Reputation(67)

I shake my head. “Greg gave me just enough to pay for tuition, room, and board for the next two semesters—so summer and next fall. After that, I’ll have to figure something out. I can try for financial aid, but . . .” I’ll have to face my parents again if I want aid, and that isn’t something I like thinking about.

Then I look at Alexis again. She’s frowning. Actually, she looks pissed. “Why does this matter?” I ask tentatively.

Alexis’s arms drop to her lap. She breathes out a plume of air, sending her bangs fluttering. “You were supposed to be loaded. I can’t fucking believe this.”

I frown, certain I’ve heard her wrong. But she still looks so furious. And not, I sense, at the situation—at me. “I’m sorry?” I squeak.

Alexis holds up her phone. The video app is on the screen—the very same video app I use. It reflects my image back to me. I see the time ticker in the corner, still running. “I just recorded you confessing your deal with Strasser,” Alexis says in a low voice. “I was going to use it to blackmail you into giving me his money. And now I find out you have none?”

The heat from the lamp bores into the top of my head. I feel like I’m trapped in a dream, all of the puzzle pieces shifting. I scuttle away from her. “Y-You wanted money from me?” I look around at the house, the fire pit, the sparkling pool. “But why?”

Alexis’s teeth gleam orange. The flames lick against her face, making her look ghoulish. “This isn’t my house,” she spits. “I house-sit for these people. I grew up in the city. In a shitty house probably not that different from yours.”

I blink hard. “You don’t live here? There’s no birthday party? No . . . Trip?” I’m not making sense, even to myself.

She snorts. “Of course there’s no Trip.” She turns, stiff-shouldered, her hands balled into fists. “I made up a boyfriend because you seem like someone who likes a challenge—like I’d only be interesting if you could steal me away.”

My eyes dart back and forth. Alexis’s mouth is moving, but she’s making no sense.

She goes on. “I’ve been tailing you for weeks. I saw you paying your tuition in cash a few days ago. I’ve seen you and Sienna Manning together. I knew there was something up with you that wasn’t totally kosher. I knew you were getting the money illegally, I just didn’t know how. But I thought he gave you tons.”

I’m standing by now, backed up so far from the couch that my spine is pressing up against the stone wall in the outdoor kitchen. My brain scrambles. Alexis can’t be using my methods. Recording someone’s confession—that’s my role, not hers. I run my hands up and down my arms, trying to feel if I’m still awake, still real.

Alexis is . . . me? I’ve been duped by another version of myself?

My hip bumps into the brickwork around the gas grill. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.” Alexis holds up her phone; the video recording is still running, the time ticking away at the top of the screen. “Did you forget I have this on you? What will people think if they hear you got the murdered guy to pay your tuition? Did you tell the police any of this?”

My breath catches in my throat. Of course I didn’t tell the police, but it’s not like I did anything. It’s not like I killed him. “I’ll tell them,” I insist. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” She crosses her arms. “You really think they’ll accept you at Aldrich if they find out you’re the skanky scammer from the wrong side of the tracks?” She throws back her head to laugh. “It’s pretty clear you want to be part of Aldrich, Raina, but if people know who you really are, they’ll never let you into the inner circle. It’s happened before. Check the hack—admissions rejected people with better records than you. After I release this video, they’ll look at your file and stamp it with a big red No.”

My jaw drops. It chills me how good she is at this—better than I am, even.

“What do you want from me?” I repeat, my knees shaking.

Alexis waves her phone. She’s stopped the video. On the screen is a freeze-frame of my profile; I look scared and drawn, almost skeletal. All at once, I notice that the fire has died out. The cool, close, fragrant air billows around us. I want to run. I want to scream. These were the same words I used with Dr. Rosen, the same bargaining chips. Do I deserve this? Is this karma? My penance?

Alexis tilts her chin, slips her phone back in her pocket. When she takes my hand, it’s almost kind and loving . . . but I know better. “You and I are going to team up,” she says smoothly. “We’re going to scam someone else as a team. And this time, it’s going to work.”





24





KIT


WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017


I squint in the dim, dingy light of the Saloon. It’s a bar right next to the giving department’s building; I can see the parking lot from my office window. But I’ve never actually been here until now. The high-top tables are chipped and worn, the leather banquettes have what looks like a layer of grease to their upholstery, and signs for local beers hang on the walls. People, mostly men, have gathered around the TVs over the bar.

I choose a booth at the back near the bathrooms. One of the twenty TVs isn’t playing sports, and I notice the closed-captioning on the news: Authorities may have tracked the Ivy Hacker to socialist “hacktivists” in New York who want free higher education for all.