As soon as Demetri and Eli started working, it was clear that the rest of the room ceased to exist for them. At any other time, Sky would have found it fascinating to watch - the way they immersed themselves in work, how they spoke with half-sentences, one finishing the thought the other one started, using words that Sky didn't understand - but not today.

She was so nervous she felt like she could throw up at any given moment.

So she busied herself by getting some soda and snacks from the kitchen. Don't snack too much, I'm making pasta for dinner Dad said, but Sky paid him no attention. She was still mad at him, the anger tying her guts into an ever tighter knot, as she piled some sandwiches and potato chips on a plate and carried them back upstairs. The boys devoured the sandwiches, but Sky had zero appetite. She hadn't had anything since breakfast, but it was impossible to think about eating. In fact, she felt like she could never eat again.

This is taking way too long—

But what did she know? She had no idea how easy or hard it was, to break into someone's computer. She could only wait and watch, as the boys worked, her body tense as a string, every minute longer than a year.

"It's gonna be okay," Sam said, offering her a comforting glance as they sat side by side on her bed and Sky was nervously picking at the cuticle of her overgrown, pink nails.

"Yeah, but what if it isn't? What if Kyler's already deleted everything we could use?"

"Then we'll figure out something else. I promise. We'll find a way."

Sky shrugged and looked down at her hands. She wished she had Sam's optimism. Hell, she wished she had Devon's determination too, and Yas' strength and sass. Lately, it felt like she had nothing. Like she was nothing. No one. She was so tired all the time, and yet unable to sleep, exhausted and yet unable to rest. Making and executing this plan had taken everything she had, and she had lived only for this moment, only for the knowledge that she would get her revenge on Kyler tonight—

But now she could feel it all slipping through her fingers like sand in the wind. If she lost this, what was left? What was the point of even living, if they failed?

"We're in," Eli said, his voice suddenly clear and loud, wide with an excited grin. "We got through!"

Sky's heart leaped against her breast bone, she jumped off the bed so fast she almost lost her balance and only barely avoided falling to the carpet face first.

"Seriously?"

"It was relatively simple," Demetri said, sounding rather smug. "We downloaded the stuff we needed to my computer, then transferred it to Kyler's laptop with a USB flash drive, and then—"

"You sure? You're really in?" Sky interrupted. It wasn't like she needed the nerdy details.

"Yeah," Eli replied, with a hoarse laugh. "So? What now? What are we looking for?"

Sky rushed to her desk, followed by Sam, Yas, and Devon. She could barely believe her eyes - gone was the lock screen, asking for the password. God, it's really happening— It was true, it was a fucking miracle, it felt like winning in the lottery! Her glance flickered from the laptop to Eli's breathtaking grin, then back to the laptop, darting from one icon into another—

"Move," she said, shoving Eli's shoulder to make him get up. "Let me."

Eli didn't object but got up to let her slide into the seat. Sky didn't even look at him, didn't want to look at him now, because his crooked grin truly was so breathtaking, and she couldn't afford a distraction, not now, not at this moment that would define everything that came after, her only chance to be saved. She couldn't look at him now, and fall into those vast, blue eyes, that echoed the smile that played on his lips. But oh God, if this worked, she would. She promised that to herself. She would finally let herself look at him again.

The laptop.

She forced herself to concentrate. No distractions. This was finally happening, and no one would steal this moment from her.

Her fingers trembling on the mouse, Sky clicked on the email icon, and mercifully Kyler's inbox opened without another password. Somewhere in here, the truth lay. She could almost taste it, the sharp, bitter taste of Kyler's dirty secrets. And she would fucking find it.

It was a good thing, that Kyler was as stupid as he was.

The emails from the school secretary, were still right there in his inbox, as were the attached files that contained the answer keys. The school secretary had ended her emails with the words DELETE THIS EMAIL AFTER READING IT, but luckily Kyler was both stupid and illiterate, for he hadn't done as he was told. Sky felt a surge of incredibly sweet, burning joy as she copied those emails and the files and sent the whole crap to the principal and the school board from an anonymous email. That should be enough to get Kyler kicked out of school, no matter that his dad owned the biggest law firm in the Valley. It would probably get the school secretary fired too, but boo hoo, she totally deserved it for stealing answer keys and selling them to a student.

