by A. G. Henley
Heat rushed between my shoulder blades. I’d forgotten they had a dean. Other than having sort of the same coloring, they didn’t even look much alike. Great entrance, Nic. Smooth.
I shook Muth’s hand. His expression warmed, but only slightly, like a full plate of food nuked in our sputtering microwave back home. “Please come in, Miss Rossi.”
Muth’s office was a lot larger than the dean’s. An enormous, polished desk posed in front of a wall of windows framing the ski mountain. Two mahogany brown leather sofas and a glass coffee table were grouped in front of the desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases stood against the walls, filled with hardcovers. A couple of diplomas hung on the far wall, and under them, a small, framed photograph of a man on skis flipping through the air off a jump. The photograph was fuzzy, and the ski outfit looked dated, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was Muth himself, back in the day.
“Can I get you something to drink?” the first guy, Newman, asked me.
I declined and he left, easing the door shut behind him. Muth waved me to one couch, and he sat on the other, crossing his legs. I started to speak, but he talked over me.
“I’ve met with Mr. Brown several times, and I’ve been told your role here,” he said. “Miss Venkatesan’s family has received threats, and her parents are concerned Veena might be in danger.”
“That’s right.”
“As I’ve assured your supervisor, our faculty and staff are of the highest quality,” Muth said. “They have had the most stringent background checks, and our board pays them well to be here. It’s an honor to teach and work at Vail Mountain Academy. No one on my staff takes that privilege for granted.”
He pulled out a handkerchief—an honest to God rectangle of clean white cloth with his initials embroidered on it—and began to polish his glasses.
“Additionally, our students are serious athletes who worked extremely hard in their studies and sport to be admitted here. Many educators and athletes would love to be part of our school. To be frank with you, Miss Rossi, as I was with Mr. Brown, I can’t fathom anyone among us being involved.”
“We aren’t sure where the threats are coming from, and we aren’t here to investigate. Only to protect Veena.”
He pushed his glasses onto his nose, his blue eyes unblinking. “I understand that, young lady. This is your first assignment—correct?”
Young lady? I was tired of this particular conversation after having it with the team yesterday; I didn’t want to have it again.
“Yes, it is. I might be new to my profession, Dr. Muth, but I graduated at the top of my class at Juno Academy, which has just as stringent requirements for its staff and students as VMA.” I might have been overselling it, but I was sick of being looked down on by these guys. “I can assure you, Veena’s safety is my only concern. It’s our entire team’s only concern.”
He leaned forward, eyeing me over the rims of his specs. “That is precisely the problem. I’m also worried about Ms. Venkatesan”— to his credit, Muth looked like he meant it—“but her safety isn’t the only issue. I have the security of an entire school—over 150 people—to ensure. I can only hope that your presence on campus won’t bring additional risk to Veena, my staff, or our students. I assume Mr. Brown shared with you that carrying weapons on campus is strictly forbidden?”
“He did.” Now if only someone would share that rule with whoever had made those threats.
Of course, I wouldn’t tell Muth about my pepper spray, the tactical pen, or the flashlight that extended out to create a forearm-shattering baton. At Juno, we also learned to use all kinds of everyday items from dry spaghetti to succulents as weapons if we needed them. A lot of my training revolved around being prepared but also fostering the ability to be spontaneous.
“You should know that only myself and Mr. Newman will be aware of your, er, status on campus. To the rest of the school, you are a new Academy student, and you should conduct yourself accordingly. A copy of our student handbook was placed in the room you’ll share with Veena. I suggest you familiarize yourself with it before attending classes tomorrow morning.”
The student handbook? Was this guy serious? “Don’t worry, Dr. Muth. You won’t even notice I’m here.”
The head of school’s gaze traveled coolly from my face, to the hospital band I hadn’t had a chance to cut off my wrist, to my scuffed, second-hand boots. He literally sniffed like he smelled something gross. “I’m sure.”
