“What’s that?”
She shoved the key into her pocket and looked everywhere but at me. “Nothing. Did you need something?”
“I only wanted to see if you were ok, but I see now that you’re fine, so I’ll leave.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, eyes cast down.
Great. I made it worse. I had to say something, to let her know that she’d be alright. Eventually, anyway.
“Don’t be sorry. Whatever’s going on, you’re going to be ok.” I tried to look encouraging, but my smile felt more like a grimace.
“Thanks.” She sniffled and turned around, going back to her lock picking.
I strode back over to Gideon and he followed me out of the school and toward my car.
“What happened?” he asked when we were safely stowed in my Jetta.
“It wasn’t her. I’m such an idiot. She doesn’t do anything herself. Why would she do this? She makes people who owe us favors do things for her.”
Gideon muttered a curse.
“I let myself get too emotional over this. If I had stopped for a minute to think about things, I would have seen it.”
“So, what have we learned?”
“That the Queen of Hearts is well protected. I need a more direct path to her.”
There were only two other girls I knew to be part of the Red Court. I hadn’t made any progress with Haley. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the girl she’d been talking to was somehow important. I wasn’t ready to close the door on the possibility of that girl being the Queen of Hearts.
Until I made any progress there, maybe it was time to focus my attention on the only other option I had.
The Fire Alarm.
CHAPTER 21
THE NEXT DAY, I woke up with renewed determination. Shauna, aka the Fire Alarm, was as well connected in the Red Court as the Queen of Hearts herself. If she knew who all the members of the Red Court were, did she know the Queen of Hearts, too?
From a few unassuming questions to classmates and members of the debate team, I learned Max Stanley was off the hook with the administration. Though I didn’t ask for it, his detention was also canceled. Everything magically disappeared, easy peasy. The lack of an MO was the Queen of Hearts’s MO. Her work was flawless.
Over the next few days, I tried to catch a rare glimpse of Shauna during passing periods. As a junior, she didn’t share any of my classes. She also tended to flock with a more popular set than would ever deign to glance my way. The only exception was Chase, who seemed like the exception to every rule.
After my behavior at the carnival, I was studiously avoiding him, rushing out the door after each class with an apologetic smile. When my mind stopped worrying furiously over the Red Court, my lips would tingle in phantom remembrance of the way his cheek felt when I kissed him. Each time, I shivered at the memory of the October chill that clung to his skin and how it was scented with his usual spicy warmth.
By Friday of that week, I was losing my edge to the lack of progress. Shauna was panning out to be another frustrating dead end.
“Hey, Ember.” Chase stepped in front of me as I was escaping from Carson’s Lit class.
I huffed, upset at missing an opportunity to follow Shauna. “Didn’t we talk about you getting in my way?”
He flashed a cheeky grin. “That was before you kissed me.”
I felt a scarlet flush heat my face and glanced around for any listening ears, ones that potentially belonged to the Red Court.
Recovering quickly, I said, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“I do, but I wanted to talk to you before you ran away again.”
My face had to be as red as the Queen of Hearts playing card in my wallet. I vowed to make Chase freaking Merriman suffer for this. If it was the last thing I did, I would pay him back.
“I’m not running,” I said through gritted teeth.
“It’s just an expression. I have something for you.”
He held up his closed fist and unfurled his fingers to reveal an origami heart. I reached for the neatly folded paper, but he snatched his hand away like a five-year-old. “You have to say please.”
“Please,” I crooned with mock sweetness. My curiosity was piqued.
His self-satisfied smirk irritated the ever-loving crap out of me, but he handed over the heart. Chase’s origami game was strong and the symmetrical heart impressed me with its crisp edges. He leaned close, his lips almost brushing my ear as he whispered, “Have a nice day, sweetheart.” Brushing past me, he left the room without another word.
Once he’d gone, I opened the heart, careful not to crumple the clean, sweeping lines so it could be refolded. It was our last Lit exam. Well, it was Chase’s graded copy, the one Carson handed back before the end of class. He got a 95 percent and had set the curve. I knew my paltry 92 percent wasn’t going to cut it this round, but the blood in my veins still heated that Chase was pouring salt in my wound. Just below his score, he’d written a note to me.
Maybe next time...
Chase
My own words from the first time we met at the coffee shop had come back to bite me.
I relished the satisfying rips of the paper as I shredded it into confetti and tossed the pieces into the trash. A snicker from the far corner of the room reminded me I wasn’t alone.
I turned to find a grinning Carson looking at me with amusement from his desk.
“A little competition might be good for you two,” he said.
“Good for me, you mean. When I beat him.”
I turned on my heels and marched out of the classroom.
Game on, Merriman.
* * *
I found Gideon waiting at the bottom of the stairs that led to the third floor.
“Do you want to go for coffee?” he asked.
“Excuse me? I think I might be dreaming.” Coffee was never on the menu if I was even ten seconds late to meet Gideon. His punctuality was a greater enemy than the Queen of Hearts.
