Ace of Spades Sneak Peek(92)

“I’m scared,” Chiamaka admits.

Me too.

“Like you said, nothing to be scared of,” I reply. This is the only option we have left.

“Exactly … nothing.”

There’s a lot to be scared of, though. Who knows what’ll happen in there.

We sit in silence, waiting for the other to make the first move.

This is it.

Freedom.





36


CHIAMAKA

Wednesday


We walk into the building together. I take a deep breath, leading the two of us as we enter through the open double doors. This is it.

There’s a woman at the front desk whose blue eyes pierce into us as she looks up.

“Hi, how can I help you?” she asks. Her rubbery skin makes me a little uncomfortable.

“We have a meeting with Ms. Donovan.”

“What are your names, please?” She types something into her computer.

“Chiamaka Adebayo and Devon Richards.”

Her typing slows, and she glances up at us again.

“Okay, take a seat. Shouldn’t be too long.”

I sigh. Thank God. I was worried our meeting was canceled or hadn’t even been scheduled. I’m so used to everything going wrong lately.

We sit on the chairs on the opposite side of the front desk. I look at Richards. His eyes are closed, like he’s sleeping. I wish I could drift off and relax. But all I can think about is getting this right.

I already messed up once, in the library when I ran out—I refuse to mess up again. We’ll go in, show the journalist the facts, and she will write the story that will expose Niveus. She has to. What kind of person would see what’s happened and not be outraged—

“Devon and Chiamaka?” a soft voice calls out, and I snap my head up in the direction it came from.

There’s a woman wearing tall cheap heels, a black pencil skirt, and a frilly blouse. She gives us a smile, which is a little intimidating with her wide blue eyes, bouncy perfect blond hair, and red-stained lips.

She reminds me of the girls I’ve gone to school with all my life.

“Yes?” I say as Devon wakes up and looks in the same direction as me.

“Follow me, I’ll show you to Alice’s office,” she says, which is Ms. Donovan’s first name. We stand, following the Barbie doll down the long hallway. The walls are mostly bare, white with areas where the wallpaper is peeling. It feels clinical, like the hospitals Mom and Dad work in.

We come to a stop and she knocks twice on a door labeled Donovan.

“Come in!” a low voice yells, and the woman pushes the door open, standing to the side to let us in. I walk in first and Devon follows. There is a woman behind a desk, typing something into her phone, not yet looking up at us. Unlike the woman who showed us in, this woman has thick brown hair and a tan and can’t be a day younger than forty. The door slams shut behind us and I jump.

The sound pulls her away from her phone and she finally looks up at us.

“You must be Devon and Chiamaka! Sit, sit—just making a note of something in my diary,” she says, typing some more before locking her phone and putting it on the desk, facedown.

She leans in, chin resting on her folded hands as she smiles.

“So, how can I help you two today?”

Before I can speak, Devon answers her question.

“We spoke on the phone yesterday, or, well, you spoke to Chiamaka, but I was there too. Anyway, we have evidence that our school is trying to sabotage its Black students, and we wanted to publish something about it,” Devon says.

Her eyebrows shoot up.

“Yes, I remember talking with one of you. I get so many calls, sometimes I just need my memory jogged a little, but I remember. How could I forget such an interesting story? An anonymous racist bully out to get the only two Black students at a private school … only to discover it’s a plot that the whole school is in on. Quite the story,” she says, then stares at us unblinking like she’s waiting for something. “Do you have any physical evidence? I can’t report anything without it…,” she says finally.

I nod. “Yes, we do.” I unzip my bag, sliding over the folder of everything I could find to present to her, as Devon pulls everything from his backpack. Ms. Donovan picks my folder up and flips through the pages, her eyes getting wider—hungrier.

If I were told about this story, I don’t think I’d believe it. Even with the evidence. It seems too twisted to be true. But Niveus is that twisted—I know that now.

“This is…,” the journalist starts, flipping another page.

I swallow, leg bouncing up and down, scared she’ll say it’s BS or that we’re making this up.

“This is awful … I’ve never seen a story like it before,” she says, looking back up at us. “You kids have gone through so much, I’m so sorry.”

I feel relieved; my eyes water, but I blink away the tears.

She believes us.

“Could you run a story? Get some coverage in the paper?” I ask.

She shakes her head and the sinking feeling returns. What does she mean no?

“I can do something even better for you guys.” Ms. Donovan leans back, a serious expression on her face as she brings her fingers up to her chin. “People don’t read papers these days, not the people who count for a story like this, anyway … You want to be heard? We need to broadcast this live on TV.”