by Vivi Barnes
“Something wrong?” I ask, shutting the door and sitting across from her.
“I don’t know. Did you buy some jewelry lately?”
I start laughing until I realize she’s not even smiling. “Um, no, why?”
She turns the monitor toward me. “Well, someone has. Two thousand dollars’ worth from our emergency account. You know you and I are the only ones who have access to it. Did your debit card get stolen?”
I peer at the monitor to see the line she’s pointing at. The transaction is with Abbott & Peterson Jewelers, a jewelry store about a mile from our house.
What the…
I reach for my wallet and find the debit card tucked inside its normal slot. I show it to Nancy, who cross-references it against the information on the monitor. “Are you sure no one else here has access?”
“Of course not.”
I believe it. Nancy’s protective of that account. It’s supposed to be a last resort in case the regular house account runs dry—something I think is pretty close to happening. Nancy’s been involving me for the past year just in case something were to happen to her so I’d be able to take it over for her. But I’ve never actually used the card.
“Well, if you didn’t and I didn’t, then someone decided to help themselves,” she says.
“Did you ask anyone else in the house? One of the girls?”
“No. And don’t just assume it’s a girl. Guys can purchase jewelry, too.”
I roll my eyes at the You’re a sexist, Z insinuation. I’m not—at least, I like to think I’m not—but it’s not worth arguing over.
“Obviously I disputed the charge, canceled the cards, and requested new ones sent to us. Why would someone steal money from this account just to buy jewelry, of all things?” she mutters at the monitor as I stand to leave.
“Maybe someone’s got a problem with the fact that we can’t make our own money from hacking,” I tell her. She looks over the monitor at me, her eyes speculating. I get it—I’m the one who’s most vocal about the fact that we shouldn’t have stopped hacking. I wonder if she suspects I haven’t really stopped, either. Most of my hacking has involved small deals—little transactions here and there, just to keep from getting rusty. Nothing major.
“It’s not me, so don’t get that idea in your head,” I tell her quickly. “But I could see someone else getting desperate enough to steal.”
“Desperate? This isn’t a loaf of bread, Z. It’s jewelry. Go ahead and cut up that card. It’s no good anymore.”
I head upstairs, hesitating as I pass by Maggie’s door. The music inside is cranked up, and I know she hates loud music. Of all the girls who moved in recently, Maggie seems to be having the hardest time. Everyone’s all over my back to help her acclimate here. I’ve tried to get Nancy to reassign that particular duty to someone else, but unfortunately, I’m the only one Maggie trusts. Me, the ex-boyfriend she can’t seem to get over. It’s one of the most uncomfortable situations I’ve been in, and that’s saying a lot.
I grit my teeth and knock on her door. The door is yanked open by a spiky blue-haired girl with tattoos creeping up over her tank and piercings invading her face. “Yeah?” Sunny says, her hand moving to her hip. “What the hell do you want?”
I’ve never known a bigger contradiction in terms than Sunny’s name and personality. “Is Maggie in here?”
She slams the door on me. So much for that.
I thought Jen was bad, but Sunny is like having a lightning storm living in the house. It makes me wonder what kind of escort she was, considering Bill’s preference for higher-class women like Maggie and Nancy. Although I don’t think I want to know.
I head to my room and sit in front of my laptop, the picture of Liv and me I once took with my phone now the screensaver image that tortures me. She’s laughing—her eyes lit up like she just heard the funniest thing. I miss those eyes. I miss her. The only one besides Nancy who knows my real name…my real story. The only one who ever loved me for the person I really am.
I can’t even say that for myself.
I really need to change my screensaver.
A light tap at the door sounds, then Maggie opens it. “You were looking for me?” she asks meekly. If it were anyone else, I’d go apeshit on them for opening my door. With Maggie, one angry word will freak her out, so I just say, “Come in.”
