I stayed up for hours after Olive went to bed. I found an old stash of security cameras in my grandfather’s office and spent the rest of the night creeping around the house, the backyard, stashing them in hidden corners. No one is getting into this house again without me knowing about it.
I went to bed at dawn.
My head pounds, my skin itches around the cut, and the bags under my eyes have their own luggage now.
Gramps and his newspaper are not at the kitchen table. Coffee has been made, but he’s not there. He continues to be not there until Cass shows up for school.
He’s avoiding me. I don’t think he’s ever done that before. Mom used to do it all the time.
“Holy shit, what happened to your face?” Cass says the second I open the car door.
I buckle my seat belt. Finding the words for everything that happened last night makes me feel weak and empty. Cass pulls out of my driveway, but she continues to look at me expectantly.
“Things went bad last night,” I say eventually. “But I’m okay, I swear. It’s just a little scratch.” As if on cue, the cut pulses.
“Yeah, I’m going to need more detail than that,” Cass says.
My grandfather’s words play over and over in my brain.
You have disappointed me.
I can’t let Cass down. Pretty soon, she might be all that I have left.
I take a deep breath and start. I don’t pause, don’t linger on any details. I keep my eyes trained out the window. The March sun glitters on hunks of icy snow, left over on the side of the road from months of plowing. They’re thawing. I try to keep my voice even, but Cass and I both suck in a sharp breath when I get to the part where the knife goes in.
When I finish, there’s a long silence. Nothing but the slick whirr of our tires on the slushy road.
Finally, Cass speaks. “I know you’re going to say yes, but seriously, are you okay?”
There is a part of me that wants to get it all out. I open my mouth, ready to tell her how scared I am, how much the knife hurt, how much my grandfather’s words hurt.
That man’s breath on my face. The glint of his teeth in the parking lot lights.
The bright slash of pain as the knife sinks into my flesh.
My wrist twisted behind my back.
Helpless.
I bite down on my tongue to bring myself back to the present.
“You can tell me,” Cass says gently. “Flora, someone wants you dead. It’s okay to be afraid.”
“It’s not someone,” I snap. “It’s Dorsey. I’ve been saying it for days, and none of you believe me.”
She gives me a bewildered look. “I never said I didn’t believe you.”
I shrug. “Not exactly feeling the support here. I nearly got killed last night, not sure what else it’s going to take to convince you that maybe I know what I’m talking about.”
Now she’s pissed, too. “Hey! It’s not like your theory doesn’t have all kinds of holes in it. Tell me again how Dorsey’s sneaking around school, leaving notes on your locker and sabotaging weight machines without anyone noticing? Don’t act like I don’t have your back just because I actually give a shit about logic.”
My headache batters the front of my skull. “Can we not do this? I got hurt, and I know that’s not great, but I’m not dropping the case, so everyone can stop asking.”
I know immediately it’s 100 percent the wrong thing to say.
“I didn’t say that.” Her voice shakes with both anger and hurt. “Do you really think I would ask you to do that?”
I don’t. But I didn’t think Gramps would, either.
When I don’t answer, Cass says, “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
She pulls into the school parking lot. “The thing where you’re an asshole, and in an hour you’ll realize and have to apologize.”
“Then I guess I’ll talk to you in an hour.” I bite down on my lip, but it’s too late to stop the words from coming out.
Cass parks the car. “Yeah, you know what? I could use a break from…” She gestures vaguely in my direction. From me. She needs a break from me.
Yeah, me too.
Cass gets out of the car and walks into school without looking back. I never even asked how her rehearsal went. I didn’t think I could feel any worse, but this day keeps proving me wrong.
By the time I walk into the school, Cass has vanished. I walk through the halls alone. I have history first today, but we’re doing some role-playing thing about the Jazz Age and I honestly can’t think of anything I’d rather do less right now. On the other hand, I can’t afford many more absences.
As I pass the guidance office, a photo of Austin Yi snags in my line of sight. I stop walking.
Austin’s photo is tacked to a bulletin board. Purple bubble letters across the top: RISING UP, UP, AND AWAY! The board is covered with construction-paper balloons. Each balloon has a photo of a senior, and underneath the picture is the name of the college they’re going to next year. It’s one of those barbaric things that guidance counselors dream up without any understanding of irony or high school social dynamics. Delilah Beecham’s CORNELL balloon is pasted next to Dylan Baker’s STARBUCKS BARISTA TRAINING.
Austin smiles in his picture, but his jaw is strained. SUNY PURCHASE.
Something clicks in my brain. When I leave the bulletin board behind, I walk much faster than before. In the opposite direction from my history class.
Austin has statistics this period. Last year, I stole the log-in credentials for the master attendance server. It was awful nice of Mr. Carpini, the front desk secretary, to leave all his information on a Post-it like that. Now I can find anyone in the school on my phone.
I tell Mr. Wagner that Austin is needed in the main office. I’ve never taken stat, so Wagner doesn’t know me. He waves Austin out of the class with barely a pause in his lecture. All eyes follow Austin as he walks out into the hall with me.
He shuts the door behind him. “What do you want? Haven’t you done enough?” The bruise on his neck is a hideous shifting continent of yellows, purples, and reds.
