Meanwhile, my classmates went on to college like nothing happened, enjoying their lives.

The memory of how my last life ended left cold sweat prickling down my back.

Maybe Molly noticed the color draining from my face,

because she turned to me, lip trembling, voice dripping with hurt.

"Miriam, what's that face supposed to mean? You don't want to buy the cheating devices with the rest of us? You wouldn't go tell a teacher about this, would you?"

Every pair of eyes in the classroom swung toward me.

These same faces—last life, they'd watched me slip from the rooftop edge, and their twisted laughter was still ringing in my ears.

I switched to a smile instantly,

pulled a fistful of hundred-dollar bills from my pocket, and slapped them down in front of Molly.

"Something this good? Of course I'm buying in. I'll cover the biggest share!"

Molly looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

But the doubt in her eyes was swept away by the eruption of cheers around us.

"Molls, this is amazing! With eight hundred from our class president, we've got enough!"

"This is it! I'm getting into Westbridge this year! All those years my parents spent grinding at the morning market, finally worth something!"

"Miriam, I didn't expect you to support Molly's plan like this."

Ethan stepped forward and slung his arm around my shoulders.

"Miriam, keep being like this from now on. You know how much I like it when you're good and do as you're told."

Ethan and I grew up together. We'd been side by side since we were kids.

We'd promised we'd go to the same university, do graduate school together, head toward the same future.

But in my last life, when I was hanging off the edge of that rooftop begging for my life, he was the one laughing the hardest.

Three years I'd spent tutoring him, giving everything I had without a thought for myself.

The bitterness started spreading through me.

"Hey, Miriam! Don't tell me you're already having second thoughts?!"

Ethan's sharp accusation yanked me back to the present.

I swallowed it all down and forced another smile.

"No, it's just—everyone's about to go their separate ways. Makes me a little sad, that's all."

"What's there to be sad about!"

Molly was stuffing the collected cash into her pocket, grinning the whole time.

"Two months from now, we'll all see each other again at Westbridge!"

The whole class erupted again.

"Yeah! Westbridge, here we come!"

"Two months, and we'll be together again at Westbridge!"

Looking at these excited, two-faced monsters, a chill of revulsion crawled through me.

I needed to get away from them. Every second less in this room was a second safer.

I grabbed my bag and headed for the door.

To keep them from getting suspicious, I made a point of patting Molly on the shoulder before I left.

"Be careful when you buy the devices. And tomorrow morning, when you're showing everyone how to use them before the exam, don't forget about me."

"Don't worry!"

Molly caught my hand. Not a trace of suspicion in her eyes.

"No way we'd forget our star class president!"

Once I was out of the classroom, I stopped at the corner and waited.

Sure enough, the moment I was gone, worried voices drifted out from inside.

"Molls, I heard they're cracking down hard at the exam center this year. What if we actually get caught?"

Molly glanced out the window toward the hallway.

I pressed myself flat behind the corner wall.

She didn't spot me. After scanning the corridor and seeing no one, her brazen laughter rang out from the classroom.

"So what if we get caught!"

Molly nestled right up against Ethan,

and the two of them said it at the exact same time:

"If we get caught, Miriam takes the fall!"

A wave of cheering erupted, and then someone asked in a small voice,

"What if Miriam won't admit to it…"

"She doesn't get to say no!"

Ethan stepped forward and clapped the student on the shoulder.

"She's got the best grades in our class—who else would they suspect first?"

"And there are fifty-six of us. Fifty-six people all pointing at her. Who's anyone gonna believe?"

"One more thing!"

Molly picked up right where Ethan left off, grinning as she spoke.

"Tomorrow morning, when I show everyone how to use the devices—nobody calls Miriam. Not a word."

"Why? We're not telling her?"

"Of course not. Her grades are so good, she can manage on her own!"

"But she already paid…"

"So? She lorded over us for three years. Think of it as payback for putting up with her."

Their laughter hit me through the wall, ugly and wide open, and I dug my nails into my palms until it hurt.

Of course. They let me walk out that easily—there was never a chance it ended there.

But I wasn't the Miriam Winfield of my last life anymore, the lamb led quietly to slaughter.

I gripped my bag and went straight to the homeroom teacher's office.

"Ms. Simmons, this year's early admission to Westbridge University—I want it."

Then I set my exam admission ticket on the desk in front of her.

"I'm not sitting for the national college entrance exam."

I wouldn't set foot in a single exam room. Let them try to pin something on me then.

My decision came so suddenly

that Ms. Simmons didn't even have time to announce it in the class group chat.

The next morning, I picked up my phone. Not a single message. My mouth curved.

