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Isabel looked up from her phone, mouth open. “You can’t just leave,” she said, a little faintly. “I mean …”

“You know, it seems we can,” Kittson said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“I still know your secrets,” Isabel shot back at Kittson. “Like, have you told your
boyfriend
about what you did in the Hamptons?”

I felt my heart begin to beat faster at that, but Kittson just took a step closer to Glen, and he put his arm around her shoulders. “Of course,” she said.

Isabel’s jaw dropped, and she looked around, a little desperately. “I can tell you what Schuyler did,” she said,
clearly grasping at straws. “At boarding school. She …”

“I already told them,” Schuyler said, her voice clear and confident. She took a tiny step toward Isabel, and I was thrilled to see Isabel take a step back. “And you know what? They didn’t care.”

“And,” Peyton said, taking a step closer as well, “if you ever try and threaten my stepsister again, you are going to be very, very sorry.”

Isabel glanced at Tricia, whose mouth had fallen open. Isabel looked back at us, and then gave a few small claps.

“Well, congratulations to the Scooby gang,” she said. “So you managed to get around this. So what? This was never what it was about. It was just a bonus.” She turned to me, a cold, confident smile on her face. “I hope you can live with the fact that you’ve just wrecked your boyfriend’s life.” Her smile widened after she said this. “Oops, I think I mean ex-boyfriend, don’t I? When I come forward with the information I have on Nate—”

“You don’t,” Dell said, and Isabel stopped short, frowning at him.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean you don’t have the information,” he said, as Isabel shook her head and dug in her purse, pulling out her keys triumphantly.

“I keep it with me at all times,” she said. “So there’s no way that you’ve gotten to it.”

“You might want to check your flash drive,” I said. “I have a feeling you might be surprised.”

Isabel turned the flash drive over in her hands and
looked up at me. “How did you do it?” she asked, her voice low and angry.

“You should be nicer to your valets,” I said. “They’ll sometimes do favors for you.”

“If there’s nothing else,” Ruth said after a moment in which Isabel had simply opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if searching for words to say, “I think we should get going.”

“I can still tell them about Nate,” Isabel said to me, her voice desperate. “The mascot costume still hasn’t been returned. And if I can describe what I saw on the tape, my headmistress will listen to me, and …”

I lost whatever Isabel said next. Because a very strange sight was approaching from the parking lot.

A wooden Trojan horse, apparently of its own accord, was wheeling toward us.

The horse was large, almost real-horse size, and made of wood. There were two large wooden wheels at the base, but these weren’t even turning. I noticed that there was a metal plate stretched under these, and there seemed to be a second set of wheels moving the horse forward over the grass slowly. As I watched it jerking forward, the tiny motor revving, it struck me that something about it looked very familiar. And just like that, I had a feeling I knew why Dave wasn’t with us at the moment.

“What is that?” Schuyler asked. She looked around at us. “Other people see that, right?”

“It’s the Hartfield mascot costume,” Sarah said. “I recognize it from Zach’s yearbook. They’re the Trojans.”

I now knew why Nate had laughed when we’d been watching
Troy
. A moment later, a second, much
bigger realization crashed over me. This was the mascot costume that Nate had helped, um, borrow during the senior prank. And here it was. Did that mean …
could
it mean that Nate was somehow involved now? That he knew something about what was happening? A tiny ember of hope flared to life, and I could feel my heart start to beat a little bit faster.

“Where did that come from?” Isabel snapped, as the horse rolled right up to her. “Who is controlling it?”

“And since when is it motorized?” Tricia asked, sounding puzzled.

“Since Dave and I added some Hot Wheelz to it,” Turtell said, sounding inordinately proud of himself. “And thanks to a little thing called welding.”

As I looked at the horse, I put it together—the reason that both Turtell and Dave had had grease stains on their hands earlier.

“Baby,” Kittson said to Turtell, sounding genuinely impressed, “you’re so
talented
.”

“
Someone
tell me what is happening,” Isabel snapped, her voice verging on hysterical.

