by Kes Trester
“So, Riley,” she said.
My shoulders tensed as if to absorb a blow, and I willed myself to relax. “Yes, Quinn?”
“I noticed you haven’t posted your man crush yet,” she drawled.
“You’re right, I haven’t.” I took a bite of my sandwich, wondering where her vaguely rude and intrusive observations were headed this time. She could care less about my responses, and only needled me for sport, like she did every time we were together for more than five minutes.
“So who’s it going to be?” Her eyes flicked between Von to my left, who followed the conversation avidly, and Sam at the next table over. Then she assumed an expression of mock embarrassment. “Oh, maybe you’re waiting for tomorrow to post your woman crush? There’s no shame in that, you know.”
“All you need to know, Quinn, is that it’s certainly not you. The gift you left in my coat pocket made sure of that. I’m going to grab a cookie,” I said to the table at large, though I’d barely touched my sandwich. “Anyone want anything?”
Shouts of “chocolate chip!” and “peanut butter!” followed me into the kitchen, nearly empty except for the lunch lady wearing an immaculate white apron around her thick middle as she worked.
I grabbed a large plate and got busy filling orders, though I was in no hurry to get back to the table. Since I hadn’t been able to resist mentioning the weed Quinn had planted, she was probably formulating her next plan of attack. I’d faced down much scarier people than she and held my ground, so why did I let her get under my skin? What was her end game? To provoke me into a rash action that would get me suspended or expelled?
The click of high-heeled boots came up behind me. “You can’t prove anything,” Quinn hissed.
I casually grabbed another chocolate chip cookie. “It doesn’t matter. I know it was you.” I didn’t bother to mention the video because I, too, would get busted if my surveillance tactics were revealed.
“Oh yeah?” she challenged. “What are you going to do about it?”
I turned to face her. “How about nothing, Quinn? I don’t know what I did to you, but I’m sorry, okay? Let’s call a truce and get on with our lives.” I wasn’t a diplomat’s daughter for nothing.
She stared at me as if I were speaking in tongues. “Get on with our lives? You don’t get to decide that.” She took a step closer, purposely invading my personal space. “I’ve been watching you, and this innocent act you’ve got going doesn’t fool me. I’ve seen the way you look at Sam, and I’m going to make sure Hayden does, too. You’re a nobody from nowhere. And you know what else? You… are… in… my… way.” She bit off each word before slamming her hand down on the plate I held, sending cookies skittering across the floor. “Oops, you dropped something.”
She stalked back out to the dining hall. I glanced over at the lunch lady, who was doing her best to be invisible. She’d probably seen far worse but valued her job too much to comment. As long as girls like Quinn thought they could get away with treating people like dirt, there’d be people who’d shrink into themselves to avoid being noticed.
I reached for my phone and powered it on. My finger hovered for a second, maybe two, before I keyed in the brief sequence and pressed “send”.
A cacophony of beeps and ringtones accompanied Quinn back to the table. I hovered in the kitchen doorway as people reached into backpacks, purses, and pockets. A hush descended on the senior tables, punctuated here and there by a gasp or a giggle. The only one not thumbing through evidence of Quinn selling out her friendship with Hayden was Quinn herself since I’d excluded her from the program.
Mostly I watched Hayden. Her face lost all its color. Heads came together and the low hum of gossip kicked in. Slowly, one by one, people stared at Quinn, who had been checking her own phone and was oblivious to the wildfire soon to engulf her.
The moment I’d been waiting for came soon enough. Quinn glanced up to see dozens of people glaring, and she visibly flinched. “What?” She looked at Hayden for enlightenment. “What’s going on?”
The fortitude that must sustain Hayden through countless media events, photo ops, and public scrutiny surfaced. She calmly turned to Stef. “It’s on your phone, too?”
He nodded, his eyes full of compassion for his sister.
Hayden handed Quinn her phone, and all conversation stopped. Nothing was more interesting than the drama playing out here. When Quinn finally looked up from the screen, her chin trembled.
“What happened to you, Quinn?” Hayden was near tears, but she clenched her jaw as if defying them to fall. “How did you get so broken?”
Quinn started to weep. “You don’t understand. I didn’t mean to hurt you… I just needed the money. You have no idea what it’s like to have nothing… to be nothing! I’d never worn anything that hadn’t first been worn by somebody else until my grandmother died. Even then, the money wasn’t enough. I needed it, don’t you understand?”
Those fabulous Prada boots of hers had come at a very steep cost.
“You have to believe me,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Me, too.” Hayden snatched her phone back and stood.
Quinn scrambled to her feet. “Hayden, please, we have to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t. In fact, we don’t ever have to talk again.” She glanced around the room at all the eager faces. To her credit, she strode out the door like her famous mother walked the red carpet, with head held high above the fray. She might be crumbling inside, but no one would have the satisfaction of seeing it.
Quinn dropped back into her chair like a lifeless doll. The crowd quietly gathered up their things and shuffled off to class. I was one of the last to leave, stopping by the table to retrieve my backpack.
