“He said he found someone else, someone he couldn’t live without. He just up and left us one day like we were nothing.”
This was more than petty revenge. It was the act of a broken heart.
The floodgates opened, and Matthew’s words tumbled out in a torrent. “A couple weeks ago, I saw you and Gideon walking around. I don’t know what you said to him, but he laughed so hard he had to stop and catch his breath.”
What did it say about me that I didn’t even remember that happening? There were dozens of moments just like that one in recent memory.
“Afterward, I was upset and I wasn’t thinking clearly, so I did something—”
He cut himself off abruptly, but I knew how that sentence ended. He was so angry that he put in a hit request on Gideon. Because Gideon’s life wasn’t crashing down around him and his was.
“Hey.” I reached out and grabbed his hands, encircling them as much as I could with the bracelet still tucked between his fingers, like a weird Russian nesting doll. “It’s never too late to make things right. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Or what you almost had someone else do. You. Can. Fix. It.”
As he looked into my eyes, I could see he knew. He knew what I was and how much I understood what he wouldn’t say. But suddenly, it didn’t matter. Not to me. This was for Gideon, and I would go to any lengths to help him.
“Do you hear me? You can still fix it, but time is running out.”
Matthew pulled his hands from mine and blinked rapidly for several seconds. That must be what you had to do when the world tilted on its axis—adjust your eyes to the new view.
“I can?” he whispered in disbelief. I doubted he was conscious of it, but his fingers fidgeted with the bracelet as he spoke, petting it like it was a lucky rabbit’s foot. “I’ve been sick over it for days, trying to find a way to undo what I’d done. I regretted it immediately. I even tried to force the locker open to get my note back.”
“You can walk away from this, but you need to do the same thing as before and ask to stop it. Like today.”
He nodded. “I will.”
I waited with my hand resting on the door until he looked back to me. When he finally did, I let my gaze harden so he would see nothing but determination and know I was not one to mess with. “I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret it or I won’t be the only one who does.”
The warmth of Matthew’s car faded from me quickly when I stepped out into the cold air. Ending our conversation with a threat felt wrong. Kindness wasn’t something I could give him, but there was someone else who could. I turned and leaned back in the car. “Talk to him. He’s a better person than either of us. If he knew, he’d want to be there for you.”
“I know he would, but I don’t want his or anyone else’s pity.”
The way Matthew said pity sounded synonymous with poison.
“It’s not pity.” I nodded toward the bracelet. “It’s friendship.”
CHAPTER 29
THE WALK BACK to Heller was long and cold, but I cocooned myself in the warmth of my triumph. I grabbed my journal from my bag to record my success.
November 16
Even work done in the shadows can be good.
Haley’d said she was doing me a favor by assigning this job to me. Hopefully, she’d never know how right she was. No one else could have protected Gideon. And I’d done it without compromising my position in the Red Court. Well, not entirely compromising it, anyway. Haley would have an aneurysm if she knew how it had gone down. Good thing she never needed to know.
My real phone buzzed in my pocket with a text message.
Unknown number: Do you want to meet up after school?
Unknown number: It’s Chase by the way.
Unknown number: You probably figured that out though. You’re smart like that.
Chase was cute when he was being self-conscious. I saved his number in my phone and tapped out a reply.
Me: Prove it’s really you and not an impostor.
Chase: My Lit midterm score is going to kick your score’s ass
He was insufferable.
Me: Fine. It’s you.
Chase:
Me: Yeah, let’s meet by my locker. 1120.
* * *
My off-hour had long since ended, and my parents were likely to get a call about my unexcused absence soon. So much for my perfect attendance record. I texted my dad that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to be excused from classes. He was more likely than my mom to buy the lame excuse without further explanation.
With the weight of Gideon’s takedown lifted, I remembered the note in my pocket. I pulled the crumpled piece of paper out and examined it more closely. The note was slashed onto the page in hasty, garbled words. What was more alarming was that the pen looked to have punctured the paper in several places. So, the person was writing quickly but with a lot of force. And a lot of anger.
The handwriting wasn’t familiar and the paper itself was from a generic college-ruled notebook. I couldn’t detect any traces of perfume or any other identifying marks. My mind strayed to Gretchen, but it didn’t fit. She was after the Queen of Hearts, too, but for entirely different reasons. That only left the person who asked the Red Court to break up Chase and his ex-girlfriend and then take me out as well.
If I was looking for an admirer of Chase, the entire school was in the suspect pool. There wasn’t anything to be done without more information. I tried to push the worry to the side, but a lingering unease twisted my stomach. There was only one way I could think to draw out whoever this was. I had to keep seeing Chase. Poor me.
* * *
Even being excused from the rest of my classes, I fell back into the rhythm of my schedule. When the final bell sounded, I joined the flash flood of students that tumbled into the halls after French class. The hallway with my locker was abandoned by the time I made it across the school to gather my things and head home. Opening the locker with a clang, I wished I could say I was surprised to see a playing card sitting on the shelf, but I wasn’t.
The card was a Joker. On the back were only two words in distinctive block lettering:
CALL ME
The threat of the Joker was evident enough. If I didn’t call Haley, I would become the next target. So far, I’d managed to hold everything together with dental floss and a prayer, but it seemed like my house of cards might collapse at any moment.
“Hey!”
Chase’s voice jolted me out of my stupor. I quickly added the playing card to my pocket along with the other threat I received today. I was on a roll.