Her expression sobered. “While I agree with you, you need to be careful.”
“I wouldn’t give anything away, if that’s what you’re concerned about. As far as anyone knows, I’m a dedicated student and nothing more.” How could she think I would blab to the first handsome boy to catch my eye?
“That’s not what I mean. Don’t forget that Chase has an admirer who likes him enough that she contracted us to dismantle his last relationship.”
I did forget. I was so worried about the Red Court’s eyes watching me that I failed to remember there might be someone else, someone desperate, who kept a close eye on Chase.
The warning felt different from the last one Haley gave me about Chase. It was more immediate, which raised the hair on my arms. Warning bells rang in my head, sounding eerily similar to Gideon’s words telling me to be careful. There was no time to heed any warnings when I was hurtling down this path at the speed of vengeance.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“We got a hit request today from the same girl who had us set up your little meet-cute with Chase. It was for you.”
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead. Someone wanted to take me down for talking to Chase. All we did was talk. What if they knew I agreed to go on an almost date with him? Would they have taken me out themselves?
“What did you say?”
Haley rolled her eyes at me. “That I’d be the one to do it.” Her snarky attitude served the words with a side of sarcasm. “You’re safe, remember? Rule number one. I take our rules seriously, but in this case we broke rank to tell her that she’d be getting no more favors until we get a return from our initial investment. I’d be careful, though. From the sound of it, she might take matters into her own hands.”
“That is both reassuring and terrifying all at once.”
Haley continued, “It should buy you enough time to ensure that Chase loses interest in you. He will lose interest, right?”
“Maybe?”
Haley produced her most threatening glare. It worked.
“Yes, I’ll make sure he thinks I’m a waste of his precious free time. Why would he take even a minute away from his vapid fangirls to spend time with a nobody like me?”
“Thank you. Was that so hard? Now, let’s talk business.”
The mention of a project brightened my mood. It meant the opportunity to make my next move in the chess game between me and the Queen of Hearts.
“We have an assignment,” Haley said.
If I was working for the Red Court, I could at least have fun with a few harmless jobs.
At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I would indulge myself by thinking about the possibilities for Haley and me to get our hands dirty. The winter formal was coming up, and there were probably tons of options for us.
“What is it?” Apprehension quickened my pulse as anticipation caused delicious licks of excitement to flare in my veins. I wanted another job.
“It’s going to be a tough one. A takedown.”
Disappointment quieted the tumult inside me. Not my first choice, but I had enjoyed twisting the screws on Alec. There was always something to savor.
“I thought you only did election rigging and things like that.”
“Not always, and this one is specifically for you. The person we have to take down is Gideon.”
CHAPTER 26
I FLASHED HOT and cold and hot again. “Haley.” I couldn’t control the quaver in my voice. “I can’t. It’s Gideon. You know what he means to me.”
Haley’s face was a mask of indifference, but her eyes were bright with what looked like pity. “This is the job. You knew that coming in. There’s a price for us to pay, too. Protection and favors don’t come for free, Ember.”
Emotion would get me nowhere with Haley. Regardless of whether she agreed with me or not, she was too pragmatic about our roles in the Red Court to be moved by tears. I cleared my throat and adjusted my approach. “But he’s my best friend. How could I pull this off without him noticing? I know things about his life no one else does. I can be careful, but I’m not sure I can be that careful.”
I was wrong. There was a line for me, and we’d just reached it.
“It’s because you know him like no one else that you can do it. You said he was entering a photo in the Winter Showcase, right? That could be your platform.”
No, I can’t.
Panic was choking me, stealing the air from my lungs. I was fighting the frantic need to escape the claustrophobia setting in. I had to get out of here before I lost it. I needed more time to think, to think and find a way out of this. Given a few days, I could plan my way out of anything. I had to buy some time.
“Give me the dossier.” I extended my hand to Haley.
Her head tilted ever so slightly to the left, her disbelief at my quick change of heart evident.
“I’m not going to do anything right now, but I’ll look through what you have.”
She gave an approving nod and dug out the folder from her bag. This, at least, she could believe. “I’ll text you the email account details so you can access the list of people who owe us favors.”
I turned without a goodbye and left the room. For once, I was glad for the lack of pleasantries. No goodbyes or unnecessary chatter, just the sound of the door clicking shut behind me.
* * *
I was on autopilot driving home, my mind tangled up in a mess of half-baked solutions. What could I do to get out of this and maintain my place in the Red Court?
Who could possibly want to take Gideon down? He was sarcastic, sure, but he meant well and mostly orbited the drama instead of being the gravitational force at the center of it all. There was no one on my radar who might want to hurt Gideon.
Gideon was my sounding board on any normal problem; a caustic sounding board, but still someone I could air my thoughts to. Just telling him when I was struggling to make a decision helped. Who could I go to now? Certainly not Gideon. I’d have to tell him eventually, but this was not the kind of problem you presented without a ready solution.
