Sweet Like Revenge

53 - Off with Their Heads

I hadn't noticed that I'd stood, that my heels had carried me to the foot of the stage. I hadn't noticed the fear that had paled my face, or that Cameron had tried to call me back until I was lost to the dark. It was hard to notice anything but the unsettling punk music blaring through the speakers overhead, or the video that had replaced the static on the projector screen behind the stage.

My mind struggled to make sense of it. All I felt was dread. It snaked down my throat and tangled with the knots of panic in the pit of my stomach, bolting my legs to the floor and gluing my eyes to the video. But I recognized its bones, recognized the foundation I had set. Some of the footage and images were mine, remnants of a project I deserted weeks ago.

But so many of them weren't.

And they made what I had uncovered look like child's play.

Photos of cheques addressed to Walsh personally—most of them signed by parents of Panthers and other school athletes, some dated the day after the release of The Book.

Footage taken at the door of Briar's classroom. His eyes glassy, his hand far too close to Chontelle's. The latter leaning over his desk and tracing a finger over his parted lips.

A medley of graphic, intimate moments that belonged on the dark depths of the web, not playing in front of a glittering crowd in one of the most glamorous ballgowns in town.

Videos of students passed out at parties and of drunken Panthers engaging in morally questionable conduct.

And drugs.

Lots of drugs.

A grainy photo I'd taken of Kat had been added to the mix. I'd snapped her handing something that looked a lot like a pill bottle to a junior behind the gym.

And, of course, the video of Nate. They hadn't even spared Nate.

There were other things, too. Things I never could have expected.

Like a Snapchat of Kirsty, teetering at some grungy club downtown, clearly high off narcotics while she tried to throw back a glass of wine but spilled it all over herself instead. Poppy snorted a line of white powder in the background before Astor leaned forward to pull her back onto the worn sofa behind them.

It was the most ridiculously set-up thing I'd ever seen. But that was the point. That was their brilliance.

Astor, Kirsty, Poppy—or whoever it was behind that video—weaved their own scandals right into the wicked mix. They dirtied their hands only the slightest bit, just enough so that they, too, would be perceived as victims and not perpetrators. There were nods to what happened with Jessica, nods to The Book. The trio of terror placed themselves in the firing line alongside everyone else. That way, no one would think to guess that it was them holding the gun.

Their exposé didn't just attack the Elites, nor did it protect them. It attacked everyone. Students, alumni, teachers, parents. Everyone was being watched, and now everyone's dirty laundry was being aired. Even theirs.

Even mine.

They didn't have much on me. But they had the one thing that mattered. Knowledge.

A photo of a student from our seventh-grade yearbook replaced the videos on the screen.  Slowly, it morphed with something else. Morphed to reveal ... me. Elle.

If the implication wasn't damning enough, a photocopy of my transcript was.

I couldn't process it. I wasn't given the chance. I couldn't even inch my face around to scan the audience behind me, to stare back at the classmates who were burning holes into the back of my head. Because, in a flash, another video played on the screen.