Withered—that’s the only word I can use to describe Maggie. This once happy girl who loved life now shrinks into the corners of Briarcreek. The dark rims under her eyes and limp, dull hair that once bounced over her shoulders only emphasize how much of a shadow she is now. It hurts every time I see her. I brought her to Monroe Street a long time ago, when it was too easy to convince a lone girl without home or family that she needed us. Maggie was a pretty girl with a knack for hacking—though she never got to be as good at it as the rest of us. And she loved me too much. Really, she loved the bad boy image of me, same as Jen. When I broke it off with Maggie, it took no time at all for her to join Bill Sykes’s escort service. A sad life of prostitution in another house.
And I let it happen.
Maggie is a constant reminder that the damage I did by bringing her into this life in the first place can’t be undone. It’s always going to be a knife stabbing me in the gut. Which is probably why I don’t have the balls to tell her to back off.
Maggie perches on the edge of my bed, her thin legs poking out from her dress like skin-covered bones. I sit next to her.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says, handing me a small envelope.
Uh-oh.
There’s no card inside, just a photograph. It’s a selfie of Maggie and me. I’m looking off camera and she’s smiling into the lens, happier than I’ve ever seen her. “Um…thanks.” I glance at her and she smiles, her eyes on the picture.
“When I was moving stuff from the other place to here, I found this. I’m giving it to you because I want you to know I’m okay with us being like this. I mean, like, just friends. I know you don’t look at me the same as you used to. But I don’t want you to forget me.”
Forget her? My gut clenches. “You okay?” I ask. Stupid question—of course she’s not.
“Yes. But I need a favor,” she says, her voice as thin as she is.
“Of course,” I tell her quickly. “Anything you want.”
She smiles at that. “I want my own room.”
This again. “Did you talk to Nancy?”
She laughs, and it comes out slow and soft like punctuated sighs. “Yes. She said it’s better to have Sunny with me. She thinks I’m suicidal. I’m not, you know,” she says, her voice pitched an octave higher. “I…I just need some space. Sunny’s so intense, and she never leaves me alone.”
“I don’t know.” As much as I can’t stand Sunny, I have to admit that keeping her around Maggie is probably smart. No matter how much she’ll try to convince me she’s fine, I can’t be sure that she’s not going to take a razor to her wrist at any moment. We’re all worried about it, and now she’s giving me a picture of us and asking me not to forget her? Nancy explained to us when Maggie moved in that it’s not that Maggie misses being a prostitute or that she misses Bill. She misses what had become her family at the other house. The girls she was closest to ended up moving out and getting other jobs. I don’t know why she didn’t join them. Maggie never did feel like she belonged with us. And as bad as it sounds, I never felt like she did, either.
“Z, please. Please,” she says, sliding her cold fingers through mine. “You can talk to Nancy. She’ll listen to you. Please.”
“I doubt she’ll listen, but I don’t think it’s a good idea anyway. You hardly ever eat anything, and you spend all your time in your room.”
“I’ll eat more, if that’ll make you happy. Please.” Her eyes move to the picture of Liv on my computer’s screensaver, and she frowns.
“Okay,” I tell her quickly, knowing she’s wondering why I keep a picture of Liv on my computer when I never kept hers. �
��I’ll think about it.”
Her face softens. “You still care about me, don’t you?”
“I care.” I put my arm around her. Of course it’s at that moment that Jen walks by the open doorway, glaring at us. She’s hardly ever around anymore, and when she is here, she acts pissed because Maggie’s back in the house. Which I don’t get because it’s been a long time since I was with either of them.
“Do you ever miss home?” she asks.
“Monroe Street? Sometimes.”
“Me, too.” Maggie rests her head on my shoulder. I’m actually surprised to hear her call Monroe Street home, considering she ultimately ran away from there to join Bill’s escort service. Then again, there was something about the Monroe Street mansion that was home to all of us. A shared sense of purpose, maybe.