I flattened my fingers over my thighs to keep from making fists.
“About your classes,” he said. “Veena is taking several advanced placement courses. What level of education have you had?” Slight emphasis on the you.
I held my chin up. “I earned my diploma before being accepted to the Juno Academy.”
“A high school diploma.”
“That’s right.” Just like the special snowflakes here will get when they graduate.
Muth looked ill. All he saw, I could tell, was a young, poorly educated Vegas girl in cheap boots. I imagined dragging him off that fancy leather couch and showing him what nine months of intense hand-to-hand combat training could do.
“Our classes are rigorous, Miss Rossi. We don’t give our students a pass because they are also high-level athletes—or for any other reason. We ensure they have challenging coursework wherever in the world they travel to train and compete. They are true scholar-athletes. Many will go on to compete at the college level, several ski or ride with their national teams, and a few, like Veena, will be Olympians.”
My temples pounded and my chest tightened with anger the more this man talked, but I relaxed against the couch, doing my best to keep it together.
“Your school sounds very impressive, Dr. Muth. I’ll do my best to keep up with your students. And, while I’m at it, I’ll be sure Veena doesn’t end up blindfolded and gagged in the back of a van.” I got to my feet. “We done here?”
If he was going to be an asshole, I might as well drop my professional act, too. At least we’d know where we stood.
His snotty stare could have cryogenically frozen me for a century. “Mr. Brown informed me that your company has a contingency plan in case you turn out to be too . . . inexperienced. I’ll be sure to keep him apprised of your behavior.”
Threats now? My hands itched to reach around his neck. “You do that, and I’ll go ahead and do my job.” I stormed from his office, lava flowing through my limbs.
“Nicole?”
“What?” I whirled to face Newman, who was holding out an envelope. I don’t know what I looked like, but he actually flinched for a second.
He smiled apologetically, like he heard, or could imagine, my conversation with Muth. “This is your VMA student ID. It will access your room door and the outer doors, which are locked after 10 pm, and it allows you to purchase food in the dining hall or the adjacent coffee shop, the Mogul Café.”
Coffee shop? Is this place for real?
He went on. “If you lose it, please let me know. I can deactivate it and issue you a new one. For a twenty-five-dollar fee.”
I opened the envelope. Brown must have sent them my Juno headshot; it looked more like a mug shot. Whatever.
“Dinner is from 5:30 to 7 pm. Welcome to Vail Mountain Academy.” His expression was genuine, so I did my best to thank him with a little sincerity.
But then I paced all the way down the hall to the lobby and out the front doors. Brown or Bart would ping me as soon as the tracking system told them I’d left, but at this point, I didn’t care. I needed to let off some steam before I talked to Veena.
Welcome to Vail Mountain Academy? Yeah, I felt super freaking welcome about now.
I’d been in Colorado for twenty-four hours. In that time, I’d managed to get myself hospitalized, I’d puked on the ski patrol, pushed away my principal, pissed off my chief, and brawled with the headmaster.
What else could go wrong?
My watch vibrated against my wrist. “Get back to the school—now.” Brown
sounded alarmed when I answered. “Ice and Owl’s teams changed up, and they can’t confirm Black Diamond’s in the building. Does she have her tracker?”
Shit, shit, shit. “No, sir . . . I didn’t have the chance to give it to her. I’m on my way.”
My heart free-fell to my feet as I sprinted. My day had sucked, but at least nothing had happened to Veena.
Yet.
Five
I bolted up the stairs instead of using the elevator, glad I’d studied the floor plan. I blew past a girl and boy kissing on the second-floor landing; they jumped to the side with a shout. Kovitch stood in the hallway outside Veena’s third floor room, dressed in the same maintenance uniform as the guy on Cooley’s team that I’d seen outside.
He tilted his head toward Veena’s door. I pulled out the ID card Newman gave me. With my other hand, I slid my baton out of its hidden sheath on my back and deployed the stick like I’d practiced a thousand times. I held it ready beside my leg.
