FOLLOWING OUR UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO get answers about what really happened to Benjamin, we threw our efforts out the window and decided to watch the football game. There's a time to fight and a time to relax.

From our position in the stands, we're looking right across at the marching band on the opposite side of the field, and had a great view when Quentin and Callum performed during halftime. I'm not a huge football fan, nor do I take pleasure in cheering for any team that Reece Dormer is on, but the five of us refused to let Terrence's prank smother our enjoyment of Homecoming.

Three minutes into the last quarter, I steal away to use the bathroom in school. I don't mind missing the rest of the game because it's clear from the current score that the Royals will win. When I emerge into the corridor, a voice sounds, creating a gunshot echo in a hallway full of quiet. "Did you like the show?"

I have an urge to scream, but pushing it — and the shiver of fright that runs through me — away, I turn to face Terrence. My lips pull taut into a cold frown. "What are you doing here?"

Terrence leans against the wall behind a row of lockers, hidden in shadow. His arms are crossed loosely, looking the picture of trouble. "Just checking up on a friend." Admittedly, it's a small slip of the tongue, but the way he calls me his friend makes my eye twitch.

"We're not friends," I clarify. "Not after what you did to Benjamin."

"Right." He eyes me with a guarded expression, but Terrence moves on quickly with barely a blink before I can peer closer. "Would you rather it had been you then? Or another of your buddies?"

"I— yes. You should have picked me," I answer resolutely. I draw my shoulders wider, raising my head to meet Terrence's hooded eyes. "You could have picked me. I mean, it wasn't really a chance draw, was it?"

Terrence pushes away from the wall and takes a step closer. His cheeky smile is as light-hearted as ever, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Why would it be? I built the whole rig myself. I put in the time and energy required to pull off those... special effects." He dances around saying anything concrete, anything incriminating. "I wasn't going to leave the finale of weeks of work to chance. Maximum impact for maximum effort."

That means he chose Benjamin specifically, for some reason. I fist my hands at my side, clamping down on the rage I feel. "And why did using Benjamin have maximum impact?"

For a moment I think Terrence will simply walk away. He rolls his eyes, unwilling to say a thing. Then he tips his head down condescendingly. "Because through him, I get to you."

The mocking, arrogant expression in Terrence's eyes makes me lash out. He can't rig an event just to humiliate my friend, dump him into a dangerously cold tank, chuck a snake in there for good measure and expect to get away with it. I take a step closer to him, which does not go unnoticed, and without warning I punch him as hard as I can.

Terrence recoils, hand coming to cradle his face. He nearly trips over his own feet — which I would have liked to see — but manages to stabilise himself. After rolling his jawbone experimentally, he chuckles. "Point proven."

My frown deepens at his derisive tone. I press on, angry but indubitably curious. "Where'd you get the snake?"

Feeling that the blow left no permanent damage, Terrence lowers his hand and smiles wickedly. "How about we make a deal? I'll tell you everything you want to know, if you tell me everything I want to know."

That immediately sounds like a bad idea. Of course, I want to know exactly what Terrence planned, but I have an equal desire to keep our plans hidden. The Revolution has barely begun; I don't want to sacrifice the headstart we built. There is a part of me that acts instantly, yelling at me to turn around and not get drawn into his game; the logical side. And, a desperate side that weaves its way through and whispers for me to find out. This side of me aches for immediate justice. Short-term satisfaction.

The next time I blink, I see Ben's frigid blue face behind my eyelids, making my decision in a split second.

"Deal." Besides, if Terrence's requests turn out to be untenable I could always do my best to lie. Hopefully it won't come to that.

"Follow me, then." Terrence turns and walks towards the campus green. I scurry to catch up to his long strides, falling into step with a racing heart and laboured breaths.

"You realise if you show me, I will go straight to Fisher."

Terrence laughs patronisingly. "Please. You think that puppet will do anything about this? Half the money for the Fair comes from Reece or Britt's families. He won't say a thing."

