“I was thinking about getting his file from the office.” Josie nibbles on the end of her pen. “It would have more details.”
“You should ask Cameron,” he suggests. “She could hack into the system for you.”
“I don’t know her very well, and I heard she hates journalists because of how the press kind of tore her mom apart.”
“I’ll ask for you. She likes me.” He turns to me. “Everyone does.”
“Not me.” I sling my arm across the back of Josie’s chair. “I pretty much dislike everyone except Josie here.”
The guy makes a face and then turns toward the front of the classroom where the teacher has appeared. The older woman stares at me over her glasses, but before she can say anything, the fire alarm starts blaring.
Chapter Ten
JOSIE
Inarrow my eyes on Bam, wondering what he’s up to. He holds his hands up, giving a slight shake of his head, saying that it wasn’t him.
“All right, everyone out,” the teacher announces to the room. Everyone is quick to hop to their feet. Bam’s hand comes out, gripping my forearm. I halt my movement.
Out of anyone in this building, I trust Bam. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s street smart in a way that can only be learned through experience. He might be young, but he tends to know shit or have those spidey senses.
“What’s up?” I ask when the last person filters out of the room.
“For one, I don’t smell smoke, so we’re not rushing out. No clue who or possibly why someone pulled the fire alarm.”
This is very true. Pulling the fire alarm has triggered everyone to rush out of the classrooms, filling the hallways. “Second, the window would be a faster exit either way.” I glance over to the window. I hadn’t even thought about it as an exit. I could definitely learn a thing or two about surviving from Bam.
“Are we going out the window?”
“No.” He stands. “The teacher left her laptop open.” Bam is already moving toward it. “Good, didn’t have time to lock.”
“Oh.” I rush right behind him. “Now what?”
“I’m betting you’re better with computers than me.” He nudges the laptop toward me.
“Are you sure you didn’t set off the fire alarm?” I joke because this plan would be brilliant. I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t come up with it.
“Nah, but you can pull it at the next school.” I snort a laugh, which he doesn’t join me in, letting me know he’s dead serious. Holy crap, Bam is going to be the most kickass, interesting free assistant a girl could have.
“So, attendance,” I mutter, checking that first. “There are too many.”
“Grab as many files as possible and email them to yourself.”
“Well shit, are you sure you shouldn’t be doing this?” I ask, but I’m already doing as he said. When I’m done there, I hit the teacher’s emails and see if there have been any to the school staff overall. There are quite a few. I don’t have time to read them all, so I just start forwarding them one after another and then go back to the sent box and delete that I’d done it at all to cover my tracks.
“All right, we have to go.”
“Maybe I should just take the whole thing?” I mean, there is so much more information on this that could clue us in on what the heck is going on. I hate that I’ll have to leave stuff behind. Each and every clue is important.
“What have I turned you into already?” Bam smirks. “They might block shit if they know someone jacked her laptop, and it will lock at some point.”
“Fine,” I huff. I know he’s right, and stealing is bad, but what if it’s for the greater good? That would be very Batman of me.Sometimes you have to be the villain. A means to an end kind of thing.
“Come on, rebel, now I smell fire.” He grabs my hand, linking his fingers in mine to tug me toward the window. Bam opens it, jumping out first before turning back around to hold his hands out to help me jump down too.
“Is the building on fire?” I ask. I hadn’t smelled anything, but I heard the sound of the fire trucks in the distance.
“Could be a small distraction fire, who knows.”
