In my panic, my vision blurred and I took a step backwards, my backside colliding with the nightstand. My breathing was heavy, ragged, as Jayden took another step towards me, his combat boots stomping on the floor.
I remembered Paris and being confronted in the catacombs. I gripped the edge of the nightstand.
Max wasn’t talking anymore. It was as if seeing Jayden through my eyes paralyzed him with fear as well. Thick silence echoed over my earpiece.
“What are you doing in my room?” He bared his teeth. He lifted his arms from his sides and lunged towards me. I raised my arms in defense, and I felt his tight grip around both of my wrists.
“Your door was open!” I lied as I struggled to free myself. His grip grew even tighter, two claws crushing my bones. “And I came in and it closed behind me and I was looking for you!” My throat was closing and it was becoming harder to speak. It took nearly all of my strength to squeeze out the lies I wanted to say. I was going to faint. All those days ago, back at Langley, Zach never did tell me how to stop myself from fainting.
“I was looking for you!” I said again. The pressure around my wrists subsided. I dropped my arms to my sides. “I-I-I,” I stuttered. I was never a good liar. The lies rolled off of Fred’s tongue easier than the truth did at times. But me, I couldn’t lie to save my life. And that was a shame, because right now my life really needed saving.
“Pocket,” a voice whispered into my earpiece. “Check his back pocket.”
I had thought Max had abandoned me for good. It felt nice hearing his voice, yet it barely even sounded like him. The voice breaking the silence in my earpiece was so quiet, though, it was hard to hear. For a second I thought I was hearing voices, that I was going crazy as panic consumed me. But the voice was very real.
“Laura, the pocket.”
Cautiously, I eyed the back pocket of Jayden’s black skinny jeans. The very top of his smartphone could be seen. If I could just get the phone…
Zach would know what to do. He could tell a fib and pickpocket the phone. He was like Fred. Lying came so easily to him. He practically lied to me since we met, pretending to be my friend and all that. At least he never pretended to be my boyfriend, like he did at the hotel in Paris, when he made out with that older woman at the front desk just so I could sneak into the security office and…oh my goodness. I became a little dizzier when I stared at Jayden.
No. No. No.
If Zach was here, he would find it so funny. How the tables have turned, he would remark.
“I wanted to take you up on your offer,” I said finally. I tried to make my voice low and husky, like the beautiful women in black-and-white movies. When Jayden cocked an eyebrow, I clarified. “You offered to show me around earlier.” I tried to giggle, but I swore some vomit had worked its way to the middle of my throat. I swallowed hard.
Without my noticing, Jayden had worked his way closer to me, so that he was looking down his pierced nose at me.
Gently, I rested my hand on his shoulder. My touch was so light and my hand nearly hovered above the fabric of his leather jacket. I felt like a twelve-year-old at a school dance, too afraid to even touch the boy I was dancing with.
“But let’s just skip the rest of the tour and get to what I really want to see.” Nothing. I want to see nothing, except that phone of yours in my hand, I thought.
“You’re a tease.” Jayden was so close, I was nearly crushed against the nightstand. I felt the knob of the drawer digging into the small of my back.
I tried to ignore the smell of cigarettes and alcohol as he leaned his face towards mine. “I’ve been called worse,” I said weakly before taking a deep breath and bringing my lips towards his.
His lips were dry and the stubble on his chin brushed roughly against my face, like a sheet of sandpaper. He wore a pointed stud on his lower lip, and I could feel it pressing into my tightly-closed lips. To his credit, he kept his hands above my waist, yet he was still far from a gentleman. I tried to slide my hand into his back pocket. He tensed.
“You minx,” he said, his mouth still pressed against mine.
My fingers wrapped around the top of the phone and I slowly pulled it from the pocket. Jayden responded by pressing me harder against the nightstand. The drawer’s knob digging into my back became unbearable and I yelped and, after slipping the phone into the side pocket of my jeans, I pushed Jayden backwards.
