What kind of principal would let something like that slide? It made me think that his conscience wasn’t entirely clean and that there was something completely different that concerned him right then.
“Let’s get to the point. Whose idea was it? Do any of you have something to say?”
Nobody said a word. I struggled to even look up. I looked at Will’s fists balled on the arms of his chair.
“Let’s scare the old guy, he’ll fall for it. That was the idea, right?” He recognized my shoes. He knew that we were the ones who attacked him. What was the point of this interrogation? If his conscience was completely clean, he would’ve expelled us, but no, he kept talking and glaring at us.
“But given how easily I figured out it was you guys, clearly you weren’t remotely afraid of getting caught. All you cared about was that I didn’t react to your threats. Right?”
Right. But nobody moved a muscle.
The office was stuffy—still. There wasn’t a sound except for my short, fast breath.
“But something is escaping me.”
“Just one thing?” spat James, interrupting his monologue.
“Is this for putting you in juvie last year, Hunter? Did you want to make me pay for taking such an extreme measure?”
Great. He didn’t understand shit.
“Is it because of the bad grades?” he asked, turning his gaze to me.
A chill went down my spine when I looked up and met his almond-shaped eyes. The same ones as Blaze.
He was right. I was weak.
“Or maybe it was because I was only one who figured out you were hiding something really serious?”
My breath got caught in my throat. William paled. The principal’s sentence confirmed our suspicions.
He knew.
James didn’t say a word. His angry mask didn’t show signs of slipping. He looked like his jaw wanted to shatter into a million pieces, it was clenched so tightly.
“Because you’re hiding something. Right, Jackson?”
This time he said it more persuasively, but I pretended not to hear him. Will’s face said only one thing:Oh fuck.
“I’m only gonna ask you once. Now that it’s just us—” I felt my heart leap.
“Since you did it to me, who says you didn’t do it to him too?”
James was right—the principal knew everything, and here I was having doubts about attacking a poor old guy. After all, committing murder was a crime, and even though I wasn’t the one who’d ordered it, I’d witnessed all of it.
I didn’t want to end up in prison. It would kill my grandparents.
The man shifted away from the desk and stopped in front of James, who kept vaping nervously.
“One question. All you have to do is answer me. Be honest, and the consequences will be much less severe than planned. I’d appreciate your honesty. Do we have a deal?”
James lifted a corner of his mouth scornfully. No deal.
“Where’d Mr. Hood end up?”
The principal set his sights on me again, forcing me to bow my head for the umpteenth time.
“Cooper? Do you know anything about it?”
