by Elise Noble
“I don’t smoke much either,” I explained. “Only when I need to take the edge off.”
“Why do you need to take the edge off?”
“It’s not every day you flush a tart’s head down the toilet and nearly get caught.”
“You did what?”
“I thought you already knew?”
“I saw Deandra coming out of Ezra’s office with one of the other Dingbat Barbies, and Deandra’s MO is to weaponise the teachers against her enemies. When Ezra wanted to talk to you, I knew she’d reported you for something. But giving her a swirly? She’s had that coming for a long time. Chem, you deserve a medal.”
“So do you, because that was a nice deflection. C’mon, Shortcut—what’s eating at you?”
“Are you always this perceptive?”
“There you go again.”
“Don’t you ever quit?”
“I—”
He held up a hand to silence me. “On second thought, I don’t want to know the answer. I’ll talk, okay? Have you ever considered working at Guantanamo Bay? I hear the CIA’s interrogation team has openings.”
The wall of the shed creaked alarmingly when Asher stood and leaned against it, and I had visions of being buried under a pile of rotting wood. Perhaps I should have left my microphone on after all? Emmy could send Ryder and his merry men to rescue me because no way was I explaining that predicament to the fire brigade.
“Being around you makes me stressed,” Asher said.
Well, shit. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel that way.”
“I know. But you…you see me in a way nobody else does, not even my family. All the things I try to hide, you either notice them on your own…” He waved the glowing end of the cigarette. “Or I blurt them out when you ask. I feel as if I’m losing control of my life.”
“I’m not planning to tell anyone your secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I rose to face him. “You know one of mine too. Why did you cover for me?”
“I already told you—Deandra deserved to be taken down a peg or two.” He chuckled. “Or ten. And Ezra’s a whiny asshole.”
“Why do you hate the Rosenbergs so much?”
“Because of the way they treated my mother. They disowned her after she went to college.” He sighed. “She grew up here, but she broke with family tradition and chose California College of the Arts instead of Harvard.”
“They disowned her for picking a different school?”
“No, they disowned her because she fell in love with my dad. His father was a janitor at CCA.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. His family was the wrong colour, and from the wrong social class. But my mom said to hell with it and married him anyway.”
“Wow. That’s…that’s disgusting. What they did to her,” I hastened to add. “Not what she did.”
“The joke was on them because my Californian grandparents worked their asses off so Dad could be the first person in their family to go to college, and he graduated from Stanford with distinction. And then he went to law school. I had a good life as a kid, at least until Mom died.”
“I’m so sorry.” I squeezed his free hand with mine. It seemed like an appropriate thing to do. “But I still don’t understand how you ended up here.”
“It’s a long, long story.”
“If you want to talk, I’m here to listen. But if you don’t, that’s okay too.”
He flicked his cigarette butt onto the cracked concrete floor and ground it out with his heel, then bent to pick it up and drop it into a battered metal watering can. I followed suit and saw the little pile of dog-ends already in there. Perhaps Asher got more stressed than he cared to admit.
“Mom died suddenly. Her aorta ruptured in the middle of a yoga lesson, and by the time the ambulance got there, she was gone. Do me a favour and skip the yoga lessons, Sky. I hate the thought of you…” Popping my clogs the same way? “Never mind.”
“I’ll avoid yoga.”
He squeezed my hand back.
“I was twelve. And the bottom dropped out of my world. Dad always made sure we had family time at the weekend, but during the week, he worked long hours, so it was just me and Mom. She picked me up from school, helped with my homework, ate dinner with me. Then suddenly she was gone. I couldn’t handle it. From the outside, I looked okay, but inside, it felt as if a wrecking ball had gone through my ribs. I fucked up my first year of junior high and had to repeat it.”
Grief. I’d barely experienced it, not really, but Lenny had almost died three months ago and the numbness I’d felt in those few minutes…
“That’s completely understandable.”
“Not to my dad. He had this crazy work ethic, and he couldn’t figure out why I didn’t share it. Plus he fell apart after Mom died too. He’d already buried both of his parents, and after Mom’s funeral, he stopped coming home, stopped eating, developed this distance in his eyes. She was his soulmate, and without her, he was never the same. After one of our many, many arguments, he told me he couldn’t bear to look at me because I reminded him of what he’d lost.”
What a cruel thing to tell a child. If what I saw in Asher’s eyes was any indication, then words hurt far more than fists ever could. For once, I was grateful my father had chosen the latter.
“I wish I could go back in time and flush his head down the toilet.”
That got me the tiniest smile. “What’s done is done. We drifted apart after that. Dad spent most of his time in the office, and I spent most of mine getting into trouble. Lucky I knew a good lawyer.”
“Did you ever get arrested?”
“A few times. Mostly, I hightailed it before the cops came. Ever driven a modified Mustang along a freeway with the sound of sirens in the background? It’s a fuckin’ rush.”
Asher had been a street racer? I got a rush too, all my blood heading south to places it definitely shouldn’t have gone. But those guys had balls.
“Do you still have the Mustang?”
