Zac scrutinized me for a long minute without saying a word.

"Well?" I prompted, "if you don't take this chance to come clean, then I'll make it my life's purpose to expose your guilty ass to the entire fucking school!"

At last, he spoke up, "What do you want me to say then? Sounds like you've got it all figured out."

"No, I don't! That's why I'm asking you. I have my suspicions, sure, but even murderers and rapists are innocent until proven guilty in this country. If you don't want me to draw my own conclusions, then you better start talking, Mazur."

Defiance gleamed in his golden eyes. "Who made you judge and jury?"

"You did. By being so fucking obvious about it this afternoon. I'm not stupid, you know."

He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Fine. You caught me. What do you want to know?"

No way he was giving in this easily.

I scoffed in disbelief. Nevertheless, I demanded, "Everything!"

He raised an eyebrow. "You can ask me three questions. I won't answer anything beyond a 'yes' or a 'no.' Afterwards, keep your mouth shut and stay outta my way. Understand?"

I blinked rapidly in shock.

Was he actually ready to confess right now?

Curtly, I nodded. "I understand."

"Okay, go ahead. Ask me whatever you want. Before I change my mind."

I furrowed my brow.

Only three questions?

Oh, fuckity-fuck-fuck.

As quickly as I could gather my wits about me, I tried to frame my questions in a way that would glean the most amount of information from a measly yes-no answer.

I pulled from my speech and debate training, "Did you, Zachary Mazur, pretend to hack into your own phone this afternoon and bypass the security controls on Ashton Wellesley's Smart Alphaboard for Student Support under an anonymous alias to post pictures and videos of yourself with the intent to remove suspicion from your person and falsely mislead me, the other students at Ashton Wellesley, and our administration into believing that you're the victim, instead of the mastermind, behind this afternoon's cyber attack?"

His mouth quirked. "Yes, and, holy shit, I didn't know I needed to set a word limit on these questions. You sound like a fucking lawyer."

I ignored his sarcasm and kept going, "Aside from Patrick Hayes and Brittany Lopez, are you, Zachary Mazur, planning to target more than four different individuals at Ashton Wellesley in another cyber attack or some other form of vigilante justice?"

Zac replied, "No."

Now, I had a ballpark idea of who might be next on his list. The four individuals in question were likely to be two of Trick's best friends, Everett Prince and Justin Desmarais, Hunter Pratt, and Tessa Lehmann, Brittany's cousin. Off the top of my head, I remembered these kids as the ones who had been the most brutal towards Zac back in seventh grade.

One question left.

My brain had been working itself into a frenzy as I debated what to ask for my last question. There were still so many loose ends that needed to be tied up, like, whether Zac had approached Brit at Aleah's party with the intention of baiting Trick, how he managed to pull off the first two cyber attacks, exactly what he was planning to do with his next few targets, whether he had other motives other than revenge...

I took a deep breath and prayed that I hadn't stumbled down the wrong line of reasoning. "Are you sharing all this information about your recent transgressions in order to use it against me later on because, for whatever reason, I've earned myself a spot on that hit list of yours?"

Zac had the nerve to grin at me. "Fuck, no. You're giving yourself way too much credit here, Cate. Just stay in your lane, and I'll stay in mine."

I chewed on my lower lip. Uncertainty washed over me. "How can I trust you? Apparently, you can hack into my personal shit whenever you want with the click of a button!"

"I'm not gonna do that to you. I'd never do that to you. I know you're not like them."

"No, you're wrong. I'm exactly like all the other assholes at Ashton Wellesley. In fact, I'm the motherfucking queen of all these assholes, and, to be honest, I can't help thinking that you'd probably feel vindicated if you had the chance to take me down."

Zac clenched his jaw and looked away. He seemed visibly upset, and I had no idea why. He was the fucker holding all the cards, not me! I hated being so completely at someone else's disposal.

Briefly, I wondered if this was how the other students at Ashton Wellesley felt about me whenever I had the upper hand?

