Firespell (22 page)

“Is that a little were-ism I’m hearing?”

“It’s a little reminder that he’s not like the rest of us. He’s a whole different brand of Adept. And you don’t have to buy my opinion. I’m just telling you what I think. On the other hand, in our short but explosive friendship, have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Did you want me to start with the getting hit by firespell or becoming an enemy to soul-sucking teenagers?”

“Did you mean the Reapers or the brat pack?”

I grinned appreciatively. “Ooh, well played.”

“I have my moments. Besides, who’d you borrow those kick-ass flats from?”

I glanced down at the screaming yellow and navy patent leather ballet flats she’d let me borrow on our hurried way out the door this morning.

“Fine,” I finally said. “Fashion trumps evil and prissy teenagers. You win.”

Scout grinned at me. “I always win. Let’s chow.”

We noshed, said our hellos to Collette and Lesley, and when dinner was done, returned to the suite for our hour-long break before study hall. The brat pack had made camp in the living room, blond hair and expensive accessories flung about as we entered.

Veronica sat cross-legged on the couch, an open folder in her lap and M.K. and Amie at her feet like adoring handmaids.

“It also says,” Veronica said, gazing at the folder, “that her parents dumped her here so they could head off to Munich.” She lifted her head, a lock of blond hair falling across her shoulders, and gave me a pointed look.

Was that my folder she was reading? Had M.K. taken it from Foley’s office while she was on hall-monitoring duty?

“Interesting, isn’t it, that her parents left her? That they didn’t take her with them? I mean, it’s not like there aren’t English-speaking private schools in Germany. She’s not even
from
Chicago.”

“How did you get that?” I bit out. All eyes turned to me. “How did you get my file?”

Veronica closed the navy blue folder, the St. Sophia’s crest across the front, then held it up between two fingers. “What, this? We got it from Foley’s office, of course. We have our ways.”

I took a step forward, anger dimming my vision at the edges. “You have no right to go through my file. Who do you think you are?”

Outside, thunder rolled across the city, the steel gray sky finally preparing to give way. Inside, the room lights flickered.

“You need to back off,” Scout said.

Veronica arched an eyebrow and uncrossed her legs. M.K. and Veronica shifted to give her room. She stood up, folder in her hand, and walked toward us, a haughty look aimed at Scout.

“You think you’re queen of the school just because you’ve been here since you were twelve? Being abandoned by your parents isn’t exactly a coup, Green.”

Scout, amazingly, stayed calm after that outburst, an expression of boredom on her face. “Is that supposed to hurt me, Veronica? ’Cause, if I recall, you’ve been here as long as I have.”

“Irrelevant,” Veronica declared. “We’re talking about you”—she shifted her gaze to me—“and your new friend. You both need to remember who’s in charge here.”

Scout made a sarcastic sound. “And you think that’s you?”

Veronica flipped up the folder. “The ones with information, with access, always win. You should write that down in one of your little books.”

M.K. snickered. Amie had the decency to blush, but her eyes were on the ground, apparently not brave enough to intercede.

“Give it back,” I said, hand extended, fingers shaking with fury.

“What, this?” she asked, batting her eyelashes, waving the folder in her hand.

“That,” Scout confirmed, reaching out her own hand, and taking a menacing step forward. When she spoke again, her voice was low and threatening. “Keep in mind, Lively, that in all the years you’ve been here, some interesting little facts have crossed my path, too. I assume you’d like to keep those facts between us, and not have them sprinkled around the sophomore and senior classes?”

There was silence as they faced off, the weirdo and the homecoming queen, a battle for rumor mill supremacy.

“Whatever,” Veronica finally said, handing over the folder between the tips of her fingers, lips pursed as if the paper were dirty or infected. “Have it. It’s not like I care. We’ve gotten everything we need.”

Scout pulled the file from Veronica’s manicured hands. “I’m glad we’ve concluded our business. And in the future, you might be a little more careful about where you get your information from and whom you share it with, capiche? Because sharing that information with the wrong people could be . . . costly.”

Thunder rolled and rippled again, this burst louder than the last. The storm was moving closer.