As we walk towards the stage, I realise something. In all the time I've known Terrence, there's never been a moment where he acts responsibly. He has no loyalty to me, but he also has no loyalty to Brittany. It's like he just acts on whatever whims fill his sail that given day.

Terrence just doesn't take anything seriously. High school must be a massive joke to him — one he'll never be the object of. One he finds incredibly amusing.

"Here's what I want to know," he says at length. "Are you and the math geek a thing?"

"What?"

"Like, you know..." Terrence holds up his hands, making his fingers touch lightly.

I search his face for any trace of humour and come up empty. He can't be serious. "Oh my God. No, I am not seeing Benjamin." Was that one of the things he wanted to know so badly, badly enough to sell his secrets?

"Is that all you wanted to know?"

"Yep." He casts a sideways glance at me. "Unless there's something else I should be digging for."

I shake my head, keeping my gaze fixed ahead. "No. Nothing."

Terrence holds his palm out. "Your phone, please. Can't have you recording any evidence."

With a grumble, I slip my phone from my pocket and hand it over. Terrence examines it carefully, probably checking that no sound or video is currently recording, and once satisfied he transforms back into the talkative trickster I see during daytime.

"I used dry ice as a cooling agent to get the water near freezing." At my infuriated expression, Terrence continues, "Near freezing. Fuck. He wasn't going to die. As for the snake, Delaney got uncomfortably close to picking up my trick. So glad your other friend convinced her to give up for the night," Terrence prefaces. "The snake never left the tank."

I analyze his face, for any traces of dishonesty. He seems dead certain, but I know how skilled a liar Terrence is. "I don't believe you."

He stares at me. I stare back. He sighs. "Believe what you want." A few moments of silence pass, before he chuckles, "It's still there, though."

"Can you— Just stop. I'm done with Monarchy shit for tonight," I say frustratedly. Delaney and I searched all around the stage, and there was no trace of the snake. Is Terrence trying to say that we're ignorant, or blind? "Don't get me worked up again. Let me spend the rest of my night peacefully with my friends."

Something flashes in Terrence's eyes, and for a split second, it looks like hurt. And then the shameless smile drops onto his lips, curtaining the expression from me. "You'll see. If you don't leave."

I sigh. Terrence is now giving me more questions than answers. Namely, why is he offering to tell me for next to nothing in return? His lips curve into a small smile when I stay on the path. With him.

Once out of the main school building, into the chilly ribbons of wind snaking through the field, we skirt around the edges of the fairground. The route is thankfully ages away from the football field, where pretty much every soul in town is right now. Imagine the scandalous image that would come with being spotted sneaking around with Terrence.

The dunk tank comes into visibility, its necklace of bunting having been removed and replaced with proper yellow emergency tape. No-one is to be found at the stage. Except for us.

Terrence steps neatly over the bunting surrounding the stage, looking over his shoulder with an inviting expression. I clamber awkwardly over the tape, avoiding the wet dirt around the tank. He mutters, not sparing me a glance, "I really thought you'd have figured it out by now, Sophie."

I remain quiet, pissed at his subtle attack at my self-esteem.

Then, out comes a key from a chain around his neck, and Terrence unlocks a little lock set into the stage I hadn't noticed. The side of the stage opens, and swings down on hidden hinges. The tank seemed to sit on the stage — as common logic dictates — but I now realise the illusion of it all.

Surprisingly, it's taller than anticipated, with some of it inside the wooden stage. It fits so neatly into a circular hole — it even casts a shadow there, which I realise must be the ridged formation of the tank — that I assumed the stage was hollow. But in the lower, shielded portion of the tank, the snake wafts around lazily. Actually, it looks quite cold.

Terrence smiles wickedly, finally letting me see the manic flame inside him. "Get it now?"

"Partially," I begin, "The snake never left the tank. I'm assuming you just kept it here the whole night, so no-one could see it."

"That's basically it. Except you left out one detail; a semi-permeable mesh that allows a snake to get in and out."

"Can I take a look?" I ask tersely.