April’s window winked in the afternoon sun as I pulled into the driveway. My sister had been instrumental in helping me get into the Red Court, telling me what she remembered about its members from the ever-present rumors that cast a specter-like shadow over Hell High.
She might have some insight into my situation or another angle to consider that I couldn’t see. Some perspective would do me good right now. I wasn’t sure who would win if I had to pick between saving my best friend and settling the score for my sister. The mere thought of choosing between the two made my stomach seize and threatened to bring my lunch back for a curtain call.
I dropped my bags in the hall and raced to April’s room, clutching the dossier. April was at her desk listening to music and looking through Instagram on her computer. I paused at her door and watched as she scrolled through Alec’s feed. Why was she so intent on torturing herself with his new life? Why would she even want to get back together with him?
I cleared my throat and April startled in surprise, quickly closing the window and wiping away the happy couple in front of the azure sea and sugar-white sand, revealing a spreadsheet. I didn’t miss the classic put-a-ring-on-it pose of Alec’s new fiancée, holding her left hand up to the camera and a megawatt smile plastered on her face.
“Hey,” I said.
April sat silent, refusing to meet my eyes.
“How’s the retreat planning going?”
The physical therapy center’s annual retreat was coming up soon, and from the bits April had shared over dinner, it was going to be great. She’d managed to come in under budget, with more activities and participants than ever.
A smile lit her face. She was proud of her work. I knew it was important to her to be a part of something, doing real good for others. “It’s going. I’m get
ting tired of the last-minute changes from the director. But there’s something you need, right? It’s all over your face,” she said with wry amusement.
Stupid face.
“Right. I have a problem, and I’m hoping you can help.”
Her stare gained an interested glint.
“I got a Red Court assignment that I can’t complete. I’m hoping you can help me find a way out of it. It’s a hit,” I continued, “and I just...can’t.”
April turned in her chair to face me fully. “How is this different from the things you’ve already done?”
April’s role as devil’s advocate was not unfamiliar. It’s what made her a good person to talk to when you couldn’t find your way. She’d force you to widen your lens—like switching your camera settings from square to pano, there was more to every situation if only you’d open your eyes.
“The things I’ve done, I can live with the cost. I made peace with being in the gray area between right and wrong, but I think this might push me farther than I’m willing to go.” I paused, considering my words, and how even though they were technically true, I still felt that something inside me had changed. The girl who emerged from deep inside when I needed to be a heartless follower of the Queen of Hearts was making more frequent appearances, and I enjoyed being her more and more with each task, relished the fact that I could enjoy the work. Would any good parts of me remain when this was all over? I couldn’t admit that to April. If I did, she would tell me to stop immediately.
“So far, nothing has changed the person I see in the mirror.” My heart felt heavy with the lie. The last person I could be totally truthful with was slipping away.
She nodded slowly. “And this would?”
I swallowed thickly to clear the lump rising in my throat. The sisterly note in her voice—a comforting mix of affection and reassurance—dissolved my defenses.
April’s eyes caught on the folder in my hands and I moved across the room to lay it on her desk. “Go ahead.”
I settled myself on the familiar pink bedspread, smoothing my fingers against the stitching.
She picked the folder up and opened it. Her eyes darted over the page, and I saw the moment when she registered why I was here asking for help.
“It’s Gideon.” The sympathy in her voice cut right to the quick, exposing the soft parts of me I shielded from the world.
“April, I can’t do it. Even if I could somehow engineer it to not be that bad, I’d still never be able to live with myself.” Without meaning to, my mind cast ahead to the Winter Showcase, framing the outline of Gideon’s takedown. If the Red Court was going to crush him, that would be the place to do it. Last year, he’d worked for months on a collection of poems, only to be told he was “trying too hard” by his Honors Lit teacher. I knew he’d held on to those pages and the handwritten feedback. If anyone else ever saw them, he’d be beyond humiliated. Gideon was a private person and displaying something so personal would gut him. Haley was right. The people who knew you best knew how best to hurt you.
I may have had a whitecapped ocean of anger and sadness inside me when I thought of what the Red Court did to April. But with Gideon, it was protectiveness awakening within me. Our relationship was a thread woven through my past that continued beyond the horizon toward my future. He was my friend, a true friend, and I knew enough of the world to know how valuable that was.
I let the steel shine in my voice. “I would never hurt him. Period.”
April smiled. “I’d like to say that you should walk away from all this, but I know you feel like you can’t. So, I have an idea for you.”
April riffled through the rest of the papers in the dossier.
“Aha.” She produced a note from the stack and handed it over to me. “This is what you do next.”
I accepted the page with a quaking hand. Relief hit me as I inspected the page and saw what she meant. A name I recognized leapt out at me. The person who made the request was Matthew, Gideon’s ex.
“So? What do you think?”
“I think Matthew is about to find himself rescinding his request.” My moral compass spun again, finding a new north. If there was one thing I’d learned about myself over the last month, it was that vigilante justice was kind of my thing. Exacting revenge against those who deserved it lent a righteous angle to my position. All I needed was a cape and mask.
