Alice in Wonderland High (19 page)

First speaker: Lewis and Carol Liddell and Charles Katz. I don't know where they are, but find them and stop them. This can't get out, and if they do this protest . . .

Second speaker: And how do you expect me to do that? If arresting them didn't work, nothing I say will.

First speaker: I'm not asking you to say anything. I'm telling you to do anything.

Kingston snatched the rest of the open folder off my lap, leaving me with the phone transcript in my hand. He stared at the other files in the folder for a second, mouth parted.

“Hey!” I yelled before I remembered I had to be quiet.

He snapped the folder closed, rolled it into a tube, and slid it down his pants.

“Kingston, I need that,” I whisper-yelled. I waved the phone transcript at him like it reinforced my claim. I wasn't about to reach down his pants.

“I think the coast's clear.” He stood up and pushed himself out from behind the desk.

I scrambled to a standing position and tucked the folders I hadn't looked at yet under my arm. I didn't know what they contained, but they might be useful. Or maybe Kingston had stolen the most useful one of all. He raced toward the door without waiting for me to follow him.

I scurried after him, tripping on my feet to get to him before he bolted with my file. “Wait!”

He wrenched the door open and stopped short right outside it. “Oh, shit.”

I stepped outside and my feet came to a dead stop at the sight of what had caused him to freeze.

Chess.

“Alice?” Chess divided his gaze between Kingston and me.

Kingston relaxed out of his rigid position and boasted a smirk as if this showdown could feed his drama fix for at least a week.

I let out a breath I'd been storing since I entered Town Hall. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my junior year in a square cell. I snapped my body into action and raced to Chess, almost knocking him over with the force of my relief. I wrapped my arms around him, so happy to see him in such an unusual place. He hugged me back, but loosely.

He cocked his head. “What's going on here?”

Good thing it was still kind of dark and Chess couldn't see my red cheeks. “I should ask you the same thing,” I said, my voice starting out shaky but growing more confident by the end of the sentence. “I thought you said you would never break in here.”

Kingston chuckled, enjoying this way too much.

“I wouldn't.” He dropped his arms from around me. “The door was open.”

“You guys can stick around and fight, but since we didn't actually get caught, I'd like to keep it that way.” Kingston hiked down the hall at a fast clip. One that resembled more getaway than departure.

Kingston tossed Lorina's keys behind him. They clattered to the ground. I bent to retrieve them, my hoodie falling into my eyes. My sweaty hand wiped it out of my face.

“I'm not happy you did this,” Chess said. “But—”

“I needed evidence. Why are
you
here?” I pumped my arms as I jetted for the exit.

“You didn't let me finish. But you should have told me. I would have come with you. Made sure you didn't get caught.” He reached for my hand. I let him take it.

I spun in place to face him. “I wanted to tell you. I wish you'd been here with me.” I smiled at him, mostly so I could get one in return. “But I didn't have your phone number.” I dropped his hand and headed for the door again. “And you're avoiding my question.”

He held the door open for me outside. “I followed Kingston.”

The cool air stung my face. A breeze lifted my hoodie and made it sway in the wind. Kingston peeled out of the parking lot.

“If you followed him, why did it take you so long to find us inside?”

Chess shoved his hands in his pockets. “Alice, let's talk about this in the morning. Not when you're angry.”

“Fine.” I stomped toward Lorina's car. I thought Chess had told me everything when we ditched gym, but clearly there was something else he didn't want me to know. I would have brought him instead of Kingston. We could have been a team.

I wasn't sure who my ally was tonight.

The next morning, Chess met me at my locker. He carried two extra-large coffees, the scent instantly doing wonders for the bags under my eyes. There was too much blood in my caffeine system.

The students passing by looked like they were speeding through the halls while my body was moving in slo-mo.

“I couldn't sleep last night. Before I found you.” He held one cup out as a peace offering, along with a sincere smile. “I've been feeling horrible for making you so upset. I was racking my brain to figure out how to make you feel better.”