This is walking evidence; and buried so tantalisingly close. How long did Delaney and I search, only to miss the tiny bottom corner of the stage where the tank is resting? Without my phone, I can't record anything. I start to reconsider whether this was the best choice, if I can't do anything about it.

"Go ahead." Terrence takes a step back and I stoop down to the ground, to peer under the stage.

Like he described, there's a thick plastic mesh with a slit in the middle, for the snake to slide through. It looks so seamless, and the same blue colour as the bottom of the tank, too. Though it pains me to admit, I can understand how we would have missed it. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that Terrence told me what to look for, I wouldn't be able to see it.

There's this weird plastic lump curving up a few centimetres off the floor of the lower tank; an opaque whitish colour. "What's this?" I ask.

"Oh, that. Cost a shitload of money. It's a remotely-activated heater, with some polymer around it, to protect all the sensor circuitry from the water. Better not electrocute the snake, right?" Terrence laughs, but stops when I don't find the thought of killing the harmless snake funny. "Anyway, we needed a way to make sure we could control when the snake came back to the bottom of the tank, instead of hanging around the math geek—"

The grass shifts behind me, sounding over Terrence's hushed, excited murmuring. Thudding footsteps follow the rustling. "Really, Tee, you brought Sophie along? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

When I turn around, I see Derek with a transparent plastic box in his arms. He drops it at his feet, not seeming perturbed by the rattles that echo. He lazily examines me, and I'm not certain if it's the cold or his unforgiving scrutiny that makes me hunch closer and shiver. Derek looks like he couldn't care less about my being here, irises shining faintly in the darkness.

"We made a deal," Terrence explains cheerily. "Besides, I have her phone. She isn't ratting us out to anyone, don't worry."

There's a moment of tension, before Derek slams a palm against the tank, smearing his hand through the condensation on the freezing surface. "Let's get to work, then. And since you're here, you are obligated to help."

I open my mouth to protest, but I really do want to get closer to the snake and see the intricacies of the tank. Derek sheds his shoes, leather jacket and climbs up the ladder on the side of the tank. Terrence follows him up.

Shit. He's going to jump in, isn't he?

With a splash too loud for our clandestine mission, Derek swings his legs over the rim and pushes off. He resurfaces almost immediately and shivers audibly, muttering some incoherent words before taking a gulp of air and diving again.

He kicks down, and sinks lower into the tank. From here, it looks like he's reached the bottom, but I know that the tank continues past our visibility. Derek disappears, past that blue boundary and into some unknown oblivion. Seriously, it looks like the tank just swallowed him whole. Five seconds pass. I know because Terrence is counting the seconds.

"In case he doesn't come up," Terrence explains. "He's got a minute to get in and out before I have to save his drowning ass. Hey, pass me the box."

I lift the box and Terrence reaches down to get the container off me. Sure enough, Derek wriggles back into the main area of the tank half a minute later. Because of the movement and shadow, I can see the slit of the tank, designed to allow entry into the other tank. With the blotchy snake wrapped around his left arm and shoulders, he breaks the surface of the water, flinging droplets of water onto us and gasping like a dying soldier. Shaky blue hands grip the ladder and Terrence unravels the serpent from Derek and places it into the tank, swinging its lid and latch down.

Derek stumbles out of the tank, slides immediately into his jacket, shivering, and exhaling puffs of white condensation into the air. "Fucking hell, next time, can we not use snakes?"

"Nerodia sipedon: the northern water snake. Perfectly harmless."

"So you've said," Derek mutters. "About a hundred times. Geek."

Terrence rolls his eyes. "That's an insult to geeks. Right, Sophie?"

It takes a lot of willpower to ignore the comment, but I press head with my questions. "What are you going to do with the snake?"

"Probably release it here. There's millions of them around rivers and lakes."

"What you said earlier," I recall. My last question is one I have been thinking about for far longer than Homecoming. "About getting to me. Is that your motive? Or Brittany's?"

Derek clears his throat and begins ambling away from us, strolling around the grass. Terrence meets my inquisitive stare with remorseful eyes.

"Mine."