Was this bastard trying to threaten me?

Aw, hell no!

My nostrils flared. "Come at me then, asshole! You think I'm fucking scared of you?"

He clenched his jaw. "I swear to God, one of these days you're going to fall so hard from that fucking pedestal you live on, and, when that happens, I'm gonna the first in line to—"

"To do what, Zac?" Mr. Tilton inquired mildly. He returned just in time to find the two of us snarling ferociously at each other. He cleared his throat. "What did I miss? Nevermind, I don't want to know. Back to your seats, you two."

The last ten minutes of detention felt like eternity. Zac and I refused to make eye contact. Yet, as the seconds ticked by, the seething fire inside me gradually died down to a smoldering ember. I found myself reflecting on what Zac said to me. About what Evonne shared with me about his family's fall from grace. Up until seventh grade, his dad had provided everything for Zac and his mom. Then, it was all stripped away when the scandal broke.

In an eerily prophetic way, Zac already lived out my worst nightmare and, against many odds, managed to claw his way back from the hellish experience as a completely different kid. Much stronger than before. I didn't know what my dad planned to do once I turned eighteen. Although, I doubted that he would fight for me or continue to support me in any way. Financially or otherwise. The man was barely involved in my life right now. I'd need to stand on my own two feet just like Zac and his mom.

After Mr. Tilton dismissed us from detention, I watched Zac walk off while I packed up my belongings. Zac was right about one thing. Trick wasn't the only bully at Ashton Wellesley. Many of our classmates had also been assholes to him. I wondered what Zac planned to do to get back at them. Naturally, there was no way I'd let him raise too much hell and jeopardize my Stanford apps. But, I had to admit, I was beginning to feel a begrudging respect for my nemesis. He was a fighter. Like me.

***

As luck would have it, I caught a cold two days later, and, though I was running a fever, I refused to stay home with Trick since I had an important quiz in Pre-Calc that day. My decision to drag my sick ass to school was a mistake. By second hour, I felt like death in a gray hoodie.

Zac glanced over to me. "You look like shit."

He was probably correct. My nose felt clogged up, my head weighed about fifty pounds heavier from the meds. All I wanted to do was crawl onto the floor and pass out.

Weakly, I croaked, "Not today, Mazur. Please."

"Are you sick?"

I sneezed.

"Dude, why are you even at school?"

"Don't worry." I sniffled. "I'll try not to cough on you."

I started shivering.

Why was the AC on in the middle of October?

Mr. Tilton's room was fucking freezing.

Zac noticed. To my surprise, he took off his blazer jacket and draped it over my shoulders. I turned towards him with a look of confusion. "What are you doing?"

"You looked cold."

Too groggy to argue, I decided to accept his unexpected act of charity as though we were friends. "Thank you."

He shrugged and looked away.

Halfway through class, I accidentally dozed off for a minute or two. Or maybe it was ten.

The sound of Mr. Tilton's droning voice woke me up. "—working on this project for the rest of the month. Any questions?"

I blinked once. Twice.

What the hell?

I raised my hand.

Mr. Tilton glanced at me. "Yes, Cate?"

"What project? I never saw one listed on the syllabus for this quarter."

Mr. Tilton beamed proudly. "I know! I came up with it all by myself. This project will be taking replacing our scheduled midterm."

My head began to hurt. "Wait, what? You can't just change the syllabus in the middle of the semester!"

"Don't worry, Cate, I already have Principal Pratt's approval. It appears I'll be sticking around as the long-term sub for the rest of the year, so he agreed to let me make some revisions to Ms. Holt's syllabus. I actually just passed out the new copy to everyone."

I glanced down at my desk.

Shit, there it was.

I quickly scanned over the project guidelines. Apparently, Tilton wanted us to "research a current and historical event with a partner while constructing an analysis on the connecting theme between both events and their impact on society."

Wait, back the fuck up.

This was a partner project?

I asked, "Who am I supposed to be working with?"

Mr. Tilton gave me an uneasy smile. "Um, well... I asked everyone to partner with their deskmates this time around, so it appears you'll be with—"

"Me," Zac interjected.

My jaw dropped.

***

At lunchtime, the cold meds finally kicked in, and I was feeling somewhat human again. I told Amari and Nat about my shitty predicament in AP History.

Nat clucked sympathetically, "Man, that sucks. What a fucking deadweight. He's gonna drag you down, for sure. Totally understand why you're stressing!"

I grumbled, "I mean, Zac used to be a good student back in the day, so I'm pretty sure, gun to his head, he could totally get his shit together, but that's the problem—he doesn't want to get his shit together! Apparently, he's on some stupid mission to fuck over Ashton Wellesley right now, so there's no way I'll be able to get him to cooperate willingly. Looks like I'll be doing all the heavy lifting for this stupid project."