“Whatever,” Veronica said, rolling her eyes. She turned and, like a spinning dervish of plaid, took her seat on the couch again, attendants at her feet, the queen returned to her throne.

“Come on,” Scout said, taking my wrist in her free hand and moving me toward her bedroom. It took a moment to make my feet move, to drag my gaze away from the incredibly smug smile on Veronica’s face.

“Lily,” Scout said, and I glanced over at her.

“Come on,” she repeated, tugging my wrist. “Let’s go.”

We moved into her room, where she shut the door behind us. Folder in hand, she pointed at the bed. “Sit down.”

“I’m fine—”

“Sit
down
.”

I sat.

Thunder rolled again, lightning flashing through the room almost instantaneously. The rain started, a sudden downpour that echoed through the room like radio static.

The folder beneath her crossed arms, she walked to one end of the room, eyes on the floor, and then walked back again. “We’re going to have to put it back.” She lifted her head. “This came from Foley’s office. We needed to get it out of their hands, which we did—yay, us—but now we’re going to have to put it back. And that’s going to be tricky.”

“Great,” I muttered. “That’s great. Just one more thing I don’t need to worry about right now. But before we figure out how to sneak into Foley’s office and drop off a student file without her knowing it was gone, can I see it, please?”

“No.”

That silenced me for a moment. “Excuse me?”

“No.” Scout stopped her pacing and glanced over at me. “I really don’t think looking through this is going to help you. If there’s anything weird in here—about your parents, for example, since Foley likes to discuss them—it’s just going to give you things to obsess over. Things to worry about.”

“And it’s better if only Veronica and M.K. have that information?”

Silence.

“Good point,” Scout finally said, then handed it over. “You read. I’ll plot.”

My hands shaking, I flipped it open. My picture was stapled on the inside left, a shot of me from my sophomore year at Sagamore North, my hair a punky bob of black. On the inside right was an information sheet, which I skimmed—all basic stuff. A handful of documents was stapled behind the information sheet. Health and immunization records. A letter from the board of trustees about my admission.

The final document was different—a letter on cream-colored stock, addressed to Foley.

“Oh, my God,” I said as I reviewed it, my vision dimming at the edges again as the world seemed to contract around me.

“Lily? What is it?”

“There’s a letter. ‘Marceline,’ ” I read aloud, “ ‘as you know, the members of the board of trustees have agreed to admit Lily to St. Sophia’s. We believe your school is the best choice for the remainder of Lily’s high school education. As such, we trust that you will see to her education with the same vigor that you show to your other students.’ ”

“So far so good,” Scout said.

“There’s more. ‘We hope,’ ” I continued, “ ‘ that you’ll be circumspect in regard to any information you provide to Lily regarding our work, regardless of your opinion of it.’ It’s signed, ‘Yours very truly, Mark and Susan Parker.’ ”

“Your parents?” Scout quietly asked.

I nodded.

“That’s not so bad, Lil—she’s just asking Foley not to worry you or whatever about their trip—”

“Scout, my parents told me they were philosophy professors at Hartnett College. In Sagamore. In New York. But in this letter, they tell Foley not to talk to me about their
work
? And that’s not all.” I flipped the folder outward so that she could see the letter, the paper, the logo.

“They wrote the letter on Sterling Research Foundation letterhead.”

Scout’s eyes widened. She took the folder from my hand and ran a finger over the raised SRF logo. “SRF? That’s the building down the street. The place that does the medical research. What are the odds?”

“Medical research,” I repeated. “How close is that to genetic research?”

“That’s what Foley said your parents did, right?”

I nodded, the edge of my lip worried between my teeth. “And not what they told me they did. They lied to me, Scout.”

Scout sat down on the bed beside me and put a hand on my knee. “Maybe they didn’t really lie, Lil. Maybe they just didn’t tell you the entire truth.”

The entire truth.

