We’re at lunch when the video posts. My phone buzzes with the notification, along with the phone of pretty much every other person sitting in the cafeteria because I don’t know of anyone at Stadium who doesn’t follow Shea. If they don’t, it’s one of those spiritual-rejections-of-online-overexposure … and, let’s face it, who has time for that?

So around me, 765—minus maybe 12—hands reach for their phones. That’s half our school, everyone who has B lunch. The other half sit in study hall, so the proctors are probably losing their minds writing behavior tickets for phone use in class.

We all want to see what Shea posts. We all want to know where she is. The rest of the school believes Shea ran away. They think the content houses in California or Nevada recruited her and she’ll post a big reveal in a week or two.

The police came to campus to conduct interviews for two days. Not two full days. They came twice, set up shop in the counseling office for an hour or two each time, and listened to people Shea and I don’t really know claim that she often talked about wanting more exposure, that she’d been acting secretive, that she was really upset about her mom’s upcoming marriage.

I hear about this once the cops have packed up and moved on. I hear people comparing theories when I walk through the halls. They whisper behind me as I sit at my desk and wait for class to begin. Sometimes I interrupt them to issue corrections. I say, “You know she could really be in danger, right?” and “When you’re just offering guesses then you’re sending the police off with false leads.” But then I just get defensive dismissals. Worse, they give me pitying looks. No one’s intentionally serving up misinformation. I know that. They’re just describing the Shea they expect to exist.

At another time, a girl might go missing and the whole school might gather for a moment of silence. Instead, here at B lunch we all bow our heads together and separately watch the reel on our phones. I watch the full 68 seconds and then watch again. There’s a second person in the video—a girl our age, but I don’t have time for her yet. I see all Shea and only Shea. Lines of text begin cascading down the comment section, and I know that some of the hands typing are right in this room. While I view the video a second time, I feel 765 sets of eyes on me—maybe minus 12, maybe not. It’s not impossible to think that everyone is staring at me. They weigh my head down; I can’t lift it to meet anyone’s scrutiny.

I know why they are staring. Most people think that I only miss Shea’s coattails. Some of them assume I’m in love with her. Some of them believe I know exactly where she is.

Next to me, Diana sighs. She feels it too. For a second I feel guilty. The moment I felt my phone vibrate at my hip, I forgot Diana existed. Let alone sat next to me. Now she asks, “You ready to head out?”

“It’s gonna feel like a perp walk.”

Diana’s voice goes loud when she’s angry. “Well, it shouldn’t feel like that. Let them stare. Shea doesn’t look right. You’re seeing this too, right, Delancey? These clowns can just keep scrolling. Nobody’s gonna do anything to help.” Diana starts gesturing wildly at the tables of classmates around us. The low murmur starts and then gains volume. Diana full-on yells over the crowd. “Just go back to your organic corn dogs—nothing to see here.”

Diana stomps to the kitchen window and slams her tray down. I sling my bag over my shoulder and keep my eyes down, focused on Shea. Someone jostles me and I almost haul off and hit them. That’s how often I function on defense now. But it’s only Di, looping her arm through mine. “I’m gathering the troops. We’ll set up a situation room, right?”

“Right.” I try to sound sure of anything. I’m on my fourth view of the post. Diana texts furiously as we walk. “Jolie is lame and will not leave study hall. What is so hard about asking to go to the restroom? It’s like I need to write an instruction manual for these people. We’ll use the theater department again?”

“Yeah, I think so. The Black Box.” After the second Cure video, we agreed to meet up within a half hour of any post to Shea’s channel. We drop anything we need to.

I know that Diana believes me. She doesn’t speak the language of sugarcoat. Each time we gather, I half expect the others to quit showing up.

But we get to the room, and they are already sitting at the conference table. Even Jolie. She’s crouched by the projector, hooking up her phone to the laptop and her laptop to the projector.

*   *   *

Pearl raps her knuckles on the table. “I think we need to make an agreement right now. We don’t read the comments.”

“That’s right,” Di says. “Pearl, that’s a good idea. I am telling you, we could all do without that noise. We want to focus on Shea. No comments.”

“No comments now.” I try to keep my voice low, so it doesn’t come across like a command. “But there might be information to be found in the comments. Shea might comment, even under a different handle. Whoever has her might comment.” I see their looks slide around the room. It scares them when I talk like this, and Shea and I can’t lose their allegiance too. “Or whoever she’s with. Later we have to read every single comment. And we need to leave our own carefully constructed comments. That’s the only way we can reach Shea. Or this other person.”

