Chapter Fourteen
FOURTEEN
Maddox still takes my arm, guiding me, which means I need to move a whole lot faster than I’d like. He won’t abandon me, though, and I need to appreciate that, even if I’d really rather he ran after Theo.
We make it to the main level when we hear Theo slamming his fist against wood far above us.
“Jayden!” he bellows. “Open this door!”
Maddox curses more, and I push him off, saying, “Go to him. Before this gets worse.”
More banging. “Jayden!”
As Maddox races up the stairs, he shouts, “Do not open that fucking door, Jayden.”
I reach Jayden’s third-floor room just as he opens the door. Theo barrels through, and there’s an oomph as he charges into Jayden. By the time I get there, Maddox is hauling Theo off Jayden as Maddox snarls, “Do you want to be expelled with him, Theo? Stop. Now.”
When that doesn’t work, Maddox says, “Lili is hurt, and she needs a doctor, but instead of getting one, I’m dealing with your dumb ass.”
Theo jerks up…just as Jayden swings. Maddox catches his wrist midair and holds it. Jayden tries to yank free but can’t.
Still gripping Jayden’s wrist, Maddox leans over him. “I might be pulling him off you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to snap your damn wrist myself. And I don’t really give a shit if I get expelled. So go ahead and see how far you can push me.”
Jayden’s jaw sets, but he grunts and looks away. Maddox releases his grip and turns to Theo.
“He’ll get his. Now go find a night guard. I’m calling Dimitriou and getting a doctor for Lili.”
Theo lopes out. Doors all along the hall have opened. As Maddox yanks Jayden’s door shut, he waves at Allegra.
“Make sure he stays in there,” Maddox says.
“Me?” Allegra says.
“Tell him if he opens that door, you’ll spill his secrets. And don’t tell me you don’t have anything on him.”
Maddox steers me toward the stairs as he places a call on his phone. I don’t listen. The adrenaline rush is subsiding, and my brain whirs as he finishes his call and leads me to the lounge.
“Sit,” he says, helping me onto the sofa. “The doctor will be here in a few minutes. Rest and tell me what you need.”
I do sit, but I also glance up, meeting his gaze. “So you and Theo aren’t friends anymore, huh?”
He looks at me. “Really? That’s what you want to talk about right now, Chamberlain?” He shakes his head. “We’ll discuss that later. For now, tell me what happened.”
—
Maddox and Theo didn’t just happen to find me in the basement.
Maddox figured out that his school account had been hacked when he got an alert.
Like Jayden, Maddox is a tech guy…at least in the sense he comes from tech money and has an aptitude for it if not an interest. His mother has made him very cybersecurity aware, so if there’s any unexpected activity on his accounts, he’s alerted.
In this case, he didn’t actually see the alert until he woke after midnight and checked something on his phone.
That sent him into his school account, where he realized messages had been sent to me about meeting in the basement. He notified Theo, which is totally what you do with your “former” best friend.
I don’t tell them about the secret room. I need to work that through first, and I wouldn’t have time to explain anyway before Ms. Dimitriou and the doctor arrive.
The doctor assesses me and gives me some painkillers and light sleeping meds, but I only have bumps and bruises, and he doesn’t see any need to take me to the hospital.
“You’re a very lucky young lady,” he declares.
He’s just finishing up when Cecilia arrives…and chaos descends on Westdale Academy.
Of course, Jayden denies everything, but I identify what he’d been wearing, and his door lock shows he went inside five minutes after I tumbled down the stairs.
Did he really try to kill me? Cecilia doesn’t think so, because when she told him he’d be charged with attempted murder, he erupts in what seems like genuine panic and confusion.
Kill me? No. He’d only meant to push me down the stairs.
Cecilia mutters a lot about teenagers and prefrontal cortex development and bad decision-making skills.
By then it’s morning, and I spend half the day resting—doctor’s orders—and half in meetings as everyone tries to negotiate a settlement via video chat.
Jayden’s parents try to claim that, since their darling boy didn’t seriously injure me, he should just…
I don’t know, be given a few days off to think about what he’s done?
Yeah…
The final decision is that Jayden is expelled from Westdale. No charges will be laid, but Jayden signs a confession, which will go into his file and, if he ever contacts me or sets foot on the property again, that confession will ensure he never gets into any decent college.
Then there’s the matter of Natalia. Jayden says it was her idea to lure and lock me down there, and she’d told him to do “whatever it takes” to scare me into dropping out of the Optima race.
Of course, Natalia denies it.
Except…
I don’t like the way Natalia reacts. It’s too much like how Jayden responded to being accused of trying to kill me.
Shock and confusion first, as if this is some kind of joke.
Then panicked denials. According to Natalia, Jayden must have acted alone.
She never told him to lure me into the basement.
She certainly never said to “do whatever it takes.” She begs to be allowed to talk to him, so she can straighten this out, but he won’t speak to her, and he sticks to his story.
When Jayden was shocked that Cecilia thought he tried to kill me, everyone decided he’d clearly made a mistake.
When Natalia is shocked at being accused of orchestrating it, everyone decides she’s clearly lying.
Since it was Jayden who pushed me, Ms. Dimitriou consults with Natalia’s parents and rules that she can just transfer back to her feeder school.
The story will be that her parents needed her closer to home for a family emergency.
