“This guy?” She points at me with her thumb, barely unfolding her arms. “He’s the one who told me I could do better,” she says, and my eyebrows raise a little, feeling the spotlight of, well, everyone. “And ya know what? He’s right.”
She turns around fast. She’s moving through the hallway quickly, people stepping out of her way, drunk faces stunned and impressed. She doesn’t even pause when she passes the high-back chair she was sitting at, snagging the jacket from the chair back, and pulling it around her body while she takes these long, powerful steps. I’m so damned impressed, my feet don’t work, and even though I want to run after her to give her a high five, maybe throw her up on my shoulder and parade her around the room, rubbing more salt in Carson’s wound, I don’t—because I’m stunned.
When I finally wake up from my trance, I don’t move after her because Carson has now knocked my ass to the floor. I’m able to get with it quickly enough to anticipate his foot coming at me. I grab and twist it, sending him into the wall, a small chunk of drywall chipping away with the impact his shoulder has against it.
He doesn’t bother with words, instead using his last pieces of sobriety to claw and swing at me wildly, grabbing at the collar of my shirt and doing his best to land a punch. But I’m filled with adrenaline now—and while he’s been drinking pints, I’ve had nothing but caffeine. I get to my feet quickly, and after four swings, I have him stumbling on his knees.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t order any more sandwiches from me,” I say, pushing him back so he’s flat on the floor. I step over him, into the men’s room, and when I come out, a few of his friends have him balanced on a stool near the corner of the bar.
My face looks like shit, and my mom is going to freak out, but I have one more hour to help Casey, and I’m not leaving here without that grand. I’ve earned it.
“What the hell, man? You look—” I hold up my hand to stop Casey midsentence.
“I don’t want to talk about it, dude. Weird fuckin’ shit went down, and I’m not quite sure what the hell it was all about. Let’s just finish this up, and I promise I’ll catch you up tomorrow.”
He stares at me, doing that slow-blink thing he’s always done when he’s baffled by me, then he pulls his headphones back up and turns his eyes back to my computer screen. A few windows have popped up, so I reach over him and click them closed, ignoring the update warnings.
And just because he could, my best friend makes a mix out of Kanye’s “Stronger” and “Eye of the Tiger”—a serenade for Sandwich Guy, the superhero.
Chapter 4
Paige
I may have underestimated my enemies. I didn’t expect Ashley to jump ship and join my cause necessarily. But I also didn’t expect her to sell me out so fast.
But that’s foolish. I would have done the same thing—probably still would, if I found something that worked in my favor. Ashley wants to be in with Chandra, to rise to the top at Delta. Sinking me—that’s the new shortcut.
Being here, in this house—it’s miserable. I came home from the party and the house was quiet. Most of the girls were in the tutoring lab or in their rooms studying, or at least that’s what I told myself. The quiet is there again this morning, and I can’t seem to tell myself the same lies. I’m being ignored.
Chandra knows she would have to beat me to the ground to get her hands on my phone. I don’t care what I signed; she doesn’t have a right to see some things. So she’s squeezing me out in other ways. What I can’t figure is who followed me to the library—who saw me talking to Houston?
“Whatever,” I say to no one. That’s me, two thousand miles from home and living with no one.
I pick up my phone and take a deep breath…time to perform.
“Paige?” My dad answers fast. “Is something wrong? Is your sister okay?”
It’s always my sister. Cass has always been daddy’s girl.
“She’s fine,” I say, packing my bag for the day, readying myself to study for my two easy tests—biology and ancient history. I turned in my English paper already, so nothing left to do but study—for the next twenty-four hours. I flop on the bed knowing I don’t have enough to fill my time to keep me out of here until my plane leaves next week.
“Good, I was worried. The case, the assault charges…it looks like everything’s going to be closed. This should all go away,” my father says, and I barely hear him. He has no idea how far from going away things are for me. In one spontaneous decision to avenge my sister, I swapped places with her, and just as her nightmares are fading, mine are beginning.