Underneath there was already a slew of comments.
Slut it up, Emerson!
Is that someone’s DAD?
OMG, he’s ancient!!!!
At least he’s hot…
Daddy complex much?
Emerson couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink. By tonight the whole town would know. Maybe not Matt’s name, but the act. She imagined her friends, her classmates, her teachers all watching this.… What if Josh saw it, just when things were finally getting back on track with them?
I fight dirty. It was exactly what the darer had promised.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tuesday, 7:30 AM
Sydney knew the minute she walked into school. She knew from the darting looks, all squinty eyes and curled-up lips. She knew from the sound: that buzz that builds out of laughter and whispers, like a swarm of bees homing in on its victim. It had happened to Tenley and Emerson, and now it was happening to her.
Something small and round smacked her back. A crumpled-up photograph. As she knelt to pick it up, she was consumed by the urge to destroy it, tear it up. But she couldn’t. She had to know.
The photo smoothed out easily in her hand. A younger version of herself stared up at her from the glossy page. It had been taken at the Sunrise Center. She was on a softball field during one of the games she played in. The bold yellow logo stood out on her black team shirt. SUNRISE CENTER FOR REHABILITATION.
Across the top of the photo, someone had scrawled a single word in all caps: PYRO.
The hallway had frozen, all eyes on her. “They gave a pyro a scholarship to Winslow?” someone said loudly, making laughter sprinkle through the hallway.
It was her best-concealed secret, and now it was out.
The photo slipped out of her fingers. For what felt like an eternity, she stood there frozen, watching it flutter to the ground. “Need a match?” someone called out. The voice shook her out of her stupor, and suddenly she was moving, down the hall, to anywhere else. She kept her eyes cast to the ground, but, still, on every side she heard them: the sneers, the whispers. She bumped into one person, then another, but she just kept going. Her feet carried her automatically to the darkroom. She didn’t stop until its door slammed shut behind her, and there was darkness, and peace.
She slid to the floor in the dark, trying to catch her breath. She had no idea how the darer had gotten that photo. She certainly didn’t have a copy of it. Then again, she had no idea how the darer had gotten that video of Tenley. Or the one of Emerson. She shuddered, trying to banish that last image from her mind. Everyone else might be wondering who the mystery man going at it with Emerson was, but she knew. It was Sydney’s dad.
She rested against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. The darer had done this to break her, but she’d been a pariah before. She could handle it again. Because she had her secret weapon: an escape plan. One day soon she’d be at RISD, and then Winslow would be nothing more than a speck in her past.
Slowly, her breathing returned to normal. With a sigh, she stood up and switched on the light. A red glow descended on the windowless room. The space was as messy and crowded as always, so it took her a second to register it.
Photos.
They were littered everywhere. And every single one was destroyed—burned to a crisp.
Sydney reached for one. The photo was so singed it was hard to make out the image. But one corner was intact, and Sydney recognized it instantly. It was a shot of the ocean taken from the Anaswan lighthouse. She’d spent hours developing that photo, again and again, until she got it just right. She grabbed the remains of several more photos. They were all hers, images she’d spent weeks perfecting. In the back of the room, shreds of a manila envelope were scattered on the floor. She dropped to her knees, gathering them up. Fragments of a familiar address flashed up at her. RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN.
How? She’d left her scholarship application in the college counselor’s outbox yesterday! Someone must have stolen it out of the box. Which meant it had never been mailed.
The handwritten pages of her application were strewn across the row of developing bins, big X’s slashed through each one. Propped up against the last bin was a note.
You’ll never escape.
A strangled noise slipped out of Sydney. RISD was her shot at leaving Echo Bay, at becoming something more. And now the darer wanted to take that from her, too.
She moved furiously through the room, gathering up the remaining photos. For years she’d felt like a misfit at Winslow, an extraterrestrial who’d touched down in a foreign colony. But RISD had always been this sparkling star, shining above her, beckoning her home. And now it was gone.
She lunged for the door. She had to get away: from this room and this building and everything the darer had soiled. She yanked the door open and threw herself into the hall.
