Page 62 of Evil King

“I know,” Principal Hix replied. “I’m glad you’re committed to doing the right thing from here on out. Know that I’m looking out for you. I want you to succeed here. If you need anything, you can come to me.”

Whether his words were sincere or borne of a large sum of money slid under his door, I wasn’t sure, but they were comforting, nonetheless. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” He pulled his hand away. “I’m sure you’ve heard already, but there will be different seminars taking place throughout the day. Consider attending some of them. If not for assistance in dealing withthistrauma, then perhaps another. The only requirement is that students remain on campus today.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

He smiled. “Thank you. You may go.”

Both Sicily and I hesitated for a few seconds before turning and heading out of the office. Sicily took a few strides in front of me, nodded in the direction of the stairs, led me down the hallway, up to the second floor, and into one of the abandoned classrooms. He shut the door, and we walked toward the back of the classroom and sat down.

“Shit,” Sicily said. “I was prepared if things went south, but you’re one lucky fucker.”

“Prepared? What do you mean?” I asked.

He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Wanna hear what I figured out?”

“Yeah.”

Sicily pulled out his phone and held it up to me. It was a screengrab of a Snapchat, just a blank, black background, but a few flying money emojis and a message that said, “Let’s not tarnish our school name. Big bucks to keep it quiet, double for anyone who knows anything. DM me for Venmo.”

“I’m not gonna fucking lie to you, Sic. I have no fucking clue what half that shit means. Why does the money have wings?”

Sicily laughed. “All right, old man, let me school you. Well, first of all, the money has wings because money flies, you know? We never hang onto it for too long.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Second, this Snap went out to our entire school from Nathan’s Snapchat yesterday. I was left out, I assume, because people know we’re close, but Annika got it. Anyone who DMed, uh, direct messaged Nathan on Snapchat was told to agree to keep their mouths shut. Once they responded saying they would, they were Venmoed… Sorry, Venmo is an app that lets you send money to people. Once they responded, Nathan sent them five hundred dollars! Every single student. Made them even promise not to talk about it with their parents. I talked to a few of the students I saw around the classroom yesterday, and they told me that when they told Nathan they saw it, they were directed to Connor and got an additional grand for their stories. I ain’t no Sherlock Holmes, but I assume some of those kids were the ones who backed your story to Principal Hix.”

“Hundreds of mini non-disclosure agreements to bury the story.” I shook my head. “That shit doesn’t make any sense. Why does it matter so much to Connor that the story doesn’t get out?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want his kid getting caught up,” Sicily said.

“No. I really don’t think Connor gives much of a shit about me. If he cared about the perception of his kids, he would have done the same thing to bury the story about Nathan and Miss Abrams last year, right? Why didn’t he do it then too?”

Sicily crossed his arms. “Yeah, shit. I guess that doesn’t make much sense. Got me, boss.”

My head hurt. It was like I had half of the pieces of a puzzle, and none of the pieces I had fit together. As the day progressed, I tried my hardest to make everything make sense in my mind, but no matter how I arranged the clues I had, nothing made a continuous story. The only real conclusion I could come to was that Nathan and Connor were more mixed up in what had happened with me and Miss Abrams than they were letting on, and they probably had something to do with the last time something like this happened to me too. It’d been such a long time since I thought about thefirstbody that I saw splat to the ground, but now I was painfully grinding back over the details. There had to be something, a little piece of minutiae that I missed that would help me connect the dots, but all I could think about was Cherri and making sure she was okay. That was all my brain could focus on at the time. If there was a clue to gather, I missed it.

After the bell rang to end second period, all the seminars were suspended so that all the students could go to lunch. The meal was free for the day, and the school had called out for pizza and pasta instead of the traditional school lunch. Students were asked to sit as soon as they got in the lunchroom, and volunteers shuffled plates to them to avoid lines and additional stress. Sicily and I took our regular seats, and pizza was carted over to us a few seconds later.

“My god, I’ve been looking all over for you.” I looked up and saw Annika flying into the lunchroom. She threw herself down into a hug before grabbing my face. “Are you okay? You were supposed to call me last night.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I…” I sighed. “I called Cherri. I had to hear her voice.”

“Sure,” Annika replied.

“Wait,” Sicily said. “What? You can’t tell your current girl about your ex, man. That’s bad decorum.”

Annika waved her hand in his face. “Shut up, Tank. How’s she doing?” Annika asked. “I kind of screamed at her yesterday. I felt bad as soon as I got home.”

“You yelled at her? Why?” I asked.

Annika sighed. “I was so terrified about you going back, and I thought about Gray Jr. I think I just got triggered by the whole thing. I told her it was her fault, well, half her fault.” She reached over and smacked Sicily over the back of the head. “I blamed this moron for the other half.”

“It’s neither of their faults,” I said, annoyed. “I made the decision to go, and that woman wasn’t wrapped tight. No one had control over it.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Annika said.

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