Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(43)

“Jamie’s a dickhead,” she says.

I don’t know why my first instinct is to defend him, but admitting all that out loud makes me stop and think.

I never really question whether Jamie doing bad things makes him a bad person. Everyone does bad things sometimes, makes poor choices. I know that more than anyone.

“He is,” I say.

“I broke up with him,” she says.

I’m shocked. She doesn’t even look regretful.

“Why?”

“Because he’s a dickhead.”

There’s a smile she’s holding back, I can tell.

“And I had a gut feeling about this whole thing, so I ended it.” She pauses, her hesitation making the atmosphere awkward. “I know it’s weird … but I wanted to be your friend, Chiamaka. The whole time I was dating him, even … Except it seemed like you hated me—and I guess I know why—but as messed up as this is, you seem nicer than people say you are. Besides, we’re both too good for Jamie,” she says.

I say nothing. I do nothing. Don’t even breathe. Belle’s words are so confusing. One moment she’s angry at me, the next she wants to be friends.

Jamie has been my only “real” friend in high school. Everyone else has been a chess piece in this popularity game. I don’t know if I even want friends; all they seem to do is hurt you.

Belle is looking at me with expectation in her blue eyes, her face making my heart beat fast as I look away.

We are better than him.

“You’re wrong in thinking I’m nice, by the way. Everyone was right. I am a bitch,” I tell her, which only makes her smile even more.

“I guess we all are sometimes.”

My arms and legs are so cold, and the wind makes it worse. I really just want to go home.

I look back at her. The meeting is still weighing on my mind, as well as Aces.

“I was going to go home and watch Project Runway … if you want to join?” I ask, like my life isn’t on the verge of collapse.

She nods. “I’d like that.”

As we walk on, I think about the USBs again. I asked a tech guy I know about getting into Niveus’s CCTV to look at who planted the USBs this morning, as well as tracking down the origin of Aces’s blasts. Maybe I could ask him to recover the files from the USBs too, in which case, I’ll need to bring Devon into my plans. I can’t have Aces taking any more from me—the deeper they dig, the harder it will be to come back.

And I refuse to let them bury me.





17


DEVON

Wednesday


“Your school looks like Buckingham Palace,” Terrell says from the seat on his bright-yellow bike.

I’ve finished with today’s detention, after a whole hour scraping gum off the tables in a random classroom, alone. I think Ward separated Chiamaka and me on purpose. I’m not sure why. Maybe he thought we’d try to do more damage to each other, that I’d slit her throat with the edge of the scraper or something.

Ward was so quick to blame us. Make us out to be delinquents. If anything, I’d stab him first, before I’d even think of doing anything to Chiamaka. In reality, though, someone like Ward could easily crush me like a bug. I can’t fight to save my life. Not that he’d believe me if I told him that.

When I finally walked out of Niveus, hands raw and achy, Terrell was there, waiting for me outside. He’d texted me earlier with a mysterious message: I need to tell you something.

And now here we are. I’m on one of the swings and he’s seated on his bike. I walked and he pedaled all the way to a park nearby. I avoid the big park in my neighborhood, knowing that Dre and his friends hang there sometimes. My heart squeezes at the thought of Dre.

“Nothing royal about it, though,” I say.

“Isn’t it hella white and full of rich people? Sounds a lot like a palace to me.” His dimples appear, which force me to smile back. I guess he has a point. Niveus is like this weird love child between America and England, from us calling our principal “headmaster,” to saying “registration” instead of homeroom, to the way the building looks. When I first came here, I thought it was really strange. It took some getting used to.

“Apart from that, it’s hell.”

“Are people still talking about you?”

I nod. “It’s all because of Aces. People at school don’t normally focus on me.”

Terrell’s eyebrows rise. “Aces?”

I forget Aces doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of Niveus.

“This anonymous texter. They’ve been bothering me and some girl, Chiamaka, a lot, spreading rumors about us.”

Terrell nods to himself, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Is this Chikkaka girl Black too?” he asks. I want to laugh, but I stop myself. Why do I feel so loyal to her this week? It’s pissing me off.

“Yeah.”

I don’t say anything else at first, thinking back to my thoughts in the library about being Black and that maybe having something to do with it.

“And they only bother you guys?”

I nod slowly, hoping he doesn’t go there—to the race thing.

Terrell shakes his head, squinting at me. “Are you guys blind or what?”