“This place is so crowded,” she adds. “Do you think… Would you mind if I come here and hang out with you sometimes when I need to get away from Sunny? At least until I get my own room?”
“Sure,” I tell her, removing the hand that’s wandering along my thigh. How can I continue living under the same roof as two of my ex-girlfriends? One hates me, the other still wants me.
And the one I want is far from my reach.
“Thank you,” Maggie whispers, and I can’t remember what she’s thanking me for. “I still want my own room, though.”
“We’ll see.”
If I talk to Nancy about it, seriously put up an argument for how Maggie needs her own room, she’ll listen. Nancy won’t deny me, and I can’t deny Maggie. Everyone in this house owes someone something. Give and take—it’s how this house has run from the beginning.
I stare at the picture of Liv. I was happy then. I was Z, hacker who had it all. Corporations, banks—hitting them was easy. The chances of us getting caught are slim, no matter what Nancy thinks. The little transactions I do here and there in my own account are nothing compared to what I did before.
If only we could hack again, maybe life could go back to the way it was. We can only live off our reserve funds and investments for so long. Maybe I wouldn’t feel stifled like I do now. It’s an itch that won’t go away, and I have a feeling I’m going to scratch it. No matter what promises I made to Nancy about trying to stop.
Chapter Three
LIV
I can’t take my eyes off the single white rose hanging from my locker door.
Emerson grabs my arm. “You really do have a secret admirer!” She sounds a whole lot more excited than I feel.
“No, I don’t.” I yank the rose free from the door, dropping it as one of the thorns bites my skin. “Ouch.” A tiny drop of blood forms on my finger. Figures.
“You okay?” Emerson asks, picking up the rose from the floor.
“Yeah, it’s just—”
“What?” she asks as I gingerly take the stem.
“It’s sort of like the one my grandfather left on my pillow this morning.” What is the chance I’d end up with two white roses today? It’s not like white roses are rare, but who would do this?
“Maybe Theo?” Emerson asks.
My inner self gags. Theo Blakely, star basketball player and self-proclaimed “great guy,” has been asking me out for months, mostly by telling me it’d help my social status. I almost laughed in his face at that. If he knew my history, he’d run away from me, screaming.
On second thought, maybe I should tell him.
“Open your locker to see if there’s anything else,” Emerson suggests.
I turn the combination lock until it clicks. I cringe a little as I pull open the door, almost expecting something to jump out at me. It’s not like anyone at this school has been cruel to me. No mean girls picking on the foster kid who was too afraid to stand up for herself. At this school, where I’m just another girl from a wealthy family, nobody bugs me. And I’m not the awkward, insecure girl I once was. Well, at least not completely.
There’s nothing weird inside the locker. I exhale heavily. “Someone just put this on the wrong locker,” I tell her, grabbing my history book and slamming the door.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“With what?” Emerson’s boyfriend, Kade, walks up and grabs her around the waist, lifting her up to plant a kiss on her lips. “Happy Valentine’s Day, babe.”
“Liv has a secret admirer,” she tells Kade, nodding at the rose in my hand.
“Really?” Kade’s face lights up. “Awesome. I told Theo he should get you some flowers or something.”
“Kade, please don’t do that.” I don’t care if Theo is his friend—there is no way I’d go out with him.
“What? He’s not a bad guy.”
“Tell that to Becca,” Emerson says, shoving him lightly. “Texting a girl that she’s too boring to date is not cool. Some guys deserve to be alone.”
I reach out and deliberately drop the rose in the nearest trashcan. Hopefully Kade will give Theo the message. “I’ll see you guys later,” I offer over my shoulder as I head toward my first class. I’m sure Emerson is expressing her concern about my sad state of mind to Kade, who will try to think of which of his other friends he can set me up with.
The sucky thing about being single is that no one believes you really want to be alone. They think you’re either playing hard to get or hoping for a “special someone” to ask you out. Even Emerson doesn’t get it, though she always tells everyone else to leave me alone. At least she respects my feelings on that one.
