Page 15 of The Knight

"Why?" Clearing my throat, I clarify, "I mean, why be glad? It's not like we're friends."

"Aren't we?" He glances over to the side, as if reflecting. "I guess we're not. Not even close, really. Isn't that funny? Not friends, not acquaintances, not anything else. Yet here I am, and you said you needed me."

"I do."

"So what do you need?"

His clear blue eyes are open completely. Whatever I say, no matter what I ask from him, I feel as if he'll agree in an instant. Yet there's still so much I don't understand about him—why he's friends with the other three Elites, how it is that he has a matching tattoo with Hass, a boy who couldn't be more his polar opposite when it comes to morality and general sensibility. Maybe it's just one of those childhood friendships that outlived its expiration date, but I find myself wondering if there's something dark beneath his surface, something I haven't yet found.

Shaking off my thoughts, I tell him, "I need you to help me figure out why my brother was murdered."

Chapter 7

"That's... a lot." Lukas blinks at me, looking a little startled. "Why me? How can I help?"

"This." I angle the laptop towards him so he can see the error message. "You said something about there being a partition on my laptop taking up most of the space. But I didn't put it there. It's... not actually my computer, either. Or it didn't used to be. It belonged to my brother when he was alive."

"Oh." Sucking in a sharp breath, Lukas studies me. "Iamsorry. About what happened to him."

"Don't be. It's not your fault. He was murdered."

A troubled expression crosses his face, and for a moment I think he's going to say something more, but he doesn't. Instead he reaches out and hovers his fingers above the keys, asking, "What makes you think that the reason he was murdered might be in this hard drive partition?"

"The guys who took me were looking for it." I swallow, fingers briefly fluttering around my unbruised throat, then reach across to press down on my snake bite scar. It no longer aches as much as it used to, but something about the ritual habit still helps me center my focus. "They said something about it when they grabbed me. Apparently it was supposed to be destroyed, and they thought the tornado took care of that, but it didn't. I was thinking maybe whatever Silas put on the partition might be something to do with whatever got him killed—there's nothing on the rest of the laptop that anyone would kill over. It's just homework and video games."

Lukas nods, his jawline hardening as he clenches his teeth, in concentration or frustration. "I'll help you figure it out. But I have to warn you, I'm no expert level hacker. If he put a password or some kind of work around on this, it'll take me some time to figure it out."

"How long?"

"Let me try to crack it and I'll tell you."

Settling onto the bed, Lukas leans over the table I have pulled above my legs, staring at the laptop screen in full concentration. He's so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his legs through the sheets. It's enough to make me blush, and I have to look down to calm myself, conflicting emotions flittering through my chest.

Maybe it's a mistake to trust Lukas with this. After all, once he cracks open the partition, he'll see my brother's secrets on the other side. I have no idea what they might be—I can guess that they have something to do with the drug dealing he was doing, but even then, the size of the files on the hard drive makes it seem like there's more there than I can imagine. And just a bit of drug dealing isn't something to kill over, especially when as far as I know he only ever sold to other high school students, maybe a few bored soccer moms at the most.

No, if he was killed over these files, there are secrets there that could ruin his memory further and our family too. But I can't think of anyone other than Lukas who's willing to help me like this—especially not anyone who knows my secrets and doesn't seem to think any less of me because of them.

Which reminds me. "Thanks for looking for me, by the way." His pale blond brows rise as he glances at me over the top of the laptop screen. "I mean, you didn't have to. But Holly texted me. I guess she was worried."

"Of course she was," he says, like he's confused why I would think otherwise. "Look, Holly may not be your roommate anymore, but she's a stand-up girl. She would never stop looking for you if you went missing."

I have to swallow, because something about that makes a lump rise in my throat. I've had a lot of female friends in my life, including Jade, but almost none have stuck by me for the long haul. If there's something to be salvaged in my bond with Holly, I hope I can figure out what to do or say to fix the rift between us.

Lukas adds, "She misses you."

"I miss her too."

"Then maybe reach out. Holly is the forgiving sort—if you earn it. The earning it part is key, though. She doesn't move on easily. But I'm sure you can figure out a way to make it up to her."

Thinking of the dress I wore to the Blind Ball, the one the paramedics cut off me, which I bought with Georgia's stolen credit card, I wonder if thereisa way to make it up to Holly. What I did to her was so much worse than just stealing—if we hadn't lived together I wouldn't have been able to take that credit card offer and get the card in her name. She trusted me implicitly, and I broke that trust.

But Lukas knows her better than me. Maybe he's right. Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a place where I can be the kind of girl who has friends. The kind of girl who gets forgiven.

I watch him peer at the screen, typing around, moving his fingers on the trackpad. He spends long moments typing something into a black screen, then makes a frustrated sound.

"Your brother is good," he says, then his eyes fly up to mine, and he flushes at his cheeks and neck. "I mean was good."

Swallowing, I glance over at the screen, trying not to think about what the world is missing now that Silas isn't in it anymore. "What did he do?"

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