Page 24 of The Evil Twin

In the end, she won. Even though I could see her point, I didn’t like it.

I was antsy all day Thursday. Tennyson and Althea left around lunchtime to go back to the manor, so they could prepare with the other pack members who were part of the operation. The manor was closer to the meeting spot than school, so they’d take her back there and contact us when it was all done.

I’d suggested that I could go wait at the manor too, but that idea was shot down from all sides. They wanted her completely secured before I went anywhere near her. I knew it was smart to be cautious. There was so much riding on this going well. Still, I hated it.

“Can’t you sit down?” Harper snapped at me that afternoon. “It will be hours yet; you’re driving me mad with your pacing. Better yet, can’t you go back to your own dorm?”

“Hannah and Nikolai are there, having ‘alone time’,” I said, throwing myself into a chair.

Harper wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“I know, right,” I said. It wasn’t often that Harper and I agreed on something.

“They’re worse than Althea and Jules were over summer. I normally adore our little place on the Riviera, but all month long, you couldn’t move without walking in on them somewhere. And let me tell you, there are some things that a girl should never have to know about her brother.”

I laughed. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about that with my brothers for a while.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of space to yourself next year,” I said. “It’d be weird being in this big old place by yourself.”

Harper sniffed. “You only think that because you’re poor and used to squalid conditions. But actually, I’m quite ahead in all my classes and have been accepted to a few of my top-choice colleges already, so I’ll probably just skip senior year. It seems like a drag, to be honest. There’s much more potential for fun at college. If we’re all still alive, that is.”

Being annoyed at Harper made the time pass a little faster, but after another five minutes, I was back to pacing.

She glared at me pointedly, clicking the end of her pen.

“The dining hall should be open now,” I said. “I might just go…”

“Yes, go eat your feelings or whatever it is you do,” she said, going back to her homework.

Why was she even doing homework if she was so far ahead that she could skip senior year? Maybe she was trying to distract herself, too.

In the dining hall, I met up with Hannah and Nikolai. We ate in silence, just picking at our food. I didn’t even register what the meal was, I was just eating for the sake of it, which offended me on the behalf of food. We barely talked. Even when we got back to the common room, we just sat around, waiting for each second to tick by.

“This is ridiculous,” said Hannah eventually, getting up. “We can’t just sit here waiting. There might not even be any news tonight. We need to do something to take our minds off it.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Harper, in a voice that said I wouldn’t like whatever she suggested. “I think Lucy should go and sort things out with Sam, so that he’s not moping around all the time and sabotaging our plans.”

I was right. I didn’t like that idea one bit.

“That’s a bit unfair,” said Nikolai.

I was surprised until he continued.

“That’s only giving Lucy and Sam something to do. The rest of us will just be sitting around waiting for them on top of everything else.”

“Fine,” Harper said. “Well, I’m going to bed. If you losers want to sit around being boring, that’s your own business.”

She said it as if we’d feel her absence bitterly. Though, to be fair, once she left, I started feeling a lot like a third wheel.

“Right,” I said, once they started getting handsy. “Well, Harper was probably right, I should go find Sam…”

I doubted they even noticed me leave.

I hadn’t been in Sam’s room for ages, not since before he’d gone through the portal to Other-me’s world. Not much had changed. Maybe it was a little barer, or maybe he’d just gotten tidier.

He was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall.

“Hey,” I said from the doorway.

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