“I need to go,” I said suddenly. I nudged past him.
I was at the door when he finally comprehended what I had said. “Why?”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. With my other hand, I felt for the phone in my pocket, ensuring it was safely in place. “The tour is a little boring.”
I bolted from the room and down the hall before Jayden could call after me. I didn’t stop running until I reached Fred’s and Max’s room, swerving around corners and tripping over my own feet several times.
I had barely knocked on the door before Max swung it open and pulled me inside by the arm.
“That was-” he said.
I didn’t let him finish as I barged into the room and closed the door behind me. “I never want to kiss another boy again as long as I live.” Max turned his back and walked towards the room’s adjoining bathroom. I cringed and stuck out my tongue. All the soap in the world wouldn’t clean away the horrors my poor mouth had been through.
“You’re a genius!” Max called from the bathroom. He came out with a small paper cup of mouthwash.
I gratefully took it and swished the green liquid around, feeling satisfied with the burn, knowing it was destroying any remnants of Jayden.
“You had him so disorientated; he didn’t even notice you taking the phone!”
I walked into the bathroom and spit the mouthwash into the sink. “Thanks to you, though,” I said as I left the bathroom. “You’re the one who told me where his phone was.” I reached into my pocket and was about to hand the phone to Max, but his long, lanky arms were hanging numbly at his sides. “What?”
“I didn’t tell you anything,” he said.
I laughed uncomfortably. Deep down, I knew he was telling the truth. A nagging feeling twisted my stomach into a knot. But if he hadn’t told me about the phone... I forced Jayden’s phone into his hand. “Stop being so humble-”
“Laura, really.” His tone was urgent. “I didn’t say anything to you. I was afraid that if I would talk, Jayden would hear me.”
I collapsed into the nearest chair.
“Are you sure you heard a voice, a real voice? Were you blacking out? Sometimes with anxiety and nervousness, one can imagine these hallucinations, auditory hallucinations. It’s when the-”
I shook my head. “Max, I know what I heard. It was a boy’s voice. I thought it was yours.” Nervously, I ran my fingers through my hair. “Do you think someone is helping us again?”
Max sat across from me and pulled out his earpiece. “You mean, you think they hacked into Mr. C.’s gadgets? You think they could see through your camera contacts?”
I removed the contacts and stared at them on the tips of both of my index fingers. “I think they could not only see everything, but hear everything as well.” I shot Max a grave look. “Max, someone is spying on us.”
“But we are the spies. We are the ones that are supposed to do the snooping and the hacking.” He turned Jayden’s phone over and over. “Should we tell Fred?”
I glanced towards the dark room where Fred’s freshly-made bed was. “Where is he?”
“The library. Allegedly,” Max added.
I shook my head. “I think Fred has another mission he is trying to accomplish.” One that involves Professor Scott and a lot of things I wasn’t ready to think about. “This is one for us to solve.” I stood and took a seat next to Max. “After we solve this one.” I nodded towards Jayden’s phone.
Like the tablet, the phone also required a passcode. Like the tablet, it was 1-2-3-4.
“His idiocy will never cease to amaze me,” Max mumbled.
Max scrolled through Jayden’s messages, passing colorful bubbles of texts and pictures. Jayden had texted a boy named Bobby about drinking in the Lion’s Pub and another boy named Logan about a trip to a concert in London. He had messaged a girl named Sarah and asked for the answers to his chemistry homework and a girl named Hannah had sent him some rather intimate pictures. Jayden was the stereotypical “bad boy,” and the stuff on his phone was no different than what I imagined a “bad boy” to have.
One of the messages caught my eye. I placed my hand over Max’s, stopping him from scrolling any further. “What does that say?”
“Haywick Cottage. Sunday night. 11:47.” Max handed me the phone. “He spelled Sunday wrong, by the way.”
“Look here.” I pointed to a small symbol next to the message. “This arrow means it was forwarded. And look at all these names!” About a dozen names appeared above the arrow. “This has to be the secret club Emily was talking about. But where is Haywick Cottage?”
