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  “You’re not walking. What would people say?”

  “That I like to exercise?” Or that after her husband went to jail Bren had a hard time making ends meet. I know that’s what she’s thinking. Worse, I know that’s what the neighbors are thinking too. It’s weird to live in a world where not having an extra car for your teenager is considered poverty.

  Wish I could acquaint her with what not having enough money really means.

  Then again, no I don’t. I would never want Bren to worry like that. She’d probably stroke out. She’s annoying, but she’s mine.

  “I really am sorry, Wick. This mom stuff . . . it’s a lot harder than I thought.”

  “It’s okay. Really. I’ll see you tonight.” I close the car door, head through the school’s front entrance and make a left for my locker. I put away the books I was supposed to use for last night’s lab project and pull out my English notebook.

  “Did you hear about the video that was uploaded to the school’s YouTube account?”

  Ian. I try to look surprised though it doesn’t really matter. He’s watching the hallway behind me and picking at the scab on his lower lip. Does he know? “No, I didn’t. What happened?”

  “Someone put up a video of Matthew, Eric, and Sutton drinking and smoking weed. It was at an away game last month. They’ve been expelled.”

  My hand hovers on top of my history book. Did I just have a twinge of guilt? Because I am not going to feel guilty. I’m not. “How did they know it was at an away game?”

  “Dunno. Stuff behind them, I guess. Because they were drinking and doing drugs at a school function, they were automatically expelled.” Ian looks at me, waits for a response.

  I stare right back at him, feeling Matthew’s hand around my neck.

  Under my shirt.

  My stomach heaves. I turn to my locker, throw books around until I can breathe again.

  “You look really tired today,” Ian says.

  “Gee thanks.”

  “You should probably wear more makeup.”

  And you should probably learn some damn manners. I nearly say it, but, looking at Ian, I can’t. He’s too freaking pathetic. He’s too . . . lonely. It’s written in his skin, in the way he slides closer to me, almost vibrating because someone’s talking to him.

  The ache in my chest is unexpected and unwelcome and I can’t make it go away. There are jocks and populars and nerds and kids like Ian who are so desperate for attention they’ll hunt it anywhere, making themselves so annoying no one wants them around.

  “Look, Ian—”

  “Wick!”

  I turn, smiling before I even seen him. Griff weaves through the hallway, eyes pinned to me, and my grin falters. He doesn’t look happy. He looks . . . pissed.

  Griff knows.

  We take the long way around to my English class. Griff walks as close to me as he usually does—only this time he doesn’t touch me and all I want is to grab his hand.

  I grip my book bag’s straps instead.

  “I know you did it,” he says at last.

  I start to lie, but this is Griff and, even if I wanted to, I think he’d see through it. “They attacked Ian and me in a bathroom and they keyed my car. They had it coming.”

  Griff jerks. “Attacked?”

  “They keyed my car,” I repeat. It’s easier to say anyway. I’ll tell him everything else later. When I’m ready.

  “You could have filed a police report, gotten the school to give you the security cam footage.”

  “Only I was parked near the science wing and that camera hasn’t worked since we were freshmen.”

  Griff winces, nods. He’s still not meeting my eyes though. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”

  “I—I—” I didn’t and the realization feels like someone dropped me. I was so busy being pissed, so focused on bringing Sutton, Matthew, and Eric down. I just didn’t . . . think.

  Or maybe I did, because the next realization drops me harder, faster: I was scared he would look at me like Bren did.

  Like he might be doing now.

  My stomach rolls into my throat. I walk faster, but can’t outrun Matthew. He’s nowhere near and yet I can smell him—citrus gum and sweat and the bleach from that damn bathroom.

  Griff drifts a little closer to me, keeping pace. “How did you get the video?”

  “Bradford dropped his phone. It was the video or the sexting. I preferred the video.”

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “That they can’t keep pushing us around.”

  He gapes at me. “So you got them expelled?”

  Not intentionally. I’m glad I did though. The satisfaction is a warm, red rubber ball deep in my gut. Those boys were bullies. They hurt people. It’s about time someone returned the favor.

  “I don’t regret doing it. I’m glad they’re screwed.”

  Griff passes one hand through his hair. He’s speechless and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I hate it . . . but I’m not ashamed. Griff doesn’t understand what it was like.

  “You talk about saving people, Griff. You don’t actually do it. I did.”

  “This isn’t saving people. This is revenge.”

  “And now they won’t hurt us anymore. They’re expelled. How is that not saving kids like us in the future?” I stare at Griff—my Griff—and it feels like I’m looking at a stranger. He doesn’t understand. How can he not understand?

  I fidget with the strap on my book bag. “If you don’t act, all your talk is just words, Griff.”

  The late bell rings and I look up, catching Griff staring at me. He shakes his head. “I gotta go.”

  He lopes off without kissing me, and for the first time, I don’t mind. Well, I don’t mind as much. I was right to upload that video. I was.

  Deep in my bag, my cell buzzes. I want to ignore it, but almost anything is better than thinking about Griff being mad at me and how I’m mad at him.

  I jam my thumb against the answer button. “Yeah?”

