Fast-Tracked (27 page)

“What? Why? What’s going on?” I demanded.

She turned towards me just long enough to glare at me and snap, “Look, I’m not about to get in the middle of anything. You need to figure out what’s going on between Avery and you. Until then, I don’t know you. Got it?” Her demeanor was so cold and distant.

“Yeah.
I got it.”

I got it loud and clear. So long as my status with Avery was unclear, I was once again
a nobody
. Granted, I was probably safer than the rest of the
newbies
, because there was still a chance of me and Avery making up, if I ever returned his messages. But the moment it was clear our relationship was over, I was fair game, and there were plenty of fast-trackers ready and willing to make an example out of me.

Like it or not, I needed to reconcile with Avery – and the sooner the better. “Do you know where Avery is?” I asked
Autumn
as she walked away.

“I don’t know. He was here a few minutes ago, but he probably left when he saw you. He’s really torn up about how you’ve been treating him.” She huffed and stormed away.

Great, just what I needed: a guilt trip on top of a threat.

The cafeteria now felt markedly hostile, so I decided to skip lunch and track down Avery. I had been telling myself I was just using Avery for my advantage, but right now I really felt it was true. It made me feel cheep and dirty.

I heard Avery before I saw him, and it startled me. Instead of his usual relaxed and easygoing tone, he sounded angry.
Violently angry.

“Hold it, Jared. Did you really think you could avoid me forever?” Avery growled.

“N-n-no.”
Jared sounded frightened. “I was just trying to stay out of your way until you calmed down. Slade told me you were pissed, but I don’t exactly get why.” His last words came out as a squeak.

I turned the corner. Avery had Jared held up against the wall by the collar of his shirt. “You make me sick. Are you really going to pretend that you did nothing to that girl?” Avery emphasized his words by punching Jared in the stomach. I watched as he crumbled to the ground.

In between gasps, Jared blubbered, “She was a brown level posing as a fast-tracker and blabbing her mouth; we just put her in her place. All we did is invite her to a party and give her false directions. How were we supposed to know she’d go and kill herself? Besides, it’s not like you had a claim on her or anything.” He held up his hands protectively.

Avery grabbed Jared’s collar and pulled him back onto his feet. With his face just inches from Jared’s, Avery screamed, “She was a person, and what you did… you’re just lucky my dad won’t let me retaliate. But if you or any of your friends lay a finger on any of the other
newbies
, I’ll be coming after you.” Avery held his fist as if he was about to strike, but the moment Jared flinched he pulled back. “Just get out of my sight,” he snarled.

Jared quickly scrambled to his feet and ran down the hall and out of sight.

Avery turned around to find me staring at him. I had judged him too harshly and too quickly. He had been putting on a front the other day. He understood the fast-tracker world all too well, but I had been wrong to assume than meant he wasn’t bothered by what happened. He was just doing his best to navigate through it, just like I was. I no longer needed to pretend to forgive him.

With a soft voice, he called, “Hey.” Carefully, he took one hesitant step toward me.

“Hey,” I answered back and shrugged my shoulders. A fake apology would have been easier; my shame made it hard to form the right words.

“Are you still mad at me?” He stepped closer.

“No.” I shook my head and looked towards the ground. “I’m sorry I took my anger out on you. What happened to Trisha was shocking and…”

“Horrible. I know. I’m sorry I tried to pretend that it wasn’t. It was just easier than dealing with the reality of it.” Avery joined me in looking at the floor; we were both too ashamed to look each other in the eyes.

I laughed weakly at the absurdity of it all. “So I guess this means we’re friends again?”

“Yeah.
Friends,” he chuckled. There was a note of sarcasm in his voice, and I knew it was because he still wanted so much more from me.

Guilt shot through me. More would never be possible – not after seeing Byron. But I had to string Avery along as long as I could. Autumn had made that much very clear to me. So I reminded myself that it was a necessary deception and allowed Avery to escort me to the cafeteria.

The next few weeks were a busy blur.
Haddie
and Nola had returned home to pick out their future silver-level careers and train elsewhere. No one blamed them: who could expect them to stay where they no longer felt safe? Myra and Vera had decided to tough it out, but now that they had been completely disillusioned about the fast-tracker world, they had little tolerance for our classes. Initially they had tried to demand realistic solutions out of our teachers, but when that got them nowhere, they decided to follow my lead and research and study independently.

Surprisingly, no one argued the point, and our classes were disbanded until the next session began. This gave me the time I needed to scour through the many hours of recordings I had during the day. I spent my nights going from one social event to the next with either Avery or
Autumn
. I knew I couldn’t neglect my social climbing if I really wanted to succeed. Plus it allowed me to swap out my security trinkets so I could collect the newer recordings.

On the rare occasion that there was no social gathering planned, I spent my evenings out on the patio, just waiting to watch Byron collect his last trash can. It always left me with a bittersweet feeling, but it gave me hope and reminded me of my ultimate goal.

By the end of my second week without classes, I actually managed to catch up to date with my recordings. I could now scan through the new footage at a more leisurely pace. This was fortunate, because during my second week I filed my ownership request paperwork on Club Night and the other ten stores. The paperwork had a very quick turnaround, so by the end of the week, I was the proud owner of eleven businesses.

I spent all of the weekend and the following week moving around my stock and selling off the surplus. I made a point of selling it all to non-fast-tracker businesses. I decided to keep the two extra buildings for storage space. Then I filed the necessary paperwork to dissolve all of the businesses except Club Night and re-formed them under the corporate name of
Music Box
.
Mico
and I agreed that any appearance of a connection between a blue-level businesses and Club Night would have a detrimental effect on its clientele. Fortunately, once
Mico
was the CEO of Club Night, I was free to hire him as Music Box’s CEO. So he could run both companies without any financial connection between the two.