“You did this, didn’t you?” Quinn’s voice was detached, as if she were reciting lines in a play she didn’t understand.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I put the plate of cookies in front of her. “I got you chocolate chip. Sorry yours fell on the floor.” I dug out a pack of tissues and slid them across the table before leaving her to absorb her lonely new reality.
McKenna brushed by me as I walked out the door. She gripped her phone like a weapon, and her lips were pressed together in outrage. I’d momentarily forgotten she was included on the phone chain.
The rest of the day, I pretended to be as shocked as my classmates. Theories about how the information had appeared on everyone’s phones got tossed about. Some were pretty ridiculous, like a power surge, while others were more insightful, like a hacker seeking revenge. Everyone regarded the computer science nerds with a suspicious eye, and a number of students raced to delete texts from their own phones.
Hayden was absent from Chemistry that afternoon, the only class we shared. After the final bell, I made my way to our dorm to find her slumped on her bed, combing through the entire chain of stolen texts. Despite eyes red and swollen from crying, her mouth was a narrow line of fury. She must have come to the text from a certain tabloid editor who had offered a bigger payday for pictures of Hayden drunk, partially clothed, or in an embarrassing situation, to which Quinn had texted back: I’ll try.
I kicked off my shoes and took a seat on my own bed. Quinn had forced my hand, and I regretted Hayden would have to pay for it. I’d just added another brick to her wall, the wall Sam had found too chilly to scale, all in the name of keeping her safe. There was no reliable intel indicating the heiress was in danger, and neither the drone nor the listening devices were imminent threats. Had I done the right thing? Benson would say, “Fight fair if you can, dirty if you must,” so why did I feel so shitty?
“My mom will laugh her ass off when she hears about this,” Hayden said, in a voice almost too low to be heard.
“What makes you say that?”
She looked up from her phone. “She told me not to come here. She knew stuff like this would happen.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Who knows? If Rose were here, she might have sold me out, too.�
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What could I say? I’d thrown her to the wolves as well, in my own way. “I’m sorry.”
She threw the phone down. “For what? You didn’t have anything to do with it. In fact, I’d think you’d be glad.”
I stared at her. “Why would you think that?”
“Don’t play me. We both know Quinn hates your guts.”
“She doesn’t hate me,” I countered. “She doesn’t even know me. I think she hates herself.”
A spark of understanding shone in her eyes. “That makes a weird kind of sense. She never thought she was good enough. If she did, she wouldn’t have cared so much about being my friend.” She caught my look of surprise. “I’m not a complete waste of space, you know.”
“Then why were you friends with her?” I genuinely wanted to know what Hayden got out of it in return.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, more regretful than smug.
“You’re right,” I confessed, crossing the room and perching on the edge of her bed. “I probably wouldn’t. I don’t know what it’s like have my every move watched and picked apart, or to make the front page of a magazine because I cut my hair. But I do know what it means to be kind.”
She scooted back against the headboard and pulled a pillow across her lap in an unconscious bid for protection. “I’m glad somebody around here does.”
“Look, Hayden, I’m not your enemy, and I don’t want anything from you,” I assured her. “Mostly I’m hoping we can get through the year with all our body parts still attached.”
She laughed as if I were kidding.
With fingers steepled in contemplation, Bracken regarded me over a stack of quizzes still to be graded.
“How did you do it?”
“What?” The stapler fumbled right out of my hand. For the past twenty-four hours, the Fin de Quinn, as the French club dubbed it, had been all anyone talked about.
“I want to know how you got into Harrington. It’s obvious you’re smart, but no one gets in unless Gretchen wants you in. What do you have on her?”
I retrieved the stapler and hoped he didn’t notice my trembling fingers. The guy had practically given me a heart attack. His wasn’t an idle question though; Mr. Bracken didn’t engage in small talk. He had something to tell me, but there wouldn’t be any free rides.
“Quid pro quo?” I asked.
He inclined his head like a king granting favors.
“A request from Harrington’s board of directors.” I couldn’t reveal exactly what that request was, but Bracken’s intel had proven quite valuable already, and I needed to know what he’d heard.
“If that’s all kids needed to get in here, they’d be lined up six deep at the gate.” He leaned forward in his chair. “No, there’s something more.”
We stared at each other a few moments as I tried to discern why he was so interested. “If you’re looking for something you can use against Mrs. McKenna, you’re asking the wrong person.”
He drew back in offense. “I would never stoop so low.”
“Then why?” I demanded. “What are you looking for?”
He rose stiffly from his chair and paced a few steps before returning to his desk. “I’ve been a teacher here for twenty-two years, and during that time Gretchen has stuck her neck out again and again for this faculty.” He angrily tugged his tweed vest back into place. “If she’s in trouble, I want to know about it.”
Could there actually be a sentimental streak in the crusty old man? It suddenly occurred to me that with their flinty personalities, he and McKenna would be well suited for one another romantically, but I shut down that train of thought immediately. If that particular image got stuck in my head, I’d gag.
“She’s not in any trouble that I know of, but I can’t say any more. You see, the reason I’m here is, well, it’s classified.” It felt silly to say, like I was playing at some spy game, but I couldn’t compromise the mission.
