Page 23 of The Knight

It's a dangerous thing. Pointing this out to him, though, would be like saying water is wet. I have the feeling he already knows—and doesn't give a shit. So I just take a bite of the sandwich Lukas got me and try to mind my own business.

Something that becomes impossible when Cole and Blake walk up to our table, and Cole declares, "I know how to get you what you want, Wilder."

Chapter 10

Hearing my true last name out of his mouth, even after all this time, makes my stomach churn uncomfortably. It'll be hard to be a Wilder again after so much time spent as a Cooke, but my father's name was my brother's name, and at least this way I'll be living the truth. For him, if no one else.

"Share with us," I tell Cole, who's standing there expectantly. "I suppose you've got some big dramatic plan that requires a lot of time and money."

"No. Just the opposite." Cole takes the seat right next to me, and I have to fight the urge to pull my chair away, even as his altogether too familiar scent washes over me. He smells like warmth and comfort, an impossible thing given who he is, with the light scent of apples wafting from his clean warm brown hair. "What I've got planned is going to be very easy and only mildly risky. Expensive? Not at all."

"It's not just your plan." Blake sounds peeved as he takes the remaining seat between Tanner and Lukas, his cold eyes narrowing at his friend. "I'm the one who reminded you what Hass likes to do at the start of every semester."

"The start? So this would be for January."

"Exactly." Cole smirks at me, leaning forward into my space until I can feel the warmth of his body in the air around him like a physical presence. "You'll have plenty of time to prepare. We'll even help—though you'll be on your own with this one. All it'll take is one simple night and a few minutes of effort, and Hass will be done for. Probably for a while."

"Tell me."

Blake is the one who starts. "He has a little tradition for the start of every semester of school: he buys all the drugs, alcohol, fireworks, and anything else he's not supposed to have and smuggles it on campus right before classes start. Then at the end of the semester, he makes it a mission to use it all up—calls it his last chance party and everything."

"Gross." I wrinkle my nose. "But somehow I doubt buying a few tabs of molly and some Roman candles will put him away."

"You're not wrong," Cole says, his voice so near that I can feel his breath on my cheek, making me warm in places I try not to think about. We're almost as close now, physically, as we were when we kissed—when I kissed him—and it feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, my toes over open air. "But word is—courtesy of a little digging Blake and I did this morning—that Hass is buying more than just some party favors this year. Apparently he's got more exotic tastes in mind."

I frown. "What, like a white tiger? Italian molly? I can't imagine what he could buy that would possibly get him thrown in jail."

An expression crosses Cole's face, one I haven't really seen before, something in between disgust and rage, guilt and shame. In a low voice he says, "What do you think rich boys buy when they know they can get away with it?"

It's Blake who answers, even as my mind catches up. "Girls. He's buying himself his own little sex slave to keep in the family summer house nearby. All the way from overseas."

My gut churns, and I find myself glancing over towards Hass and Georgia's table. They're no longer canoodling, but she's staring at him with this rapturous expression on her face that I can't for the life of me understand. It's like she thinks he plucked the moon out of the sky, when really all he did was inherit a trust fund and act like a sociopath.

She looks up at me, stares me straight on, and smiles. I don't look away at first, forcing myself to meet her gaze despite the sick pit in my stomach. It's impossible to tell the source of the dread. I'm just as worriedforGeorgia as I am upset just at the sight of her, after everything she did to me at the Blind Ball.

I wonder what it'll take for her to break away from Hass's orbit. Even she deserves better than a boy like that one. Hell,no onedeserves Hass.

Least of all someone who has no opportunity to say no to him.

Turning back towards the boys, I see they have some of the same dread and disgust on their face that I feel. Drugs, parties, even DUIs were one thing, but this is more like the body in the trunk of that car, the one Cole claims he had no idea about—something I'm shocked to realize I actually believe. And just like the governor tried to cover up for his son when he got pulled over with Cole, that girl stuffed into the trunk, Hass's rich parents will try to cover for him.

"How do we make sure that when he gets caught it won't all get swept under the rug?"

"That," Cole declares, "is where you come in."

* * *

The plan is for me to make sure Hass is exposed publicly—and on film—simultaneously as he's arrested, so that he can't run and hide from the charges. I'll do it anonymously, using my Legacies blog, because as the boys warned me, this is not the kind of thing I want to do under my legal name. It should all be over with by the end of January—along with my time here at Coleridge, if Hass gets charged quickly enough, which Tanner promises he will be.

One wrinkle: between then and now I have to pass my final exams. And other than Visual Arts, I'm starting to wonder if that's even possible. It's one thing to write an essay or prepare for a one page quiz; Coleridge finals, from everything I've heard, are an absolute nightmare to pass, even for the kids who have been going to top tier private schools their whole lives, or the scholarship students who actually earned their place here.

I'm nowhere near as smart as either.

So I'll just have to be twice as studious. Even though my mind keeps wandering back to the feeling of strong arms grabbing me in the rain and stuffing chloroform over my mouth. I can't stop thinking of that moment when I woke up in the trunk, bound and gagged, and wondering if I could've done anything to escape or call for help. But more than anything, my mind keeps ruminating over the fact that I have no idea how it is that I'm still alive—and the one person who knows is the one who won't be giving me any answers.

Even when stories about my kidnapping and rescue start showing up in the news, the statements Hass gives are all perfunctory and smell of lies: he was driving late at night to unwind, he saw a car parked on the side of the road and two suspicious men, and after chasing them off discovered me in the trunk and called the police. No word where the men went or how they got away on foot. No explanation other than coincidence as to why he just happened to be there at the right place and time.

They gnaw on me, these thoughts, memories without explanation, a life I still have without knowing the reasons why. It's hard to concentrate on the work in front of me—even though doing the work is the only way I'll get my revenge.

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