Sixteen years of life, of what I’d believed my life to be, and I didn’t even know the basic facts of my parents’ careers. “If they didn’t tell me the entire truth about their jobs,” I quietly said, “what else didn’t they tell me?” For a moment, I considered whipping out my cell phone, dialing their number, and yelling out my frustration, demanding to know what was going on and why they’d lied. And if they hadn’t lied exactly, if they’d only omitted parts of their lives, why they hadn’t told me everything.

But that conversation was going to be a big one. I had to calm down, get myself together, before that phone call. And that’s when it dawned on me—for the first time—that there might be huge reasons,
scary
reasons, why they hadn’t come clean.

Maybe this wasn’t about keeping information from me. Maybe they hadn’t told me because the truth, somehow, was dangerous. Since I’d now seen an entirely new side to the world, that idea didn’t seem as far-fetched as it might have a year ago.

No, I decided, this wasn’t something I could rush. I had to know more before I confronted them.

“I’m sorry, Lil,” Scout finally said into the silence. “What can I do?”

I gave the question two seconds of deliberation. “You can get me into Foley’s office.”

Fourteen minutes later—after the brat pack had left the common suite for parts unknown—we were on our way to the administrative wing. The folder was tucked into Scout’s messenger bag, my heart pounding as we tried to look nonchalant on our way through the study hall and back into the main building. We had two missions—first and foremost, we had to put the folder back. If Foley found it missing, she’d only consider one likely source—me. I really wanted to avoid that conversation.

Second, since my parents’ letter assumed Foley already knew about their research—and apparently didn’t like it—I was guessing there was more information on the Sterling Research Foundation, or on my parents, in her office. We’d see what we could find.

Of course, it was just after dinner—and only a few minutes before the beginnings of study hall—so there was a chance Foley was still around. If she was, we were going to make a run for it. But if she was gone, we were going to sneak inside and figure out what more we could learn about the life of Lily Parker.

17

Choir practice gave us an excuse to walk through the Great Hall and toward the main building, even as other girls deposited books and laptops on study tables and set about their required two hours of studying. Of course, when we got to the main building, the story had to change.

“Just taking an architectural tour,” Scout explained with a smile as we passed two would- be choir girls. She blew out a breath that puffed out her cheeks after they passed, then pulled me toward the hallway to the administrative wing.

I wasn’t sure if I was happy or not to discover that the administrative wing was quiet and mostly dark. That meant we had a clear path to Foley’s office, and no excuse to avoid the breaking and entering—other than the getting-caught-and-being-severely-punished problem, of course.

“If you don’t take the folder back,” Scout said, as if sensing my fear, “we have to give it back to the brat pack. Or we have to come clean to Foley, and that means making even more of an enemy of the brat packers. And frankly, Lil, I’m full up on enemies right now.”

It was the exhaustion in her voice that solidified my bravery. “Let’s do it before I lose my nerve.”

She nodded, and we skulked down the wing, bodies pressed as closely against the wall as we could manage. In retrospect, it was probably not the least conspicuous way to get down the hall, but what did we know?

We made it to Foley’s office, found no light beneath the wooden door. Scout knocked, the sound muffled by timely thunder. After a few seconds, when no one answered, she rolled her shoulders, put a hand on the doorknob, and turned.

The door clicked, and opened.

We both stood in the hallway for a minute.

“Way easier than I thought that was going to be,” she whispered, then snuck a peak inside. “Empty,” she said, then pushed open the door.

After a last glance behind me to ensure the hallway was empty, I followed her in, then pulled the door carefully shut behind us.

Foley’s office was dark. Scout rustled around in her messenger bag, then pulled out a flashlight, which she flipped on. She cast the light around the room.

The top of Foley’s desk was empty. There weren’t any file cabinets in the room, just a bookshelf and a couple of leather chairs with those big brass tacks in the upholstery. Scout moved to the other side of Foley’s desk and began pulling open drawers.

“Rubber bands,” she announced, then pushed the drawer closed and opened another. “Paper clips and staples.” She closed that one, then moved the lefthand side of the desk and opened a drawer. “Pens and pencils. Jeez, this lady has a lot of office supplies.” She closed, then opened, another. “Envelopes and stationery.” She closed the last one and stood straight again. “That’s it for the desk, and there’re no other drawers in here.”