr. Henley. My name is Brit Hemphill. I called you a few weeks ago.”

“Not you again. I told you. I don’t care.” He tried to shut the door, but I shoved my foot into it. He turned around to look at me, kind of surprised, but he didn’t close the door. I walked through it.

“I don’t recall asking you in.”

“I know, but just hear me out. Here.” I presented him the file the Sisters and I had amassed. It was almost as thick as his book.

“What’s this?”

“Evidence. About Red Rock Academy.”

Henley guffawed. “Evidence? What, that they’re using dog meat in the tacos?”

“I know it seems funny to you, but I can assure you, there are some serious transgressions going on at the school. And yet no one seems to care. No one believes us.”

“I’ve heard about your school. It’s for rich little drug addicts and runaways,” he said, eyeing the tattoo on my arm. “I’ve no interest in that.”

“Please, if you would just read this. Take a look. Evaluate it.”

Henley picked up the file, gave the folder a cursory glance and handed it back to me. “Stop wasting my time, kid. It’s past your bedtime, no more games.” He started to walk toward the kitchen.

“Why won’t you just look at it?” I shouted. “Why won’t you give us a chance?”

“I gave you a chance last time by not calling your bloody principal. And I’m giving you a chance now. A chance to leave before I call the police.”

“Right, because authority is always right, Mr. Henley? Were they right in the Alabama town you grew up in, when they burned down black churches? Were they right when they bombed women and kids in Vietnam? Were they right when they locked up South African freedom fighters?”

He stared at me, his ears turning red. “You can’t be comparing yourself to those people. You simply cannot.”

“I’m not. I know it’s not that bad. But it’s still wrong. And no one seems to care about it because we’re kids and our parents sent us to Red Rock. As if adults don’t screw up, too!”

“Look, I feel your pain. But I’m not your man. Leave now.”

“Wasn’t it you who said that the only way to guard freedom was to question those in power? That’s what you said when you won your first Pulitzer. Doesn’t that hold true anymore? There’s something happening in your backyard, and it’s bad, and you’re the only one who can help change it. We need someone to help us!” I was yelling now. “I read what you wrote. I know all about you. You used to care about injustice. Please, please listen to us.”

I threw the folder on the floor, and before Skip Henley could call the cops on me, I turned around and ran.

“It’s a miracle you didn’t get caught,” Cassie said. I’d cornered her, Bebe, and Laurel in the cafeteria the next morning.

“You are pretty lucky,” Laurel said. “V’s break-in still has everyone really nervous. I’m amazed you made it out. I’m amazed you came back.”

“I know. Maybe I should’ve kept going. Then the whole thing wouldn’t have been such a bust.”

“Don’t worry, Brit. I’m outa here in no time and I’ll find someone who’ll listen.”

“Thanks, Cass. But all that evidence. Everything we risked our butts for. It’s all gone.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t bite?” Laurel asked.

“No way. You should’ve seen the way he looked at me. Like some dumb little girl. He thinks we’re a bunch of spoiled brats, and what’d I do? I went and had a temper tantrum in front of him. Played right into that one. He thinks we’re a joke.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Cassie said. “You gave it your best shot.”

“One day the tables will be turned, dears—all these old farts will be needing our help,” Bebe said. “We’ll let them rot while we get pedicures.”

A week after my field trip to Henley’s, V pulled a little escape trip of her own, showing up in the quarry one afternoon and walking right up to us.

“Hey cowgirl, how’d you get sprung?” Cassie asked.

V looked at me and smiled. “I have my ways,” she said.

“Always with the mystery, this one,” Bebe said.

“Cassie’s the real Houdini. What do you have, a month left?”

“Nah, three and a half weeks,” Cassie said, her head bowed.

“Don’t tell me,” Bebe said, “you’re sad to be going?”

“Not quite sad, but a dash mixed up. It’s just, I’m goin’ home.” Cassie paused. I had never seen her look so defeated. “You gotta understand,” she continued, “where I come from, they invented redneck there. And if you’re so much as suspected of being different, it’s like you’re always in danger of getting found out, just waitin’ for the ‘Gotcha!’”

“That sounds like here,” I said.

“Nah, it ain’t the same. Here we’re surrounded by so many people that don’t fit in that we all fit in. Like when y’all met me.” Cassie smiled. “None of y’all even flinched knowin’ I might be gay. The punch line is that messin’ with some girl got me sent here, to be fixed. And now that I’m here, my secret’s out and I don’t feel so alone.”

“You willing to risk one final breakout?” I asked. “We want to send you off in style.”

“Sure, why not? My parents have already booked my flight home, so there’s no backpedaling now.”

“There’s supposed to be a big meteor shower in two nights. I thought we could sneak out, watch it. It might be a while before we’ll all be together again.”

“That sounds like a nice way to say farewell,” Cassie said.

“Good, then it’s settled. Two o’clock by the infirmary door. We won’t go far. Just outside, away from the lights.”

As we drifted apart, V called to me.

“I heard what you did,” she said.

“Fat lot of good it did.”

“Huge lot of good it did. You were seizing your destiny.”

“Thanks. Are you seizing yours? Is that how you escaped Level Two?”