by C. L. Stone
“Watch your fucking step,” North bellowed, turning to face off whomever it was, but stopped short.
Jade stood by, in a short black skirt and a sheer dark T-shirt that revealed a tight pink tank top underneath, and black high-heeled boots. A dark eyebrow arched, and her hot pink lips twisted into a smirk. “Oh, sorry North,” she said, her voice immensely softer than I’d heard it before. She blushed, tucked her head down and looked up at him through her lashes and stuck a finger to her lip.
North’s fierce look softened, his shoulders dropping. “No,” he said, rubbing a palm across the back of his neck. “It’s my fault.”
My stomach twisted into a harsh knot and my teeth clenched. What was he doing? What was Jade wearing? And why was she suddenly so... coy?
“Will you be at the party tonight?” Jade asked. She batted her eyelashes. “Jay was just asking me if you would.”
“Yeah,” North said.
“Perfect! Oh, I mean, that’s good.” Jade flicked a look at me and Luke and then twinkled her eyes back at North. “I’ll see you there.” She turned down the hallway, walking away slowly.
“North,” I said, when I thought she was out of earshot. Jade was up to something. I couldn’t believe I forgot about the party. She’d said I wasn’t invited and it would just be cheerleaders and the football players. Now she was acting sweet. North had rejected her before. Did she think changing herself a little would help North change his mind? But I was still sure she was the one that put the drugs in the water at the last party. I couldn’t let North go to the party if she was up to something. “I have to tell you...”
North turned, nudging me toward homeroom. “Hurry up,” he said. “We’ll be late.”
I bit my tongue for the moment. He kept a hand on my back while we weaved our way through the crowds of people.
When we made it to homeroom, Luke sat in front of me and North sat behind. I turned, kneeling in the chair to face him. “Don't go to the party,” I said.
North’s eyebrows shot up. “What? I have to go.”
I looked around the classroom. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of anyone overhearing, and I wasn’t sure how to tell North. I wanted him to take me seriously, and not think I was just jealous. I dropped a hand on his arm, desperate for his full attention. “Jade’s already said I wasn’t invited and she...”
“It’s just the cheerleaders and the jocks,” North said. “I already know.”
“Yeah, but,” I slid my eyes back toward the students, unsure.
“Baby,” North said. He captured my hand, squeezing it. “Just tell me.”
I blushed. I leaned over his desk. He caught my intent, and tilted forward so I could whisper. “I’m pretty sure she put the drugs in my drink at the last one.”
North tilted his head back to catch my eyes. “Are you sure?”
“She never said outright, but I’m pretty sure.”
North’s eyes did a sweep of the room as he raked his fingers through his dark hair. “She’s been on my ass lately.”
“What was with the get up?” Luke asked. “I’ve never seen her wear pink.”
“She was wearing pink?” North asked.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Like she was trying to wear things Sang wears. Only slutty. It was kind of creepy.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go,” I said.
“I have to,” North said. “Blackbourne’s orders. We’ve got to get along with the football team.”
“Wouldn’t he change his mind if he knew?”
“When he hears about it, he’ll want me to go to see if she tries to drop things in people’s drinks, and maybe find out where she gets her stash from.” North pressed a palm to his face, rubbing. “I really hate this fucking school.”
“Mr. Taylor,” Mr. Ferguson, the homeroom teacher, said with a tone of surprise and disappointment. He turned his attention to us. “There’s no cursing on school grounds.”
“Sorry,” North said.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to send you to the Principal’s office.”
North huffed, grabbed his bag and slung himself out of the chair, heading toward the door. He took one look back, meeting my eyes. The door closed hard behind him.
I twisted around, sitting back into my seat. I shared a glance with Luke, feeling sorry for North and at the same time hoping Mr. Hendricks wouldn’t give him detention or worse.
ATYPICAL MUSIC CLASS
Later, North was in math class and hadn’t gotten detention. I suspected Mr. Blackbourne rescued him from that, but North never said.
North escorted me to third period, and we stood just outside of Music Room B.
“I thought I was supposed to sit in the office,” I said. Ever since we had a bomb scare that targeted Mr. Blackbourne, he had me do homework in his office with the door locked.
“Change of plans,” North said.
That happened so much these days.
North checked behind his shoulder, but we were out of view from the general hallway. “You’ll be okay?”
“Should be,” I paused, hesitating. “Will you?”
He turned his head back toward me. “What did I tell you about worrying about us?”
“You worry about me. Fair’s fair.”
He grunted, rolling his eyes. “You’re impossible.”
What did he want me to do? Not think about them at all? “Did you not want me to care?” I asked.
His eyes flashed. He frowned and then reached out, placing his palm on the back of my neck. He drew me in, and his head bowed until his forehead touched mine. “Don’t want you to look so damn scared all the time.”
“I don’t know how I look,” I said. Did he notice the same thing Kota always saw?
North’s fingers massaged my neck and for a moment he was quiet. “Beautiful, Baby,” he said in a low, guttural tone. He released me and started walking off. “Always beautiful.”
