My X-Ray Vision Sees Right Through You novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Vott Court

"Meet him properly" turned out to mean noon, the commons, and a stage.

Vott's crew had dragged a plywood platform into the atrium before the lunch rush, with the same black curtain, the same headset, and a banner that said VOTT COURT, LIVE.

Dax was standing on it in a fresh black jacket, smiling.

Over his head, the big screen showed a viewer count.

It said 212,000.

"We have a special case today," Dax announced. "Seniors, look at your own friend. A thief."

Rhett dragged a girl up the steps by the arm.

It was Laney, eighteen, a senior like me.

I felt my whole body go cold.

She was holding a plate of cupcakes, because she'd been selling them in the commons since nine, and a pink apron with flour on it, and she looked like she was going to throw up.

"No," I said.

Clark's hand closed on my wrist, gently.

"Wait," he said in my ear.

"That's my best friend."

"I know. Wait one minute."

On the stage, Dax lifted a small silver bracelet in a plastic bag.

"Last Friday a senior reported her grandmother's bracelet missing from the bake sale table," he said. "Laney Lund sat at that table all afternoon. The girl is here to testify."

A small girl in a cardigan, eighteen like the rest of us, stood at the edge of the stage, crying.

Her tears looked real.

Her grandmother's bracelet did not look real at all, and I couldn't have said why.

"It was on the table," the girl said. "Then it wasn't."

"I never touched it," Laney said, and her voice cracked. "I don't even wear jewelry."

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