Mico
was good to his word. As soon as I had the liquid capital necessary, he began setting up the sound systems in all eight clubs. We decided to give each club a different theme, to avoid the appearance of a lame chain-store.
Mico
even came up with the idea of a fake DJ booth. It had opaque glass so no one could tell it was empty, but clients could still place song requests through interactive tablets. The request would then be forwarded to Club Night’s real DJ.

The first club we got ready for its grand opening was actually the convenience store whose owner didn’t want to be taken over. Luckily his children, Josie and Toby, had convinced him to double his stock and he ended up being quite happy with his resulting check. Once he was content, both his children volunteered to run the club for us. It actually benefited them more than me, because otherwise they were now out of a job. They were young, ambitious and willing to train with
Mico
, so I decided to give them a chance.

We decided to name the club The Rivers. One of the furniture companies I dissolved had driftwood tables and stone shaped pillows that could be used for chairs. The club was located right where the Croton River and the Hudson River met. So the theme just fit.

The theme also made it the least expensive club to remodel. Wendy came up with the idea of a sand floor. We spray painted the floor with a thick layer of glue and then sprinkled sand over it. One lacquered layer later, we had a floor that looked like a sand riverbed minus the mess, and in the center of it was the midnight blue dance floor river. We all agreed sky blue was definitely not a color to use in a club. So we painted the ceiling midnight blue and lined it with small lights to represent stars. We painted the walls a deep rust color called Mississippi Mud, and then lined the bottom half of the walls with a synthetic tall grass we had found among the fabric store’s inventory.

We were trying for a campy effect, but the end result actually looked pretty good once you dimmed the lights and got the music going. We could have rushed it and had the club ready by the third, but we wanted everything to be perfect and wanted more time to promote, so we decided to give ourselves two weeks and open on October tenth – the following Saturday.

The night we decided on the date, I slipped a note about the grand opening into Byron’s doggy bag. I knew he wouldn’t be able to attend. But as I watched him retrieve the bright pink bag, I knew that wasn’t the point. I had left him the note so I could still feel somehow connected with him.

I had planned on telling Avery and
Autumn
the next day about my clubs, but it turned out I didn’t have to. I was just coming in from the patio, after watching Byron leave, when there was a loud pounding on the door. Startled, I ran over and looked through the peephole. As soon as I saw Avery’s red face, I pulled the door open.

“What’s wrong?” I asked while he stormed in past me.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He brandished a crumpled piece of paper in my face. I backed up a step. “I thought we agreed you’d give up on your ridiculous and dangerous business scheming.” He pulled the paper flat and shoved it back in my face. It was a copy of one of my ownership titles.

“I never agreed to any such thing! It’s not my fault if that’s what you assumed,” I yelled. Then I stepped back and placed the kitchen island between us. As furious as I was about his verbal assault, that wasn’t my biggest worry with the state he was currently in. “Don’t worry, I didn’t involve any fast-trackers in the transactions. I attained the financing I need all on my own and I intentionally targeted failing businesses that no one else would want. I was careful.” As I yelled, Avery tried to sidestep around the island. I did the same, moving in the opposite direction.

Stopping his slow pursuit, Avery growled, “If you were so careful and sure you weren’t doing anything reckless, then why did you keep it a secret?” A smug sneer spread across his face, like he thought he had caught me in my lie.

“Well, if you don’t remember, you and
Autumn
weren’t entirely supportive of my ambitions. In fact, you both seemed quite certain I would only fail. So I decided to wait until I was ready to open my first club before telling you. I figured maybe then I’d get a little support and enthusiasm from you instead of scorn – but I guess I was wrong.” I noticed Wendy was standing in the doorway to her bedroom; she looked poised to attack. I waved her off.

“Of course you’re wrong, there’s no way to grow a business on your own. You’re just fooling yourself. Do you honestly think one club will ever give you the capital you need to expand to a second one?” He looked at me like I was a complete and total idiot.

I stomped across the room and grabbed a flyer from my desk. “The only thing I’ve been foolish about
was believing
that you thought I was smart,” I sneered. “I don’t have just one club. I have
nine
. One was already a club when I took it over. The others will all be up and running within the next six months. I was planning to tell you all about it tomorrow.” I shoved the flyer in his face and leaned back and glared at him while he read it.

Finally, he asked, “How?” Suddenly he sounded surprised, not angry.

“Do you honestly expect me to give up a trade secret? Let’s just say I found a glaring loophole in the law that allowed me to get exactly what I needed without a fast-
tracker’s
help.” I sat down at the table and gave him a smug satisfied look.

“It still hurts that you didn’t come to me. I would have helped if you had just asked. I thought you knew that by now.” He walked over to me and gave me a sad pout.

I tried not to look too annoyed as I explained, “To help me you would have asked your father for help. I didn’t think that was a very good idea seeing as we’re still trying to get him to fix what he did to Byron.” Avery’s face turned an even deeper shade of red than it was before.

“Byron? This is all still about him. He’s the reason you’re always so busy working and researching and keeping secrets from me. And when we are together you always seem distant and insist on just being friends. It’s all because of him, isn’t it?” He slammed his fist against the table. A vase toppled over.

I jumped back. “I was honest from the beginning with you, Avery. You knew how much I wanted to save Byron from being sunk. Did you honestly think I had just forgotten about him? He’s been my best friend since I was a kid.”