Chapter 12
Jackson
One month earlier
James got to my house holding the damn phone.
“He keeps calling.”
“That asshole principal keeps calling?” exclaimed William incredulously, grabbing the phone out of James’s hands.
I craned my neck to glance at it. I saw paul manor on the screen. It was Blaze’s dad.
But when James realized, he moved over in front of the old bookcase with my grandpa’s record collection, looking for something to put on.
“If it’s been a year, why the fuck does he keep calling?” asked Marvin as soon as the record player started crackling.
James gritted his teeth, clenching his tapered jaw.
“Maybe because one day one of his teachers disappeared out of the blue? Marvin, use your fucking head.”
“What if the principal started suspecting something and went to the cops?” I speculated anxiously.
“Boys, do you want a slice of Bundt cake?” My grandma interrupted our conversation as she came into the living room with a tray decorated with flowers. James smiled at her, positioning himself next to her like a giant next to a little girl.
“Would you make us a coffee, Lena?” he whispered politely.
“Sure, Jamie.”
Then his eyes narrowed into two sharp blades again as soon as my grandma left the room.
“He’s not gonna go to the cops. We’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
“How do we do that? He’ll know it was us, James.”
James looked me up and down icily. He seemed to think that I had said something insane, but I was trying to be cautious.
“Jax, I don’t give a flying fuck. Don’t you get that we can’t risk it?”
The sense of calm caused by the music seemed to disappear. The melody became increasingly aggressive, almost dramatic, like it was keeping up with our agitated looks.
But someone hadn’t expressed their opinion yet. William didn’t speak much in these cases, but when he did . . . James’s eyes twinkled.
“Enough, let’s go now. I need to blow off steam,” James said suddenly, startling Marvin and me.
“Now?” Marvin’s eyes went wide, and he looked at me, afraid.
James nodded wholeheartedly, while Will continued, “I have clown masks at home.”
An intense chill went down my spine. I couldn’t say the same about those two; all it took was one look to see the excitement that flashed in their eyes.
James had no idea what fear was and had never backed down. He made the first move and ignited the spark. But William was the one you had to be careful around. He could smile innocently, as he hid the match that set the whole house on fire behind his back.
>> <<
Present day
All three of us sat in front of the principal’s desk waiting. James was on my left, with his eyes shining like two red-hot sapphires. To my right, Will looked around impatiently.
“I’d break everything in this shithole,” he said.
“Will, calm down,” I whispered, short of breath. Obviously I was the only one chickening out.
I knew why both of them hated the principal, but I was caught between a rock and a hard place, and I still felt guilty around Blaze.
And Marvin just wasn’t there.
I bet that he was still sleeping, lucky guy.
“Today we have the honor of having three stereotypes.”
The principal announced himself with that sentence as he walked into the office. The atmosphere immediately became unpleasant. I felt it from the way he slammed the door. He adjusted the collar of his shirt and raised his big eyes, which had bags under them that went down to his nose.
“I see the fourth one’s missing, but don’t worry, I’ll get to him too.”
I gulped. His deliberately threatening tone of voice broke through the air.
“Let’s recap.”
I watched him lean on the desk then cross his arms in a less-than-reassuring-way.
“We have the troubled teen,” he started, looking to my right at Will.
“The violent one,” he continued, looking at James, who was staring back at him ruthlessly. “The toxic one who isn’t here, and—” He finally set his gray eyes on me. “Oh, well, look! Jackson’s also here.”
He pretended that he’d just seen me just to make me uncomfortable.
I took a deep breath but the tension didn’t let up. I felt my hands sweating.
“The sheep that follows the herd. He’s always there in every self-respecting group, but he’s also the one that I respect the least.”
My lips immediately dried up. I couldn’t open my mouth.
“Listen, Jackson, I’ll give you a very simple lesson. A leopard never changes its spots.”
James tried to make a sudden move, but I held his forearm back before he could jump up.
“Forget it,” I said, once he sat back down.
But I saw him answer the provocation with another. He turned on his vape pen, looking the man right in the eye.
Principal Manor ignored the act of rebellion. In fact, he didn’t even tell James off.
What kind of principal would let something like that slide? It made me think that his conscience wasn’t entirely clean and that there was something completely different that concerned him right then.
“Let’s get to the point. Whose idea was it? Do any of you have something to say?”
Nobody said a word. I struggled to even look up. I looked at Will’s fists balled on the arms of his chair.