Kovitch stood, back to the wall, as I held the ID against the reader to unlock the door. It swung open.
Staying behind the door, I glanced in. The bedroom was empty, and the bathroom behind the door was dark. Soft music played. I gave Kovitch the all-okay signal, and he ducked past me into the room, head swiveling left and right as he entered. I flipped the light on and checked the bathroom, keeping my stick ready. Nothing was amiss.
The space was triple the size of my room at home, with double everything. Two beds, two dressers, two desks, two closets. Both beds were made, but one was pristine, the other lumpy with crushed pillows and clothes strewn across the end. An open laptop glowed from a desk. A wireless speaker beside it was the music source. My battered black suitcase and brand-new messenger bag waited by the nicely made bed.
The door to the balcony gaped open.
Kovitch and I slunk toward it, pulling open each closet door as we went. A handful of clothes hangers and a few dust bunnies hung out in the first. Brightly colored ski coats and pants, plus some shirts, jeans, and miniskirts, hung askew in the second. Shoes and boots tumbled on the floor.
Between the closets, a bright red cloth was laid on top of a little wooden bookcase. On it, a painted ceramic figure sat cross-legged on a ceramic flower. Bowls of rice and water and a brass incense holder were arranged around it. Unlike the closet and the bed, the bookcase was tidy. What was Veena into?
The balcony was dark and the room was lit, which meant we couldn’t see anything outside, but we could be seen. I gripped my stick firmly, flipped the dim balcony light on, and stepped out. Two dilapidated chairs and a small table stood alone.
The sun had set, and lights flickered around the town and ski hill. A tall evergreen next to the balcony blocked some of the view. I peered over the handrail at the ground, from left to right, even up at the snowy roof. No sign of Veena.
I felt even sicker. “What now?”
My watch vibrated with a call from Brown. “She’s at the halfpipe. Get up there.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“We called her. No teen girl goes anywhere without her cell phone.”
I closed my eyes, relief pulsing up from my feet to my head. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I had her cell already programmed in my phone. “Is she okay?”
“For now. Get going.”
“I’m on my way.”
I started out of the room, Kovitch following. I stopped him. “I got this.”
He raised a very skeptical eyebrow. “You think so?”
I retracted the baton with a snap. “Yeah, I do.”
“My team and I will follow.”
“Fine.”
I jogged downstairs and outside while zipping my coat and pulling on gloves. The night air brushed icy fingers across my cheeks, and wood smoke tickled my nose. A lighted path led from the school around a few homes and buildings to the bottom of the quiet ski hill. Feet slipping on the crispy snow, I hiked up toward the halfpipe under the ski lift, following the chairs suspended in the night air above me. Based on the maps I’d studied, it wasn’t far.
I’d seen halfpipes on the internet. In person, at night, it was a different experience.
A standard pipe, like this one, I’d read, was U-shaped, about sixty feet wide, one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet long, with walls sixteen feet high. Skiers and riders flew almost twice that high performing their tricks—and made it look easy in the videos. Standing on the hard-packed snow inside, with the vertical walls looming over my head, I had a new respect for what Veena and her friends did every day. And Olympic halfpipes, called superpipes, were even bigger than this.
“Veena?” I called. The wind whistling down the hill and past my ears was the only sound for a second. Was she still here?
“How did it go with Muth?”
The voice came from above. I jumped and reached for my stick again, but relief jellied my muscles as I recognized my principal’s voice. I flipped on the light of my flashlight baton. She sat at the top of the pipe wall in boots, snow pants, and a jacket, shielding her eyes.
“Sorry.” I turned the light off. “Can I come up?”
“Sure.” She sounded different, sad. Not the vivacious girl I’d been with all afternoon.
I touched the slick ice wall. “Um, how?”
“Walk back to the end of the wall and go up and around. There’s a path.”