“It’s an old groundskeeper’s home, towards the far end of campus. I heard Professor Scott telling Fred about it. The school wants to fix it up so speakers and scholars can spend a night or two there when visiting St. Margaret’s. But vandals started a small fire last year and plans were delayed. It’s the perfect place to go if you don’t want to be bothered. No one ventures to that part of the grounds.”
“If this spying gig doesn’t work out, you should totally write a history book about British boarding schools.” I playfully nudged Max’s arm.
“And add a bunch of witches and wizards.” He pocketed Jayden’s phone.
“Giants and elves,” I added.
“A villain with no nose.”
I yawned. “Instant bestseller.”
He laughed and stood. “I will go back to Jayden's hall and drop the phone outside his door, and make it look like he dropped it there. It,” he winked, “fell out of his pocket. You,” he held out a hand and pulled me up, “get back to your room. If you stop by tomorrow, I will help you with your homework. Then at night we can go to the cottage.”
Millie was still awake, working hard on homework, when I came back into the dorm. She was lying in her bed, reading a textbook. Crumpled pieces of notebook paper were strewn around the room.
“Hi,” I said, closing the door behind me and throwing my purse on the floor.
She sat up and set the book aside. “Hey! Fun night out?”
I shrugged. If fun meant interrogating Emily, breaking up a fight in the underground, and making out with a human ashtray, then I had a blast. If fun meant eating junk food, watching reruns of Boy Meets World, and giving yourself a mani-pedi, which I could tell Millie had just done due to the green foam bits between her toes and the distinct smell of acetate permeating the room, then I hadn’t had a fun night in a very long time.
“It was okay. London is nice. I just walked around and did some shopping.” I pointed to the necklace Max had bought me.
Millie looked down into her lap and started playing with the strings hanging from her pink and purple fuzzy pajama pants.
“At dinner tonight, I heard something.” She wouldn’t look at me.
I had been digging through my still-unpacked suitcase for my pajamas and paused. “About me?” I was used to being the new girl. I had done it enough times. Two high schools before L.A. High, at Hills School for Scholars, there was a rumor that I was in some witness protection program and moved to Los Angeles after witnessing a mobster murder a guy in broad daylight. Then there was another rumor that I was the sixty-year-old principal’s love child, the result of a one night stand with a Playboy Bunny and too much alcohol. They were ridiculous rumors that I laughed at. Then there were some unfunny ones, ones that popped up whenever I had disappeared with my parents for a few weeks. They were the ones that said I had been in rehab or an asylum for lunatics or giving birth to my fifth child.
Millie wouldn’t look at me and I had a feeling the rumor fell somewhere into the bad category.
“It’s crazy,” she said hurriedly.
“Tell me,” I tried to say as calmly as I could.
She laid back down at opened her book again. “McKay came over to our table and was talking about how he saw you on the tube this afternoon and how Jayden was giving you a hard time, but then he said that you left the platform with Mr. Stevens.” It took several seconds for me to remember that she was talking about Max. “And you are gone all the time and McKay said something about seeing you two in the halls and you were fixing his bowtie and…It’s silly.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. This had to be one of the least-concerning rumors ever spread about me.
She lowered her book and stared at the ceiling. “But you do seem to be with him a lot. It’s not that bad,” she hurried herself to say. “He isn’t that much old than us and he is quite handsome.” She turned on her side and finally looked at me. “Is it true?”
“Mr. Stevens is just tutoring me,” I said. “Really,” I added when Millie didn’t look amused.
When she opened her mouth to say something, I worried she was going to push the subject of Max and me further, but instead she asked: “Do you want to eat breakfast with me tomorrow?”
I thought of the big day ahead and all of the homework I had to do, but I couldn’t keep blowing off Millie. She already had suspicions about Max and me…
“Sure,” I found the pair of pajamas I had been looking for. “Sounds fun.”