Page 57 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“Locke isn’t a conquest,” she protested then shrugged. “He’s just…Locke.”
“Yes, well apparently he’s not just a drug user, but he deals as well.”
“Oh, I know,” Reen said casually, as if it were no big deal.
“Really? Then you should stay away from him,” Janie said. “You don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“Not true. Locke is exactly the kind of trouble I like. He’s elusive, though. It took me days to realize he was dealing. In fact, I have suspicions he might be a narc.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Fits, doesn’t it? New student, completely bored with class, but also seems to know everything already. Hasn’t instantly fallen at my feet in worship. Maybe because he knows I’m not eighteen yet?”
Janie shook her head. “I don’t think narcs can actually deal drugs to catch people. It’s entrapment or something.”
“He can if they’re not really drugs,” Reen countered. “If they’re say…melatonin and they make you a little sleepy and that’s all.”
I laughed. “That would be hysterical. If Wick thought he was buying E, only to end up taking a nap.”
Just then my phone started vibrating in my back pocket, which would not have been unusual if there wasn’t a consistent binging sound across the entire table, the entire room. A simultaneous text was being sent to everyone.
“That’s me. I won!”
I twisted on the bench seat following the sound of the shout. Jeff, the football-playing, girl-pushing thug, was high fiving every guy at his table. He, of course, sat on the left side of the room. Second table.
Suddenly everyone was talking. Guys were chortling. Girls were whispering. I looked over to where Fitz typically sat, but he and Ed weren’t there. Only Heath, who seemed entirely unaffected by the current commotion.
“What is it?” I asked Janie, who was reading her phone.
“It went out through the school’s emergency announcement system. Somebody must have got into the principal’s office,” Janie muttered. “Or hacked her computer.”
“What?” I shouted, pulling out my own phone to see what was there.
That’s when I heard it. The scream from just outside the cafeteria.
High pitched. Horrible. I didn’t stop to think, just got up and ran through the cafeteria doors into the hallway with a sense of dread in my stomach.
I stopped when I saw her. Standing by a row of freshman lockers. Surrounded by her classmates who were pointing and laughing at her. Streaks of tears streaming down her face.
The guilt I felt was awful because, honestly, my first feeling upon seeing her was relief.
Relief it wasn’t Kit or Lyd or even Gigi.
No, it was Sarah Parker. Who I’d seen hanging around junior Todd Sheldon these past few weeks. Pushing through the crowd around her I pulled the phone out of her hand and immediately deleted the text. She didn’t need to see that again.
“Everyone knows,” she whispered. “Everyone…”
“It’s okay.” Only it wasn’t. It was sick and twisted and I wanted to scream at the people behind it. “Everyone get to class. Now!”
There must have been enough force in my voice, because it worked. Students scattered leaving me with Sarah.
I knew she didn’t have older siblings who went to the school here, which meant there was no one she could turn to to help her. Really help her. I didn’t trust any friends she might have not to snicker behind her back.
She looked up at me, her face desperate.
“Are my parents going to know?”
I didn’t know how to answer that without knowing what kind of relationship she had with her parents. All I knew is that I had to get her out of this school. Now. At least for today.