I floated on the spot after he disappeared around the corner, like waiting for him to return and tell me that again, because it made my heart rock hard against my ribs, but my brain refused to believe it.
When the hallway started to quiet, I hurried to open the door to Music Room B before the bell rang.
Mr. Blackbourne stood by the piano on the far side of the room, but he was talking to someone else, a tall man with dark hair hanging to his chin. The stranger was leaning with his elbow against the back of the piano. He wore jeans and a drab olive button up shirt, with the sleeves rolled up.
The stranger’s gaze moved first, settling on me, a look of genuine surprise catching in his dark eyes.
Mr. Blackbourne paused in whatever he was saying, following the man’s attention. “Miss Sorenson,” he said in a quick welcoming tone.
“Mr. Blackbourne?” I was curious about what was going on.
He gestured to the stranger. “This is Mr. Toma.”
Mr. Toma strode forward, his hand out toward me. “Axel,” he said.
I left my book bag on my shoulders and met him halfway into the room. I shook his hand. “Hello,” I said quietly.
Mr. Toma checked with Mr. Blackbourne, and a silent bit of communication went between them. I sensed right off he was Academy, and he may have been checking with Mr. Blackbourne to see if I was.
“She’s here for a violin lesson,” Mr. Blackbourne said.
Axel raised his eyebrow. “Without a violin?”
I stood back with a finger poised over my lower lip. Had I been wrong? This wasn’t someone from the Academy? Mr. Blackbourne didn’t want to let him know how much I knew?
“Officially,” Mr. Blackbourne said. There was another look, one suggesting he wasn’t going to offer much more on the topic.
“Ah,” Mr. Toma said. He turned to me. “Don’t let me interrupt any more then.” He waved a goodbye and left the room.
My knees and elbows were locked straight, well after the door had closed. My eyes met Mr. Blackbourne’s. What now?
“We may have learned the iden
tity of the drugs being passed around,” Mr. Blackbourne said. He gestured back toward the music room’s door and proceeded toward it.
I placed my book bag on one of the chairs and met him at the door. He opened it, scanning the hallway.
“What is it?” I asked.
“JH14,” he said. I’d meant where we were going. He touched a finger to the bridge of his glasses as if to adjust them, but they were already perfect on his face. “A brand of synthetics. I believe it’s the same formula North experienced not too long ago.”
“Oh,” I said. A synthetic of what?
“While it could be something else,” he continued, “this is the most likely drug. It fits in with the suggested side effects we’ve seen and it’s currently popular. This particular batch is extremely harmful. We’re probably looking at a few more weeks of incidents. Another Academy team stopped the major distribution, but there were several purchases made and spread out, namely among students.” He stepped out, holding the door for me.
I followed. “Why don’t we just tell people that it’s bad?” I asked. I’d come across the occasional pot smoke in the bathroom of my old high school, but so far here at Ashley Waters, I hadn’t witnessed anyone doing such things. The bathrooms smelled so overwhelmingly of cigarette smoke anyway, that I often didn’t catch anything else. But I was positive no one wanted to end up like the red kid, or like North had been, out of control and crazy.
“It might draw more curiosity,” he said. He released the door and continued down the hallway. “Tell a teenager drugs are bad, and they’ll go check it out and try it.”
I shook my head in disbelief as I walked beside him. It sounded so ridiculous. If we told them how horrible it was, they’d do it anyway?
Mr. Blackbourne nodded at me as if he could read my thoughts and was agreeing with them. “It may cycle through,” he said. “Hopefully without too many more incidents. And since there’s a very limited supply of this particular one, it should fade away.” He paused for a moment and stopped walking. He turned to me. “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.
“Fine,” I said right away. It was an automatic response, but he stared at me for so long, those steel eyes telling me he wanted a better answer. “We had dinner last night. I got to sleep at a decent hour.”
“Are you still having trouble falling asleep?”
I didn’t know how to answer this question because I didn’t feel like I was having problems with sleeping. “It’s the same as always,” I said. “I’ve never had problems before.”
He tapped gently at the knot of his deep red tie, and then smoothed his palm over the length down toward where the dark gray jacket was buttoned up properly. “Anything of interest happen since this morning?”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he was asking of me. I wasn’t sure why we were in the hallway and talking about this, either. In general, he’d asked me to spill things if it looked like I was troubled, and I usually knew what he wanted to hear. This time, many little things had happened and I was filtering out things he might not find important. Danielle’s gossip? No. My sister acting strangely and wanting to see her mother? No. I settled for something Academy related. “There was someone new following us this morning,” I said. “Did Kota mention?”
He nodded, but there was a small twitch to his eyes and a dip at the corner of his mouth. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, but he settled for it. “Are you concerned about it?”
“Of course I am,” I said. Wasn’t he? “Last night one didn’t follow Kota like we thought, so he has to be watching for Nathan, or someone else. Are they changing tactics? They said someone was following you as well.”
“There’s no need to worry about that one,” he said.
“Is it the same person?”
“There’s been one in particular who has been persistent.”
“But you shake him? Mr. Hendricks said they had a hard time following you.”
