Page 85 of Find Me

I shook my head. “That’s unfair and you know it.”

“We have a zero—”

“Tolerance for violence policy, I know,” I finished for him. After I’d had to serve lunch detention for defending myself against Amber, I’d read up on the school’s policies. “The policy states that you have to punish the student, but it doesn’t state the severity of the punishment. It’s at your discretion.”

“That is true,” he confirmed.

What would my parents do in this situation? Shayla had always gotten into trouble. She’d been caught smoking weed behind the bleachers. She’d keyed a student’s car after they’d insinuated that I’d already been screwing Mr. X and when he’d been caught trying to rape me, I’d thrown Mr. X under the bus to save myself. She’d also smashed a girl’s face into the basketball court after the girl had said Shayla looked fat in her cheerleading uniform. To be honest, Shayla had been a Cassy and my dad had made a lot of donations to our school to keep her from getting into any serious trouble.

“Lower his punishment to two weeks lunch detention and I’ll make a generous donation to the school.”

He huffed a laugh. “Are you bribing me, Miss Pierce?”

“I’ll donate ten thousand dollars,” I said. “I wasn’t lying when I told Gabe’s parents I came from money.”

His eyes widened a little. “Miss Pierce—”

“Twenty thousand,” I upped. “As I was looking at schools in this area to attend, I saw that you were trying to raise money to get new computers for the school’s computer lab. Twenty thousand dollars could help you reach that goal a lot faster.”

He was quiet for a minute and I could tell he was debating it.

“I could bring you a check first thing tomorrow morning,” I added.

“Two weeks lunch detention, the donation, and he’s also off the swim team for the next two weeks,” he countered.

“Deal.”

He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Will you please take a seat now? I want to get your statement of what happened today. I heard your tires were slashed?”

I sat and began telling him everything that had happened. As we were talking, he informed me that he would be investigating the locker room incident and see if they’d caught the person responsible for slashing my tires on camera.

“We don’t have a lot of cameras on campus, but there is one pointed at the student parking lot,” he told me.

After we were done talking, Mr. Morgan followed me out of his office. The guys were waiting where I’d left them.

“Mr. Stone,” Mr. Morgan said, looking at Creed. “Your punishment has changed. You’ll be serving two weeks lunch detention and you’re suspended from the swim team for two weeks. If any of you have any questions, you know where to find me.”

I scooped up my wet backpack from the floor next to where Colt was sitting. Knox shook Mr. Morgan’s hand, and we left the school admin office. As soon as we were outside, Creed got in front of me. “What did you do, Shi?”

“Yeah, how did you get Mr. Morgan to lessen his punishment?” Colt asked.

I sighed. “I just reasoned with him.”

They both frowned at me.

“Can we please just go home? I’m tired, wet, and I need to call a tow truck or something for my car. No, wait. I can’t call because both of my cell phones are ruined from my trip into the pool. I don’t have my car to go get replacements, either. Which means I don’t have a way to check in with Logan tonight.”

Keelan came forward, put his hands on my shoulders, and leveled his gaze with mine. “I already called a tow truck and they picked up your car while you were talking with the principal. After we get home and you get dry, I’ll take you to get however many new phones you need.”

I sagged against his touch. “Thank you.”

“Why don’t you two go get your stuff and we’ll meet you at home?” Knox said to the twins. Colt and Creed agreed and left for the boys’ locker room.

Keelan took my bag from me and the three of us headed for the parking lot. Keelan’s Jeep was parked in the spot next to where my 4Runner had been parked. Once we were on the road, heading home, I remembered the class I was supposed to help Keelan teach. From the back seat I read the time on Keelan’s dash. The class should have started a half hour ago. “Keelan, I’m so sorry about today’s class. Not only did I miss it, but it’s my fault you missed it, too.”

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he said as he pulled into our neighborhood. “I was able to get a couple of other instructors to cover today’s class.”

That was good. The car went quiet again, but as we were about to turn into their driveway, Knox spoke. “I know what you did, Shiloh.”