“Not that one, but a different one. I had to hide it from my dad. Our relationship had broken down completely by that point, and he’d have crushed the car if he’d found out about it. I guess I couldn’t have blamed him. He’d sent me to three good schools, two of which I got expelled from, and I’d failed everything and quit. I turned eighteen, got a job where I earned good money, and messed around with cars in my spare time. Only went home to sleep. Figured I’d do that for the rest of my life, but then Dad had a heart attack at his desk one night. His PA didn’t find him until the next morning.”
Any words would have been totally inadequate. There wasn’t enough sympathy in the world for what had happened to Asher. So I did the only thing I could think of and wrapped my arms around him in a slightly awkward hug. We stood in silence long enough for a spider to drop from the roof, crawl all the way across my shoulder, and start creeping down my arm. I wasn’t arachnophobic or anything, but it took willpower I didn’t know I possessed to keep from flicking it away. I tried shifting to the side, but it tippy-toed over my wrist and took up residence on my hand.
“So after that, what, you decided to reconnect with your mother’s side of the family?”
“Not exactly, not by choice anyway. By then, Dad and I had clashed so many times that he’d added a clause to his will. If I want to inherit a cent, I have to get my high school diploma.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
“As I said, I can’t blame him. If I’d had a kid like me, I’d probably have done the same thing. And maybe I’d have stayed in California if I hadn’t lost my job, but…” He paused for a moment. Swallowed. “Anyhow, Grandma Rosenberg heard what had happened and reached out. Mom had partially reconciled with her over the years—not Ezra or Saul and definitely not her father, but she spoke to Grandma. We even visited a time or two. Which left me with two choices—going to public school in San Diego and scraping by on my own, or coming here and doing t
he bare minimum. Both shitty options, but this place seemed like the lesser of two evils. So that’s my story, Chem. Told you it was long.”
“How are you finding Shadow Falls?”
“So far, it’s met with my expectations, but the future seems a little brighter.” Asher smiled at me. “You can take your hand off my ass now. Or leave it there. I don’t care.”
Oops. Damn spider. I shifted my arm to a more appropriate position, and the eight-legged freak floated to the floor and scuttled away.
“Sorry. Uh, if you need to graduate, then perhaps we really should do some studying this evening?”
He made a face.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. I can help you with reading or whatever. Honestly, I don’t mind.”
“Have you eaten dinner?”
I shook my head. “But it’s fine. I have a stash of jelly beans in my room.”
In forty-seven different flavours, no less. That was practically a meal in itself. But Asher didn’t seem to think so. He pushed away from the wall, forcing me to take a step backwards.
“It’s not fine. You need to eat.” He held out a hand, and this time, I didn’t think twice before I took it. “I have a kitchen. You’ll have to sneak into Linton Hall, but I’ll make you dinner.”
“You can cook?”
“I can microwave.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
CHAPTER 28 - SKY
IF LENNY’S THERAPY sessions were anything like socio-emotional learning, then I sure felt sorry for him. Wednesday afternoon, and twelve of us were sitting around in a circle on the floor, waiting for the teacher to arrive. At Shadow Falls Academy, they liked to mix things up a bit for this session, and none of these people were in any of my other classes. The guy with the coloured bracelets, I wasn’t even sure he was on the same planet. He’d brought his own freaking cushion.
Eventually, the teacher arrived. Normally, she taught pottery, but today she was stuck with us lot.
“Apologies for being late. A freshman had a crisis of confidence and locked herself in a bathroom stall, but that’s all sorted out now. Just a reminder: if one of your peers seems troubled, be the friend they need. Working together makes each one of us stronger. That’s synergy.”
“She means symbiosis,” the guy next to me muttered.
“Today,” the teacher continued, “is all about problem-solving. Who can finish the saying for me? A problem shared is…”
“A problem halved,” everyone answered in chorus.
Although she should have added a disclaimer. If I shared most of my problems with the people here, they’d turn into even bigger problems.
“Each of you take a card from the pile and pass it on. I want you to write down an issue that’s bothering you—anonymously, of course—and we’ll share ideas as a group and see if we can come up with a solution.”
What a waste of time. For me, anyway. Perhaps the others might find it helpful. But all I could think of was that I’d be wasting eighty minutes, and I could have spent those eighty minutes doing something that actually mattered. Such as brainstorming with the team at Blackwood to work out how the hell we were going to find these damn paintings. Emerald and The Shepherd were ghosts. I’d been at Shadow Falls for almost two weeks, and although I’d made progress with the bugs and whatnot, none of the players were actually talking about the game. That was my problem.
I also had to watch my back as well as Vanessa’s because I’d pissed off the Britneys. Only a fool would have missed the glares they gave me every time we passed in the hallways, and I liked to think I was no fool.
And then there was my latest issue. Asher. He’d walked me back to New Hall yesterday evening, and I couldn’t get his final words out of my head. The ones he’d leaned in close and whispered right before I went inside.
“You want to know the real reason I covered for you with Deandra? Because I like you, Chem.”
What was a girl supposed to say to that?
I liked him too—I just wasn’t sure I was meant to, not in that way. Emmy was right—I’d be gone soon, and I’d already gotten in deep enough with Asher that I knew he’d be hurt when I left.
But I could hardly write any of those problems down on my piece of card, could I now?