He nodded slightly. “Unlike Mr. Lee, I’d rather not have unexpected visitors. For various reasons.”
“Academy reasons?” I asked, and then backed my head up, pursing my lips and glancing around to see if anyone was nearby. We were in the main corridor just before the stairs to the second floor. I hadn’t meant for it to slip out.
He cocked his head. “On occasion.”
“Is this part of the reason we’re meeting here now?”
“Mr. Blackbourne,” a familiar voice echoed from down the hallway, and we both turned. Victor approached and waved shortly. His jacket was folded over his arm, leaving just the slacks and the crisp white shirt.
Before I could ask, Mr. Blackbourne pushed his finger toward his lips in a silence motion and then pointed to the stairs.
Victor and I paired up quietly, side by side, following Mr. Blackbourne. We exchanged looks. Victor was asking what this was about as much as I was.
When we got to the second floor, Mr. Blackbourne had us follow him down several hallways until we came across one that was more a V-corner, with a janitor’s door at the far end, and the space on either wall was just lockers. It was a scary looking nook. For this school, being hidden in this hallway probably meant a lot of trouble. Most of these lockers were covered in graffiti. Some were open, or missing the doors altogether.
I stood closer to Victor, feeling his elbow against mine.
Mr. Blackbourne stepped inside the hallway, and any open lockers, he closed again, testing which ones would lock. He pointed to one row of lockers and then looked at Victor. “I want you to stay in this hallway and try to open these lockers.”
“With what?” Victor asked.
“Any way possible,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Be creative.” He turned to me. “Watch him, and watch the hallway. See if anyone comes by.”
I nodded, but continued to glance between Victor and Mr. Blackbourne. We were trying to break into lockers? Wasn’t I supposed to not be doing Academy work? But then I wasn’t doing the work. I was being the lookout.
Mr. Blackbourne nodded and then left us, looping back down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.
Victor sighed, dropping his book bag to the ground. He passed over his uniform jacket to me. “Hang on to this for me,” he said, and started to roll up his sleeves.
“Why are we doing this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I imagine he’s trying to figure out how easy it is to break into these lockers. Or how loud you have to be to do it.” He approached a set, picking one out and testing the knob to see if it would open. When it wouldn’t budge, he spun the dial. “I don’t know why we’re doing it now.”
I waited by the end of the hallway intersection, where I could look up and down and see if anyone was coming.
For a while, Victor tried to guess the right numbers to release the locks. After, he pulled out a pocket knife, trying to wedge it between the door and the lock.
Were we even allowed to have pocket knives in school?
I got caught up watching him work. He wasn’t being particularly quiet about it. Mr. Blackbourne hadn’t given us many instructions. I expected Mr. Blackbourne to appear again rather quickly and tell us to change tactics or give us more directions.
I started to get a little cold and hugged the jacket close to my body.
“Put it on if you want,” Victor said as he stabbed the knife at the locker in frustration. He sighed. “These lockers smell.”
I slipped the jacket on and then sniffed the air, noting the chemical cleaners were heavier here, probably because we were close to the janitor’s door, but there was also an underlying smell of decay, dust and a bit of acidic paint. “It’s pretty bad.”
Victor finally managed to open one by wedging the knife just above the lock, and then pushing hard to bend the door. He shoved it far enough the lock popped out. It scraped loud as it did. There was nothing inside, and the door was damaged.
Victor wiped at his brow. “Destroying school property. That’s a detention.”
“Probably wo
rse,” I said. “Now what?”
“He said open these lockers,” Victor said. His fire eyes met mine. “I do it until he says stop.”
“But,” I said, unsure how to put this. I glanced up and down the hallway again, and with no one close by, I slipped close to Victor, standing right behind him as he tried to wedge the knife into another locker. “Why you?”
“Huh?” he asked. His lean muscles in his arms flexed and his fire eyes focused on the locker, a blaze of focus.
“I mean, Luke seems to be the one that knows about breaking into things,” I said. “And Nathan or Silas would be able to physically break into these easier.”
Victor smirked as he worked the knife back and forth, bending the metal. “So I’m stupid and weak?”
“No!”
“Because I’ll have you know, Princess, breaking into these lockers isn’t exactly rocket science. And the metal’s worn. They’ve been broken before.” He pointed to one of the lockers nearby, showing me the scraped paint by the knob.
“Oh,” I said, not understanding his point.
He popped open the second locker, revealing a few old text books and notebooks that looked to have been there for years. “But if he’s asking me to do it, he doesn’t want an expert or someone who can punch a locker and break it with a fist. He wants someone...” He smiled at this. “Normal.”
My fingers smoothed over the material of the jacket across my stomach. I gazed back at the hallway opening, still not hearing anyone coming. “We’re the normal ones?”
He closed the door to the locker. It didn’t shut all the way now that it was broken. “You haven’t noticed?”
“You’re not,” I said. I wasn’t either, but I didn’t want to talk about me. “Not in a bad way. I mean you play the piano.”
“Anyone can play the piano if they practice,” he said. He crouched, working on one of the lower lockers. “I’m not exactly Mozart.”