  “I love it when you sound all pissed off. It’s sexy.”

  “What do you want, Milo?”

  He laughs. “You really want me to answer that?”

  “No.” It’s the usual teasing, but there’s something floating underneath his joking tone that makes me stiffen. Milo is seriously excited.

  “Actually, it’s more what you want, Wick. The guy who called off those guards? I found him.”

  “Will he talk to us?” I should have said “me” and I don’t bother correcting it.

  “Yeah. We gotta move now though. He’s clearing out, will be gone by tonight so dump your shit and meet me outside.”

  I hesitate. I can’t just leave school.

  Can I?

  “Give me five minutes,” I say.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  I dump my books in my locker and walk off campus with two stoners who are sneaking into the woods to smoke. It would come as a surprise to most people, but this will be the first time I’ve ever skipped class and it’s actually crazy easy. I’m kind of aggravated I haven’t done it before. The stoners hunker down in the woods along a side street and Milo meets me at the corner. I jump into his battered Crown Vic and we peel off.

  “For the record, I’m really digging the scarf,” Milo says.

  “For the record,” I mimic, fiddling with the seat belt only to find it’s broken. “I don’t do stuff like this. I’m actually a straight-A student.”

  “I figured as much.” Milo makes a right onto the highway, heading for the interstate. “That’s how I knew I had something good. You were willing to come to me.”

  He leans against his armrest, grins at me like he’s won something, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

  “Shut up and drive, Milo.”

  “Whatever you say.”

 
“Damn straight.”

  He laughs and, after a beat, so do I.

  We end up in a run-down apartment complex just outside of Atlanta. As it turns out, Milo has done work for this guy before. They’re not exactly friends, but Milo’s confident he’ll answer any questions I have.

  “How do you figure?” I ask, rushing to keep up as he strides across the parking lot. “Because you’re going to ask nicely?”

  “Something like that,” Milo says, and uses his fist to knock on apartment 3A’s door. Nothing. Milo beats on the door again.

  “Maybe he’s not home,” I say, and Milo gives me an of course he’s home look.

  “Corey,” he yells, staring into the peephole. “I gotta talk to you. Now.”

  I’m about to ask Milo if he has any other genius ideas when the lock scrapes and a moon-pale face wedges between the door and the jamb. Corey, I presume, glares at Milo like he wants to set him on fire.

  “Let me in,” Milo says. “We have to talk.”

  The other guy’s mouth presses thin, but the door swings open. Milo motions me to go first while he watches the parking lot behind us. I’m barely across the threshold before Corey makes an angry buffalo snort.

  “Who’s the chick?”

  The chick. Like I’m freaking furniture.

  “You remember the Walker job?” he asks, shutting the door behind us and turning the lock. It makes Corey shift from foot to foot.

  “Yeah.”

  “She did it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No shit.”

  “She’s a girl,” Corey says.

  I roll my eyes and neither of them notices. They’re too busy glaring at each other.

  “Fine. Whatever. Be fast, man,” Corey says. “I’m on my way out.”

  Yeah, no kidding. The small apartment is almost empty. Only things left are an ancient sofa pushed against the wall and drag marks in the floor dust.

  “I want to know about the work you did a few days ago,” Milo says. “Calling off Barton and Moore’s guys.”

  “It was a job. What else is there to know?”

  “Who’d you do it for?”

  Corey pales. “I don’t have time for this.” He picks up a battered duffel bag and jerks it over his shoulder. “I am so gone.”

  “You won’t be if I burn you.” Milo says it so pleasantly that it takes Corey a moment to process the words. He stares at us, slack-jawed.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Milo cocks his head, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  I search his face, trying to find the lie . . . and I can’t. He’s serious.

  “I’ll make it so you’ll never work again,” Milo says.

  “You can’t.”

  “I can.”

  “This is all I have.”

  That really gets Milo smiling. “Then tell me what I want to know.”

  “I got the first job through one of the message boards,” Corey says. He keeps playing with the strap on his duffel bag, eyes returning again and again to the apartment’s sole window. “It was good money, like really good money, and after I finished he offered me the Benson and whatever work. It wasn’t too hard. They had a flaw in their cell phone messaging system.”

  Corey readjusts his duffel bag. “Stupid how their guys kept putting off the OS updates for their phones, but good for me, you know, ’cause I was able to get in and text one of the guards. I told him they were both called to HQ.”

  HQ? Like we’re living a spy movie? On the other side of Corey, Milo smirks.

  “So I told the guards to report back and they did and then—” Corey fiddles with his phone for a beat before showing us the screen. Lell Daley smiles up from some newspaper article. I look away, my nose suddenly filled with the scent of mud. “And then that happened and I figured that’s what he needed to find and I was finished, but I was contacted again.”

  “Same guy as before?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” Corey curls into himself, shoulders hunched. “He wanted me to do another job for him.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Getting into some guy’s office at the courthouse, which is, like, totally impossible because that asshole powers down his computer every night.”

  Milo’s expression turns disgusted. “Have some pride, man. You could have found a work-around.”