“Well,” Ruth said, after a pause in which it became clear that nobody was going to volunteer for this job, “it looks like you’ve gotten your mascot costume back. And since it showed up at Putnam, I would say that it pretty much clears anyone from Stanwich, wouldn’t you?”

Tricia looked skeptically at the horse, which rolled backward, and then toward her, causing her to yelp and jump away. “Maybe we should go,” she said. “This is getting weird.”

“No,” Isabel said, looking from the horse to all of us. “
NO
. I have worked too hard to just walk away from this.”

From the distance of the parking lot, I could hear the faint sound of a car door slamming. After a moment, I heard a second door slam, but couldn’t see the actual car, and had no idea who had arrived.

“I mean,” Isabel said slowly, “just because the mascot is here doesn’t mean anything. It might never make it to Hartfield. It might get accidentally broken on the way. And then Madison’s ex-boyfriend wouldn’t be off the hook after all.”

Ruth glanced toward the parking lot. I looked over as well and saw one figure heading toward us, but wasn’t able to make out who it was. “I think you’ve done enough,” she said. “Let it go, Isabel.”

“I will
not
let it go,” Isabel spat. “Madison humiliated me in front of my entire school, and I am not going to forget it. And you’re not going to convince me to.” She turned to me and shot me a furious glare. “This is
just
beginning, Madison. Just watch. I am going to find a way to hurt you, and if you don’t believe me …”

“I don’t, actually,” a voice said from behind Isabel. I looked and saw that it was Dave, a black controller in his hand.

“And what does that mean?” Isabel asked. She was clearly trying for bravado, but looked undeniably shaken.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah take out her phone and start texting.

“Well,” Dave said, piloting the horse so it spun
around and wheeled over to arrive by his side, “I think that you’re going to agree to walk away from this and leave Madison—and
all
of us—alone. Forever.”

“And why would I do that?” Isabel asked, arching an eyebrow, but she sounded much less confident now. It was like she was realizing we had many more people—and a really big horse—on our side, and she just had Tricia. And Tricia, since Dave had shown up, had started edging slowly away from Isabel, like she wanted to distance herself from the whole situation.

“Because of this,” Dave said, holding up his phone, which was playing a streaming video. It was jerky and shaking slightly, but it was still clear what it was.

“
It might never make it to Hartfield,” the Isabel on Dave’s phone was saying. “It might get accidentally broken on the way
.”

“What …?” Isabel said faintly. “How …?”

Dave turned off his phone and patted the horse on the back. “Video,” he said. “We’ve got everything you just said. And in addition to threatening to destroy your own school’s mascot costume, you’re also on record threatening Madison here, fairly seriously. Which I’m sure your future college prospects wouldn’t be too happy to find out about.”

“But …” Isabel said, looking at the horse, as though trying to figure out just how this had happened.

“It is a
Trojan horse
,” Ruth said. “You’d think you might have been a little more careful.”

Isabel glared at me. “Nice, Madison,” she said.

I shook my head. “I had no idea any of this was going
to happen,” I said. “I’m as surprised as you are.” I looked from Dave to Turtell to Ruth, and understood all the secrecy that had been swirling around them earlier. “Which is
very
surprised.”

“What can I say,” Ruth said, smiling back at me. “It seemed like the best way to handle things.”

“Also, don’t even think about doing anything to this mascot,” Sarah said, holding up her phone. “I’ve texted Connor Atkins, who’s pretty much Dr. Trent’s favorite person, and let him know that it’s here. And he’s making arrangements to have it transported back to Hartfield.”

“Connor?” Schuyler asked faintly, grabbing on to Peyton’s arm for support. “Really?”

“So what are you planning on doing with that video?” Isabel asked, her voice fainter now, with the first note of genuine fear sounding in it.

“
Rien
,” Lisa said. “Nothing. We’re not like
you
. We’re not going to blackmail you with this.”

Mark turned to her, looking crestfallen. “We’re nawt?” he asked.