My head pounded with theories and lack of sleep. I grabbed the coffee and brought it to my lips. The liquid coated my throat, hot and painful, a self-inflicted punishment for betraying my sister.

“I went on Twitter to kill time, and suddenly Kingston posted something odd.
The key to the future is in the past.
”

“That sounds like something Whitney would say.”

“She's said it before.” He sipped his coffee. “When we first started doing this stuff and we tried to figure out a way to get access to the files but couldn't. That's why I got concerned.”

“So you went straight to the township. And you live far, so it took you a while.” I nodded, understanding.

He looked confused for a second, then nodded, too. “Exactly.” He brushed the hair off my forehead. “I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I know coffee doesn't quite make up for it, but—”

“I found evidence.” I pulled the phone transcript out of my pocket and showed it to him.

He scanned the paper. I sipped the coffee, willing it to work faster, like rapid-release Tylenol. It tasted perfect without me telling him how I took it: with a sugar overload to amp the caffeine.

I pointed at a spot on the page. “See, they said to do
anything
to stop them.”

He shook his head. “Anything is too broad. They threatened my dad. Took away his job. They did do
anything,
just like the transcript says. There's no reason why
anything
would mean something different for your parents.”

“What about the blocked-out text? Isn't that suspicious?” I'd tried everything to read it: holding it up to a window, squinting, praying to a God I didn't believe in. Nothing had stripped the censor bar off the paper.

“Looks to me like they blacked out any identifying information. I mean, even if they only made threats to stop our parents, that's still shady.”

“I think there was other evidence, but Kingston took the rest of the files in this folder.”

“Why?”

“No idea. He snatched them right off my lap. I went through a few other folders, but nothing was useful. It was all stuff about the water supply and soil samples.”

My face must have looked sad because he cupped my chin in his hands. “Hey, we'll find a way to get them back. I'll help you, okay?” His fingers trailed up the side of my jaw.

I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. “I'd really like that.”

He wrapped his arms around me. He smelled so good, like fresh soap. His hair was still a little damp from his stolen morning shower. “I'm really sorry I told you that,” he whispered in my ear. “It was just a theory, and I'd like to think the township isn't capable of something like that.” He pulled back to gaze at me. “What happened to us agreeing it was false?” He grinned, and his voice contained a hint of laughter.

“I couldn't exactly shut my mind off.”

“I can help with that.” He kissed my nose. “You just need a good distraction.” He sank his lips into mine until my mind replaced the worries with endorphins.

I knew he was right. Kingston might have had the files I needed to prove or disprove this, or he might have had nothing useful. Murder was a big accusation, one that put the citizens of Wonderland in danger and added us to the top of the hit list. We had to lie low, which meant I had to stop obsessing over the murder, at least until it was safe to gather more info. When Lorina came home with frazzled hair escaping her bun and the news of the break-in, I forced myself to paste a frown on my face and not indulge in interrogating her about who the township suspected of the crime. Best not to make her suspicious. Whenever I regretted that decision and needed a dose of memory loss, Chess was there to help me, with making out for hours after school in his car. I cursed his job whenever it dragged him away from me.

A few days later, I was waiting outside the locker room to meet Chess for gym when Kingston sidled up next to me. “I'm curious,” he said. “What did you say to that redhead about destroying her house?”

I rubbed my arms against the chilly breeze. “I didn't say anything.”

“Well, she thinks you did it. She was hounding me about what I knew.”

I swallowed hard. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her you did it.” He smirked.

“WHAT?!” I spun around and headed back to the track. I had to get to Quinn before she spread the rumor.

Kingston huffed alongside me. “Or maybe I said ‘didn't'.” He panted. “I can't remember. The phrases are so close, it's hard to tell them apart.”

Oh God. “If you told her, I'm gonna—”

“Alice, hey.” Chess had raced to catch up with us. Kingston pointed a finger gun and walked away.

