Playlist for the Dead(39)

“Does that mean you believe me?” I tried not to sound too hopeful, but I couldn’t really help it. If he believed me, then maybe I really was telling the truth.

He hesitated for just a second, and I knew I wasn’t off the hook. “I want to,” he said. “It just would be nice to have some verification. Have you given any thought to who else might be behind this?”

Setting aside Hayden and Astrid, it was all I’d thought about. But I hadn’t been able to come up with anything. “They were all assholes. There must be someone else who had some kind of beef with them.”

“You said ‘all’—do you mean just Jason and Trevor?”

“I guess I was including Hayden’s brother, too. Ryan. The third member of the bully trifecta.”

Mr. Beaumont laughed. “Is that what people call them? Sorry, I know it’s not funny. It’s a clever name, though.”

It made me feel better that he was laughing. If he thought I was guilty, would he do that? “Props for Hayden for that one—he came up with it. Far as I know it was just the two of us who called them that. I only knew about what they did to Hayden, though. I don’t really know if they targeted anyone else the way they went after him.”

“Hayden was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for, wasn’t he?” he said, with that gentle tone of voice he sometimes had.

Nice that someone finally got it. “Way smarter.”

“Ryan was the third, then. But only Jason and Trevor were attacked,” Mr. Beaumont noted.

“So far,” I said, then wished I hadn’t.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I swear, it wasn’t me, and I’m not planning anything. I’m just saying that Ryan was the worst of the three. To Hayden, at least. If someone was going after Jason and Trevor, it only makes sense that they’d go after Ryan, too.”

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to do anything to stop it. Though if the police were after me, it looked like I’d have no choice.



I LEFT MR. BEAUMONT’S OFFICE feeling overwhelmed. It was all just too much—Hayden being gone, the Archmage, the trifecta. I needed to feel like I wasn’t crazy, and these days, I only felt like that when I was with Astrid. I looked for her in the cafeteria at lunch but she wasn’t there. Her friends were at their usual table, though, Eric included, so I figured, screw it—I’d ask and see if they knew where she was.

“Hey, Sam!” Damian, the bearded guy from the party, called out. “Are you coming to sit with us? Scoot over, Jess.” He nudged a tiny pixie-haired girl I recognized from the party. She looked down but nodded and then moved for me.

I hadn’t planned on sitting down, but what the hell—not like I had anywhere else to go. “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t have any food, either, but I wasn’t hungry. “I was actually looking for Astrid—any of you guys seen her?”

Everyone turned to look at Eric, which made sense. He nodded his head at me. “Sure, she was in class earlier. I think she skipped lunch to study for a test. I can show you where her locker is if you want to try to catch her before sixth period.”

“That would be great,” I said, though I felt kind of awkward. Sure, it was kind of weird that Astrid’s boyfriend would help another guy who was clearly into her—I didn’t kid myself that I was hiding it well—but it was cool of him to do it.

“No problem,” he said. I wondered if he even saw me as a threat.

The cafeteria was on the bottom floor of the school, and of course Astrid’s locker was on the very top, in the opposite corner. Once Eric told me where it was I wasn’t surprised we hadn’t run into each other much; the school was divided into four quadrants, and my locker was in the southwest corner, where all the lockers were red, while hers was in the northeast, with glaring yellow lockers. Just being in those halls made my head hurt.

“Sorry I barely saw you at the party,” Eric said, as we headed up the stairs. He was wearing fancy pointy-toed shoes that clicked as he walked. Spats? What a hipster. “I heard you got into it with Trevor.” What did he mean by that? Did he think I was the one who hurt him?

“Got into it?”

“You know, at the party. I missed all the action but people told me he punched you in the face. I heard you told him off pretty good, though.”

“Yeah, well, he was always a jerk to Hayden,” I said. “It was worth getting decked just to tell him what I really thought.” I was almost afraid to ask, but I did it anyway. “Did you hear about what happened after?”

“Oh, I did.” He gave me a sidelong look as we pushed through the throngs of kids rushing to their next class. “He kind of got what he deserved, didn’t he? Like Jason.” It reminded me of what Astrid had said about karma.

“Maybe.” I wasn’t sure what the look meant. Was he trying to get me to admit something? “Sounds like Trevor got hurt pretty bad, though.”

“He’ll heal,” Eric said, trying to sound callous, but his voice cracked a little. I bet he thought things had gone too far, just like me. “Gives him some time to think about all the shitty stuff he’s done to people, anyway.”

“You think a meathead like him thinks about anything?”

Eric laughed. “Probably not. If he had any self-awareness he’d probably self-destruct.”