Chapter 2

My hands were shaking as I worked my combination. When the metal door swung open, a dead rat fell out and hit the floor with a wet, horrible sound.

I actually gagged. Right there in front of everyone.

There was a note taped inside, written in Madison's perfect handwriting: "This is what trailer trash smells like."

I'm going to be sick. I'm actually going to throw up in the hallway.

"Holy shit, Scarlett!" Chelsea's voice rang out, fake-shocked and way too loud. "That's so gross! Did you put that in there yourself for attention?"

I could hear the cameras clicking. People were already posting it, sharing it, laughing about it. By lunch, everyone would know. By tonight, it would probably be all over social media.

They planned this. They actually took time out of their day to plan this.

I grabbed my books with hands that wouldn't stop shaking, trying to ignore the whispers and giggles following me down the hall. The janitor was walking over, looking at me like this was somehow my fault.

How am I supposed to explain this? Who's going to believe me?

I thought gym class would be safe. Coach Martinez actually treated me fairly, and I usually just kept to myself during sports.

But when he announced field hockey teams, my heart sank.

"Blackwell, you're on Murphy's team."

Madison smiled sweetly as she jogged over, hockey stick in hand. The other girls on our team suddenly found reasons to stand far away from me.

"Don't worry, Scarlett," she said loud enough for everyone to hear. "I'll take good care of you."

The first hit came during a scramble for the ball. Her stick connected with my shin so hard I actually heard it crack. Pain shot through my leg like lightning and I went down hard, tasting blood where I bit my tongue.

"Oops!" Madison called out innocently. "Sorry! Total accident!"

Coach barely looked up. "Murphy, you okay? Walk it off!"

Walk it off. Like the pain radiating up my leg was nothing. Like the fact that I could barely stand was just me being dramatic.

I limped through the rest of class, but Madison wasn't done. Every time the ball came near me, her stick found my legs. My shins, my ankles, the backs of my knees.

She's doing this on purpose. She's hurting me on purpose and no one cares.

By the end, I was crying. Not just from the pain, but from the humiliation of it all. The other girls wouldn't even look at me.

In the locker room afterward, Madison leaned against my locker while I sat on the bench, trying not to cry as I looked at the bruises already forming.

"Wow, those are going to be really ugly," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Maybe you should be more careful. Clumsy people get hurt."

I hate her. I actually hate her.

I thought that was the worst it could get.

I was so, so wrong.

Three days later, I woke up to my phone buzzing nonstop. Seventeen missed calls. Forty-three text messages. Notifications from every social media app I had.

What now? What did I do now?

I opened Instagram with trembling fingers. The image was right there at the top of my feed—a naked photo that looked like me but wasn't me. Someone had photoshopped my face onto someone else's body.

The caption made me want to disappear: "Guess trailer park sluts will do anything for money 💸 #desperate #gross"

This isn't real. This can't be happening to me.

I scrolled through the comments with tears already streaming down my face. Hundreds of them. Kids from school, people I didn't even know. Most were calling me disgusting, a slut, telling me to kill myself.

But some were worse. Way worse.

Boys from school describing what they wanted to do to my body. In detail. With my name attached to it.

I'm never going to be able to show my face at school again. Everyone's seen this. Everyone thinks this is really me.

I tried to delete it, but it wasn't even on my real account. Someone had created a fake profile that looked exactly like mine and tagged everyone I knew.

My phone rang. Mom.

"Scarlett, honey, Mrs. Garcia just called me. She said there are pictures—what's happening? What's going on?"

I couldn't even form words. I just sobbed into the phone while my mom tried to understand why her daughter was suddenly the center of some sick viral nightmare.

I can't tell her. I can't tell her what they're saying about me.

"I'm coming to get you right now," she said, and I could hear her grabbing her keys. "Right now, baby."

Twenty minutes later, Mom's hands were shaking on the steering wheel as we drove away from school. She'd thrown on yesterday's uniform, her hair barely brushed.

She left work for me. She's probably going to get in trouble for leaving work.

"We'll figure this out, baby," she kept saying, but her voice was tight with worry. "We'll call the police. We'll make them take those pictures down."

Will we? Or will they just tell us it's "teenagers being teenagers" and there's nothing they can do?

I was staring out the window, trying not to think about facing school tomorrow, when I saw the black car behind us.

It was driving too fast, weaving between lanes. Something about it made my skin crawl.

"Mom," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "That car behind us—"

The car suddenly swerved into the oncoming lane and accelerated, pulling alongside us. Through the tinted windows, I could see Madison in the passenger seat.

She was laughing.