In uncharacteristically quiet, somber tones, he said, "Whether or not you choose to believe me is your prerogative, but I'll do everything I can to be more discrete from now on. I'm not going to stop what I'm doing, but I know Ashton Wellesley is very important to you, and I meant what I said earlier."

"What are you getting at, Zac?"

"Just because I don't care about academics doesn't mean I wanna drag you down with me. Honestly, I never planned on getting you involved in all this. I did what I did this afternoon to protect you. The less you know, the better. But you fucking figured it out. And that's fine. It is what it is. Just, please, don't tell anyone about what I'm doing to until the end of the semester. Then, I swear, I'll turn myself in. If you want me to."

My bullshit meter shot through the roof as I listened to Zac try to worm his way out of this one.

Did this clown really claim that he was trying to protect me?

That he'd willingly march into Principal Pratt's office in about two months time to sign his own death warrant—if I simply asked nicely?

Ha! And I just received a letter from Hogwarts to go defeat the Dark Lord with my Wand of Gullibility!

Obviously, the odds weren't in my favor at the moment, but never in my life had I allowed anyone to hold a knife against my throat. Not when Bea threatened to shave off all my hair when her ninth grade crush kissed me at a friend's house or even when Trick threatened to shove me down the stairs on my eleventh birthday. Zac would be no exception. I decided to use what little bargaining power I had to get what little control I could over the situation.

I sneered at him. "Let me get this straight. As incentive for not telling people what I know, a potentially self-incriminating and damaging secret to my fellow classmates, and putting an early end to this scheme of yours for revenge, I'll get to decide whether or not you should be punished after you're done wreaking havoc on Ashton Wellesley?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Fine," I said matter-of-factly, "then I have some conditions of my own that you'll need to abide by. Three of them, in fact."

Zac groaned. "Fucking hell."

"One. If, at any point during your shenanigans, I think someone might end up with psychological trauma, you know, the kind that requires therapy after high school, or seriously injured in the hospital or dead, then I'm blowing the whistle—"

Zac protested, "Damn it, Cate, I'm not planning to kill anyone!"

I shot him a pointed look. "I don't know that! Anyway, as I was saying, I won't hesitate to expose your ass under any of those circumstances, even if you hack into my phone and post nudes of me all over the internet!"

He perked up. "You... have nudes on your phone?"

I smirked. "No. But I got your attention, didn't I?"

"Fuck you," he grumbled.

"Two! If, at any point during your shenanigans, I think your actions might hurt my academic standing, as in, prevent me from earning the grades I want or hinder me from receiving the best education possible during my junior year at Ashton Wellesley, then I'll be sure to—"

"Expose my ass," Zac finished for me. Annoyance was plastered all over his face. "I get the point. You don't have to spell out every little fucking disclaimer."

I barreled on, "One last condition, and then you can continue on your merry way to retribution. I want a handwritten confession from you outlining everything you did to Brit and Trick on Sassy. As long you don't breach the terms of our agreement, I'll make sure that it never sees the light of day, but I won't hesitate to send a copy to Principal Pratt if you do anything stupid. Bring that confession to me, signed and dated, by second hour tomorrow morning."

"Sure, whatever."

My mouth twisted into a scowl. "You need to take this seriously, Mazur. I'm not messing around. Consider this a final reminder that, per our agreement, I'm expecting to earn an 'A' on our AP History project. So, don't fuck things up for me, and I won't fuck things up for you!"

He sighed heavily and proceeded to shock my socks off by rephrasing my accusatory question to him from earlier, almost word for word, "I, Zachary Mazur, confess to bypassing the security controls on Ashton Wellesley's Smart Alphaboard for Student Support under an anonymous alias to post pictures and videos of myself with the intent to remove suspicion from my person and falsely mislead the students at Ashton Wellesley and our administration into believing that I'm the victim, instead of the mastermind, behind this afternoon's cyber attack. Is that serious enough of a confession for you, Cate?"

My mouth fell open.

Damn. I was going to have to be extra careful from now on. Zac was smart as fuck. Maybe even smarter than me.