“Nope,” Kittson said. Since I had no idea what my friends’ plan was, or what they had discussed, I was as in the dark as he was, and just going along for the ride. “We’re not. But.” She crossed her arms and glared at Isabel. “We hope that the knowledge that this video exists—in multiple copies, since Dave just sent it to all of us—will help you calm down your vengeful streak whenever you get the urge to try and hurt Madison or any of the rest of us. Because something you should know—it’s pretty much the same thing.”

I blinked at Kittson, beyond touched, and feeling very strongly that I had the very best friends in the world.

Isabel looked at all of us, a unified group, staring back at her. Her shoulders slumped, and the fight seemed to leave her. “All right,” she said quietly. She met my eye and I looked back at her.

There was no more anger in her glare, and, I hoped, no more need for justice in mine. It was just the look of two people who were walking away from a fight. Isabel gave me a small nod, then turned and walked away alone.

Once Isabel’s headlights disappeared down the road, it was like we all let out a collective breath. Tricia had stayed behind, looking genuinely regretful and tried to apologize. But Lisa had cut her off and told her, in no uncertain terms,
adieu
. Tricia had glanced back at all of us for a moment longer before turning and walking toward Isabel, but not appearing too happy about it, which I could understand. If you’d spent the last few weeks with my friends, and then had to go back to just being friends with Isabel, I could imagine you’d be less than thrilled.

As the last sight of Isabel vanished, everyone began talking again, and we started to make our way back to where our cars were. As Dave steered the horse to the parking lot, Turtell pointed out how he’d attached the wheels and tried to look modest as Kittson gushed. Lisa, Dave, and Schuyler were walking together,
Schuyler fixing (but not chewing) her hair—clearly thinking about Connor. Peyton walked next to Dell, who seemed to be holding forth about something. I caught her eye and we exchanged a quick smile. I hurried past Mark and Sarah—Mark seemed to be complaining, now back to his normal accent, that he was one of the only people kept in the dark about the plan—to catch up to Ruth, who was speed-walking toward the parking lot for some reason.

“Hi,” I said. I shook my head. “Wow.”

“I know,” she said, smiling back at me. “Just your average Monday night, right?”

I laughed at that, and felt relief flood through me. It was
over
. We had done it. “Thank you so much,” I said. “Though you guys could have told me.”

“It seemed safer this way,” she said, eyes still fixed on the parking lot, and I wondered what she was looking for.

“I’m just so glad it’s over,” I said as we reached the end of the field. “It’s been a good night.”

“I think it might get better,” Ruth said. She looked toward the parking lot, and as I followed her gaze, I realized why I’d heard two car doors slamming when Dave had arrived. It was because he hadn’t been alone. There was someone else standing next to his car.

It was Nate.

My heart started to beat double-time, and I found that it was suddenly getting hard to breathe. Nate was looking at me, and for just a moment, everything else around me—the ten other people and the motorized wooden horse—disappeared. And there was only Nate and me, seeing just each other.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Ruth spoke first. “Glad you made it,” she said, smiling at Nate.

“
Oui
,” Lisa agreed, walking up with Schuyler, who gave Nate a wave. “Though I’m afraid you missed the show.”

“It was epic, dude,” Turtell said. “
Epic
.”

“Wait,” I said, looking around at my friends, absolutely none of whom seemed surprised to see my ex-boyfriend in the parking lot. “What’s happening?”

“We took things into our own hands,” Kittson said. “You’re welcome.”

I looked back at Nate, who still hadn’t spoken. He looked at me, and I could feel the charge of the silence between us, filled with all the words we still needed to say.

“So!” Dave said, a little too loudly. “My house? Fifteen?” He glanced at me and Nate. “Or … you know, a little longer.” He gave me a smile, then clapped Nate on the shoulder.

I took a breath to say something, when Kittson tugged at my arm. “We need to handle the Dell thing,” she murmured. I looked over and saw that Dell was standing by his car next to Peyton, looking very happy. I nodded, and looked at Nate once more.

