Wednesday began with Bianca stopping by my locker.
I didn't see her first; I felt the shift. The room simply reordered itself to accommodate her.
"Saturday night," she said. She leaned one shoulder against the locker next to mine, the movement fluid and practiced. "My place. I'm having people over."
"Okay," I said, keeping my hands busy with my combination lock.
"You're coming."
It wasn't an invitation. It was a verbal boundary, a fence she was building around my weekend.
"I'll try to make it," I replied, neutral.
She offered that mirrored, perfect smile. "Great. I'll send you the details."
She walked away, and as if by some magnetic pull, Sienna materialized at her shoulder, falling into step without a word.
I closed my locker, and before the metal had even clicked shut, Tessa was there.
"Don't go," she said. No greeting. Just the flat, jagged truth.
"Good morning to you, too."
"Mila, I'm serious. Don't go to that party."
"You don't even know- "
"Bianca's Saturday night thing? Yes, I do. She does it every few weeks. She invites someone new, makes them feel like they've finally arrived, and then…" She cut herself off, her mouth pressing into a thin, hard line.
"And then what, Tessa?"
"And then something happens. Something that makes sure you know exactly where you sit in the food chain." She looked at me, and for a second, the wary mask slipped. "I was the new girl once. Two years ago. I'm telling you. Don't go."
I thought about the text message sitting in my phone; the anonymous warning from the "Question Mark." Same advice. Different source.
"I hear you," I said.
Tessa searched my face, looking for a compliance that wasn't there. "You're going anyway."
"I haven't decided yet."
She made a sharp, frustrated sound, not quite a word and disappeared into the crowd.
I had Literature first.
I was ten feet from the door of room 214 when Ace fell into step beside me. No earphone pulling this time, he just appeared at my side like he'd been there the whole time.
"Bianca invited you for Saturday," he said.
"Damn, word travels fast around here."
"This school is a fortress, but the walls have ears by nine AM." He glanced at me sideways, his expression unreadable. "Are you going?"
"Why do you care, Ace?"
"Because if you go, I have to go. And if I'm there, I'd rather have someone real to talk to than spend four hours pretending to have a good time."
He said it simply. Just a blunt admission that felt more honest than anything I'd heard all morning.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to be there," I pointed out.
"I know." He reached ahead and held the door open for me. "But Zane will be there. And wherever Zane goes, I usually end up, too."
"You could just... not do that."
"We've been best friends since we were nine." He said it like it was geography; a fact of the landscape he couldn't change. "It's not that simple."
We sat down. He didn't ask if the seat next to me was taken; he just claimed it. I didn't move away. I noticed the lack of protest in my own body and decided to bury that thought for later.
"If I go," I said softly, pulling out my notebook as the teacher walked in, "it'll be because I want to. Not because Bianca issued a decree."
"Good," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "That's the only reason that matters."
I felt his gaze on the side of my face while I wrote. I kept my eyes on the board, recording every word about The Great Gatsby as if the ink could anchor me.
At the end of the period, as I was shoving my pens into my bag, a folded piece of paper landed on my desk.
It wasn't a party invite. I opened it to find a phone number, written in a bold, sprawling hand.
"In case you have questions you don't want to ask out loud."
I slipped it into my pocket. I didn't throw it away.
That afternoon, the library was my goal, but the hallway had other plans. I turned the corner near the stairwell and walked directly into a wall of solid muscle. My shoulder clipped his arm, my books went skittering across the linoleum, and I had to grab the brick wall to keep my balance.
"Sorry" I started, breathless.
"Are you going Saturday?"
Zane Calloway was looking down at me. He didn't move to help with the books. He didn't offer a greeting. He was just... there. Every word he used felt like it had been weighed on a scale before he let it out.
"Hello to you, too," I said, my heart still knocking against my ribs.
"Are you going?" he asked again. His tone hadn't changed. He looked at me with those steady, observant eyes, waiting for the math to settle.
"I don't know yet."
"Don't."
"You're the second person to tell me that today. Third, if you count the mystery texts."
"Then listen to one of us."
He bent down then, his movements slow and deliberate. He picked up my history textbook, handed it back to me, and walked away without a backward glance.
I stood in the corridor, the weight of the book heavy in my hands.
Tessa. Zane. An unknown number. All of them telling me to stay away, to hide, to remain invisible.
And that was the moment I knew. If they were all this afraid of me showing up, then the party was exactly where I needed to be.