Page 115 of Tag

He and Rook had been running that play for days now. Some program he made was logging every text, planting a few when necessary, pinging her in different locations so it lookedlike she was still moving. No one had come across what was left of Chess Club yet, but I knew that would come to fruition sooner or later.

“What is it?”

“Someone’s making plans to try and move on, Ari.”

I sat up straighter. “You got a day and time?”

“Next week. Monday, to be exact, after her second class. They dropped a location pin behind the art building. I’ll stick close to her. Rearranged my schedule already.”

“Perks of being beloved by the entire school board and faculty, huh?”

He chuckled. “We all are.”

“You’re going to give her a whole other reason to be paranoid.”

“She’ll get over it,” he laughed, calm and smug. “Eventually.”

I shook my head. “So, do we know who is running point?”

“Bradley Wells.”

My brows shot up. “I swear this year’s Hunt is for people who know this is their last chance to peak.”

Xander scoffed. “From what I’ve gathered, Deadweight is not one of the Huntsmen, so this is something else.”

That would’ve required more brain cells and backbone than Ashton had. According to Roxxi—my number one ally in all things Sanjana—he was nothing but a shiny trophy boy who mistook his own reflection for depth. Chess Club had at least one of the two qualities Deadweight lacked. In a mask, people could pretend to be anyone.

My voice dropped a notch. “Send me everything.”

“Already did,” Xander replied. “Handled things on the back end too and finalized the list of Marked with last-minute add-ons. We’re good to go. Wait till you see it now. Looks like it’s all of us rich fucks people think are too entitled, and a few pityMarked tossed in for fun. Oh, and I’m sending something extra, but don’t watch it until everyone is around.”

“Thanks, Xan. We couldn’t do this without you.”

“I know. I’ll see you at the gym.”

He hung up, and I stared at my phone. Cocky fucker. I huffed a laugh, fingers drumming against the wheel. A second later, the file came through. I opened the PDF and skimmed it over. It looked to me like a bunch of fools with superiority complexes. The ratio didn’t match last year. When we were all ineligible for the auction block, they picked names with strategy. This year’s list reeked of petty bias and weak attempts at control. In other words, it was going to be a fuck ton of fun now that we were playing along.

My phone went off with a new text.

Sassy

You shouldn’t have heard about what happened from other people. I’m sorry, Rye.

I didn’t answer.

Another ping, this one from the Group chat I’d muted hours ago, followed by a second from Sass.

Sassy

& Thank you for the food.

I waited for that to be the end of it. Then three more bubbles popped up. I opened the group thread while waiting to see what else she had to say.

Roxxi

I’m going to come out and ask what the hell is going on and why Macy was with you all yesterday. Is this some passive-aggressive thing because of The Hunt?

Ari

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