My arms flailed as I ranted to Chess what Kingston had just told me. Chess grabbed my hand. “Come on, let's go talk to Quinn.” We rushed to the track, but when we got there, Di and Dru were waiting right inside the gate, identical scowls on their faces.

“Were you going to tell me?” Di asked.

“Tell
us
,” Dru corrected.

“Whatever Kingston told you, I had nothing to do with Quinn's house.” I crossed my fingers behind my back and hoped only the good lie young.

They exchanged a glance.

Dru smirked. “We know that. It wasn't you. No how.”

Di still wore the scowl. “Contrariwise, we were talking about you dating him.” She pointed at my boyfriend for emphasis.

Chess looked about as comfortable as the boy who accidentally walked into our fifth-grade health class when we were learning about menstrual cycles. I mouthed that he should go, and he gladly obliged.

“We had to hear it from Quinn,” Dru said.

Di crossed her arms. “Not my best friend!”

“Then you did hear about it from your best friend. Optional S at the end.”

Di snapped her head up. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Di . . . ” I focused on the gravel at my feet, then changed my mind and met her eyes so she could see the honesty in them. I didn't include Dru in my statement. “We both know we stopped being best friends a long time ago.”

Dru laughed. “I knew you wouldn't be able to explain yourself because you're not yourself!”

“I don't even know who you are anymore.” Di spun on her heels, her sandy-colored hair whipping her face. Dru followed after, of course.

Di's words were icicles, but they didn't stab me, just melted away as they plunged into my chest. I'd known for a long time she didn't understand me. We'd both tried to fit the other into a mold: me begging her to be a do-gooder, and her turning my good deed into the latest gossiple. Our sham of a friendship had buckled, too flimsy to stand on its own ever since we'd each silently bartered each other away for someone who got us in a way the other never could.

Throughout class, Chess reassured me that if Di and Dru believed I hadn't damaged Quinn's house, then it meant Quinn thought that, too. Di and Dru's minds were impressionable, filled with tall tales from the gossip queen herself. Still, I would have talked to her in gym if she'd come to class.

Chess calmed me down by squeezing in a few extra kisses after gym, mostly so I could avoid Di and her minion in the locker room. And, okay, because I liked the kissing. The girls must have changed like they were backstage at a runway show, because I didn't see them anywhere.

By the time I threw on my clothes and exited the locker room, I was on the verge of being late to my next class. Whitney would be proud.

My ponytail stopped swinging as I froze in place.

Up ahead, Kingston stood over a girl at her locker, his hands outstretched on either side of her like he was keeping her prisoner. The girl's face was tilted up to him, which suggested she didn't mind in the least. Guess you could teach an old dog new chicks. Red curls spilled out from behind Kingston's body. Quinn.

WTF? What, did she need to resort to extreme measures to get people talking about
her
instead of me? Or maybe Kingston had drugged her into submission.

I stalked over to them. “Tell her I had no part in what happened to her house.”

“I'm a little busy here.” Kingston met my eyes, then sank his mouth into Quinn's in a showy gesture meant only for his audience of me. I snapped my head away.

I already felt sick about possibly getting caught; I didn't need to see this make-out session to push me into toilet-worshiping territory. I started to turn back.

He broke away from Quinn. She smirked at me like she was hiding a juicy secret.

“Thanks for all your help, Alice,” Kingston said. “But I don't need you guys anymore.” He set his eyes on me. “I have an army now.”

After the hallway incident, I spotted Kingston and Quinn sitting together at lunch, holding hands in the hallway . . . basically, everywhere. What in the world would make Quinn help with his agenda? Or date him?! My best theory so far: his kissing technique contained the power of compulsion. My worst theory: she was just as crazy as him. Each time I caught them, his eyes shifted to mine, as if he wanted to watch my reaction. I countered with my own form of showy PDA with Chess.