Making the Grade (The Model Spy #2)

Chapter 17 - Completely

I waited outside the door, listening. If this was some big, secret club on campus, its membership roll was very low. I could only count two voices, both male, going back and forth in slurred words.

“And I told him…told him to go jump in front of the train,” one said.

The other’s response was a loud cackle, like the hyenas in The Lion King. Crazed and piercing.

I was just about to ask myself what the heck I was listening to, when the smell hit me. This was in fact a secret meeting, but it wasn’t the one I had been expecting, the one Emily had joined.

I pushed the door open, only a crack and my eyes were clouded by thick smoke. I held my breath against the smell. A lot of people smoked weed at my old high school, Will included, I was sure. But it had never been my thing and I could kiss my job with the CIA goodbye if I was ever caught with it. Fred probably would have grounded me for life, too.

None of the boys were Jayden, but I recognized them from his little posse. About a dozen candles were lit around the room, the electricity having been shut off long ago. No wonder the building had started on fire before.

My eyes burning, I stepped backwards, convinced my night had been a waste. Our only big lead, and it turned out to be a bust.

  “What are you up to?” A hand clutched my shoulder and whipped me around.

I gasped as Jayden pinned me against the wall. His warm breath smelled like alcohol and there was a cigarette tucked behind his ear. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t touch me,” I said, remembering Zach’s self-defense lesson and pushing Jayden away as hard as I could. He was drunk and unbalanced and he staggered back easily. I felt in my pocket for the pen with sedatives, until I remembered I had left everything back in my room. An idiot, that’s what I was.

“You wanted me to touch you yesterday,” he slurred. “You ugly little sl-”

He froze and brought his hand to his cheek, where I had slapped him. There was an imprint of my ring on his skin.

At first, I thought his eyes were red because he was about to cry like some child who had just been scolded in public. For a moment, I really thought I had hurt him, until I realized he had been smoking too.

He lunged at me before I had time to move out of the way. His hands wrapped around my upper arms, and he pushed me backwards, through the door and into the room where his two friends were smoking. I tumbled over my feet and too the ground, nearly falling in the lap of one of his friends.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“An ugly little spy,” Jayden spit.

I knew what he meant; not that he knew I was an actual spy, but his words still forced me to catch my breath for a minute.

“She isn’t that ugly,” the friend said. I moved away from him, just as he reached out for my hair.

“Come back,” he said with a laugh. He reached for me again, but his hand knocked over one of the many candles in the room.

The four of us watched in horror as the candle wavered  back and forth before falling to the floor. Perhaps the fire would not have been so bad, had there not been an old, ragged carpet. When the flame hit it, the fabric burst into flames as though it had been doused in gasoline.

The boys all screamed, as I stood and glanced around the room, looking for anything to put the fire out.

“Not again,” Jayden called out. “Let’s get out of here.”