Nat giggled. "Revenge is kinda hot, though. It's very 'Count of Monte Cristo' of him."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, my God, Nat. Only you'd wanna rub one out to a literary character from the fucking 1800s."

Amari laughed. "Bish, sounds like you screwed yourself over royally with this one. You should've left well enough alone. Tilton was perfectly willing to look the other way until you came along. Now, you gotta worry about pulling together this massive project—which, might I remind you, will count as our midterm—while trying to drag Zac's useless ass into the top 35% with fucking all-stars like Nat and me to contend with."

I narrowed my eyes. "Who are you guys partnered up with?"

Amari grinned, looking pleased as punch, and gloated, "Aleah motherfucking McLeary."

"Dev Tahir for me," Nat chirped.

Fucking hell.

They were motherfucking all-stars. Not only was Dev my Model United Nations Vice President, he was also in the top ten with a 4.29 GPA and the student body president, and, though, Aleah wasn't quite as impressive as Dev on paper, the girl was also a force to be reckoned with. Her mom was a surgeon at Mass General, and her dad was a state senator. She had been volunteering and interning at her mom's hospital and her dad's office since the age of twelve.

I groaned dejectedly. "Maybe I can talk to Tilton about—"

Suddenly, I spotted Brittany Lopez marching up to us with a thunderous expression on her face. She slapped her hand on our lunch table for effect. Loudly. Nat jumped.

"What the hell, Cate?" she said accusingly, "I always knew you were a bitch, but I never thought you could be so shady!"

What was up with today?

I seriously couldn't catch a goddamn break!

Annoyance blazed from my eyes like missiles as I turned to address Brit. "What now? Did the barista add whole milk instead of almond-soy in your latte this morning?"

Brit ignored my snark and waved her phone violently in my face. "Did you fucking do this?"

I glared at Brit and grabbed her phone. Started scrolling. Nat and Amari scooted over to take a peek as well. Our eyes widened.

Holy shit.

An anonymous user had posted screenshots of some very damning text messages between Brit and some of her friends onto the Smart Alphaboard for Student Support, otherwise known as SASS. SASS was our school's private online faculty and student academic discussion board that everyone nicknamed Sassy. In their texts, Brit and her friends had made some extremely racially charged jokes about two members of faculty. They also said some really unpleasant shit about kids who were supposed to be their besties for life.

I handed the phone back to Brit. My head was starting to pound again. "What makes you think I did this?"

Brit scoffed. "You're the one who threatened to tell Trick that I cheated on him while we were dating if I didn't apologize about that public school comment! I figured this would be right up your alley."

I arched an eyebrow. "Well, did you post those apologies on Insta and Twitter?"

"You know I did! You were the first one to click 'like' on them!"

"Then, you should know that I haven't said shit to Trick, and I don't have a fucking problem with you anymore. I'm a girl of my word. It wasn't me, Brit."

"So, you're claiming that you have nothing to do with this?"

"Do I look like the kind of bitch who has time to learn how to break into Sassy and your phone while juggling seven weighted courses, two competitive clubs, orchestra, plus SAT prep and community service on the weekends? Even if I somehow managed to pull those extra hours out of the day from my ass, you'd probably be the last person I'd spend them on."

Brit frowned. "Maybe you have a point."

I gave her a pointed look before continuing, "That post was made by an anonymous user, which means the person somehow circumvented a protected system that requires registration from Ashton Wellesley's students and faculty in order to gain access. I have many talents but hacking into technology isn't one of them. As for those screenshots, I don't have your number, and this is the first time I've ever touched your phone. I'm pretty sure I would've needed both at some point to hijack your texts."

Brit eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you know so much about hacking, then?"

"Because 'cybersecurity regulation' and 'internet privacy as a basic human right' were my topics for last year's speech and debate state tournament."

"Oh, God. You're such a fucking nerd," Brit snorted condescendingly, but I could that tell her anger was dissipating. With a frustrated sigh, she asked, "Do you have any idea who could've done this?"

"Nope," I lied, "Now, get outta here so my friends and I can finish our lunch."

Brit spun around and left in a huff.

Once she was out of earshot, Nat leaned over to whisper, "Do you think Zac did it?"

Amari stuck her nose in as well. "Bish, you know he did! You just told us that he has freaking vendetta against the kids at this school, and Archie told me a few days ago that Zac used to hack into databases for fun. My man says he even broke into several private Amazon accounts. Just for the hell of it. That was back in seventh grade, yo! Hacking into a school system and a phone should be a walk in the park for him at this point."

I closed my eyes for a moment. My temples were throbbing. "Hey, guys? Do me a favor. Don't tell anyone about Zac yet. I wanna talk to him first."