“Hey.” Tucker twists in his seat and gives me a nod, a lock of white-blond hair falling across his forehead.
“Hey,” I say back, with about as much enthusiasm as one usually reserves for visits to the dentist. I may have missed an epic amount of school, but I know enough about the goings-on of things to know he’s buttering me up now only to make fun of me later.
“You want to work together?” he asks.
“Is that supposed to be funny or something? Because it’s not.”
“Why would that be funny?” he asks.
I grip the pencil without breaking eye contact with him. He glances at it as if he’s worried I might attack. Good.
“All right,” Mr. Crawford says. “Quiet down so I can tell you what the project is about.”
“Anyway, I want a partner who won’t drag me down,” Tucker whispers. “Matt’s not exactly A-plus material, if you know what I mean.” He grins at me, like we’re buddies in on a joke.
“Is that right,” I say dryly, because I don’t know what else to say. I still can’t figure out if this is part of a prank.
“Come on,” Tucker presses. “Just be my partner. I get good grades in this class, and let’s be honest, you don’t have a lot of other prospects.”
He’s right. Everyone else has already paired off in the time it’s taken us to have this conversation. At the front of the class, Nikki is giving Marisa a lecture and counting out items on her fingers.
“Say yes,” Tucker says. “My house after school.”
“Your house?” Now I’m certain this is a prank.
“Unless you’d rather work on it in my car?”
I roll my eyes. Tucker St. Clair’s house. This week couldn’t get any weirder.
“Quiet down, everybody!” Mr. Crawford says. “Now that that’s out of the way, please open your textbooks to page two seventy-one, and we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday.”
Tucker raises his eyebrows at me, a question.
I sigh. I suppose if I can jump off a roller coaster…I nod. An answer.
My phone buzzes against my hip. Shit. I fumble to turn off the ringer before Mr. Crawford notices, but my eyes catch on a text from a blocked number on my home screen:
Time to cut the cord, don’t you think?
Well, who am I to judge? As long as you weren’t planning on telling Mommy about our little fun last night…
All the blood drains out of my head. I whip around, heart punching out of my chest. The Society knows I’m here. Knows I’m at school. One of them could be sitting right here in this classroom.
I skim my classmates for someone obviously texting. Caroline Dampeer stifles a giggle as she stares into her lap, fingers tap-dancing over her phone. Could the captain of the cheerleading squad be behind this? It doesn’t seem likely. Besides, would someone behind the game be so obvious?
Georgia Murphy halfheartedly listens to the lecture while checking her hair for split ends.
Ashley Eagerton pushes back her cuticles.
Percy Porter scribbles a drawing on the cover of his five-subject notebook.
Wyatt Beasley slinks way low in his seat and agonizes over popping a zit on his cheek.
Who here has the motive to pit the five of us against one another in a midnight-dare club? The Society has to get something out of this, right?
“You okay?” Tucker whispers.
I turn to him. He’s gripping the edges of his desk, his brow turned down over piercing blue eyes narrowed with concern. Sudden, out-of-nowhere concern. Could Tucker be a part of the Society? I focus on his fingers. I would have noticed if he’d texted from right beside me. Right?
“Hope?” he whispers.
I realize how nuts I must look right now and force my tense shoulders to relax.
“I’m fine,” I say.
I guess it doesn’t have to be someone in this class. Just someone who knows Mom was here with me today. Which could be…anyone at school, thanks to Sadie.
I cradle the phone in my lap and analyze the text.
A shadow falls over me. Mr. Crawford raises his eyebrow in a silent warning. Heat flashes over my cheeks, and I quickly stow my phone back in my purse.
But it doesn’t matter. The fact is, there’s no way for me to deduce who sent this text without checking every single student’s phone and seeing who has this message there—if they haven’t already deleted it.
I don’t see Ethan again until lunch. He waves me over from our usual spot by the vending machines with Jackie and a few guys from swim.
A shot of energy goes through me. I have so much to tell him. The stolen car. The dare club. What happened to Nikki. The text—he’ll think of a way to figure out who sent it. He’s good at this kind of thing. My body fizzes with anticipation.
Ethan, I was right. The invitation wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t nothing.
I wade through the caf to our table, where Ethan’s picking the wrapper off a tube of Smarties.
I drop heavily into the seat next to him.
“Hey, where’s your bestie?” he asks, referring to Mom.