He stared at me a beat before throwing back his head with laughter. He braced himself against his desk as he howled, slowing down only when he was in tears. Wiping his eyes, he finally caught a breath. “That,” he chortled, “is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a very long time.” Not finding it all that funny myself, I frowned. That, of course, only set him off again.
I stood up and tossed my backpack over one shoulder. If I wanted to be laughed at, I’d head down to the stables. A trot around the arena on Brutus would be sure to get everyone rolling in the aisles.
“Wait.” He took a deep breath, attempting to ward off the last of the giggles. “As I’ve said, Miss Collins, I’ve been here twenty-two years. I know how things work. Right now, Gretchen is trying to figure out how you crucified Miss Sheffield because she’s afraid of what you might do next.”
I started to protest my innocence, but he held up a hand. “Save it. Your only chance is to admit nothing, but make sure she knows there won’t be any more public humiliations. Do you think you can do that?”
McKenna was a formidable opponent with decades of experience in the political arena. If she forced a confrontation, how was I supposed to tell her she had nothing more to fear from me without her badgering a confession out of me? And confession, Benson would say, “is only good for the soul if you’re a priest.”
I nodded, though it was more in gratitude for the warning than in answer to his question.
“Good luck then, Secret Agent Collins,” he said with a straight face, before completely losing it again.
’d barely had a minute to absorb Bracken’s warning before Sarah Jane intercepted me as I trotted down the main staircase.
“McKenna’s looking for you,” she said. Her tone lacked its usual belligerence, and it made me even more apprehensive.
“Do you know why?”
She shrugged. “My guess is she’s going to interrogate the entire senior class over those texts, and she’s starting with you. Just deny knowing anything, and you’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” I said, bemused she’d offer me advice. “I appreciate the heads up.”
We lingered on the staircase landing, sunlight filtering through a giant stained glass window depicting the Harrington coat of arms. The prefect seemed in no hurry to send me on my way.
“You’re not like them,” she observed. “You don’t act like you’re better than anyone else.”
“Thanks,” I said again, not sure how else to respond. “I hope this means we can be friends.” Never overlook a potential asset, Benson would say. Having a prefect on my side could be useful, and if she would lose the resentment she wore like armor, she might even be fun.
Her curt nod said she’d take it under consideration, making me rethink using “fun” and “Sarah Jane” in the same sentence. We then parted ways as I trudged back up to the second floor. Ms. Portman wasn’t at her desk, but the door to McKenna’s lair stood ajar. Muttering “quid pro quo,” like a talisman, I knocked.
“Come in,” she ordered.
Her eyes narrowed at the sight of me, and my stomach clenched. Always do what you are afraid to do was another Benson rule. When I told him he’d plagiarized a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, he’d smiled smugly and replied, “It doesn’t make it any less true, now does it?”
McKenna sat at her desk. Forcing my feet across her beautiful antique rug, I met her stare without flinching–outwardly at least. “You sent for me?”
She tossed down her pen and leaned back in her chair. “What do you know about the dissemination of Quinn Sheffield’s texts?” She didn’t bother to invite me to sit.
“Nothing,” I said, not bothering to feign surprise. “But I sincerely hope neither you nor the school suffers because of it.”
“Pretty words,” she said. “I will be conducting a thorough investigation. Despite Quinn’s wrongdoing, we don’t condone the gross violation of privacy that occurred here. We will find the perpetrator, and he or she will be punished.”
“Mr. Bracken speaks very highly of you,” I said, changing tact
ics. “He said you always have his back, just like you do for the rest of the staff here. I know Harrington means everything to you.”
“Is there a point here?” Despite the fact she was seated and I stood, she still somehow managed to stare haughtily down her nose at me. I could imagine lesser souls turning into puddles at her feet.
I soldiered on. “I’m not saying I had anything to do with what happened to Quinn Sheffield, but I would certainly never wish anything like that to happen again.” It was as far as I could go to promise no further embarrassments without admitting guilt. “While you’re investigating, you may want to check out the rest of your security protocols.”
She paused for a moment, as if turning over my words to see if they contained a veiled threat, but then deciding I was simply a nuisance to be flicked aside. “Despite this breach, I have complete confidence that Harrington remains the safest and most secure school in Connecticut.”
There was a definite rhythm to sparring. You entered the ring, took your opponent’s measure, and then moved into serious combat. With a start, I realized we were following the playbook in our verbal match. It was time to engage.
“Yes, let’s hope you’re right,” I said, with a faint smile.
Her hard stare told me I had her attention. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” I said, with wide-eyed innocence. “But in the few weeks I’ve been here, I’ve seen a lot of things that may lead other people to think the school isn’t as secure as you believe.” The outdated lighting, the lack of security cameras, the open campus that invited trespassers all sprang to mind. “I would hate to see something else happen that would call your leadership into question.” There it was, the full frontal attack.
She pushed out of her chair and slapped her palms on the desk. “I have the full support of the board and the alumni association. They would never let some little troublemaker who doesn’t belong here threaten to push me out.” It was a good defensive move on her part, but I wasn’t finished.