Vivvie’s version of short was somewhat different from mine.
“—the only way it could have been a student is if that student were a really good hacker working from the campus’s wireless network. Otherwise it would have had to be someone in security or high up in the Hardwicke administration.” Vivvie paused. “Very high up,” she emphasized.
Before I could reply, a partygoer bopped into view, dancing between Vivvie and me. It took me a second to realize it was Asher.
“Am I the only one who hears ‘high up in the Hardwicke administration’ and thinks that Headmaster Raleigh definitely has his shadypants moments?” he asked, still bopping around. When neither Vivvie nor I replied, he stopped dancing and lifted his hand in a solemn greeting. “Hello, friends of Asher!”
“Asher!” I said, taking him by the elbow and pulling him toward the side of the room. “What are you doing here?”
I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Ivy that I couldn’t imagine Asher coming tonight. Given everything that had happened—and the fact that at least one of John Thomas’s friends was probably spoiling for a fight—this could go very badly.
“Welllllllll,” Asher hedged, dragging out the word. “I may have hitched a ride in the back of Emilia’s car. She may not know I’m here.”
Nearby, Emilia was talking to a trio of sophomore girls. She glanced at me, then at Asher. Her eyes widened as she registered his presence, then narrowed.
“Emilia may now know I am here,” Asher modified.
I sensed the shift in the room the moment John Thomas’s friends noticed Asher.
Henry made it to us before they did. “We need to get you out of here,” he told Asher.
“I’ve gone to school with these people my entire life.” Asher glanced from Henry to me, bewildered. “If they think I might be capable of murder, I have clearly been doing this lovable-pacifist thing all wrong.”
One second Asher was standing beside me, and the next, one of John Thomas’s friends had him by the lapels.
“I’ve very recently sworn off fisticuffs,” Asher told him. “Quite undignified, the sign of a lesser man, gets you almost immediately accused of murder . . . which I did not commit,” he added hastily.
“Let him go,” Henry said. Gone was the easy smile he’d used to infiltrate this group earlier. There was nothing even remotely easygoing about this Henry.
All around us, the party fell silent. All conversation died off. The only sound was the constant beat of the bass line.
The boy who had a hold of Asher got in his face. “You’re a dead man,” he said. “You think the powers that be in this town are going to let some dentist’s son get away with doing anything to the minority whip’s kid?”
I stepped between them. I could see violence in the boy’s eyes as I broke his hold on Asher. This was the downside to providing an outlet for secrets and pent-up emotion to come bubbling to the surface.
Any moment, the world could explode.
A flash of light visible out the nearest window took the boy’s eyes off me, just for a second.
“Security!” someone yelled.
In the rush of madness that followed, it was every man for himself.
CHAPTER 40
“What could have possibly possessed you to come here?” Emilia gave her twin the single most aggrieved look I’d ever seen my life. “You’re grounded,” she reminded him. “You’re the prime suspect in a murder case. And I specifically told you not to come.”
We’d made it out of the tunnel and taken refuge in a nearby coffee shop without getting caught by Hardwicke security—probably because security didn’t want to catch too many Hardwicke students.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” Asher offered his sister an eighty-watt smile.
“This is the very definition of a bad idea,” Henry told him.
Asher sighed. “I always get those two confused.”
I’d promised Ivy I wouldn’t call Asher. I’d promised her that I wouldn’t e-mail him or go see him. Technically, I hadn’t said anything about what I would do if he came to see me.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“The lapels of this shirt will never be the same,” Asher replied mournfully. “But I will persevere.”
“No,” I said. “Are you okay? After the past few days—”
“Lo, it is a story for the ages,” Asher intoned. “Of a boy wrongly accused and a text sent by someone who, it turned out, was not even his sister.”