6
With the bright light blinding me, concealing its owner, my first thought is, Jack’s group. They’ve come to finish the job he started.
“What the hell are you doing?”
With my heart now up in my throat, I lift my gaze to meet the face of my classmate Dominic DeLuca. He might be friendly with Miles, but he and I haven’t really spoken much since school let out for winter break nearly a month ago. It’s possible he’s still harboring ill feelings toward me because I broke into his house and stole all the files from his laptop, for starters. But to my credit, at the time I’d thought he might be a murderer, so…yeah. “Hey, Dominic, how’s it going? How was your New Year’s?”
No one plays innocent better than I do, but given the circumstances, I doubt the act will work tonight.
His dark eyebrows push together as he studies me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I look him over, taking in his tortured-boy expression, which is up a few notches from its normal level. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t turn this around on me. I followed you here. It’s bad enough I have to come back tomorrow—definitely not interested in breaking in a day early to…” He waves a hand at the computer in front of me. “To hack into the school system or whatever.”
“Bothers you, huh?” I hit a button on the keyboard, shutting down the screen before he can walk around the desk and get a peek. “All the rule breaking?”
Dominic is a party boy who survives solely on his family’s reputation and money. He’s got drug dealers on speed dial. But I feel guilty pointing this out after everything that happened last semester. My invading his privacy. Miles and I both accusing him of murdering Simon Gilbert, who, it turns out, he was in love with.
My jab at his party-boy, pay-someone-to-do-my-homework lifestyle seems to roll right over him. “Honestly, Ellie. You, messing with the school’s computers in the middle of the night…it’s creeping me out.”
New cover story, Ellie. Fast. And don’t underestimate Dominic. He’s not an idiot. You need something good.
The Becketts are counting on my discretion.
“Have you ever paid someone to do your homework?” I walk around the desk and stand in front of him. “Ever bought a paper online?”
He runs a hand through his dark hair and folds his arms over his chest. I smirk at him. The silent confession was too easy. “How much did you pay for a good paper? An untraceable one. A couple hundred?”
Dominic drops his arms and shrugs. “So you’re messing with your grades?”
“Um, no.” I laugh at that. There are few things in my life I’ve done the honest way. But my grades at Holden? I’ve earned those. “I’m making bank helping the academically less fortunate.” I hold a hand to my heart. “Holden has done so much for me. It feels good, giving back.”
He stares for a long moment, and then I swear he looks relieved. God, what had he thought I was doing? Planting a bomb to blow up the school?
“We should get out of here before we get caught.” He nods toward the door and clicks off his flashlight. “Hopefully you avoided the cameras on your way in?”
I brush past him and head for the hall. “Do I look like an idiot?”
“I don’t know what you look like,” Dominic says, and there’s honesty to his voice, the words laced with fear and suspicion. “I don’t know anything about you.”
I swallow back a dozen conflicted feelings. Keeping my conning past a secret had been the hardest part of my relationship with Miles. Knowing that he knows is such a relief, but it’s not like I can tell everyone. It’s need-to-know. Plus, I like being the good girl. Even if it’s mostly a lie. Or was a lie. The new me is determined to be good.
“What is there to know?” I say, not braving facing Dominic. “I follow the rules. To a point. But in case you forgot, my sister’s boyfriend, who paid most of the monthly bills, lost his Secret Service job—”
“Because he covered for his murderer boss,” Dominic snaps. “I remember.”
Aidan loved his job as a Secret Service agent. He won’t say so, but I know it broke his heart to be fired. “The only mistake Aidan made was putting his trust in the wrong person.”
Dominic is silent, tense, making his way out of the school all while avoiding the security cameras. Once we’re outside, I turn to face him.
“Do you follow me all the time? Or did you just have a hunch that I was up to no good tonight?”
His eye contact wavers, his gaze drifting over my shoulder. “I went to your place. I wanted to ask you something, and then I saw you take off into the night—on a bicycle—and that seemed strange. Especially in January.”
This is the longest conversation Dominic and I have ever had. He spent all of last semester glaring at me, saying no more than one word with each interaction we had.
“Not all of us have a garage full of vehicles at our disposal. Or personal drivers.” I head for the bike he mentioned, hidden near the tree I tucked myself behind for more than an hour. “I don’t have my license. Buses don’t run this late on Sundays.”
“If you want a ride, the bike should fit in the back of my—” Dominic’s eyes widen, staring at something over my shoulder.
In the milliseconds it takes me to spin around, I rewind the past few seconds, trying to remember if I’d heard footsteps, leaves rustling, anything…but I hadn’t. And then I’m whispering inside my head, Please let it be Miles.