It was killing me not to talk to him, but I did know I had to clear things up with Dell first.

“I’ll, um,” I said, clearing my throat, feeling my heart pound with nervousness. “Be just a second. If you don’t mind waiting?”

Nate gave me one of his slow half smiles and shook his head. “No,” he said in a voice that was a little more hoarse than usual. “I don’t mind.”

Kittson tugged me in the direction of Dell, and it was a good thing she did, because I don’t know if, of my own volition, I would have been capable of looking away from Nate.

We headed over to Dell’s SUV and arrived as he was giving Peyton a card. “That’s all my numbers,” he
was saying, his words coming out in a tumble. “And all my e-mail addresses. And if you want to get dinner, I can compile a database that breaks restaurants down by rating, or cuisine, or …”

“Coffee,” Peyton said, tucking his card into her back pocket and putting on her helmet. “I like coffee.” She gave him what, for her, was a big smile, and headed over to her Vespa, her cheeks, it seemed, a little pinker than usual.

Dell sighed and leaned back against his car, watching Peyton start her scooter and peel out of the parking lot.

“Dell,” I said. He looked over and gave us a vague smile.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “Interesting night, right?”

“More like illuminating,” Kittson said, her voice crisp. This seemed to snap Dell out of his love haze a little.

“I suppose,” he replied, his voice level.

“I was glad to find out why you did this,” I said. “Everyone knew you didn’t suddenly grow a conscience overnight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dell said in a monotone, though his eyes darted nervously between the two of us.

“I’m talking about
Frank Info
,” Kittson said. “The third file that was on Isabel’s flash drive.”

Dell gaped at her for a moment. “And how do you know about that?” he finally managed.

“Because I asked her to monitor your laptop,” I said.

Dell’s jaw dropped and he stared at Kittson. “You hacked my computer?” he asked incredulously.

Kittson shrugged, clearly trying for modest but not pulling it off. “I told you I was good,” she said.

“But …” Dell stammered.

I shook my head. “It just didn’t make sense that Isabel would have been able to gain access to your computer—especially without you knowing it. Did you leave it out for her at your family reunion?” Dell looked down at the asphalt and shrugged, which was pretty much all the confirmation that I needed. “Is that why this whole thing happened?” I asked, staring at him hard. “Isabel had something you wanted, and you needed to get us to steal it for you?”

Dell shrugged again, and I looked at Kittson, who shook her head. “Well, it didn’t work,” Kittson said. “I pulled it off your hard drive, and I’m going to put it—whatever it is—on a flash drive and send it back to her. If you want it from her, steal it yourself.”

“Or ask her for it,” I amended quickly. “There’s that option, too.”

“But—” Dell started. I raised my eyebrows at him and saw that Kittson did the same. “Never mind,” he muttered, backing down, maybe recognizing a losing battle when he saw it.

“See you,” Kittson said as she turned on her heel and walked away.

I lifted a hand and waved at him. “
Adieu
,” I said, thinking of Lisa’s vocabulary lesson. I had just started to follow her when Dell called out to us.

“It wasn’t the only reason,” he said. I turned back to him and saw Kittson do the same. “I just …” he started.
He looked at us, and then back down at the ground. “I thought that you would need my help,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a step closer to him.

“I thought,” Dell said slowly, like each word was painful to say, “that you would need my help figuring this out. And that you’d forgive me for what happened in the spring. Andmaybewecouldbefriendsagain.” He said this last part very quickly, stringing the words together.

I met Kittson’s eye, and she narrowed her eyes at Dell before shrugging. “He didn’t get it,” she said to me in a low voice. “And he actually did help.”

I looked at Dell, and finally shrugged as well. “No more secrets,” I said to him, and he nodded vigorously.

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, no.”

“Good,” Kittson said, turning to go again. “Party at Dave’s if you’re coming,” she called over her shoulder. She hurried to catch up with Turtell, who was loading the horse into the back of a Jeep I recognized as Connor’s. Connor was standing in front of his car, totally ignoring Turtell staggering under the weight of the horse, and talking to Schuyler, who was holding a bouquet of Gerbera daisies and smiling wide, looking happier than I’d seen her in months.

