3 #3
“Well, you walked away with a smile on your face and two grand.” Dash pointed to the stack of notes.
The water I’d been drinking spurted out of my nose. I had to cover my mouth so I didn’t make a mess. I’d also forgotten how much I’d won.
“Two thousand?” I blurted out.
“It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.” Dash shrugged. “Isn’t it enough?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Fuck, Jude, you made Aegan look like a total loser,” said Kiana, grinning. “It was iconic! Epic! Unexpected!”
“Now it’s all everybody is talking about,” Dash agreed, lowering his voice.
“But that’s not all,” Kiana continued. “No one has seen Aegan since last night.”
“I think he’s so embarrassed that he doesn’t want to show his face,” Dash added with a chuckle.
“Or maybe he’s too busy planning how to crush her,” Artie shot back, focused on her laptop but still keeping up with the conversation.
Once again, she sounded far too sure about Aegan’s cruelty. It’s not that I didn’t believe her, but now I was sure there was something else she wasn’t telling me. Maybe something even Kiana and Dash didn’t know.
“Anyway, you’ve just shaken the rules of the game up big-time,” Kiana sighed, unable to contain her happiness.
I puffed out a breath and looked down at my mashed potatoes as I poked at them with the tip of my fork. I’d lost my appetite.
“There’s no game.” I shook my head.
“Everything involving the Cash brothers is a game,” Dash warned me. “And in the end, there’s only one winner.”
“Them,” said Artie.
Yeah, it was kind of irritating that they thought they’d always win.
Yeah, yeah, it was Cash territory. But I wasn’t a pushover.
I could face whatever came my way. I’d come to Tagus ready to accomplish everything I’d set out to do.
Dealing with Aegan Cash was just the latest in a long line of challenges.
“What could he do?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “He’s a guy. Guys don’t go around with stupid vendettas.” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“He could let it slide,” Artie nodded, weighing up other possibilities. “He can be quite mature in some ways and doesn’t like wasting time on nonsense.”
I wondered how she could be so sure. Then I remembered that everyone at this school was so focused on the Cashes that they probably knew what time the brothers took a leak. It was no shock that they would know exactly what Aegan was like too.
“But sometimes he’s really cruel,” said Kiana carefully. “Remember what happened with Pierre?”
Dash rested his chin on his hand, blinking slowly, lost in thought. It was only then that I noticed he had blue eyeliner, which looked gorgeous.
“Oh, Pierre,” he sighed. “I still remember finding him at that party smoking in the bathroom and doing things with his tongue I didn’t know were possible and . . .”
Kiana raised a hand up to his face, cutting him off midsentence. “Disgusting!” she shouted. “I didn’t mean for you to remember everything that happened. I want to know what happened between him and Aegan.”
Dash nodded.
“So, what happened to Pierre?” I asked, impatient.
“In the international debate class, he challenged Aegan’s argument,” Kiana said. “Well, he said he was wrong, and he was wrong, but you weren’t supposed to say that. Basically, Aegan ended up losing points because of it.”
“Aegan seemed to have taken it well, but then . . .” Dash cut himself off, leaving a cliffhanger.
Kiana finished off the story: “Three classes later, Pierre had a presentation, and everyone started bombarding him with questions. Really tough questions that made the poor guy panic. He ran out of the classroom, hyperventilating.”
I could picture the scene, and I would practically see Aegan with a big smirk on his face, triumphantly watching from the back of the class.
“And that wasn’t all, of course,” Dash added sadly. “Days later, students hacked into the Tagus computer system and messed with the class grades. In the end, the school managed to get all the grades back—except Pierre’s. He had to retake all his tests in just a week.”
“And he failed,” I guessed.
“No, he passed,” Kiana said as if it were even worse, “but he did them while high on methamphetamines. He was spotted buying them that week. That was the last he was seen at Tagus. His friends say his parents pulled him out because he got hooked. Maybe he’s still in rehab.”
Dash had a dramatically tragic expression on his face, like something out of a soap opera. “I’ve never seen another tongue like it since.” He pretended to sob.
Kiana rolled her eyes. “The point is that Aegan acts strategically,” she said.
“The hackers were expelled, but everyone knows that Aegan was behind it all. He’s not stupid; he made others do the dirty work to keep his own hands clean.
” The dirtiest and most effective moves were made by people like this.
Maybe I should be a little more wary of that Cash brother.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what’ll go down,” I said with a shrug.
And yeah, lots of things would go down. Just not the way we all expected or planned.