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“Fine,” I say, since it’s not like I can do anything about it. “How soon do I have to do it?”

“In the next few days. I’ll email you once I have the questions ready.” She glances up at me. “And I’m really sorry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong, so it isn’t fair, but I can’t grade something I don’t have in front of me.” She studies me a moment, her brow creasing. “Is there anything going on that I should hear about?”

There’s a whole list, actually, and I’d love to tell her everything, from the box that showed up on my bed to the video that isn’t even me. But she’d have to call someone, and then someone else would have to call someone, and the video would be all over the internet before anyone did a thing.

“No,” I say. “It’s just been a long week.”

She nods, and I thank her and pull the door shut behind me. Once I’m in the hallway, I dig my nails into my palm and let a group of students get past me before I head for the doors, because people here love a story about me and I’m not giving them another one.

It’s the society’s fault. I’m not even going to pretend I might be wrong about it, because exams don’t disappear on their own, especially when a secret society has decided to make me miserable. They messed up my presentation and Aniyah’s assignment, so why would they draw the line at an exam?

What I want to do is call my mom. She’d be furious in the best possible way, and she’d want me to go straight to the dean and demand someone look into it, and she’d probably be in the car before we even hung up. But I can’t do that, because the moment I say anything about the society to her, the video will be posted everywhere, and who knows what else the society is capable of?

Although, how would they even find out? It’s not like one of them is hiding under the table in my parents’ kitchen. But maybe I shouldn’t be so sure about what they can and can’t hear. It’s too big of a risk for a phone call that wouldn’t fix anything anyway.

Besides, they promised that if I didn’t say anything, nothing would happen to me. It was the whole deal, and I haven’t breathed a word to anyone, and yet, here they are, messing with my grades anyway. Their promises are worth exactly nothing. And if they’ve figured out that I’m never going to say yes to them, there’s nothing to stop them from doing something a lot worse than making me retake an exam.

But why me? There has to be an answer somewhere to that question, because I bet these people don’t do anything without a reason.

I sigh. If I can’t ask my parents, I’ll try something the boring way. Yearbooks again, except this time I’m not hunting for someone with my last name, since anyone who got married could be in there under a different name, and I don’t even know most of the names on my mom’s side anyway.

Grandparents, or their brothers and sisters, or some cousin no one in my family has mentioned... It might not be anyone close to me at all. I’ll go through every book they’ve got until I find something, no matter how old.

IT TAKES ME A FEW TRIPS to haul the yearbooks up from the archive, and I claim the table at the very back where the shelves block most of the room, since the last thing I need is an audience.

Before I open anything, I get my phone out and find the folder of photos I took of my grandma’s old albums. I scroll through the photos in hopes they might help me recognize someone.

Old yearbooks are a nightmare, though. There’s page after page of students and clubs and teams I’ve never heard of, and the print under the photos has faded so much that I can barely make out any of it. But I go row by row anyway, because if I rush through a page or skip one, it’ll probably be the one I’m looking for, and I definitely don’t want that to happen.

Someone sets a stack of books down opposite me, and I glance up. Jayden takes the chair across from me.

Nope. I lower my gaze to the page in front of me.

“Veronica.”

I so don’t want to do this right now.

“I know you blocked me and don’t want to talk to me,” he says. “And I’m not here to make a scene. If you want me gone, just say it.”

I go back to the top of the page and start it over, and I barely get through the first few names. He gets up and brings his chair around the table, settling into the space next to me, which is absolutely not what I asked for, so I open my mouth to point that out.

“I don’t want what happened to my friend to happen to you,” he says.

My eyes widen and I finally look up at him. “What?”

“She died.” He keeps his eyes down, his jaw tight. “Here at Blackerville.”

Whatever I was about to say, I forget all of it.

“She was a student. They said she jumped off one of the buildings because it was all too much for her, and everyone believed it, because why wouldn’t they?”

“But you don’t.” I furrow my brow.

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not for a second.”

I narrow my eyes and study him carefully, but I don’t think he’s making this up.

“Her name was Elsie,” he says. “We lived in the same neighborhood when we were kids, and we were together pretty much every day back then. We never went to school together and we didn’t have any friends in common, though. It was just us. Then she moved away, and we were texting all the time.”