Walk the Edge (Thunder Road, #2)(52)

I swallow at the thought of Razor being the guy stealing a second-base feel. I haven’t been that far before. Bet he has. I bet he’s full of all sorts of fun, fascinating moves. “Thank you for the offer, but my clubbing days are officially over.”

“That’s a shame.” His eyes wander the length of my body like he sees beyond my clothes. “I loved the blue dress.”

Um... I’ve lost the ability to speak or to think or to do anything, so I flip through our textbook. Words. Words would be good. Any word. Preferably words that make sense.

“If we’re working together, then you’ll need to read the syllabus today. The first video is tomorrow. Did you know that everything falls at the same rate? Like if someone was to chuck you and me off a building at the same time, we’d both fall at the same rate of motion because of gravity? It’s called acceleration of gravity. If you exclude wind resistance, everything, and I mean everything, falls at the same rate of 9.81 meters per second. You, me, cats, dogs, hedgehogs. We’ll be doing a project on that.”

Yep, words.

“We’re going to toss hedgehogs off a building?” he asks.

I try not to giggle at his bad joke and fail. “An egg.”

“Good on the hedgehog. That could get messy. Speaking of throwing people off buildings, we have two options of how to handle Hewitt.”

And the conversation was going so well... “What do you mean?”

“I can try scaring the hell out of him,” he says, like we’re discussing the weather.

“You already tried that and he said if you get involved in any way someone else will post the picture. I was in the bathroom, remember? Scaring him didn’t work.”

His mouth twists up in a deadly way. “That was me being friendly.”

I shiver despite the heat of the cramped room. “What’s the second option?”

“We get rid of the picture.”

“How?”

“By being smarter than them.”

It’s like he’s set out a puzzle and my mind is desperately trying to sort the pieces. “Only way to get that photo is to know who is in the group associated with the site and then hack into their computers and phones to delete it or destroy the hardware.”

He doesn’t even blink at my words.

“I’m not a computer hacker,” I say. “And I have no clue who he’s working with.”

“You’re not, but I know a few things about computers and you’re smart. Together we can figure this out.”

I fiddle with the corner of the syllabus. “I don’t want to write the papers. If I do it for him, it’s a lie he could hold over me forever—just like the picture.”

I could lose my chance at a scholarship or admission into my colleges of choice for cheating. My skull starts to feel as if it’s collapsing in and I rub my temples as if that could help. I wish this problem would go away. I wish none of this had ever happened.

“Breanna,” he says, then goes quiet. I glance up and he continues, “You won’t write the papers and that picture will be deleted, okay?”

I nod and Razor seems to accept my answer. His eyes dart around my face as if he’s waging an internal war. “It’s going to be hell on you to be seen with me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a statement. A very, very true statement.

“If we’re sharing,” he says, “I’m going to catch hell being around you.”

My eyebrows rise at this. “Because I’m the epitome of trouble?”

He laughs and it’s a glorious sound. One that warms my insides. But then the laugh turns a bit bitter and dies out. “I’ve been warned I could hurt you without meaning to.”

My stomach sinks and my posture deflates along with it. Addison said the Terror have to follow orders or there are consequences. “Have you been told to stay away from me?”

Razor’s expression gives nothing away and in the silence I can hear the whispers of the boys on the other side of the room. I clear my throat and try a different question. “Are you going to get in trouble for hanging out with me?”

“I’m running out of allies. Hanging with you might piss off one of the few I have left.”

It’s not really an answer. A million questions spring to mind about his club and who his allies are and who is warning him away from me and why, but the one single thought that wins out is... “I don’t want you to get in trouble over me.”

Razor offers a crooked smile that I guess is meant to comfort me, but all I see is sadness. “I’ll worry about me so you don’t need to. I hate to ask, but beyond us working together in class, do you have a problem with keeping whatever this is between us a secret?”

He nudges my leg with his own, rekindling the fire that had begun to burn minutes before. “The fewer questions I get from the club about you, the better it will be, and it’ll be easier on you at school the less we’re seen together. Besides, being a secret makes the flirting more fun.”

I should be annoyed at what Razor is saying, at the idea that he doesn’t want to be seen with me in public. Instead, a thrill runs through me, so fast, so strong, that goose bumps form along my arms. A secret. Me and Razor from the Reign of Terror—a secret. There’s something magical in the idea of there being a secret between us. Something exciting about being allowed to explore this newfound friendship without the prying eyes of the rest of the world.