“Let’s scare the old guy, he’ll fall for it. That was the idea, right?” He recognized my shoes. He knew that we were the ones who attacked him. What was the point of this interrogation? If his conscience was completely clean, he would’ve expelled us, but no, he kept talking and glaring at us.
“But given how easily I figured out it was you guys, clearly you weren’t remotely afraid of getting caught. All you cared about was that I didn’t react to your threats. Right?”
Right. But nobody moved a muscle.
The office was stuffy—still. There wasn’t a sound except for my short, fast breath.
“But something is escaping me.”
“Just one thing?” spat James, interrupting his monologue.
“Is this for putting you in juvie last year, Hunter? Did you want to make me pay for taking such an extreme measure?”
Great. He didn’t understand shit.
“Is it because of the bad grades?” he asked, turning his gaze to me.
A chill went down my spine when I looked up and met his almond-shaped eyes. The same ones as Blaze.
He was right. I was weak.
“Or maybe it was because I was only one who figured out you were hiding something really serious?”
My breath got caught in my throat. William paled. The principal’s sentence confirmed our suspicions.
He knew.
James didn’t say a word. His angry mask didn’t show signs of slipping. He looked like his jaw wanted to shatter into a million pieces, it was clenched so tightly.
“Because you’re hiding something. Right, Jackson?”
This time he said it more persuasively, but I pretended not to hear him. Will’s face said only one thing: Oh fuck.
“I’m only gonna ask you once. Now that it’s just us—” I felt my heart leap.
“Since you did it to me, who says you didn’t do it to him too?”
James was right—the principal knew everything, and here I was having doubts about attacking a poor old guy. After all, committing murder was a crime, and even though I wasn’t the one who’d ordered it, I’d witnessed all of it.
I didn’t want to end up in prison. It would kill my grandparents.
The man shifted away from the desk and stopped in front of James, who kept vaping nervously.
“One question. All you have to do is answer me. Be honest, and the consequences will be much less severe than planned. I’d appreciate your honesty. Do we have a deal?”
James lifted a corner of his mouth scornfully. No deal.
“Where’d Mr. Hood end up?”
The principal set his sights on me again, forcing me to bow my head for the umpteenth time.
“Cooper? Do you know anything about it?”
Will shook his head no.
“Hunter.”
It wasn’t even a question. He turned back to James, who stood up immediately and blew vape smoke in the principal’s face. “Go to hell, asshole. I bet you’ll find him there.”
James walked out of the office, and Will and I followed him without saying a word.
“Fuck, James! Did you have to answer him like that?” William’s tone was tinged with rage.
We were rushing out the main entrance of the building while the others were still in class.
“Did you not hear what he fucking said, Will? And the way that he treated us?”
The morning air was cold, almost biting. I regretted leaving my uniform jacket inside. I felt my cheeks and the tip of my nose turn red quickly.
“But you basically admitted it like that! Why don’t you ever think before doing something?”
“What’s going on now?” I asked, frightened, leaning my elbow on the car roof. I needed support, the vertigo was getting the best of me. “He’ll expel us? Is he gonna expel us because we attacked him or because you talked back to him like that?”
“Chill, Jax. If he wanted to, he already would’ve,” James reassured me, rummaging in his jacket pocket. It wasn’t easy for me to be calm then.
My grandpa did nothing but remind me not to disappoint my parents’ memory, but it seemed that I couldn’t do anything but that.
“Maybe he has proof. And even if he didn’t, he’s still the principal—he can do whatever he wants.”
I was starting to get stressed out, and James could tell. He grabbed my shoulders, dug his fingers into the shirt fabric, and pinned his eyes on mine.
“Calm down, Jackson.”
I’ll calm down, I thought, but do you always have to put your fucking lips so close to mine?
“It’s not worth it for him to do that,” he finished, collapsing against the car next to me.
I saw him turn on his vape pen.
“Why?”
James kept vaping furiously as he loosened the knot in his tie with the other hand.
“The principal hasn’t called again, right? Why don’t we turn the phone off?” asked William.
He was so nervous that he was pacing back and forth.
“If I don’t turn it off, it’s just because I don’t have the pin to be able to turn it back on when we need the evidence on here.
Besides, as soon as we threatened the principal, he stopped calling.
That was the fucking plan, enough overthinking it.
” James cut Will off between one breath of smoke and the next.