“Whatever,” he shot back. His face was a lazy mask of boredom, but I knew him too well to buy the act.
“Aren’t you worried about being late?”
“We’ll be quick.” He turned on his heels to head toward my car. “I just need to get out of here for a minute.”
Before I could dig any deeper, the very person I’d been looking for appeared across the hallway outside the stairwell. Shauna was kitty-corner from our position with her back pressed against the wall.
Shauna shared our off-hour, but I had yet to catch her by herself. She was usually encircled by at least three other girls, all laughing like they hadn’t a care in the world. Despite her well-crafted image, I couldn’t seem to see anything but her eerie calm when she rescued me. That seemed like the real Shauna, not the giggles and girlfriends. She held an important role in the Red Court. She was the Queen of Hearts’s right hand. She was the embodiment of what the Red Court was all about.
I snagged the edge of Gideon’s shirt and pulled him backward behind the corner and out of sight.
“What the—”
“Shh. Shauna is right there.”
True to my word, I’d filled Gideon in on the details from my failed reconnaissance mission before Homecoming. He’d been stunned by my close call and morbidly curious about Shauna’s role in the Red Court. Much to my annoyance, he insisted on “helping” me follow Shauna around.
Staying hidden as much as possible, I peered at Shauna where she stood studying her nails, the picture of ennui. The sound of someone coming from down the hall caught her attention, and her head snapped up. The person approached out of her line of sight and stopped around the corner from Shauna.
After a beat, Shauna snapped, “What were you thinking?”
A petite dark-haired girl I didn’t recognize trembled with her arms wrapped around her middle.
“You know the rules. You call, I come.”
I looked back to Gideon and found his eyes wide with understanding. Another member of the Red Court was talking to Shauna. Neither girl had eyes on the other. To anyone passing by, it didn’t appear as though they were having a conversation.
“I know. It’s just that I think he knows, and I was told to call you if someone knows.”
“Calling me isn’t the problem. Panicking for no reason is the problem. You don’t call me all hysterical because your boyfriend might suspect something. You find out more and handle it.”
Even though I wasn’t on the receiving end of Shauna’s wrath, my face burned at the acid in her words.
“Don’t you dare cry, Gretchen.”
“I’m s-s-sorry.” Gretchen gave a great sniffle and took a deep breath. “What are you going to do?”
“What’s his name?”
“Sam McCormick. You’re not going to do anything to him, are you?”
Shauna rolled her eyes. “We’ll keep an eye on him. In the meantime, you are on probation. No jobs, no meeting your partner.”
“But I have to meet her. I got the photo of—”
“Stop right there. Do not tell me. I can’t believe you made it through initiation as careless as you are.”
Gretchen scrunched up her face, obviously fighting tears. I didn’t think I handled my encounter with Shauna as gracefully as I could have, but at least I didn’t cry.
“Sorry. Could you leave this in her locker, then?” Gretchen placed an envelope on the ground.
“Stop apologizing already and pull yourself together. It’s going to be fine.”
Shauna had already lost interest and was focused on her phone. Gretchen shuffled away like a scolded puppy. I’d learned my lesson about judging books by their covers with Haley, but this sad, quiet girl seemed to lack the qualities that Haley once told me about. More than anything, she didn’t seem to have an ounce of confidence in herself. What on earth was she doing in the Red Court?
Just as Gretchen ducked out of sight, Gideon’s phone started blaring. Shauna’s head lifted and I ducked back around the corner to shove Gideon roughly up the stairs.
“Stop trying to answer it and get moving!”
Gideon gave up on silencing the phone and bounded up the stairs two at a time. I followed as fast as my legs could carry me. I didn’t dare look behind me as we hauled ourselves to the top of the stairs and around the corner into the girls’ bathroom.
Gideon finally shut his damn phone off and we stood side by side against the wall, gasping for air. A few minutes passed, and it seemed like we were in the clear. Shauna, for whatever reason, didn’t pursue us.
“Why was your phone on?” I demanded.
“I was waiting for a call.” Gideon met my eye and quickly looked away.
“From who?” What could possibly be so important that Gideon would leave his ringer on and risk losing his phone for the day? Hell High had a generous phone policy compared to most other schools, but an incoming call during class was a guaranteed way to lose your phone and land in detention on a Saturday.
Gideon looked sheepish.
“I’m waiting.”
“Damien,” he answered quietly.
“Seriously?! Is that why you were so desperate to go for coffee?”
“I don’t do desperate.” He shot me an icy glare that could give Shauna a run for her money.
“Since when is Damien calling you?” Despite my annoyance, and almost getting busted by Shauna, I was nearly giddy for my friend. He didn’t open himself up often or fall into crush after crush. Gideon was hard to win over, but he was worth it times a million when you did.
“He was going to meet us for coffee. We’ve been texting a little bit. I wanted you to meet him officially and without a counter between you.”