I lean against a locker and pick my nails. “You know, that’s an excellent question. I want the truth about Paige and Molly Sawyer. But we’ll get to that. For now, let’s talk about what you want. You want to go to college. University of Michigan—they offered you a scholarship, right? That’s a Division I school, very impressive. Everyone thought it was super obnoxious how much you bragged about it in gym, by the way.”
I push up off the locker and stalk closer to him. “And then today I was walking past the college counselor’s office. Apparently, you’re going to SUNY Purchase now. Decent school, but not as good as Michigan. And D-III! Quite the fall from grace.”
Austin’s ears turn red.
I, on the other hand, feel much better. My headache is gone. For a moment, Cass and my grandfather’s words shrink to background noise. It’s petty, but making guys like Austin squirm always makes me feel more like myself.
“Here’s what I think,” I continue. “I think something went wrong with your Michigan scholarship. Now you’re going to a cheaper school with a less promising football program. I think you started fighting because you need the money to pay tuition. What I want is to know why.”
The thick, corded muscles in his neck are rigid. “My knee. I tore my meniscus. I missed all the final scouting opportunities, and Michigan pulled their offer.” He paces away from me. “You like gloating over people losing their chance to go to college? Really nice. Funny, there’s a rumor going around that you’re an actual witch. That’s how you know so much.”
You know what? The assholes at this school have been making dumb-ass comments about me for years. I ignored it because I didn’t want them to think they could hurt me.
But they can’t hurt me.
I’ve been apologizing to everyone—Cass, Gramps, Olive—for days. I’ve been trying so hard to prove I’m not just the reckless, d
angerous Flora I was before, and it’s never enough. The truth is, I like doing this. I like figuring this stuff out. If that makes me a witch, then I’ll stock up on eye of newt.
I smile. “I do indeed enjoy the thrill of the dark arts. Okay, so. Good job being honest for once. Second test: Paige and Molly.”
He pales. “I can’t.”
“Austin,” I coo, “don’t make me hex you.”
He looks around. “They’ll kill me. Come on, you know the weight room wasn’t an accident. That’s the same machine I use every day. Somebody knew that. And did you see what they did to Paige? Anyone finds out I talked to you, I’m dead for real, and you might be, too.” His eyes land on my bandage.
It itches, but I don’t react. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll take my chances. If you don’t talk to me, you might be alive, but you’ll also be one of those sad sacks roaming the streets of Hartsdale for the rest of your life, because you won’t be going to college. All it would take is one well-placed call to the dean of admissions at Purchase. Big bad football player harassing sweet, innocent Paige Thomas? They won’t like that at all.”
He scoffs. “You’re bluffing.”
“Austin, I’d like to think that you and I have gotten to know each other over the last couple days. So here’s my question: do you really want to cross the witch?”
He looks at me with pure hatred, but I’m so far past caring.
“Fine. Anybody asks, you got this somewhere else.” He does one last scan up and down the halls. “There was a fight last November. Paige hit Molly in the head, and she went down hard. She didn’t get up.”
So Dorsey or his minions dumped her in an alley and left her there to die. All to make sure the Basement stayed a secret.
Was this his protocol? A fight goes badly, dump the body in a “bad” neighborhood, and blame it on rising crime rates? Valentine rattled off all those numbers about robberies in the area. I thought he was just trying to throw me off track, but how many of those stats were other casualties of the Basement?
Austin scuffs his shoe on the linoleum. “I would never have actually hurt Paige. I was just pissed. Molly was my friend.” His anger rushes back all at once. “Paige is one of the richest girls in school. What did she have to fight for? Now Molly’s in a coma for three months, and no one does anything about it? It’s messed up.”
“You didn’t come forward, either,” I point out.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I thought about it, but it’s like you said, right? I have to go to college. I can’t be one of those freaks who never leaves. Forget bullying, no school would take me if I got caught fighting for money. Most of the fighters, we’re not doing it for fun. People need cash. No one talks because we’d all have to pay.”
Something Cass said earlier rattles in my brain. The text, the note on my locker, the weight room—how could Dorsey have pulled all those things off without being noticed on campus? At the same time, I’ve had a hard time picturing one of my classmates sending those guys after me last night.
But the threats don’t all have to come from the same place. Austin’s right: there’s no shortage of people with something to hide, including him.
“I’ve been getting threats, too. Messages.” I watch Austin’s reaction.
He shrugs. “Well, obviously they know you’ve been asking questions.”
I try a more direct approach. “Did you send me a text message Wednesday afternoon? Warning me to stay away from Molly?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, not my style. I got a problem, I get in your face about it. Besides, I was in training Wednesday after school, and Coach always takes our phones during practice. Ask anyone.”
“I will.” Austin does have a temper. The whole reason he got hurt is because he lost his cool and blurted out Molly Sawyer’s name in front of me. And setting up an iCloud account isn’t exactly technical wizardry, but it’s definitely more creative than I would have believed him capable.
So whoever sent that text, they’re still watching me.
I try to get back on track. “What about Ava? Did she fight, too?”