I clicked on the flashlight again so I could see where I was going and let myself breathe a little easier. Veena was safe; I hadn’t lost her yet. I voice-texted Brown the good news as I picked my way up the berm that led to the top of the ice wall. Peering over the side made my heart skip a beat. She threw herself into the air over this wall every day?
Veena sat on the edge of the deck, legs dangling into the pipe. She didn’t look at me as I settled next to her. I wish I had on snow gear. I’d have a buttsicle in minutes out here.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Physically or mentally?”
“Start with physical.”
She nodded. “Fine.”
“Okay, then mentally?”
She shrugged.
“What happened, Veena? Why didn’t you meet me in your room?”
She stared across the pipe. I could barely make out the outline of trees against the sky on the other side. “Did you know some bristlecone pines have been here for a thousand years?”
I said I didn’t. I couldn’t really see the trees, but the ones I’d seen earlier didn’t look that old. And trees in general weren’t my jam.
“That’s because most of the pines around here are lodgepole. Bristlecones only grow in a few spots, and you have to hike to most of them. They look kind of . . . tortured. Like ghosts frozen in weird positions.”
Okay. What did this have to do with her mental state?
“They sound like the Joshua trees in Nevada.” Gram, Mom, and I took a driving trip through the Mojave Desert one time.
“You’re from Las Vegas, right? Or am I allowed to know?” She shot me a glance, and even in the low light, I could tell she’d been crying. Runny eye makeup. She couldn’t be this broken up because I said I couldn’t be her friend, could she? Did something happen while I was talking to Muth?
“That’s right.”
She looked up in the sky where stars pricked the blackness. “In India, where some of my family still lives, some buildings are older than bristlecones.”
“Have you been there?”
She nodded. “My parents took me a few times. Not recently, though. I’ve been training so much…” She trailed off. “Where’s your family from? Like, originally?”
I swiped at the hard deck of snow beside me. I shouldn’t tell her much about myself. Less than an hour ago I’d said I wouldn’t. But how could I get her to trust me unless we got to know each other a little? She needed to talk, and I needed to find out why she was sitting alone in the dark on a frozen hill.
“My mother’s people are mutts. My grandmother did one of those gen
etic ancestry tests, and we’re mostly British, German, and French on that side.”
“And what about your dad?”
“He was Italian—Rossi.”
She stared like she was trying to read something printed on my face. “Was?”
“Is, I guess. I don’t really talk to him. He left a long time ago.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry. That must have been incredibly hard.”
“Not really. I don’t have many memories of him. And I had my grandma and my mom—well, until a few years ago when she died.”
“Your mother died?” Veena sounded shocked.
“No, my grandmother.”
After Dad took off, Mom and I had moved in with Gram, who’d retired in Vegas. The cancer had been diagnosed soon after the night that pushed me down this CPO path . . . but I wasn’t about to go into all of that right now with my client.
“Do you spend a lot of time with your parents?” I asked. “You’re an only child, right?”
Her braid swished against the back of her coat as she nodded. “I see them whenever I can. They come watch me compete, and I go home for holidays and at least a month in the summer. That’s my break—although I still have to hit the gym every day.”
“Is that strange? Living away from your parents and traveling so much and everything?” There were days I’d wanted to get away from my mother the last few years, but I couldn’t imagine leaving home for good at fourteen, like Veena had.
“Yeah, it’s different, I guess. I miss them.”
“And your friends back home, too, I bet.”
“I don’t have many friends in California anymore. I’m never there.” Her chin slumped to her chest. But a moment later she shook her head and shoulders, like a bird shaking off snow. “But I love riding and competing, and I have Ali and Gage, and some friends on the pro tour. We all go to the same places to compete, so we get to know each other. Only—”
I nudged her with my shoulder when she didn’t go on. “What?”
“I’m a lot younger than most of them.”
“Yeah? How old are they?”
