Deceived Read Online Free PDF Page B

library for this assignment?” He motioned toward the front board.
    “I have a laptop.” I doubted anyone at the academy didn’t. Not that it would stop me from frequenting the library.
    “Are you headed home, or do you have something going on after school?” The question felt weighted. His flat expression didn’t match the polite conversation.
    Tension thickened the air, constricted my throat. “I’m heading home, I guess.”
    Without another word, Davis swept out of his desk and around to the door, holding it wide with one arm for me to pass through. If I accepted the invitation, Kate would want me dead. If I stayed, I’d be sitting there with nothing left to do and Brian two feet away. Brian, who hadn’t bothered to speak to me since he blew me off in front of all those girls earlier. I grabbed my pack and bolted. We didn’t talk on the way to my locker.
    “Well, I’m meeting Pixie at the fountain, so … ”
    “Sure, yeah, okay,” Davis stumbled. His confidence seemed shaken since the morning. “See you tomorrow?”
    I lifted my hand waist high and took off before I could start looking around for Brian. Pixie and a small army stood near the fountain looking like a school billboard. None of the girls wore a ribbon in her hair. In fact, I’d watched all day for anyone with a ribbon and found none.
    “Here she is.” Aubrie opened her arms and threw her head back. “Did you have a fabulous day or what?”
    Or what. I had had a day made of weird and more weird. Wrapped in WTH.
    “Did any of you guys lose a black hair ribbon? I found one in my locker.”
    A handful of nos popped up from the girls in our group. The crowd moved in unison away from the school. I joined them. No one cared about the ribbon.
    “We were talking about the new kid. Did you see him?” A smaller version of Aubrie spoke in a quick, high-pitched voice that earned her a shove.
    “Shh! Don’t be daft.”
    “Elle, this is Darcy, Aubrie’s little sister,” Pixie explained. “She’s a freshman this year. She came all the way across the pond to be with her sister.”
    Aubrie rolled her eyes but said nothing.
    “Well, did you see him? Absolutely everyone is talking about him, and I heard he’s like the son of an ambassador or something.”
    Pixie snickered and shot me a look. She hadn’t told my secret. They didn’t know he was the guy I had met in Elton. After the morning’s coffee-house presentation of “I am an idiot” starring me, I was especially grateful for her discretion.
    “I had Trig with him last period for like five seconds,” Aubrie said. “The bell barely rang and he was already at the desk with a slip. I’d love to know where he went so I can transfer.”
    “I saw him in the office today before lunch and after study hall, too. I thought he might work there, but maybe he had problems with his schedule,” Darcy offered.
    “What? Are you stalking him or the office staff?” Aubrie stared at her little sister in disapproval.
    “I applied to work there during my study hall. Then I went to check on the application later.”
    Eye-rolling ensued.
    A chill ran over my cheeks. I knew where he had gone when he’d left her class. He’d transferred to my class. He’d been transferring to all my classes since study hall, but he hadn’t spoken to me since after English. Even then he only stopped me to say we had to talk, then glared at me. I shook my head against the impending combustion. He looked like an angel, but he gave off a mean vibe. Whenever he was around, I couldn’t help feeling that he was dangerous. I shook my head again to clear that thought from my mind. Paranoid. Dreams were dreams. Life was life. Brian had eight inches and seventy-five pounds on me. In theory, he could be dangerous. No other reason to panic.
    “Did you guys hear there’s a serial killer on the loose?” A girl near the front of our crowd spoke in a voice better suited to a campfire than a sunny September afternoon. Darcy and a