As I got closer to where Nate was waiting, I slowed my pace, even though what I really wanted to do was run to him as fast as I could. But I was trying to get my thoughts together. All around me, cars were pulling out
of the parking lot, heading for Dave’s. Schuyler got into Connor’s Jeep, still smiling radiantly. They were the last to pull out of the parking lot, and then it was empty except for Judy, Nate, and me.

I walked until I was standing right in front of him, feeling like I simultaneously wanted to laugh and cry. It was so good to see him, but it also reminded me how much I’d missed him, and how much had passed between us.

“Hi,” I murmured, hearing my voice crack.

“Hi,” he said back. He gave me another half smile.

“Nate, I’m so sorry,” I said, the words, the ones I’d wanted to say to him from the beginning, rushing out of me. “I didn’t want to break up with you, but Isabel was going to release the video of you, and I thought you wouldn’t be able to go to Yale, and—”

“I know,” Nate said, cutting me off. “Dave told me.”

I blinked at him. “He did?”

“And that was after Ruth and Lisa and Schuyler all told me,” he said, smiling again. “But I first started to know something was going on after your brother came to see me yesterday.”

This was not what I had been expecting to hear. “Travis?” I asked, shocked.

Nate nodded. “He biked up to my house and threatened to beat me up for dumping you,” he said.

“He did?” I asked, feeling a surge of affection for my brother, and realizing he had come through on the promise he’d made me after the prom.

“He was very serious about it,” Nate said, his smile
widening. “He said that you told him our breakup wasn’t your idea. Which got me wondering. And so I called Ruth, looking for some answers.”

“I’m sorry to have put you through this,” I said. “I just … didn’t see any other way.”

“I think …” Nate said, and he cleared his throat. “I think it’s an amazing thing to do for someone.”

I nodded and exhaled, ready to tell him what I should have been brave enough to tell him the second I felt it. Because I could see now that it didn’t matter who said it first. But it needed to be said because, as I’d learned, things could end suddenly, and your once wide-open window would slam shut. And it seemed better to take the opportunity when it presented itself, because you never knew how many more there would be.

“Nate,” I said, my voice trembling. I didn’t know if he’d say it back. But I also knew that it didn’t matter. I just had to let him know how I felt. I took a breath. “I love you.”

He looked at me in silence for a moment, then broke into a big smile. “I know,” he said.

I blinked at him. “You know?” I echoed, confused, as this had not been the reaction I’d been expecting.

“After Travis showed up, I started thinking about your note,” he said. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. I unfolded it, and smiled when I saw that it was my letter to him, translated. He’d cracked the code.

Nate,

B
etter
l
et
a
c
hange
k
ommence,
m
eaning
a
n
i
nitial
l
oss
e
nds
d
oubts.
BLACKMAILED

Madison

“A cipher,” he said when I looked back up at him. “Nicely done.”

“Well,” I said, handing the paper back to him, “I learned from the best.”

“I thought you might want this back,” he said, reaching into the messenger bag that was at his feet and pulling out my wooden tortoise.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling my heart pound as I took it from him. He didn’t let go right away, but held on to it, reaching out with his other hand to touch my cheek carefully.

I felt myself shiver, and took a step closer to him, my heart pounding harder than ever. I dropped the tortoise
in my purse, and Nate reached out and took both of my hands in his.

“How about,” Nate said, his voice slightly choked, “we don’t do that again?”

I shook my head, smiling, even though I could feel tears in my eyes. “Never,” I said. I stepped closer to him, closing the distance left between us.

“That sounds good,” he said, smiling down at me. “That sounds
perf
.”

I laughed as I stretched up toward him and Nate tipped his head down to me. When our lips met, it felt almost like our first kiss all over again. But it was more than that. It felt like after a long time wandering, alone, lost … it felt like I’d finally come home again.