My classes drag by all morning. But as soon as I walk into fourth period, my phone finally buzzes with a text from Grandfather.
That bracelet is not from me.
I stare at the text. Not from him? It has to be. Who else would send me a fancy gift like this and put it in my car that was sitting in my driveway? That doesn’t seem like a move Theo would make.
My eyes move from the new bracelet on my right wrist to my left arm, where the simple chain Jack gave me rests. The blood whooshes faster through my veins at the thought of him. Could this new one be from Jack? Is he telling me he’s finally leaving Monroe Street?
Whoa. Jack coming back after eight months? Highly doubtful. I’d made it pretty clear last time I saw him that the only chance we had was if he stopped hacking. For a hot minute, I thought that was going to happen. Eight months later…yeah, no. I shouldn’t even be wearing his bracelet anymore, but it didn’t feel right to mail it back to him.
Besides, Jack wouldn’t leave jewelry in my car. He would come directly to me. Maybe even climb up to the balcony like he did the last time, like I’ve imagined a million times since the night he left me to continue his life of crime.
He’s climbed up before.
My stomach clenches in on itself, and the room is suddenly twenty degrees hotter. I take a shaky breath. As romantic as I once pictured that scenario, thinking he’d actually climb up in the middle of the night to leave a rose while I’m sleeping is more stalker-like than romantic. But he’s not like that. Not the Jack I know.
But you don’t know him anymore. Eight months apart—
I text my grandfather: The rose?
A couple minutes later, I get a response: What rose? Is there something going on? Can you call me?
I’m suddenly very aware of the weight of the emerald bracelet, as if every single link is searing my skin. I unclasp it and shove it into the side pocket of my backpack. The other chain rests as comfortably on my wrist as it ever has. I leave it alone. I text my grandfather that everything’s fine and that I’m in class.
During the rest of science, I rest my forehead on my fingertips, staring at the book in front of me that’s become a jumble of symbols and formulas. Did Jack really put that rose on my pillow? Was I even covered by a blanket?
Stop getting ahead of yourself, Liv. This doesn’t sound like Jack at all.
I have Jack’s number programmed in my phone, though I haven’t used it once in the eight months we’ve been apart. Maybe I should text him. But now that I think about it, do I reall
y want to call him back into my life when I’m finally starting to feel like a normal teenager?
And if he didn’t do it—who did?
Emerson catches up to me as I walk toward the parking lot after school. “Hey, you okay?”
No. “Sure.”
“Sorry about this morning. Kade doesn’t mean anything by it,” she says.
This morning seems so far away, and I have no idea what she’s talking about. “By what?”
“Trying to set you up with Theo. I keep telling him that Theo’s an idiot.”
“I think it’ll be easier to teach a monkey to talk than to get it through Theo’s head that I’m not interested.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Well, monkey would definitely describe him.”
“Describe who?” Theo comes up behind us and rests his arm on my head. I pull away from him.
“Not now, Theo,” Emerson says to him. “We’re in a hurry.”
“Whatever. Plans tonight?” he asks me, turning to jog backward in front of me.
“Yes. I’m having dinner with someone.”
He stops suddenly, tilting his head. “Really?” The way he says it is like he’s shocked anyone else would ask me out. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. Too much of a throwback to my foster-care years when no one wanted anything to do with the weird new kid.
I open my mouth to snap back, but Emerson beats me to it. “Yeah, and the guy’s scorching hot, too. Plus, he doesn’t have to resort to shoving a rose with thorns in a girl’s locker.”
I wink at Emerson as Theo’s smirk drops into a scowl.
“Well, good luck with that,” he says with the air of someone who’s offended but pretending not to be. He turns to jog toward the parking lot.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Obviously Theo put the rose in my locker.” Theo putting a rose in my locker is a normal thing. Jack riding his Ducati two hours to do that is not.
Emerson glances at me. “Why, did you think it wasn’t him?”
