But if I didn’t, my future would involve my packing up my shit in two months and never returning.
Rose looked at me blandly, her greasy hair hanging on either side of her face. I should really talk to her about the glorious magic of shampoo. “There’s a lot of money in doctored grades.”
Of course.
It was always about the money.
She exited the grading portal and closed the browser, swiveling in her chair to face me. I was trying not to hyperventilate. I wasn’t succeeding.
I was scared.
I was oh so excited.
“All done.” She frowned, peering at me. “What’s your problem?”
“We’ll get caught. We’ll get busted and get thrown out of school.” I sounded slightly hysterical.But hopeful.
What in the hell was wrong with me?
Rose appeared annoyed. “We willnotget busted.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m a lot smarter at this than the slapstick cyber squad that built this system. So stop freaking out. Let me show you how this is done; then maybe you’ll see that there’s no need to have a meltdown.”
“I don’t know—”
I did know.
But there was a part of me that hung on to the shred of hesitation. That moral compass that had guided me my entire life.
Up until this point.
When I was willing to throw it all away for a means to an end.
But I had changed. Trauma alters a person. Makes her reevaluate what was important.
And what wasn’t.
And my conscience had gotten me nowhere thus far. Maybe it was time to do things differently.
Rose made a grunt of disgust. “Look, Hannah, I don’t know you that well, but I do know you’re smart as hell. You can pick this stuff up in no time. There’s more to cracking than changing grades and fucking around with someone’s email account. You candestroysomeone if you want to.” Her eyes lit up as she leaned closer to me. I backed away slightly, weirded out. I had never seen my roommate passionate about anything.
But she was clearly very passionate about this.
The angel on my shoulder was officially silenced. I hated the preachy bitch anyway.
“You can teardown the world if you know how,” she whispered.
I shivered.
“When you say you can destroy someone, what exactly do you mean?”
Rose grinned and I realized that when she wasn’t hunched over a keyboard she was kind of pretty. Aside from the hair that needed styling and pasty skin that desperately needed some sun.
“There’s much for you to learn, little grasshopper,” she cackled, and I rolled my eyes.
The anger that had been rolling in my gut since Dadand Charlotte’s accident requiredan outlet. I needed to put it somewhere. It was killing me. Slowly.
