“Excuse me, Gamer Girl,” Parrish growls, grabbing me by the arm. “After the day you and Chasm have had, you now want to go down to the fucking hedge maze? Where there are no cameras? This sounds like a really, really stupid idea to me.” He keeps his voice low, flicking his attention up to the camera mounted near the ceiling.
“And if we’re going down there anyway—because this is Little Sister, and she always gets what she wants—we can’t go by such an obvious route. You said you wanted to go to the library? Justin will be watching, and it is … thataway.” Chas points in the opposite direction as Maxx crowds in close to our little group.
“What if we get ambushed down there? If there are enough of them, we’ll be in trouble.” X crosses his arms, looking resolute in his decision not to go down and meet with the queen of the school.
The thing is, I remember the look on her face when she heard that Veronica had tried to throw me over the wall in the courtyard. Lumen was surprised. She may have orchestrated the first attack on me, but not that one. Not this.
“Look, we have Parrish back,” I start, reaching out and taking his hand in mine. He narrows his eyes at me, but the edge of his mouth lifts in a slight smile. Every time I look at him, I’m reminded that we almost lost him, that he almost died, that I might never have held his hand like this ever again. “But that doesn’t mean this is over. Far from it. Justin will never let me go. Never. The way he looks at me …” I trail off and heave a huge sigh. “We need more clues, and we need more allies.”
Otherwise, I’m going to have to kill him.
That much I know for certain. But I really, really don’t want to think about that right now. Especially not after the day we’ve had.
“And you think Lumen could be this ally?” Maxx asks, quirking a brow. “Kota …”
“We’ve been over this already—more than once,” Chasm says, his lips twisting up in a slight sneer. The movement costs him, and he winces again. Guess I won’t be shrugging for a while, and he won’t be sneering. Too bad. He’s actually pretty cute when he makes that face. “You don’t make friends with people who beat you up.”
“I made friends with you and Parrish,” I quip back, and Chas gives me a flat stare in response. “What? You might not have physically attacked me, but your barbs hurt. Maxx was the only nice one.” He snorts at me, and I can see that we’re making progress. “Can you guys try to trust me on this one? I have good instincts: I promise.”
“If you’re wrong about this, I’m keeping you on a leash,” Parrish grumbles, dragging me along behind him. He pauses after a few steps to glance back at Maxx. “Actually, you’re the expert here: tell us where to go.”
“Any new cameras installed since I graduated?” X asks, but Chasm’s already shaking his head.
“Nope. Lead the way, Fred,” he says, and then pauses. “Or George. Either way, you know how to sneak around this place better than anyone.”
I grin at the Harry Potter reference as Maxx takes the lead.
He escorts us to the library and then winds us through the shelves in a roundabout pattern before pausing next to a large window. With a grunt, he shoves it up and out of the way, pushes the screen loose, and then climbs through. He reaches back a hand to help me out, and I take it, a thrill traveling through me as I think back to Friday night. He offered his hand then, and it ended up with us finding Parrish.
I’m taking this as a good sign, I think, hopping down and then cringing as pain ripples through my body. I’m going to be hurting for days, at the very least.
Parrish climbs out next, offering a hand for Chasm which he refuses to take. He jumps down and stumbles a bit, catching himself and swiping his palms on his blazer like he totally meant to do that.
“You’re a macho douche sometimes,” I mumble, and he smirks at me.
“Yeah, but you like it, so I guess that’s working out for me?” Chasm saunters past, and Parrish’s eyes track his movement before dropping to mine. He’s starting to see the relationship that I’ve built with Chas over the past few weeks, with X. But I can’t hide it. I won’t. That’d be a lie. I don’t know how we’re going to work this out, but I know that we will. The four of us make a good team.
Maxx guides us through the grass, heading diagonally toward the rear of the maze where the woods meet up with the manicured lawns. He abruptly changes course, making a hard right, and then drops down to crawl through a small, almost unnoticeable hole carved into the underside of the dense hedges.