Sky had no sympathy for either one of them. She was just glad this crap was done. That Kyler would get what was coming for him. And while she was at it—

There might still be more dirt if she just dared to go on digging.

Like in that suspicious-lookin folder on Kyler's desktop.

It didn't ever require a password, that folder that was named chicksxxx, as if it was just a joke, or a collection of his favorite porn movies, and maybe that was exactly what it was for him, just a joke, just some porn, just fun, just something all the guys did, nothing serious— Just a joke. Like it always was, for guys like him.

But oh, it was so much worse than that.

In that folder, there were thousands of pictures.

Pictures of girls.

Of girls Sky knew.

Pictures of them in school, or at the mall, or the gym. Taken without permission, pictures of their legs, and their butts, picks taken under their skirts.

Sky's hand grew heavy on the mouse. Her chest went tight, her ears started ringing. She recognized her own legs, her own black and white checkered skirt she had worn in school many times— and she felt how Eli tensed behind her chair, as if someone had punched him in the gut. The sound that left his lips was no word.

The shame made Sky's face burn, her eyes sting, but it wasn't like she could stop now. This wasn't about her, about her stupid legs, or about the way seeing them on Kyler's laptop made Eli feel— Because she was just one of many, of so many more. And Sky recognized too many of them.

"Turn it off," Yasmine gasped, her voice shaking. The pair of legs, the short skirt and the knee-high leather boots on the screen now, belonged to her. "Turn that off, now!"

But Sky couldn't. She had to finish what she had started, she had to see this thing to the bitter end, no matter how fucking awful that was, no matter how painful it was to continue.

Sky could hear Yasmine's words through the ringing of her ears, could hear Demetri swearing. Eli's face was reflected on the screen of the laptop - he looked like a ghost, impossibly pale, his jaw working as if he was trying to keep down the contents of his stomach. He didn't want to look at this crap. None of them did, Sky the least of all, but it was like something had come over her, a sense of purpose, something that kept her in its grip, as if her will wasn't her own anymore. The pictures went on, her hand, shaking, stayed on the mouse, her index finger clicking the button, on and on and on, always a new photo invading the screen and her eyes, her burning eyes that were filled with tears now, hot, salty tears that fell down her cheeks, clenching her throat, taking her voice away. It was an endless stream of violations, there was always more and more and more, and oh, how she now wished she could stop, because the feeling in her gut told her this wasn't the worst of it, that there was more, that there was something even worse, and then it was too late and she knew she could never stop seeing it, never stop feeling it, it was like it was all happening again, and not to those girls on the screen, but to her. It was Matt's leather couch under her cheek again, and it was the cold, freezing morning, the hangover making her skull burst, and it was the pain between her legs, and her panties that were gone, and the shame that Cody had once said didn't belong to her, but to Matt, that it was his shame, not hers, but that she carried like an iron band around her lungs nevertheless, carried it like a cold stone in her gut everywhere she went, the shame and the self-loath dragging her steps like a weight made of lead.

Pictures of naked girls on Kyler's bed.

Videos.

Of naked, unconscious girls.

And Kyler, grinning and laughing, as he filmed them. As he did stuff to them. Stuff Sky had always known he was capable of, stuff she knew he had wanted to do to her too, that he had tried to do when he had pushed her against the wall of the tattoo parlor, fingers digging into her throat, choking the life out of her while his other hand stroke her panties, trying to get in.

"Sky, stop—" Eli's voice was a raspy breath, tense as a string. "Stop. Just stop, we've seen enough."

