few steps away.
“There you are!” I head toward her, relieved. “This place is so lame. Can we get out of here —” I stop. A skinny boy is lounging at the desk inside, dressed — surprise — all in black with tiny loops pierced down the outside of one ear and a swoop of bleached hair falling over his forehead.
I feel a flicker of unease.
“Bliss Merino.” Eli sizes me up, already starting to smirk. “Wouldn’t have thought this was your scene.”
“Because you know me so well.” I roll my eyes, but inside, I feel . . . well, not exactly guilt. I mean, Brianna was technically the one who hit send on that video forward, alerting the entire school to his drag queen lip-synch act. And who films themselves doing that kind of stuff unless deep down, they have some subconscious desire for everyone to see it? So he got mercilessly bullied, dropped out, and became the joke of the entire Internet. . . . It’s not all my fault.
But from the look in Eli’s eyes, I’m guessing he doesn’t agree.
“Well?” I turn to Jolene. “Can we get out of here already?”
“Not yet.” She keeps her gaze fixed on Eli, unmoving. “I need something first.”
Eli shrugs. “And I’ve already told you: no.”
“I only need it an hour, maybe less!” Jolene looks strangely desperate. “Come on, Eli, what’s your problem?”
“My problem?” Eli leans back on his chair. He’s freakishly pale, like he never goes outside, and not even in a cute chiseled vampire way. “What do you think will happen when you get caught? They’ll take one look at the hardware and come right to me. You think I want the police crawling all over this place?” He gestures around. It’s not exactly a secret lair, just piles of comic books and some peeling Marvel posters on the wall, but who knows? Maybe he has other, more illegal stuff stashed away behind the Star Wars action figures.
“I’m not going to get caught,” Jolene insists, her face flushed. “I told you — I have everything to get me in there. I just need to disable the security feed.”
“Sorry.” Eli shrugs, sounding anything but. “No deal. This is proprietary tech, I’ve got to put my business first.”
Jolene swears. Her hands are clenched in tight fists by her sides, and for a moment I wonder if she’s going to snap and start trashing the place, but then she spins on her heel.
“Jolene —” Dante tries to stop her.
“Get the hell out of my way.” Jolene shakes him off, not even looking in my direction before disappearing out into the dim hallway.
“What’s going on?” I look around for answers. Jolene is freaking me out now — not so much vengeful and determined as slowly cracking up.
“She’s just PMSing,” Eli says smoothly.
Dante shakes his head, unreadable. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s kind of late for that,” I exclaim, but both of them refuse to meet my eyes. They idle there, not saying a word, as if whatever’s going on here has nothing to do with me. “I’ll go find her,” I say. They shrug, like they’re synchronized freaking swimmers or something.
Boys.
Jolene’s in the narrow storeroom, tearing into a pack of candy, when I approach.
“Hey,” I start cautiously, checking if she’s still ready to explode, but Jolene just sags against the ugly Formica counter top.
“Hi.” She exhales, worn out, so I figure it’s safe to come closer.
“Does Eli run this place or something?” I ask, trying to figure out his power trip.
She nods, gnawing on a hunk of red licorice. “He graduated early. Took his SATs and got the hell out.”
“To this?” I look around. “Isn’t the entire point of leaving high school to go someplace better?”
She gives me this ghost of a smile. “Are you kidding? He sits around all day playing Xbox and taking money from freshman Mountain Dew addicts. It’s like heaven.”
“Sure it is.” There’s a pause, the noise of that terrible band drifting loud from the main room.
I wait for a second, trying to figure out what to do next. Meg’s out crying in the car, Jolene’s fixated on getting this thing from Eli, and I’m no closer to my after-party and general normalcy. Perfect. For a moment I think about just calling a cab and bailing on this whole mess, but the idea doesn’t last long. Even I’m not that low, and something tells me Jolene likes to hold a grudge.
“So . . .” I reach over and take a thin ribbon of