My X-Ray Vision Sees Right Through You novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Original File

Clark names the file on Dax's laptop, Cecelia opens it herself, and the raw audio plays Dax coaching her words on the quad's big screen.

I couldn't move, and the man in the gray coat didn't seem to notice.

He straightened, put one arm around my shoulders, and looked up at the stage.

"A plant," Dax said into his headset, and the speakers carried it over the whole quad.

"Folks, our girl Cecelia just kissed a stranger in a coat. That's the oldest trick on the internet."

A few people laughed.

The number under GUILTY started climbing again.

My ears were ringing, and I couldn't tell if it was the speakers or the voice.

It couldn't be him.

The voice I knew had lived in a phone, and I had never once seen its face.

"Cecelia," Clark said quietly. "Walk me to the stage."

"Why?"

"Because the clip that hurt you isn't the real one, and the real one is in a laptop behind that curtain."

He said it.

I should have laughed.

Instead I walked, because he was warm and steady and every other person on that lawn had turned into a mouth.

The crowd opened for us.

Rhett saw me coming and jumped off the stage with his arms spread wide.

"Sorry, no guests past the rope."

"I'm not a guest," Clark said. "I'm a witness."

He stepped past Rhett and up the stage stairs, and I went with him because his hand was on my back.

Dax's smile slipped for half a second and came back brighter.

"Sir, this is a private event."

"It's a public quad," Clark said. "May I?"

He took the spare microphone off its stand before Dax could answer.

"My name is Clark Ellery," he said, and his voice filled the quad. "Dax, your laptop is behind the black curtain, second table. The file on the left is called TESSA_RAW."

The quad went so quiet I could hear the lamps buzz.

"The file under it is called TESSA_MEAN."

Dax laughed too loud.

"He's guessing."

"Then open it," Clark said. "It's plugged into the big screen. Or I can."

I looked at Dax's face, and the color left it.

Rhett lunged for the curtain.

I was faster.

I had spent a whole year dodging Vott cameras, and I ducked under his arm and pushed the black cloth aside.

There was a table with a laptop on it, exactly where Clark had said.

My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

I put my hand on the trackpad, and the screen woke.

On the quad behind me, four hundred people watched the big screen fill with an audio timeline.

Blue bars, cut up into pieces.

A label under one piece said CECELIA - REAL, and next to it, in capital letters, a note typed by someone with no shame.

MAKE HER SOUND MEAN. USE MAY VOICE MEMO. DAX.

I pressed play.

My real voice came out of every speaker on the grass.

"Honestly, I can't stand when people call the Losers' Lunch losers. They're the only club here that feeds anybody."

Then the timeline jumped, and a piece of me from last May said, "I only act nice for the views," and it was laughing at a joke, not saying a confession.

Somebody gasped.

Then somebody started laughing, and then a lot of people were laughing, and none of it was at me.

"It's fake," a boy near the front shouted. "He cut it!"

"He cut her!"

Dax grabbed for the microphone, and his hand shook.

"Okay, okay, that's a draft, that's an old draft."

"Your note says DAX," I said.

I said it loud, in front of the whole school, and my voice didn't shake once.

"You typed it yourself."

Behind me, the screen went black.

Dax had pulled the feed.

Rhett stood next to the curtain with his big hands hanging, looking at his brother.

Nobody did.

The crowd was already filming Dax, not me.

I walked offstage with my knees shaking, and Clark walked beside me, and nobody stopped us.

Backstage was a gray tent with a folding table and a cooler of Vott energy drinks.

I made it three steps before Dax's fingers closed around my wrist.

"That," he said, and his smile was gone, "was a mistake."

"Let go."

"Homecoming, Cecelia. You stand next to me on that stage as my girlfriend, live, with a big smile, or Vott takes your handle. Your contract lets me. Read it."

I tried to pull my arm free.

A hand closed over Dax's wrist, gently.

"She's with me," Clark said.

He didn't raise his voice.

Dax looked down at the hand, then up at Clark's face, and let go.

"Is that supposed to scare me?"

"No," Clark said. "It's supposed to let go of her."

Dax laughed once through his nose.

Behind us, the tent flap opened, and a girl came in, breathing fast.

Auburn hair, green eyes, a phone clutched in her hand.

My roommate Brooke stopped dead.

Her face went the color of paper as she stared at the man beside me.

"Clark?" she whispered.

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