“Syd!” She heard Calum’s voice before she saw him. She spun around to find him jogging toward her, his blond curls winging into a halo around his head. He was holding one of the PYRO photos in his hand.
“Please get me out of here,” she begged. She could feel the eyes lighting on her again from every side. “Anywhere.”
“This way.” Calum took her elbow and guided her out a side exit. The door opened into the wide corridor that connected Winslow’s lower and upper schools. Sydney took a deep breath, drinking in the solitude.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment. She slid to the ground and tucked her knees under her chin.
Calum dropped down cross-legged next to her, crumpling the photo in his grip. Shiny tiled walls stretched out on either side of them, blurring into a mosaic on the ceiling: a blue tile ocean arcing above them. “I’ve been looking for you ever since I saw this photo.” He tugged at the zipper on his lime-green sweatshirt. “I can’t believe someone would do that.”
“I can.” Sydney closed her eyes, reveling in the silence. There was a small echo in the corridor, and it amplified her breathing. “I used to believe that everyone had some goodness in them. But I’m starting to think I was wrong.”
She opened her eyes. Calum was watching her intently. Tiny flecks of green floated in his brown eyes, catching the light. He scooted closer, putting a hand on her knee. The simple gesture made her want to cry. She hadn’t spoken to Calum since he’d tried to kiss her at the homecoming dance on Saturday. She knew he’d been hurt when she pulled away. But now here he was, putting that aside to comfort her. It made her wonder if she’d made the wrong choice that night.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I needed this. A friend.” She met his gaze. There was a fierceness in his eyes she couldn’t quite read. Protectiveness, she thought.
“It’s going to be okay, Syd.” His voice was gentle and sure. “Gossip like this always passes eventually. If anyone can vouch for that, it’s the computer nerd.” He gave her a small smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. A curl slipped onto Calum’s forehead, and Sydney pushed it off without thinking.
They were so close. She could smell the fresh scent of his clothes, as if he’d just pulled them out of the laundry. One more inch and they’d be kissing, and suddenly she wanted it—wanted to let it sweep her away, carry her off to oblivion. But before she could act on the urge, the door on the other end of the corridor swung open. A high-pitched voice spilled in, followed by the distant drone of construction drifting in from the lower school’s field.
“Mr. Michaels is sooo cute!” The voice belonged to a small, bony girl. Her long-legged friend tripped into the corridor after her.
Sydney pulled back, blinking hard. As the girls hurried past them, Calum glanced at his watch. It was digital, with a dozen flashing symbols and numbers, and several tiny buttons protruding from each side. Knowing Calum, Sydney suspected that it was the highest-tech watch money could buy. Calum didn’t flaunt his wealth, but when it came to technology, Sydney knew, he couldn’t resist. “We should probably get to class,” he said.
“You go,” Sydney told him. “I can’t have you tarnishing your valedictorian status.” She managed a tiny grin in his direction. “I’m going to stay and think awhile.”
“I can skip class and keep you company,” Calum protested. “It wouldn’t exactly be cataclysmic.”
“Now that you used an SAT word on me, it would be.” She waved him toward the school. “Really, go ahead. I’ll follow soon.”
Calum started toward the school, then paused, turning back. “I’m here if you need me, Syd. I will even refrain from using four-syllable words if that’s preferable.”
This time, Sydney’s grin was a little easier to call up. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
A half hour later, Calum was long gone, and Sydney was still sitting in the corridor. She’d checked her phone five times already, expecting to find a gloating text from the darer. But so far, nothing. She’d called the RISD admissions office, too, and left a message begging for an emergency extension on her application. Now all she could do was wait. Wait to hear from RISD. Wait to hear from the person who was ruining her life.
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands as the words from that text ran through her mind for the thousandth time. I fight dirty. Now that she, Emerson, and Tenley had all been hit in this latest blitz, she couldn’t help but wonder: What next? It made her feel as if a sledgehammer were hanging over her head, and she was just waiting for it to fall.