Page 62 of Lost
“What…the hell.”
Pat and Eliza Beth both looked towards the doorway, the girl with a stricken, guilty expression on her face. It took Zack several moments to realise that he had been the one to speak, that Lysander stood frozen beside him, that as the parent it was probably up to him to take control of the situation. But physically he was as frozen as Lysander, and mentally he was as stunned as Pat.
Eliza Beth was the first to recover.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted, looking from Pat, to Zack, to Lysander, and back again. “I didn’t mean—”
“Save it.” The words were a growl coming from Pat.
Eliza Beth turned, her attention solely on Lysander now, but he was already shaking his head.
“Ly...”
“Don’t,” he said, and there was so much force behind the word that Zack wondered if the boy wasn’t about to lash out at her. “What thehell, Eliza Beth? And don’t say you didn’t mean to. That was no freakin' accident.”
She bit her lower lip and picked herself up off the floor. Almost instinctively she stepped back, away from the three of them, putting her back to the wall.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “All these years, I’ve known that he was the one. But I never had a way to reach him and tell him until you came along. But I never wanted you t—”
Lysander was already walking out of the room.
“How long?” Zack demanded, his own fists clenched tightly at his sides. “How long have you known that he was my son?”
This time she definitely hesitated. “Since the day you posted the message about Dakota.”
This was exactly what Zack hadn’t wanted: fans finding out about his son and using him for their own gain. And that was what Lysander hadn’t wanted, to be known in the first place. And he’d thought he’d had it, and Zack had been happy for him, but all along the lie had been staring him in the face in the form of a beautiful girl.
“Pat, call a cab.”
“You’re sending me home?”
There was a tone of disbelief in Eliza Beth’s voice that almost made Zack want to laugh. Did she really think they were going to let her stick around after the stunt she’d just pulled?
“I am,” he said. “And you should consider yourself lucky that it’sallI’m doing. We ought to have you charged with assault. And I’ll tell you another thing — if you ever come near my son again, you’ll be wishing that you’d never been born.”
Eliza Beth looked back at Pat. “I’m so—”
Pat followed Lysander out the door.
She never said another word after that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Mr. Maverick? May I have a word, please?”
Lysander looked up from packing his bag.
Ms. Lowe was staring at him from her desk through the rush of his classmates heading for the door. The serious look on her face was one that told him he didn’t have a choice in the matter, so he nodded. He looked to his friend; Jack shrugged, the universal sign ofI dunno, manand hoisted his backpack up onto his shoulder.
“I’ll wait outside,” he said, and then he was gone.
Lysander waited until the last of the students had left the classroom before he approached his English teacher’s desk.
What had he done to land himself here? Ever since the incident with Ethan Masters several weeks ago, he’d done everything in his power to keep out of trouble and off the radar of any figure of authority. As far as he knew, he had been successful — he had done nothing to warrant the attention of a teacher, so Ms. Lowe calling him aside now concerned him.
“You’re not in trouble,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts. He relaxed, releasing a tension in his shoulders that he hadn’t known was there. “I just wanted to ask if everything was all right with you.”
That was all?
