Chapter 17

“Did Parker just leave after spending like 10 minutes with you?”

I looked up to see Lindsay’s awe. She looked like Taylor Swift just offered her a ticket to her concert. She pushed the chair Parker just stood up from and very reverently lowered herself on it. I fought hard against rolling my eyes. Any second from now she might get home and take the chair to a museum because you know, Parker Farrell sat on it.

“He did. What about that?”

“I didn’t expect him to move on so soon and even if he was, I didn’t think you would be his next option.”

I eyed her from the corner of my eyes. “Did ever occur to you that he came to pickup from where his girlfriend stopped?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, it never did. Maybe because Todd came over to talk to me. I didn’t think he even knew my name but he congratulated me on my promotion from C to A class.”

I watched her go on and on about Todd while my mind drifted off to Parker. He was on his seat and Keith and come to join him. They were talking and laughing about something I couldn’t hear, not that I needed to anyway. What I really cared about was the fact that he had come to accuse me about having something to do with Emerald’s death.

“Do you really think she’s dead?” Lind suddenly asked.

“How should I know?”

“You saw the picture, there’s no way anyone would have survived that.”

I would have survived it, so would Leo and every other wolf I know.

“Lindsay, I don’t know.”

She gave me a side glance. “I guess you really don’t care enough about her then. Everyone else thinks she died. I think many of our classmates want her to die.”

I suddenly pushed my chair back, sick of everyone’s bullshit. Am I suddenly the only person with a conscience here? Why doesn’t anyone even care about Emerald? I get it, she’s a bitch but treating her this way now that she’s no longer here with us is just…messed up.

My anger must have shown on my face because Lindsay looked contrite a little which is a good thing I guess, given how conscienceless she and everyone else has been so far.

“I need to take a walk,” I told her.

I made my way out of the class careful to make sure not to draw attention to myself. Not that anyone cares much anyway, they were too busy gossiping. Even Parker was now laughing heartily at the a joke Keith told him. Good for him.

As I passed the hall I noticed Colin in Class B in deep conversation with a few other Outties. Once again he didn’t even glance at me. It was almost as if peeping at me from the edge of his history textbook never happened, talking to me and then suddenly disappearing in the library never happened either. I was tempted to march right into B class and make a huge show of dragging him out and having him explain those oddities, that should give everyone something to talk about. But I resisted the urge partly because Leo was now looking out of the window at me and was not listening to a word Lizzie was saying.

I don’t know if he wished he hadn’t said some of those things he said yesterday. Maybe I want him to regret his words but for the first time, I had no idea what he was thinking.

Anyways, I didn’t want to talk to him either so I walked away. With no destination in mind I ended up leaving the senior block and wandered into the junior block. At least the juniors were having classes. In a way, they were not involved in Emerald’s mess so no use disrupting their education.

I made my way past the junior block and ended up at the front doors.

Now what am I doing here?

If I had wandered here two days ago, this would have been a good time to run out of school. Fuck Noah if he tried to stop me. But today I stood looking at the doors, through the glass at the empty packing lot.

The weather was still very ugly. Rain was drizzling on the few cars in the pack. They had their windows rolled up.

Noah wasn’t among the few drivers waiting. Somehow I was disappointed. That moment shared in the garage came back and a sudden warmth diffuser through my chest into my veins and I smiled.

That brief moment was just as unexpected as the jolt of the previous day. Noah’s gaze had been warm. I’ve seen that looked before, it’s the same look Asher and Lance give Maggie when they think she’s not looking.

No, no that’s not it, I shook myself mentally. Noah doesn’t think of me that way, he’s only being nice. Which is weird because Noah and I only care about being on each other’s neck. He’s only being nice because of what happened to me.

Yes, that’s it.

I but I dreamily leaned against the front door and when it opened I stepped out. I had no idea where I was going. Everywhere was so quiet as if the impact of Emerald’s death didn’t just affect the students but also the critters and the birds. None of them made a single sound. Maybe it was the rain though.

The splash of the rain was cold against my flesh as I made my way to the administrative building. It was just as stylish as I thought it would be and it was richly done. None of the office doors were opened but through some parted curtains I saw the dark mahogany desks, the shutters, the oak shelves and everything that was done so exquisitely well.

There was a staircase leading to the top floor which I guess was where the administrators offices were located.

I touched the banister and thought about going up but somehow I knew instinctively that I wasn’t supposed to be there.

It suddenly occurred to me that while I had been thinking about Noah something had pulled me to the administrative building. There is no way in hell I would have risked coming here to run into Mary Thompson if I was in my right senses.

Why am I here?

I looked down the hall. It was empty.

What are the chances?

Then I heard voices. I guess I should have turned and hightailed out of there but curiosity got the better of me.

Curiosity killed the cat but I’m a wolf those rules don’t apply.

I left the bottom step and started down the hall to the point where those voices were coming from. It was a small storage room and on the front of it was written: Sport Equipment. The door wasn’t open but the keyhole was missing.

I took another look at the hall. It was empty. How convenient.

My heart was thundering in my chest and I was scared the occupants of the storage room would hear but there wasn’t any indication that they did.

I bent and peeped through the keyhole and was surprised to find Mr. Thomas Firth in there. The man hardly spoke but there was an intense look on his face as he listened to whatever the other occupant of the room was saying.

Thomas’s eyes moved as he followed the movement of his companion who was pacing the small space in the room. Whoever it was moved out of the corner and as soon as he stepped in front of me right where I could see his face. My mouth dropped open.

Colin?

Didn’t I just see Colin in Class B? How the…? How is he here?

“Are you sure of what you just told me?” Thomas asked him.

Colin nodded, his red hair bouncing on his forehead.

Thomas puffed his cheeks. “That’s a problem. We have another problem.”

“What is that, sir?”

“Emerald isn’t dead. She’s alive but her condition is critical.”

My hand flew to my mouth to stifle the gasp that threatened to escape.

Emerald wasn’t dead? Well, no one really said she was dead only that she had an accident and her neck had been twisted unnaturally. But the consensus was that she died.

But why was Thomas telling Colin? Why wasn’t Mary announcing this to us rather than let everyone believe we lost a member of our class.

Colin looked even more shocked than I did. “How do you know?”

“That’s not important. What’s more important is that she’s alive. I spoke to her father, he was a difficult man to talk to but as you know, as an ambassador he wanted to push charges. I was able to convince him to transfer Emerald to another hospital.”

Colin nodded as if he understood what Thomas wasn’t saying. I didn’t understand until Thomas dropped his hand from his mouth and answered the silent question.

“Mary cannot know about this.”

My eyes couldn’t have bulged anymore. The shock from that short sentence tipped me forward and I almost planted my face inside the room. If I hadn’t caught myself Thomas and Colin would have caught me. But as it happened I caught myself on the door, alerting them to my presence but before either of them could come to the door to catch me being an eavesdropper I turned and hightailed the hell out of there.

Luckily as soon as I left the hallway that was when the door opened. The rain was dropping even more and the fog rising obscured me as I ran into the main school area.

Emerald was alive!

But most importantly, Mary Thompson couldn’t know about it.

Why?!