My mom was president of the Parent-Teacher Association,

so she'd been up since dawn getting things ready to help out at the exam center.

"Mom, I'll go with you and Dad."

I stuffed a steamed bun into my mouth and grabbed my things.

"Sweetheart, you're not even taking the exam. Why bother? You've worked hard for three years. Stay home and rest…"

"I want to go."

I took a handful of small fans from her and tucked them into my bag.

"We were classmates for three years. Least I can do is see them off."

Of course I was going. I wasn't about to miss the fallout I'd been waiting for.

Lucky for me, there wasn't a single classmate assigned to the same exam room as me this time around,

so none of them had any idea I'd withdrawn.

Outside the school, I spotted Molly and Ethan walking side by side.

They spotted me too.

The second they did, both of them turned their heads in unison and walked the other way, avoiding me.

Once they'd put some distance between us, snickering drifted back toward me,

as if they could already see the ruin they'd lined up for me this time around.

My mom looked baffled.

"Miriam, what's going on with Ethan? And that girl next to him, she's in your class too, right? Why are they both avoiding you like that? They don't know you're not taking the exam! They didn't even say hello!"

"Oh, they probably just didn't see me."

I pulled Mom and Dad over to a quiet corner and sat them down.

"You've been busy all morning and most of the students are already inside. Take a break."

I was sitting by the school gates with my parents, chatting about life after college,

when a commotion broke out near the campus security office.

More than a dozen security guards and over a dozen teachers hurried past us, heading straight for the exam rooms.

Minutes later, they came back—hauling students out by the arms.

I stood up and craned my neck to look inside—all fifty-six of my classmates, every single one, with Molly and Ethan dead center. The parents who'd been gathered near the school gate were already surging toward them, and the proctor's face was ashen.

He turned to the parents crowding around him and spoke in a voice that cut through the noise.

"Parents of Senior Class 11, are you here? Come forward."

"Here!"

"Sir, what happened? They're supposed to be taking the exam! Why were our children pulled out?!"

"Exactly! If this ruins their national college entrance exam, can you take responsibility for that?!"

"Responsibility?!"

The proctor's expression darkened even further.

"Your children brought electronic cheating devices into the exam room! They don't even answer for themselves—and you want *me* to answer for them?!"

He turned to face Molly and Ethan, standing in the middle of the group.

"Do you know this year's new exam regulation?!"

"Anyone caught cheating during the national college entrance exam is permanently banned from taking the exam again! Your futures are destroyed by your own stupidity!"

The moment his words landed, the crowd erupted.

Every parent from our class went white.

"Cheating devices?"

Austin Henson lunged forward and grabbed the proctor's arm.

"Sir, you've got this wrong! My kid's always been honest—three years he's been grinding, up before dawn, studying past midnight. How could he bring a cheating device in there?!"

"That's right!"

Claudia Mason's eyes were already brimming with tears.

"Sir, this has to be a mistake. My daughter's grades are fine—her father and I sell from a stall at the morning market. Where would we get the money to buy her something like that?"

"It was Miriam Winfield!"

From the crowd, Molly pointed straight at me, tears glistening in her eyes, her teeth clenched.

"She made us all buy them! She said she wanted Westbridge University and she didn't think she could make it, so she wanted to cheat her way in!"

"That's right!"

Ethan fixed his eyes on me, voice cracking high and ugly.

"Miriam Winfield's the class president! She said use the devices for this exam—we couldn't say no! We were forced! You want to punish someone, punish her!"

Before the last word was out, the parents came at me like a mob that had lost all reason.

"You little bitch!"

"You're rotten to the core and you had to drag our Molls down with you?! Do you have any idea how hard her father and I worked to get her this far?!"

Claudia swung her arm and slapped me across the face.

She was on me before I could flinch—her palm cracked against my cheek full-force and my face was already swelling before the sting even hit.

My mother threw herself in front of me the second she saw what happened.

She looked at Claudia, face full of panic.

"Mrs. Mason, you must have it wrong. Our Miriam didn't—"

"Didn't what?!"

Claudia cut her off, voice like a blade.

She reached out and grabbed my mother by the hair.

"Of course you're going to say she didn't do it, right?!"

"You're her mother—you're exactly the same kind of trash she is. Of course you can't admit it!"

"A little wretch like yours pulls something like this? She learned it from you! You worthless piece of filth!"

Claudia raised her arm and slapped my mother across the face.

My mother was small and thin. She couldn't take a hit like that.

Claudia dragged her straight down to the ground.

The other parents swarmed toward my mother like they'd all gone feral, and my father threw himself over her, shielding her with everything he had.