“Or people,” Jolie’s boyfriend, Marcus, offers.

“People? I only saw one other person, and she seems about the right age and shape to be attached to that second pair of legs from the last video.” Diana slaps the desk.

“That doesn’t say anything definitive. It makes more sense that at least two people have her. If we think Shea is being held against her will,” Marcus theorizes. “Otherwise, why wouldn’t she fight?”

“She could be injured,” Jolie says.

“She didn’t look injured.”

“Well, she sure didn’t look good.” Diana nods to Jolie. “Projector ready?”

“Yeah. The picture should be clearer this time.” Before she hits play, Jolie holds up her hand. “I just want to confirm: We’re all just going to cut sixth period. We’re okay with that?”

Diana snorts derisively. “You want to tell Shea that we needed to schedule our rescue efforts around Algebra II?”

Marcus says, “Some of us have transcripts to protect, Diana. I’m not saying class is more important, but let’s just all make the decision instead of you directing the entire effort the way that—”

“The way that what?” Diana’s voice is a blade, slicing through the room. No one fills in the blanks, but we all think it: Marcus meant the way that Shea choreographed our dances. The way that Shea chose songs. The way that she directed everything.

He doesn’t know, I remind myself. He just showed up to rehearsals to pick up his girlfriend once in a while and probably thought Jolie should be the one front and center. That’s what you’re supposed to believe about your girlfriend. It’s not Marcus’s fault, after all.

“So okay,” I say, “let’s decide. This is important, right? It’s worth skipping class—to me at least. If the academic stakes feel higher for you, we get it.” I look around the room and pronounce each word very carefully. “That doesn’t mean you don’t care about Shea.”

“Maybe it means you care a little less about Shea.” I shoot Diana a warning look and she holds up her hands. “All right, all right. We all care equally about Shea.” She drops her voice to a mutter. “Some of us apparently also really like math.”

No one gets up to leave. I’m eager to get started. We’ve spent enough time on team upkeep. “Okay. Let’s start with song choice. Can someone link to the song?”

“It’s ‘Would?’ by Alice in Chains, released in 1992.” Jolie keeps typing. “Won a MTV Video Music Award for Best Video from a Film, Singles. Also featured in season two of The Punisher.”

Marcus shrugs. “Well, that’s eclectic.”

“Oof,” Jolie says, grimacing.

“What is it?” She hesitates. “Jolie, come on.”

“ ‘Written by Jerry Cantrell in memory of his friend Andy Wood, the deceased lead singer of the band Mother Love Bone,’ ” she reads.

“Well, I doubt that’s relevant,” Marcus says firmly.

“Do we know that, though?” Diana asks.

“It’s an angle. But wherever she is, I can’t see Shea being able to research the origin of each song,” I point out. “Grunge really isn’t Shea’s speed.” She hasn’t been harboring some secret grief for the guy from Mother Love Bone.

“What about the time period?” Pearl bites the eraser of her pencil, thinking. “It’s all late eighties, early nineties, so maybe Shea’s with someone older.”

“The girl in the video seems our age, maybe even younger. It’s not going to be her kind of music either.”

“We don’t know that.” The theories fly around the room.

“Whoever took Shea could have taken the other girl too.”

“So that would mean someone in their forties is just collecting teenagers and filming them?”

“Right.” No one says anything.

“But you know? Shea does that—she likes bringing back old songs and reintroducing them. She’s been all over retro lately,” Diana says, and we all nod, reassuring ourselves. No one wants to believe that Shea is held captive by a fifty-year-old Pearl Jam fan.

I say, “I think we need to watch the video frame-by-frame. Let’s pull up the song lyrics and zoom in on Shea.”

It’s harder to see her on the larger image projected on the wall. Somehow, she looks farther away.

“Check out the way Shea looks at the other dancer,” Jolie says. “Does anyone else think she’s afraid of the girl?” It’s true, every now and then Shea looks to her side, like she’s checking to make sure the other girl is pleased. Sometimes Shea looks directly at the camera and then right at the girl, like she’s aiming to pull the gaze of the audience to the other dancer. It works; I follow her eye movements and concentrate on the face of the other dancer.

The girl looks vaguely familiar. She also looks like Shea, so I chalk it up to the way Shea’s fans will glom on to these tiny details of her appearance and sort of claim them for themselves. They both wear heavy eye makeup, full-on masks that cover whole swathes of their faces. Like they’re playing Power Rangers or Zorro. It’s a look, for sure. Very Ziggy Stardust. Shea’s done up in a bright violet color, which alarmed me at first. I worried she chose it to cover bruises, but I don’t see a trace of that when we examine the close-ups.