I’m satisfied with how it’s handled for Jayden. I don’t think he meant to kill me, and I just want him far away, which they’re making sure happens.
But Natalia?
I don’t like what happened with Natalia, and later that day, when I venture downstairs for a coffee, she lunges out as if she’d been lying in wait, and I nearly trip down the stairs a second time.
She stands on the landing with her arms crossed. “How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Lure Jayden away.”
I blink. “He lured me, Natalia. He sent me a message—”
“Oh, I heard how you two set it up. I want to know how you lured him away from me.”
“How I—? You think I seduced him?”
She moves into the light, and her eyes are red from crying. “Theo Dubois went from ‘I don’t date at school’ to falling all over you. And Maddox? Rumor is he’s ace because he doesn’t look at anyone—guy or girl—and now he’s sneaking off to star-gaze with you? Everyone wants to know how you did it.”
I’m tempted to snap that I give really good blowjobs, obviously, but those reddened eyes won’t let me. Nor will the way her lip trembles even as she’s hurling accusations.
“I’ve made friends, that’s all,” I say. “New-girl novelty. It’s second term, and kids are bored. But I haven’t had any contact with Jayden. You honestly believe we set this up together?”
“Duh. Look at you. A few bruises? A scrape on your cheek? You didn’t fall down the stairs. Or you didn’t fall down very many. You and Jayden collaborated to get rid of me.”
“But he’s gone, too. Expelled.”
“It’s the price he was willing to pay. Once you’re Optima, he can cash in his chit. That must be what you promised him. Whether you plan to deliver is another thing.”
“If you weren’t in on it, then you need to be sure everyone knows—”
“Natalia?” It’s Allegra, coming from her room behind Natalia. “I don’t think you want to be caught harassing your victim, do you?”
Natalia spins on her. “I had nothing to do with what happened. I’ve been set up.”
“No, you’ve been caught, and you’re trying very hard to play your own victim card, but no one’s buying it. Would you like me to talk about how you used Jayden to convince Kai not to even consider running for Optima?”
Natalia’s mouth works. Then she says, “That was different. Kai wasn’t committed, and we just gave them—”
“A little scare. Like you gave Liliana.” Allegra lifts her fingers in a tiny wave. “Buh-bye, Natalia. You lost.” She turns to me. “What are you doing out of your room?”
“Getting coffee. Is that allowed?”
“I would have suggested you call one of your boys to deliver it, but if I accompany you, you may get coffee.”
“You’re my bodyguard now?”
She sniffs. “Hardly. The threat has been handled. Now you need to handle the fallout—curious classmates who will fall over themselves to ask how you’re doing, while praying you drop a tidbit of juicy gossip.”
“Gossip that rightfully belongs to my Dux?”
“Correct. Now come.”
I glance back for Natalia, but she’s already disappearing into her room.
—
I don’t get much time to myself that day, but when I do, one question looms.
What is the Janus Society?
That secret room hadn’t been touched in decades. Is it a defunct society? It seems so, and if that’s the case, then it doesn’t concern me.
But still…
A hidden room with a mysterious double-headed scorpion, burned journal entries, and evidence of a fifth society? How am I not supposed to be curious?
Two scorpion heads.
Two “faces.”
Janus is the two-faced god. I look him up, but I can’t quite find what he stands for.
Passages, bridges, time, beginnings, change, and transition are all mentioned, but it’s the same as any of the societies, where they’ve chosen a figurehead who is associated with their area of interest, among others.
The Mercury Society is about commerce, and Mercury is the god of shopkeepers and finance.
He’s also the god of travelers, luck, and thieves, which have nothing to do with business.
Okay, fine, I can make a joke about price gouging and highway robbery, but the point is that the Janus Society has chosen Janus for one of his aspects, and I won’t figure out which that is without more information.
—
Theo has been checking in on me all day, while Maddox vanished once the doctor arrived, and I haven’t seen him since.
The sensitive part of me wants to read too much into that—that Maddox only helped earlier because those messages implicated him in Jayden’s scheme.
But I saw his face when he came running down that basement hall.
His panic. His outrage. And, later, his fury.
He’s backed off because someone else is on Lili-duty. His so-called former BFF.
Still, when I get a text during study hours, and it says, “This is my number, thought you should have it,” my heart does a little dance. Then I remember it doing the same thing for the fake messages. Before I can say anything, he texts again.
Maddox
You always take the yellow gummies
Me
I like lemon
Maddox
Bullshit, Chamberlain.
You take the flavor you think I won’t want
Maddox
I’m going to start removing colors until I figure out which one you really like
I smile and shift to sit cross-legged on my bed. He’s proving it’s him, but also, however unintentionally, proving something else, too. That he notices what I do. That he understands why I do it.
Maddox
Those four walls closing in yet?
Me
They are. I’m considering going down to dinner, but I’m not sure I dare
Am I hoping he’ll invite me to a private dinner, take our food someplace quiet? Of course I am. And my heart sinks at the next text.
Maddox
I’d suggest room service.
You don’t need everyone’s bullshit
Me
Okay
Maddox
But if you’re bored, meet me behind the carriage house in 10
Me
Uh…
Maddox
Fuck. Right. After last night, I can’t be luring you out of the house. Hold on
Less than five seconds pass before I get another text.
Theo
Carriage house in 10?
I grin and send back a thumbs-up.