  “Like what? Breaking into the office? The client’s not even sure the pictures he wants are even on this lawyer’s computer.”

  “Pictures of what?” I ask.

  Corey wiggles in place, attention focused on Milo. “He didn’t say and, before you start, hell no I didn’t ask him. That’s some fucked-up shit that’s he’s in the middle of. You should’ve seen that BlackBerry he sent me—”

  I stiffen. “BlackBerry?”

  “Yeah, that was my first job for him, breaking into this BlackBerry. It was shipped to my PO box. Wasn’t too difficult to work through the passwords, get inside. Girlie was a piece of work. She was keeping dirt on the guy she was working for. Whatever he wanted wasn’t there though.”

  Girlie? Surely it couldn’t be . . . “Do you remember the girl’s name?”

  “Hell yes, I do.” Corey chews the side of his thumb. “It’s only in all the papers. Chelsea Martin.”

  “Any idea what he was hoping you’d find?”

  “Yeah, supposedly she had some pictures. If she did, she wasn’t keeping them stored on her phone and I told him that and then he asked me to break into the county courthouse.”

  “Which office?”

  “I don’t remember.” Corey’s eyes skitter around the room, landing on everything and nothing. “Some guy named Ed.”

  “Ed Price?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. The Chelsea chick had sent the pictures to Ed and my guy wanted them back before Ed found them.”

  Huh. Ed Price is running against Bay in the election and, if Corey’s contact wanted the pictures before Price saw them, could they be something that would damage Bay? “Anything else?”

  “I’m not sticking around to find out. Can I go now?”

  “Yeah, sure, get lost,” Milo says. “We never had this conversation.”

  Corey pushes past him, muttering something that sounds like “asshole.” I speed-dial Carson, and on the third ring, the detective answers. “I was right,” I say. “The guards were called off by a guy who got into Barton and Moore’s security.”

  “Good. Bring him to me.”

  “Can’t.” The word brings Milo up short. He studies me with raised eyebrows, wondering what I’m saying I can’t do. “He’s gone.”

  Milo moves to the door, ready to retrieve Corey, and I snag his sleeve, shake my head hard. I’m not bringing Carson more people he can leverage.

  “Can’t or won’t?” the detective spits.

  “Can’t,” I repeat, my eyes on Milo, who’s drawing closer, the light scent of his cologne circling him.

  Circling me.

  “When I said find dirt on Bay—”

  “I did. He doesn’t know who he was hired by. Everything was anonymous. He did receive Chelsea Martin’s BlackBerry. She was compiling information against the Bay family—information she kept in the phone’s notes.”

  “Anything good?”

  “Pictures are supposed to be pretty good. Or at least worth breaking into Ed Price’s office to get them, so have fun with that.”

  “Find them for me.”

  I blink, unable to believe what he’s saying. “What good would they do you? Without a warrant, you can’t use them in court.”

  “There are always other uses for information. If this guy wants the pictures, then I want the pictures. Get them for me.”

  “I don’t do break-ins.” Then again, I didn’t used to drug people either. I shake myself, but Jason’s accusatory eyes are still branded on my brain.

  “Get them for me,” Carson repeats.

  “I don’t—” Yes, I do, or I will, because, suddenly, the word leverage is behind
my eyelids and in its glow damage steps out of the shadows. If I could get access to Bay’s work computers . . . I could make this work for me.

  “What if I said I could take down the security system for you?” Carson asks.

  I hesitate, pretend my heart isn’t hammering in my ears. “No way.”

  “Really? What if I told you that if you do this, I’ll let you go?”

  It knocks my breath askew. He’s lying, but it doesn’t matter because I just got an idea. I look at Milo and grin. “It’s a deal.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  I slip into school between fourth and fifth periods. Considering I’ve missed almost three hours of class, I’m half expecting Principal Matthews to be waiting, but either I’m lucky or he’s busy because I get in without any difficulty.

  Tomorrow will be a different story. I’ll need an excuse and I spend a few hours in my room, trying to decide on one. I’m known for migraines so that would work. If I play the role of Tragedy Girl, I could claim a panic attack.

  A branch taps the window. Griff. I spin my desk chair and . . . he’s not there. It’s just the wind kicking around another storm. He must not be coming.

  I could go to him.

  “Bren?” I stick my head into the hallway, listen to my adoptive mom typing on the computer she keeps in her bedroom. There’s no way she’ll let me go to Griff’s place. She hates the neighborhood so . . . “Could I go to Lauren’s for a bit?”

  I cross my fingers, praying Bren hasn’t heard about Lauren staying home from school to care for her mom. “I need some help with homework.”

  “Sure, honey. Are you okay to walk? I have to take Lily to ballet in—oh, shoot—twenty minutes. I could drop you off on our way.”

  “I’ll walk. No worries.” Bren doesn’t respond, but I can feel her objections coming on so I stuff my feet into tennis shoes and hustle out of the house. The schizophrenic winter weather has warmed, making the walk almost pleasant. I know exactly where I’m going. Griff and I lived a street apart for a few years and, even though I’ve never been there, I know which trailer he shares with his mom.