We do notice weirdness with Shea’s right arm. Whether it’s the camera angle or her movements, the picture goes fuzzy right over her arm, no matter where Shea moves. Jolie, who has as much tech expertise as any of us, pulls up the video on her laptop and nerds out with her zoom button. We still don’t land on much of an answer. “See? You can see how it’s wavy right there. The other girl’s arm doesn’t do that. It doesn’t happen on Shea’s left arm. But if you look at every shot, her right arm blurs in the same place.”

We watch again. “She keeps looking down at that spot too,” Diana observes. “Hey, turn up the sound—see how the song lines up.”

We stand closer to the screen and listen. So I made a big mistake / Try to see it once my way. Each time that chorus plays, Shea looks to her left arm. As soon as Pearl points it out, it seems so obvious. I can’t unsee it. Shea even stares directly at the camera, widens her eyes, and looks down at her left arm. She’s all but pointing.

“How is her arm a mistake?” Marcus asks. “Maybe she injured it? Could she have written a message on her arm?”

“Why would she write a message on her arm of all places?” Di snaps. “Goodness. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m just thinking aloud. You’re so critical.”

Pearl moves to stand between Diana and Marcus before they use their own arms to throw punches. I watch her lips move; she repeats the lyrics in time with the video. “Guys, enough,” she says, but she’s not fully focused on the fight erupting on either side of her. Her lips move—singing, thinking. “Maybe she’s just using that phrase to get our attention. It’s the next line: Try to see it once my way. Right? Do you get it?”

“I don’t get it.” I hear the defeat in my voice. The heads around me shake too.

“Maybe she knows the video will look a different way.” Pearl falters as she speaks, like she’s fitting the pieces together. “Yeah. Like see it her way—the real way.”

“So that the way we’re seeing it—”

“Is not real. You mean it’s edited?” Marcus asks.

Jolie nods. “That would account for the blurring. Final Cut does that sometimes. But why just edit her arm?”

“She’s wounded. I think she’s injured. You can see when she hits fourth and fifth position, her arm drags, like it meets resistance.”

“You think she has a cast?” Jolie pauses the video and we stare at Shea. We go back and watch again. The only other time Shea looks directly at the camera is during the chorus. Layne Staley howls about trying to get home. He sings full throttle, his voice raw with pain, and Shea beams her brightest smile at the camera. And then her head jerks. It looks like maybe she shivers.

“Right there! Could she be shaking her head, maybe?” Marcus taps the screen.

“I think that’s reaching,” Diana says.

“Yeah, well, we’re supposed to be reaching. We’re freeze-framing a TikTok video for hidden messages to see if our friend was kidnapped.”

“You think she’s saying she didn’t run?” It’s what I believe, of course. I’ve never believed that Shea just ran. But it almost hurts to ask out loud.

“She could be saying that,” Jolie says gently.

“Does the other girl do any of this stuff? The pointed looks? The twitches?” We watch the video again, this time fully focused on the girl beside Shea. I swear I recognize her, but I can’t quite place it. It’s like when you wake up and remember sort of what the dream was about. “Does anyone know her? I feel like we know her?”

“From the fair?” Marcus asks. “Does anyone remember seeing her at the fair?”

“The makeup makes it hard.”

“I know her from somewhere,” I tell them. “Maybe from the meet and greet? That would make sense.” I try to picture the wooden amphitheater, the way Shea kept smiling and signing. I think I spent the entire time pouting, resentful that her mom had booked an appearance on our night out. I was so focused on feeling slighted. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. This girl could have been there. I wouldn’t have noticed.

Marcus barks out, “Hey—hold up there. It’s another blurry spot. See? By the other girl’s foot?”

“Another cast?” Diana asks like even she thinks the suggestion is nonsense.

“It’s not fuzzy on the other girl’s foot. It goes fuzzy near her foot. Like on the floor. You can barely see it because of the grain on the floor but it does blur.” Jolie stands up and traces a line from the floor directly to Shea’s right arm. “Do you see it? It’s like a line or—”

“A chain.” Diana is the only one bold enough to say it out loud. I know she’s right because all the air seems to leave the room at once. We all just stand there, staring at the screen and trying to breathe. When you know it, it’s easy enough to imagine it—the straight line running across the floor and up to Shea’s arm, the way it weighs down her movements. She keeps directing our eyes to her wrist, insisting we notice. They way her jumps pull back just a little and her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

“It’s not just the lyrics. It’s the band name.” I choke saying it. “Alice in Chains.”