Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(54)

Dre moves off the bed and goes over to the drawer in his desk, pulling out some condoms. I look away from him now and up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the windows and the wind angrily crying out, letting it drown my thoughts.

His weight tilts the bed as he leans over me and joins our lips together again.

I want this moment to last as long as it can; I want to be here with him for as long as I can.

Like always he’s gentle, and considerate, making me feel special, kissing me all over. And then, when we are finally done and I’m in his arms, I let myself cry.

I’m aware that I completely lost focus on what I came here for. But he probably would’ve said no anyway.

He kisses my shoulder blades and hugs me close, and I know that soon I’ll have to get up, put my clothes on, and say goodbye—face my other issues, like Ma struggling and Aces. But for now, I want to close my eyes, listen to the sound of the rain and Dre’s breathing, and drown.





20


CHIAMAKA

Tuesday


“You’re late. Again,” I tell Richards as he enters the lab.

He says nothing, just blankly stares at me like he doesn’t care. But I’m going to ignore that because I need him to be invested in this, and hopefully after today, he will be.

I walk toward Peter, who is waiting, with his laptop open on his lap. Devon is being annoyingly slow.

“What did you find?” I ask, cutting the niceties.

Peter smiles, leaning back against his chair.

“Probably everything you were looking for … but since I did this for you, could you do me a favor?”

It’s like all the years I spent gaining respect have been washed away by the random appearance of Aces the cyber-bitch this year. But I guess since Peter did help, I could.

“Depends,” I say.

“I heard Belle and Jamie broke up … and I hear that you and Belle are friendly now.”

“Heard from who?”

Peter smiles with a shrug. “Around.”

I’m sure people are surprised after the Aces blast about me and Jamie hooking up that Belle and I are hanging out. It’s the opposite of what usually happens: Boy is a massive dickhead to both girls, girls fight each other, boy is left unblamed as girls antagonize each other.

I’m glad it isn’t like that with me and Belle.

“What about her?” I ask.

“Can you tell her about me, and how helpful I was to you?” Peter looks at me, desperate.

There’s a flutter in my stomach. I don’t like this, but I give a small nod.

Peter looks back at his laptop. “So, you’ll be happy to know that only one device is used to send the messages, and that device is easy to locate.”

“Where is it?” Devon asks, finally awake and interested.

“Right here, in the school. The Morgan Library, computer 17.”

That’s surprising. Why would Aces want to do it somewhere they could easily be caught?

“Can you get CCTV footage from Morgan?” I ask.

Peter shakes his head. “Morgan is one of the few places in the school that isn’t covered. Perfect location to do a lot of things,” Peter says, waggling his eyebrows.

I ignore the gross implication he’s making, because I know I’ll throw up my breakfast if I pay it any mind.

I hardly go into Morgan Library. It’s notorious as being hookup central, plus there’s a separate science library closer to the labs that I use.

“There’s more, though,” Peter says. Richards and I both lean in. “Sundays and Mondays, at around ten o’clock, the details are entered and the messages scheduled to be sent out at specific moments during the week. They’ve hacked into the school’s central administration system, so they can access the entire registry of student body phone numbers.”

I remember how Headmaster Ward said he could trace what we were doing on our personal school accounts.

“Could you look at the personal school account of the student who logged in?”

Peter scratches his head. “Yes, actually. I attempted to as soon as I got in, and I’m afraid the personal account used wasn’t registered to any student or staff member. On a normal account in the Niveus database, you’d have a unique name and passcode—yours for example, is Chiamaka Adebayo, 5681—”

“Could you lower your voice? There’s literally someone out to get me, and you’re here telling the whole lab what my password is,” I interrupt.

Peter nods. “Sorry. What I meant was, I can see into anyone’s account. This person, though, had no name, and their password seems to be frequently changed. I imagine they use some sort of randomizer … But anyway, I can’t identify who it is that sends the messages from this account, nor can I access the files. There’s a lot of encryption that would take me days to crack. I can only see what gets sent out from the computer and the times the texts are logged.”

Aces is definitely way too smart to be any of the suspects I currently have on my list. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ruby use a computer before.

“Can I have a copy of all the things you found?” I ask, my mind racing. Peter looks like he wants to refuse, but reluctantly nods anyway.

“Should I print it out?” he asks.