I clasped his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’d be honored. I’m sorry my Red Court nonsense got in the way.”
He shrugged. “Being a spy was kind of fun.” The edge of a smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“It was, wasn’t it?”
Still holding on to Gideon, I dropped my head back against the wall. My heart beat at a gallop and adrenaline was singing inside me. My feelings toward the Red Court—bitterness and anger and exhilaration—were all tangled up in a heady mix that gave me a high like no other.
And I was officially addicted.
CHAPTER 22
THE QUESTION OF GRETCHEN dogged me through the weekend, a shadow constantly at my heels. I couldn’t outrun it on the track or distract myself with homework or reading assignments enough to avoid it. She was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, and I didn’t know why that bothered me so much. It was enough of a distraction to pull me away from the mystery of the girl from the carnival.
I looked Gretchen up and added her to one of the empty spokes on my corkboard. Her last name was Goldberg. She was a sophomore like me, but we didn’t have any classes together. That wasn’t too unusual with a class of over six hundred students, but I thought I’d at least recognize other kids in my grade.
Overestimating yourself again, Ember.
“Do you know anything about Gretchen Goldberg?” I asked Gideon the next Monday in the deserted section of the library. Gideon was covertly texting Damien that our coffee date was rescheduled for next week.
“Sure,” he said, not looking up from his phone.
“And?” I prompted when it became clear he wasn’t planning to participate willingly in our conversation.
“She’s in my math class. She’s really smart. Doesn’t tend to do homework, but she aces all the exams and that saves her ass from failing.”
I made a noncommittal noise. Smart but lazy did not Red Court material make.
“Is that who we heard in the hallway last week? Talking to what’s-her-face?”
“Yeah, and I can’t understand why she’s in the Red Court. I get me, obviously. I even get Haley and Shauna, but Gretchen’s different. She seems...”
“Nice?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yeah. She seems nice. And the rest of us aren’t. What does she want so badly to make her turn to the Red Court?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” he quipped before returning to his phone.
* * *
A text from Haley had me hauling to the theater room after school. It had been over a week since Homecoming and I’d received nothing from my partner since the carnival.
“What’s going on?” I said after kicking the door open in my best Haley impression.
She sat perched on the sofa, unamused by my antics. “We have some work to do.” Her expression was bordering on pissed off. Well, more pissed off than usual.
I was instantly on guard. “Ok. What kind of work?”
She sighed. Seriously, what the hell?
“The kind where we need to do some cleanup.”
“Again? Sheesh. First the carnival and now this? Are we the only competent ones in the Red Court?”
“You did get busted when we broke into the school.”
“Fair enough. How can I help?”
“Another team was working on this, but we’ll have to step in to finish.”
I thought of Gretchen and her probation. Was this her job? Haley handed over a folder with some notes on a student that graduated two years ago. Someone who still owed us a favor and hadn’t paid up when we called it in.
“Oh,” I said, “I know him.”
It was April’s ex-boyfriend Alec, the one who’d moved on to a happy life without her. Not that the breakup was his choice. But still, his memory caused April pain on an ongoing basis.
“I know. I read in
his file that he used to date your sister. He’s going to college in Denver now.”
“Lucky him. Shiny new life. Shiny new girlfriend.” Whatever we’d be collecting from him would be my absolute pleasure.
Haley studied me, perfectly still. It seemed like her version of the Gideon arched brow. Something I’d done interested her. Maybe it was the malicious light that was undoubtedly glowing in my eyes. “Shiny new fiancée, actually. They just got engaged.” Haley paused a beat to let that fact settle in. “He never had to repay his favor while he was still here, but as you know, no one ever really stops owing us.”
“What did we do for him?”
“Seems like we helped him land the lead in the musical a few years back.” Haley was back to business, scanning through her tablet for additional notes.
I remembered my mom’s birthday and Alec’s need for applause and attention. Ugh. Gross.
“And what do we need from him?”
“To repay the favor in kind. Auditions for the spring musical are in a week, and we have a request to help a certain someone get a role.
“All we need is for Alec to make a phone call to Mrs. Conrad, his old teacher. Ask her to look out for a new talent. Fortunately for you and me, a lot of work has already been completed. This should seal the deal.”
I flipped through the rest of the dossier. A printed photo of Alec meeting with my sister was the final page. They were sitting across from one another, hands linked over a table. Because I knew April, I could see the tension in her expression, but I doubted anyone else would notice it. The jump from friends to something more would be an easy assumption to make based on the photo.
“What is this?” I looked to Haley, whose face was carefully blank.
“The only leverage the other team was able to get on Alec to use against him.”
This must have been the thing Gretchen had to deliver her partner. The missing piece for her job.
“But that’s my sister. And this picture is recent.” April was using her new lighter-weight manual wheelchair, which she’d gotten only a month ago. Haley had to know who was in this picture with Alec.
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