He nods, his face turning red.
“Good, so I can count on you to have it done by first thing tomorrow?”
Peter looks both terrified and turned on. That alone creeps me the hell out, enough to make me want to leave this lab, but I stay put for reasons unknown to my conscience.
“First thing tomorrow,” Peter repeats.
Wow. Is that all the convincing straight boys need?
“Thank you, Peter.” Chiamaka ruffles his hair, which he doesn’t seem to like so much, and then she pulls me toward the exit.
I move to open the classroom door, but Chiamaka stops me, pressing her hand to my chest.
I swear, if she doesn’t stop touching me—
“Let me go first, wait five minutes, then you leave. We don’t need people thinking we are onto them, got it?”
I make the okay sign.
I don’t know how surprised junior-year Devon would be by Chiamaka and me suddenly talking so frequently, but I know that he’s judging me harder than senior-year Devon is.
Mr. Taylor has my headphones in, listening to my piece. I finally managed to make an initial recording this morning, and I have been watching him nervously for the last three minutes.
He finally takes them off and looks at me. “This is good, really good. I think you have something great here, Devon.”
Great isn’t amazing.
“I’m going to go and check Tabitha’s piece. Good work, keep it up.”
I sigh, looking down at my music.Where did I go wrong?
“’Sup, Devon,” Daniel says, appearing at my desk.
I look at him. “Hey.”
“So, I have something pretty big to tell you,” he starts.
“Okay, sure.”
With Daniel Johnson, something “big” could range from pizza on the lunch menu toThere’s a new headmaster, did you know that?
He looks around, his eyes darting all over, then landing on me. “I know who’s leaking your secrets.”
I feel like I could throw up all over his Marc Jacobs shoes.
“Who?”
“You have to promise not to tell anyone—this could get me in trouble.”
Now I’mreallyscared.
I keep going over it in my head. Only someone I know—or someone who followed me—could have known about everything thatcame out. The only person I’ve trusted with all the information was Jack. Why would Jack do that? I don’t know. And why would Jack know anything about Chiamaka?
“I won’t tell a soul,” I say, even though I’ll definitely tell Terrell and Chiamaka.
He leans in, whispering, “The FBI.”
I breathe out. I forgot that this is Daniel.