Austin cocks his head. “Ava? I thought you knew. She recruited us. She was the boss. It was her show.”
His words hit me like a blow to the gut, knocking the air straight from my lungs. A million puzzle pieces race to reorder themselves in my mind.
Her NYU tuition. So much money. Too much to make by fighting. Lainie said she’d been acting weird for months. Since last summer. Elle Dorsey thought that’s when the Basement first got started.
And me. It had always seemed a little too wild, a little too miraculous, that Ava even looked at me. When she broke it off, it was like everything made sense again.
But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Ava would have known that if I got even a glimpse of what was happening in the Basement, I would want to shut it down. It’s not like I’m the kid who calls the cops because there’s alcohol at a party, but I wouldn’t have been able to stand by while people were getting hurt. Ava knew that.
Then again, I would have thought she’d feel the same way. But apparently, I didn’t know her at all.
My footsteps echo in the empty halls. The lockers bend and curve in funhouse distortions. Austin went back to his class. Theoretically, I’m walking to history, but I don’t even know if I’m going in the right direction.
Ava was running the fight club this whole time.
I picture Molly Sawyer’s bruised eyelids, the steady beep of her heart rate monitor. Paige’s distended, mottled face. Austin, desperate to get out of Hartsdale for college. Valentine letting himself get beaten to hell every night for information about his sister’s killer.
And Ava ruled over them all.
Stray bits of instruction trickle out of open classroom doors—a math problem, a song in French. I keep walking. One foot in front of the other. It’s surreal how normal everything around me is.
I remember last summer. Ava, lying in my bed. Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I slid my hand across her stomach, underneath her shirt, and she drew in a sharp breath.
“I like you, girl detective,” she whispered, her smiling mouth millimeters from mine.
I thought I knew her.
I push those memories away. It’s sick that I’m even thinking about this stuff. I’ve been so frustrated with everyone for the sanitized version of Ava they want to mourn, but maybe I’ve been just as guilty of putting her on a pedestal.
Whatever she was wrapped up in, Ava didn’t deserve to be killed. I have no right to judge her.
My mind conjures up another image. Ava, standing in the shadows at the edge of the ring. Watching with cold, emotionless eyes as Molly’s head cracks against the hard ground. Long moments pass, and the girl doesn’t stir.
My stomach flops like a fish on dry land. I might be sick, right here in the hallway.
A hand grabs my shoulder. I spin around so fast I nearly jerk my arm out of its socket.
Elle Dorsey holds her hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry!” Her brow furrows when she sees the giant bandage on my face. “What happened to you?”
The fingerprint bruises on my arm pulse.
His breath on my face. My back against the car door.
Sweat breaks out on my upper lip.
“What do you want?” It comes out breathy and weak. I swallow.
Elle slowly lowers her hands. “I want to help you.”
“What?” It’s such an odd combination of words coming out of Elle’s mouth that I’m shaken out of my haze.
“I think my dad is up to something, and I want to help you. For Ava.” Her eyes are glassy. Has she been crying?
Or does she want me to think she’s been crying?
“Why?” I ask.
Elle tugs on the sleeve of her jade-green sweater. Not a single hair is out of place in her blowout. “I wasn’t totally honest with you at lunch the other day. The thing is, Ava and I were friends.”
Okay, definitely a trap. “Spare me.
”
Elle’s laser eyes zero in on all my vulnerabilities. “What? You think because of your stupid obsession you knew everything about her? Clearly not.”
They say the Antichrist can pull your darkest fears and desires right out of your brain.
I’m not going to let her push me around. “If you’re trying to endear yourself to me, try harder.”
“We didn’t broadcast it to the world or anything, but we were friends. Last summer, my dad forced me to do this volunteer project in Whitley, and that’s where we met. We had this total Heathers feud for about a second, and then we bonded and grew to love each other or whatever.”
I force a laugh. “Okay, if you want to sell me on this, regurgitating the plot of every made-for-TV movie about girls at summer camp seems a little lazy, don’t you think?”
Elle’s heart-shaped face pinches with irritation. She’s used to everyone falling at her feet. “The Rosalind Coalition. Look it up if you don’t believe me. They teach math and science to girls in underserved communities. My dad made me give up my amazing summer taking business classes at Stanford to teach chemistry to poor people, but Ava was into that shit.”
I think back to the way Elle stood up to her dad the other day. How she didn’t want to exploit Ava’s death.
After everything I’ve learned, the flicker of irrational jealousy I feel is ridiculous. Still, last summer was the summer of me and Ava. If Elle’s telling the truth, Ava came over to my house every day, and I didn’t know anything about this.
But then, there are a lot of things I didn’t know about her.
Elle is much taller than me. I glare up at her. “Okay, say I believe you were friends. What makes you think your dad had something to do with her death?”
Elle slides the pendant on her necklace back and forth. “He’s been taking all these meetings with this guy. I think he’s an investor or something? I heard them talking about the Basement, what kind of profits it turns. I had no idea my dad even knew what it was, but I think he might be the one running the place.”
My head pounds. This morning, I was certain Dorsey was the boss, too. But then Austin set fire to everything I believed.
You’re Next Page 21