Instead, when the time was almost up, I scribbled five words that bore a resemblance to the truth.
I feel like an imposter.
In a way, being assigned to this group was a blessing. These people weren’t my tribe. It didn’t matter what they thought of me.
“Feeling vulnerable in a new position is natural,” one girl said. “People aspire to attend this school. I think it’s natural for a person to feel that they don’t deserve to be here. But remember—you got here on merit, and that means it’s your home.”
I hadn’t come to Shadow Falls on merit, not by any stretch of the imagination, but what about my job at Blackwood? There’d been no interview. There’d been no bullshit test. Emmy had picked me based on my performance in a couple of awkward situations.
“We all make mistakes,” another girl said. “What defines us is how we act afterwards.”
I’d almost run after my fuck-up at the Grove, but I hadn’t. Surely that counted for something?
“Everybody feels like an imposter at some time or another,” a boy said. He’d played on stage with the woodwind ensemble on Monday, so presumably he knew what he was talking about. “Once you realise that, it’s easier to build up your confidence.”
What they said… It actually helped. Okay, so the cushion guy told me to listen to my cosmic influences, whatever those were, but everyone else helped. I wasn’t expecting them to, but they did. Perhaps it wasn’t such a waste of eighty minutes, after all.
But I still had bugs to plant.
After classes, I stuck to the deal I’d made last night with Asher and spent an hour studying with him, in the library this time since a bunch of his dorm buddies were lounging around in the communal living room at Linton Hall and I didn’t fancy walking through the middle of them. Gossip was rife on campus. I tried to stay out of it, but I still heard the rumours, mainly via Vanessa.
Chet Somerville got seen leaving Emily Morten’s room, and before that the door was closed for at least five minutes. *shocked face.*
Janie Beardsley caught a ride home on Hunter Shaw’s parents’ private jet at the end of last term, and they were meant to be sworn enemies. Can you believe that?
Melody Raine found a pair of boxers stuffed down the back of a couch in one of the practice rooms, and Tim Stevens said they belonged to Mike Hamburg. Mike Hamburg. He was meant to be dating Jenny Stewart, and she wore a purity ring. Gasp.
Asher’s apartment was on the second floor, and the fire escape was alarmed, unlike the one at the Grove. Asher knew that because one of his responsibilities as student liaison was to test the system once a month. Which meant I couldn’t sneak in that way. Nor did I want to become the subject of school scuttlebutt myself, not when I was supposed to be keeping a low profile and definitely not when I had no idea what, if anything, was going on between me and Asher Martinez.
So we’d shared a table in the reference section, and even better, Ezra Rosenberg happened to walk past, which lent weight to my alibi for the Deandra incident. Asher seemed relaxed. Chilled. Less bothered about the test than I was, which was kind of surprising because now that he’d confided in me, I saw the true extent of his struggles to read and write. If a book came in electronic format, he had his phone read it to him, but words on paper? A whole other story. Typing was fine—he said spellcheck was his best friend—but give him a pen and he’d dither. And then there was his mind. It was sharper than he’d ever let on, and his memory was phenomenal.
I could easily have talked to Asher all night, but I still had work to do, so at half past six, I told him I needed some girl time and went to eat dinner with Vanessa. Afterwards, I planned to slink out and sneak into a staff office or two. I still had half of the rooms in that ar
ea left to bug, including Saul and Ezra Rosenberg’s. Their offices were down a separate hallway, their own little enclave, and they both spent way too much time working in them.
Luckily, Vanessa assumed I was going to see Asher again.
“You’re going out? Where? Wait—don’t tell me, don’t tell me… I still think he’s a bum, but if he makes you happy, then I guess that makes him an okay bum.”
“An okay bum? What do you call people you don’t like?”
Vanessa giggled. “Go, go! Or you’ll be late for your hook-up.”
I didn’t bother to correct her, not about the hook-up—or rather, the lack of one—or about her perception of Asher’s laziness. I’d promised to keep his secrets, and I would. Plus it was better for her to think I was a wannabe slut than a wannabe spy.
Tonight, I planned to get into two more offices. We knew from Marshall’s information that staff at the school were involved, but finding out who was tricky. I decided that on this occasion, I’d go for the pottery teacher because Marshall said he’d once been hired to move an expensive vase and I figured she might know a thing or two about that, plus Professor Eastman—the biology teacher—because I’d seen him hobnobbing with Saul Rosenberg on several occasions.
I didn’t need to take much with me—just a pair of gloves, a set of lock picks, the bugs themselves, and a multitool. I’d gotten the process down to a fine art over the past two weeks, and I could install a bug in an electrical socket in under five minutes. At first, Nate had been on hand to help me, but I was confident doing them alone now. Ryder was listening in, but he didn’t say much. The sound of a TV in the background suggested he was multitasking.
The pottery teacher’s office looked more like a gift shop. Every surface was covered in trinkets, mostly pots and dishes but also paintings and beaded thingamajigs and bizarrely, several dozen pairs of chopsticks. I resisted the urge to poke around and focused on my goal instead. Remove the front plate. Find the right wires. Clip the bug in. Screw everything back where it should be.