She was crying now, tears running down her face, her hand gripping the mouse as if her life depended on it. There was more. So much more. Girls they knew. That was Chrissie, Moon's cheerleader friend. And that was Jo Ann who had French with Sky, such a bubbly and nice girl, but now she was naked on Kyler's bed, and Kyler was laughing out loud as some other guy - his face was outside the frame - poured beer on her face, and she didn't even flinch, she didn't move, she was barely breathing—

Demetri hid his face in his hands, chanting ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, and a brief thought flashed through Sky's mind, that it had finally happened, finally something so awful, so monstrous, that even Demetri had lost his gift of speech, and that was suddenly so fucking horrible that it snapped Sky out of the haze.

Sky pulled her hand back as if the mouse had burned her.

Her breathing came in wet, ragged, painful gasps. By her side, Sam was sobbing too, tears running down her cheeks, a her hand pressed tight over her mouth.

"Sky— we have to take this to the police," said Eli, hesitatingly taking the seat that was suddenly empty after Yasmine shot up and ran for the bathroom, where Sky could hear her retching violently. Demetri went after her.

"We can't," Sky breathed, the words barely leaving her trembling lips. On the screen Jo Ann was still sprawled on the bed, the image now stilled, but no less gut-wrenching.

Eli let out a tense, shaky breath, then took Sky's hand and wrapped his warm fingers around it so gently, so comfortingly, that Sky didn't even think to resist. She hadn't realized her hand was so very cold, freezing.

"We have to—" Eli repeated. "This— this is far more serious than some stupid stolen answer key. This is—"

"I know what it is," Sky cried, her voice breaking. "Don't you think I fucking know what this is? Don't you think I know it better than you?!"

He flinched, and then, the understanding settled into his eyes. He swallowed hard and all color was washed off his cheeks, and Sky knew that he was now thinking about Matt too, about what Sky had told him about that awful morning, about the cold leather couch, the pain between her legs, the things that for him had been just someone else's memories, words, not a real thing at all, but now maybe a bit more than that because of the images on the screen, Jo Ann's naked body, her sleeping face, the beer splattering down on it.

Eli's squeeze on her hand tightened. He deliberately kept his eyes off the screen, and in her face instead. Slowly Sky forced herself to to meet his gaze, his oh-so-blue eyes.

"I'm sorry. I know it's hard. But we have to. Sky— you wanted something that's gonna ruin Kyler. If this isn't it, I don't know what is."

"But— we can't take this to the police. We can't."

"Why not?" That was Demetri, who had emerged from the bathroom, and was now leaning in the doorway, pale-faced, his eyes huge, dark saucers. "What are you talking about? That's a crime he's committing! Multiple crimes, to be specific. He's going to jail for this! Weren't you the one who wanted to stop him? The one who forced us to watch all that? And now you're telling us we are going to just sit with it—"

"We stole the laptop!" Devon cried out, interrupting Demetri mid-sentence. "It's illegal evidence!"

"It's not that, it's—" Sky was sobbing now, and suddenly the tears were hot, violent, they burst out of her in raw, painful gasps. "I can't, I can't— do that to those girls—"

"They might not want to make this public," said Yasmine, who had stepped back into the room in Demetri's tow. Her face was still green, her voice hoarse. "I know I don't. I want Kyler's ass to rot in Hell, but there were pictures of me too, and I'm not going to stand in front of a jury just to be judged for wearing a miniskirt, or listen to Kyler's lawyers suggesting I was asking for it."

Demetri looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language, a frown on his face. "This isn't going to be some word-against-word thing. We have evidence. Actual, hard evidence, right here on the screen—"

"That's not how it works!" Sky yelled, her voice breaking. "You don't understand! Just shut the fuck up, and—"

But she never got to finish that sentence.

None of them had noticed that the door of the room had been quietly pushed open. They only realized that Sky's Dad was standing in the doorway in one of his funny aprons, when the pasta ladle he'd been holding in his fingers dropped off his grip and hit the rug with a wet thud. A horrified silence filled the room. Dad's widened eyes took in the image on the screen, Kyler's grinning face, poor Jo Ann lying on the bed like a dead thing, the beer raining onto her face.

The silence that followed, was the longest Sky had ever heard.