Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(49)

Richards quickly moves toward the door, but I stop him, placing my hand on his shoulder before he can leave. I’m relieved that I’ve managed to catch him in time. I’ve tried to talk to him the past two days, but I barely see him at school. He hardly goes to his locker, doesn’t hang out in the cafeteria either, and when I do see him, it’s like he can’t wait to get away from me.

He gives me a What? look, but I press my finger to my lips, waiting for the sound of Headmaster Ward’s office door.

Slam.

There it is.

“What?” he finally says.

I let go of him, walking up to the classroom door and shutting it gently.

I turn back to look at him.

“We’re getting rid of Aces.”

His eyebrows furrow together. “Getting rid?”

“Taking them down. I’ve been working on a plan, and this is what I know. One: Aces has to be a student here, because they know things only a Niveus student could, and have access to places only a student does. Two: They are following me, us, to watch what we do and document it. Three: They’re clever. Very clever. Four: They seem to have a reason to want to take us both down.”

“Yeah … I figured. I didn’t know I was important enough to take down, though,” Devon says.

Not going to lie, I was thinking the same thing. I’m being objective here: Most people had no clue who Richards was before this all started.

“Apparently you are—I don’t get it either.”

I catch him rolling his eyes at me, which is surprising. Most people don’t have the confidence to be rude to me—correction, didn’t have the confidence to be rude to me. Since Aces started revealing my secrets, the other students have been getting braver and braver. I’ve barely seen or heard from Ava and Ruby, which I have no doubt is because of Aces and my steadily growing social-pariah status.

The depressing fact about Aces is that they could literally be anyone. They could be people in my close circle, or people from the past, like Scotty, or anyone I used to get to where I am now. In the rise to the top, I’ve probably pissed off most people at Niveus. I just can’t quite figure out how Devon fits into all of this.

“So, the entire student body is your suspect,” he says with a tired sigh.

“Don’t be so negative. I’ve drawn up a list of people it could be, and I’ve spoken to a tech guy in my AP math class who might be able to help us solve this.”

“You want a high school tech guy to solve this.”

Why is he so negative?

“Obviously, not just any tech guy. Peter is a hacker. He is going to trace the messages and see who sent the texts, and he’s already getting the CCTV to see who planted the USBs and to recover the files on them. I heard he even turned down early admission to MIT last year because some top-secret federal guy hired him to hack into a Russian database. He’s really good. And at the moment, he’s our best chance at getting closer to finding out who’s doing this to us.”

While I’m terrified about what might be on the USBs, I need to know what else Aces has on me—on us—so I can work out how to stop it getting out.

Devon stares at me for a little while, his expression carrying no hope in it whatsoever. It’s always nice to have a partner who has zero faith in your mission.

“Okay,” he says, before walking past me and out of the classroom, the door slamming behind him.

I’m a practical person, which is why the sciences are the subjects I like most. I love that everything can be objectively proven; I love that there are formulas and methods that you can fall back on. I love the security.

I wish Richards would trust me on this one. He’s an arts boy. They see everything as questionable, subjective.

I don’t. I live in a world of facts and figures.

And I won’t roll over and let someone else take my crown. Not in a million years.



* * *



I get home and can smell Mom’s rice and efo riro cooking in the kitchen. With their busy schedules, it’s rare for both Mom and Dad to be home, so I’m a little taken aback at first when I hear them talking in the distance. Whenever they are both home, they like cooking together and bonding, which is nice and all for them, but I’m not in the mood for rice or idle chitchat.

“Mom, can I order pizza?” I ask, walking up to the door. Mom’s standing, flipping the pages of some book she’s reading, while Dad’s stirring the pot of white rice. He has his reading glasses on, which fog up as he stirs, and he’s let his beard grow out recently, which he hardly ever does.

“Food is cooking,” Dad answers, taking his glasses off to wipe them against his apron. Which means no.

Starting an argument over this isn’t worth it, so I go upstairs to my room, throw my bag down, and throw myself onto my bed.

I’m about to text Peter to ask him if he’s found anything yet when my phone buzzes.

Finished today’s round of child labor yet?—B

I smile. Belle and I have been growing close since she confronted me on Tuesday. I wonder why I disliked her so much in the first place.

Thankfully! I’m now in the comfort of my bedroom, about to watch Pretty in Pink.

What’s Pretty in Pink?—B

UHM … only one of the greatest movies made.

… Then why haven’t I watched it? Chi, you are failing as a friend by not forcing me to watch it.—B