In that moment, something switched in my brain and everything crystallized: Zach’s mystery job, his seemingly endless amounts of money, the army of college kids at his beck and call:Horde.“Did Zach have anything to do withthis?”
She stuttered to a stop. “Uh, not that I know of.Why?”
“There’s a guy named Horde. He’s bigin—”
“Can’t talk about this.” She was firm in her denial. It was all the confirmation I needed. “No idea who it was who got in touch with me, and you know I’m not allowedto…”
I was breathing so hard I stopped hearing her. Was this a panic attack? Oh my God, it was. I was having anattack.
“Veronica?” O’Neal sounded concerned. How long had I been sitting here, breathing hard like this? “Veronica, you okay? Where areyou?”
I turned, tried to focus on the passing landscape.Where? Where amI?
In a car. In a car thathe’dordered. Wearing shoes that he’d given me to replace the Chuck Taylors I’d worn out canvassing. Winning an election thathe’dsomehowrigged.
Was Rylie even guilty? Oh no, if Zach had planted evidence to make me win, thiswas—
O’Neal’s no-nonsense voice cut through my freak-out. “Hand the phone to thedriver.”
Dumbly, Idid.
He gave me a look, but listened. “Headed to the Loft onMain.”
Theshit you’re a crazy ladylook he sent me would’ve been funny if I could’ve laughed through this. But I couldn’t. It felt like I wouldn’t laughagain.
When the car dropped me in front of the building, I stood there, head hurting like it was caught in a vise, everything else numb, and Iblinked.
Someone spoke to me, I shook their hand, nodded, smiled, got caught up in their wake and headed toward the door. At some point, my campaign manager talked to me and, when I didn’t answer, she took measide.
“What’sup?”
“I can’t dothis.”
“Tonight? Yousick?”
I shook my head and the world wobbled. Plastic chairs slid across my vision, sending my hand out to the side. Someone caught it:O’Neal.
The two of them spoke and, slowly, their words started to emerge. I wasn’t okay, they needed to get me home. Eventcanceled.
I let them do it, feeling like a coward, but incapable of doing it on myown.
I blinked and found myself beside O’Neal in her big, old mess of aSubaru.
“Let me get youhome.”
I nodded. About five minutes into the drive, I slapped a hand onto the dashboard and yelled—not a good idea to startle O’Neal, who was a crappy driver at the best of times, but she kept ittogether.
“What the hell,man?”
“Take me to hishouse.”
“Zach’s?”
I nodded. She knew. She knew it was him. He’d done this, somehow. Because he hadn’t trusted me to win this election on myown.
I gave her the address and sucked awareness back into my body with eachbreath.
She pulled up the drive and whistled. “What the hell is thisplace?”
