“I’m gonna go talk to her,” I announce.
They both object.
But I don’t listen. Hooking my thumbs beneath the straps of my backpack, I make a beeline into Lainey’s orbit.
Kate notices me first.
“Hey,” she says, with a kind, somewhat bewildered smile, like she’s trying to wrap her mind around Lainey, too. I wonder if Lainey called her last night. Extended a more personal, private apology than the generic one she offered reporters.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Of course,” Kate says.
“Sorry, not you and me.” I look past her, making eyes—knowingeyes—at Lainey.
She gives her hair a toss. “What’s up?”
I blink at her disbelievingly.
Lainey was sucked into the Overlay, where she combusted into ghostly flame. Now, she’s here. Ithad to have been a harrowing, if not terrifying, journey. And yet, she’s all brightness and sunshine, like we don’t share a secret. Like she doesn’t know I know the truth.
I clear my throat. “Maybe somewhere less crowded?”
Griffin shifts in this protective, bodyguard sort of way, but Lainey just shrugs. She tells him she’ll meet him in PE, gives his cheek a quick kiss, Kate’s arm a reassuring squeeze, then gestures for me to lead the way. She follows me down an empty corridor off the main hallway.
Now that we’re alone, I expect her to drop the charade. Instead, she just gives me another innocent shrug. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to talk about what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
I gape, her oblivion so convincing, I’m starting to second-guess myself. Maybe she never saw me. Maybe she doesn’t know that I know. “I was there. On Halloween night.”
Her brow furrows.
“I know you’re lying to the police.”
She folds her arms and arches her eyebrows.
I exhale an indignant breath. “You didn’t leave with Rafe. You were—taken.” More like snatched. “By a—monster-thing.”
Now, it’s Lainey’s turn to gape.
She stares at me like I’ve lost my marbles. Every single one. Then she smiles a little uncertainly. “This is a weird joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
She scrutinizes me a while longer, then rolls her eyes. “Selah, what do you want me to say? You were right and I was wrong? Rafe is a jerk? He was totally using me? I should have never been with him? I certainly should’ve never left with him. But I don’t think I’d go so far as to call him amonster thing.”
The more she talks, the more my ears ring.
She’s lying, straight to my face.
She didn’t leave with Rafe.
But it’s an Oscar worthy performance, and as far as I know, Lainey’s never been much of an actress.
So maybe she’s not lying.
