Two is Company (House of Anubis)

Chapter 30: Jackal Not-So-Anonymous

The first thing Kira heard as she rounded the corner was Joy's astonished: "Wait, you're Jack Jackal?"

Kira crept down the half-empty, stopping just before the door of the computer lab where she'd heard the accusation. She didn't want to interrupt just yet, and she gnawed at her lower lip. Was she going to lose a friend that day? Neither Mara nor Joy would have written something so awful, no matter what Amber or Nina thought... they just couldn't.

"No," scoffed Mara, a nervous tremor in her voice. "As if! I mean, I wish..." There was a pregnant pause, and she immediately caved. "Alright, it's me, but I'm not allowed to write under my own name, and I have so much to say! But I didn't write this!" She sounded insistent and desperate, enough so that any suspicion Kira had of Mara's involvement with the article went up in a puff of guilty smoke. The thought shouldn't have even crossed her mind.

There was another pause, and then Mara said two words that made Kira's stomach drop:

"You did."

She crept closer to the doorframe, while Joy coughed incredulously. "Excuse me?" she asked, offended.

"You said Jack Jackal sent it in, but I know he couldn't have because I'm the one with his email account," Mara said, and as she pressed on with her accusation, Kira felt herself growing colder. "This is really mean, Joy."

It was beyond mean— it was downright cruel. Kira didn't know what had happened the year before, beyond the fact that Joy hadn't been in school, and she knew that she and Nina didn't get along because of boy trouble... but this was inexcusable.

"I know," sighed Joy, "and I'm sorry."

"And when it gets out that I'm Jack, Mr. Sweet is going to have every right to expel me!" Mara exclaimed. "Again!"

Kira peered into the classroom, just out of sight, save for the top of head and eyes, but they were too distracted to notice her presence.

"Well, I won't say anything," Joy said quietly, a question clear in her voice. "About anything..."

Mara looked at her for a second, then looked away. "Okay..." she trailed off hesitantly. "I guess I won't either." And then they smiled at each other like they'd promised not to tell Vera they'd broke a vase, not like they'd promised to cover up honest-to-god libel.

Kira pulled her head back and pressed herself against the wall between the lockers and the door. The revelation was overwhelming, to say the least, and she struggled not to cry. Could she ever look at either of them the same way again? Her best friend, the first person to truly make her feel at home at Anubis House, and her crush, the first person who'd made her heart flutter since Ben...

There was that same feeling boiling in her chest as the night when Eddie had broken the hami khafi: rage and frustration. The article hadn't even been about her, but there was something about the malicious nature of the whole thing that burned as though it had. She and Nina weren't close— hell, they barely spoke— but she was still her friend. Americans ought to stick together, hadn't they?

Maybe if Mara came clean, they could move past this. After all, she was only biting her tongue to keep her already tenuous position at the school intact; there was an element of sympathy to be had there. But Joy?

Kira screwed her eyes shut, hating the way the tears burned on her cheeks. She didn't know what to do.

—

She walked to class alone the next morning, hanging back from where Mara and Jerome chatted up ahead of her as they walked into British Lit. She'd been avoiding everyone since yesterday afternoon, unsure of what course of action to take. Still, she'd come to a point of resolve: if they didn't come clean on their own, she'd give an ultimatum.