She grabbed Claire by the sleeve of her snug, body-hugging hoodie and led her down the hallway, toward their first-period class. Violet watched in stunned silence, processing everything that Chelsea had said to them, as Claire bounded along in Chelsea’s commanding wake.

Jay decided that it was his turn to gloat. “You pined for me?” he asked, stupid grin and all.

Violet hit him on the arm. “Shut up!” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure she was talking about you anyway.”

Chelsea’s lack of surprise over the spreading news that Violet and Jay were dating was almost exactly the same as everyone else’s, only most people had the decency to keep their knowing comments to themselves. Apparently Violet was the only one who hadn’t seen it coming, and that included Jay, who claimed that they-as a couple-had been inevitable.

The only thing that took some of the attention off the new Jay-Violet pairing was the fact that most of their classmates were talking about Hailey McDonald’s death and Mackenzie Sherwin’s disappearance. But the biggest news of the day, the buzz at school that overshadowed almost everything else, revolved around the capture of the man responsible for killing so many girls.

That didn’t mean no one noticed Violet and Jay. They definitely got their fair share of attention. But it wasn’t until lunchtime that Violet became acutely, and uncomfortably, aware of just how much notice they were getting.

Grady had made it easy on her, steering clear at every possible meeting point. Violet wasn’t sure whether he was avoiding her or, more likely, Jay. But where he had previously been wagging his tail and waiting for her, now he was noticeably absent. And thankfully so.

But Lissie Adams had no such qualms about remaining in the background, unnoticed. Unlike Grady, who had everything to be ashamed of, Lissie was obviously pissed off that she’d been cast aside by Jay. And it was easy enough to decipher that she blamed Violet.

Violet was sitting at her usual lunch table with Claire and Jules. Chelsea and Jay hadn’t shown up yet, and Violet was being bombarded by questions from Claire about how she and Jay had hooked up. She wanted details, every last juicy one of them. Violet did her best to redirect the conversation, which wasn’t particularly hard when she was talking to Claire, who was infinitely more interested in talking about herself than anyone else. But unfortunately Jules wasn’t about to let Violet off the hook so easily, and instead of letting Claire be sidetracked by Violet’s deflections, she kept steering Claire back on topic.

“So, Violet, is Jay a good kisser?” Jules asked.

“Yeah,” Claire sighed dreamily. “I bet he’s a good kisser. Is he?”

Violet glared at Jules, who was having a hard time chewing her mouthful of sandwich while she laughed.

“What’d I miss?” Chelsea asked as she sat down next to Jules, practically pushing Claire out of her way. Claire barely noticed.

Jules answered for them. “Violet was just going to tell us if Jay is a good kisser.” She grinned at Violet with bread stuck all in her teeth.

“I think I’d like to hear the answer to that question.” The voice from behind Violet felt like dull razor blades scratching down her spine.

Violet closed her eyes, trying to decide how she should handle this. She finally plastered on her best fake smile and stood up to face Lissie Adams, and her little lapdog “best friend,” who was always tagging along behind her. Lissie was glaring at Violet.

“Hi, Lissie,” Violet sighed, for lack of anything more intelligent to say, as she waited to see what the older girl wanted from her.

She didn’t have to wait long. Lissie’s perfectly perky mask had been cracked, and she was practically seething venom at Violet. “Do you think you’re better than me? Because you’re not. And just because you managed to convince Jay to go to Homecoming with you, by doing God-knows-what, that doesn’t make you any better than you were last week.”

Chelsea stood up from her seat. “Screw you, Lissie. You want to say something to my friend, then you’re saying it to me too. You can either get your liposuctioned ass outta here, or we can take this outside.”

Violet put up her hand to stop Chelsea before things went too far. “It’s okay, Chels, she can say whatever she wants.” And then she looked back at Lissie, who was still glaring at Violet like she wanted to strangle her. “I didn’t set out to steal your date, Lissie. It’s just…” She paused, trying to get the words right. “It’s complicated with Jay and me.” That wasn’t exactly as smooth as she’d hoped for. “Anyway, I’m sorry if I messed up Homecoming for you, but you can’t really think this is my fault.”

Lissie opened her mouth, but then she seemed to freeze in place, and a perfectly bland smile replaced her vicious sneer. Violet didn’t need her “special abilities” to know from the insipid look on Lissie’s face that Jay had joined them and was standing right behind her now.

His voice was deceptively casual. “Hi, Lissie.” He was standing so close to Violet that he was practically pressed against her back.

Lissie looked suddenly self-conscious, something she probably wasn’t accustomed to, and she cocked her head to the side, her voice brimming with phony flirtatiousness. “Hey, Jay. Violet and I were just talking about the dance.”

Jay had the good sense to sound genuinely remorseful. “Yeah, about that, I feel really bad, Lissie.”

Lissie batted a hand at the air, blowing off his apology. “Don’t be silly. I already told you it’s no big deal.” She leaned forward and seemed to forget that Violet was standing right there. Her voice became throaty and was overflowing with suggestion. “Like I said, maybe some other time.” She flashed a seductive smile over Violet’s shoulder to where Jay was standing, and then she sauntered away, wagging her hips provocatively back and forth.

Violet stiffened. And then she cringed. She hated the brittle stab of jealousy she felt.

Jay, the mind reader, whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry about her. If she wasn’t such a bitch I might have felt sorry for her. But all in all, she made it pretty easy.”

Violet smiled, and then relaxed, enjoying the warmth of him against her back.

“God, I hate her kind,” Chelsea muttered as Violet tore herself away from Jay to sit down again.

The rest of lunch was fine, but Violet was even more aware of the fact that curiosity wasn’t the only interest that she and Jay were piquing today. And that Lissie wasn’t the only one who seemed to be put out that they were a couple. She began to notice little looks, sometimes not so subtle ones, from the other girls around her. They ranged from envy to resentful anger and fell everywhere in between. Violet probably should have been uncomfortable from all the negative vibes being thrown her way, but she wasn’t. How could she be, when every time she looked at Jay, and he was grinning back at her with more than a small dose of desire in his eyes, little thrills shot through her like electrical shock waves?

When she wasn’t thinking about Jay, Violet was consumed with frustration that there were still no answers regarding Mackenzie Sherwin’s disappearance. And even though she wasn’t tortured by the same physical discomforts that had seized her in the wake of encountering Carys Kneer-the girl from the lake-she was haunted by the disturbing knowledge that Mackenzie was still out there somewhere. And that no one knew whether she was alive or dead.

In the meantime, Violet’s skin was growing thicker by the day, as she grew immune to the gossipy whispers and the fleeting-and sometimes not so fleeting-daggers that were shot her way by the other girls who envied her new status as Jay’s girlfriend.

She did her best to avoid running into Lissie, or any of her “backup dancers,” as Chelsea liked to call the blonde automatons that followed Lissie around all day. But by Wednesday, rumor had it that Lissie already had another date for the dance, and the word was that she had dumped Jay rather than the other way around.