But it isn’t Miles.
“Well look at you, Miss Eleanor.” The boy—who is now more man than a boy—leans against the tree standing between my getaway bike and me. “You’re not an easy girl to track down, you know?”
For several long moments, I’m rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen anyone from my family.
“Oscar…” I breathe out his name, my voice barely a whisper. I’m scrambling to cover my ass, but I can’t think about anything except the fact that everything is about to change. Everything.
Behind me, Dominic shifts and then moves closer. “Ellie?”
He’s clearly scared. After what happened last month, the whole kidnapping thing, I don’t blame him. But Oscar is harmless. I think? My gaze sweeps over him. He’s grown a couple of inches, probably pushing six two or three. He’s still rail thin with that goofy face and wild sandy-colored hair. It isn’t him or even the situation right now that worries me; it’s what’s to come when he reports back to the others.
Before I can open my mouth to respond to either guy, Oscar grins, flashing his goofy smile at me, and then seconds later, he’s rushing forward, crushing me in a giant bear hug.
“What the—” Dominic starts.
Oscar notices him, quickly sets me down. He straightens his shirt and sticks a hand out to Dominic. “Should probably introduce myself. I’m Oscar. Ellie’s”—he clears his throat—“cousin.”
“Cousin” is a very loose term in my family.
Dominic hesitates, glances at me, and then finally shakes Oscar’s hand.
Oscar grins at me again. “I should have known it was a boy. Your daddy hinted at it enough, I shoulda guessed that’s why you ran off.”
For almost a year, I’ve wondered what my family thought happened to me. I figured someone guessed that I’d been helping the FBI, that I was a traitor who tried to hand over my dad in exchange for my and Harper’s freedom. But it’s possible they simply thought I caught sight of the FBI and took off, wanting to save my own ass. It’s kind of how we do things in my family.
It’s possible Oscar doesn’t even know about—
“Oh shit, Ellie,” he says, glancing around. “You’re working a job here, aren’t you? I’m screwing it up right now. God, I’m an idiot.”
He swears again under his breath, his eyes dropping to the grass. Despite his upbringing being identical to mine, Oscar never could learn to master many con skills. He’s good at only two things: tracking people down and walking without making a sound. Clearly both of those skills came in handy tonight.
But I don’t have time to explain my intentions tonight. Right now, my priority is finding out exactly how he tracked me down and how much he knows. I glance back at Dominic, giving him a pleading look. Please, please just go with it.
I grab Oscar’s arm, tugging him toward the back of the school. “We should go somewhere. To catch up.” I rack my brain for a place that’s the opposite direction of home. “There’s a diner about ten miles from here.”
I give him quick directions and watch him pull keys from his pocket. “So I’ll meet you there? Or do you want to ride—”
“We’ll meet you there,” I interrupt.
Oscar looks at Dominic again, something protective in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name…”
My gaze meets Dominic’s. Lie. Please lie.
“Fred,” he chokes out. “Freddy, actually.”
“Huh.” Oscar narrows his eyes. Then finally, he turns back to me. “See you in a few minutes.”
The second he’s out of sight, headed toward whatever covert location he hid his car, I start to panic. I look around for Dominic’s car. “Where the hell did you park?”
“In the parking lot,” he says.
We stare at each other for several seconds, and I can see the wheels spinning inside his head. We’re practically strangers, and I’ve just led some random guy to believe that I ran away with Dominic…er, Freddy. And now I’m about to take this near stranger along to hear all my family secrets. And that’s just the beginning of this nightmare. I touch my phone in my pocket, debating whether or not to warn Harper.
I’ll find out what he knows first. Information now, panic later. A before Z.
Dominic is still standing there, like he’s waiting for me to explain. I don’t know what to tell him. So I just head for the parking lot, abandoning my bike.
If only I’d been caught with Miles instead. But a tiny voice inside my head protests this. Despite his acceptance of my past and me, I’m still embarrassed, ashamed of myself and the things I’ve done. I glance at Dominic, and some of my worries are eased. Not like he hasn’t done some things, too. He has a drug dealer on speed dial. But still, this is a mess already.
“Next time, don’t follow me,” I call over my shoulder on the way to Dominic’s car.
“Noted,” he says, appearing at my side. “But just so you know, there will be questions later.”
My stomach drops. “Yeah, I figured.”
Questions that I either don’t want to answer or can’t. Because the possibility of the return of the Agents Gone Bad is enough to scare me into keeping silent about my reasons for being at the school tonight.