* * *
That night, as I lay awake in bed, I waited for an idea to form. Brainstorming was like gathering a pool of water from condensation, each drop adding a new dimension to the whole.
First, I had to figure out why Matthew wanted to take Gideon down. They broke up last summer, but it wasn’t ugly or anything, and it was fairly drama-free. Granted, I had only Gideon’s take on things. Matthew might feel differently. It was worth looking into.
Matthew and I had been on good terms when he was dating Gideon. Not close, but friendly. If his car had been broken down on the side of the road, I’d have been the first to offer him a ride. Blackmailing Matthew, uncovering something big enough to make him balk, pricked at my conscience. I tossed in my bed, grumpy that my conscience couldn’t see the bigger picture. I was doing this for Gideon. Just like I was doing this for April.
What I needed, if my goal was to get Matthew to withdraw his request on his own, was leverage. The right amount of pressure on just the right pain point would bring him to his knees. A small voice in the corner of my mind wondered what happened for Matthew to go this far. And though I’d never acknowledge it, the small voice also wondered if Gideon deserved it.
“Gideon,” I whispered aloud, “what did you do?”
When I finally drifted off to a fitful sleep, dark dreams plagued me. In them, I swam against an endless avalanche of playing cards—each one the Queen of Hearts. A girl’s voice cried out for me to save her. I couldn’t see where she was, but it sounded unnervingly like Gigi. Waves pounded my hands as I tried to protect myself, and a thousand tiny paper cuts nicked my palms. I was sticky with blood, and everywhere I looked, there were red hearts and red queens. Red, red, red. The color of my revenge.
CHAPTER 27
BUZZ.
Buzz, buzz.
I reached into my bag and silenced the burner phone. My fuse was short this morning and I didn’t want to risk reading another of Haley’s snarky texts. I might explode at the next person to look at me sideways. Days had passed since we met in the theater room, and my momentum on The Gideon Problem stalled out. With all my attention on Matthew, I couldn’t spare a moment to continue my search for the Queen of Hearts. Dodging Haley’s texts was only getting more difficult. She made her expectations clear, and each day I didn’t deliver a design for Gideon’s destruction, her suspicions grew.
Much to my disappointment, Matthew was a creature of routine—a boring routine. His route to and from school never deviated. He religiously spent his off-hour in the chem lab, studying or reading. So far, there were no telltale signs that he had a bone to pick with Gideon or any secrets I could exploit. After spending a worthless week shadowing Shauna, too, I was earning an advanced degree in stalking.
I was also getting to school earlier each day and returning home well past the normal hour. It was eating away at my precious free time and peeling myself out of bed before dawn was becoming more difficult by the day.
I was waiting for Gideon at the bottom of the stairs to the third floor, planning my campaign speech for coffee, when my regular phone dinged with a text.
Gideon: I have to stay and talk to Mr. Hall about issues with my physics project. I’ll see you later.
Me: Ok. Good luck!
Tucking my phone away, I took a deep breath. Even worse than all the extra sneaking around was keeping something else from my best friend. Logical Ember knew telling Gideon about Matthew’s request before I fixed it would end in disaster. Emotional Ember keenly felt the weight of the lie b
y omission. I was grateful for a few minutes to myself, to be myself.
As I wove between cars in the parking lot, I saw a figure lingering near the hood of my Jetta. My pace slowed as I squinted against the bright sunlight to see who it was.
“You came,” Chase said with a tentative grin.
“What?”
“Our coffee run.”
I had a brief moment where I thought I was going insane because I definitely did not have plans to grab coffee with Chase today. It was one of those things I’d remember. Probably forever.
He was sporting his letter jacket, buttoned up to the neck against the crisp November air. The whole system of letters and jackets seemed like old relics from the days of putting a pin on your best girl, but on Chase, it worked. His wholesome smile made his jacket charming instead of cheesy.
“I don’t think we specifically said today. Did we?” I was doing my best to hide how charmed I was.
“No, but we did talk about getting coffee together at this time.”
“You’ve been waiting out here every third period for the last few days?”
He shyly ducked his head and my Grinch heart grew three sizes. If I was truly selfless, I’d end all of this right now. I’d push him away and unequivocally state that he needed to find someone else.
I was not selfless.
“Well, your chariot awaits.” I hit unlock on my key fob to punctuate my invitation with an anemic honk of my car alarm.
Chase only shook his head in amusement and folded his tall frame into the passenger side. I noticed a small piece of paper tucked under my windshield wiper and pulled it free. Maybe Chase was leaving a note when I found him?
Unlike the heart note, though, this one didn’t have any flourishes.
STAY AWAY FROM CHASE
A chill swept through me. I crushed the note in my hand and glanced at the boy in question, sitting in my passenger seat. I managed a brief smile and got in the car. Whoever asked the Red Court to take me out wasn’t content to wait. Just what I needed.
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