Page 46 of Lessons in Power (The Fixer #2)

True to his word, the kingmaker didn’t allow me out of the house until he personally delivered me to school Monday morning. Headmaster Raleigh called a school-wide assembly for first period. I sat next to Vivvie and tried not to feel anything when Henry walked straight by us both.

I tried not to think about the fact that I hadn’t heard from Ivy in twenty-four hours.

“Did something happen that I don’t know about?” Vivvie asked. “Because you’re making this face ”—Vivvie adopted a stormy countenance—“and Henry’s making that face, and—”

Headmaster Raleigh saved me from the rest of Vivvie’s inquiry.

“Starting today,” he announced, signaling the beginning of the assembly, “our new security measures will be going into full effect.” He began going through the measures: double the number of security personnel, changes to school policy on search and seizure, strict enforcement of all existing security protocol.

I wondered if I was the only one who noticed how heavily the new security personnel were armed.

The police still hadn’t made an arrest in the murder of John Thomas Wilcox. That left the Hardwicke administration on edge.

John Thomas’s father is in bed with terrorists, and now John Thomas is dead , I thought. Someone at this school killed him. The Hardwicke administration should be on edge.

“Tess.” Vivvie nudged me in the side. With a start, I realized the headmaster had stopped speaking. The assembly was over.

As I stood to exit, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I slipped it out, reading the text I’d received. When I looked up, I saw Henry across the room, staring at me.

“Everything okay?” Vivvie asked.

I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. “Everything is fine.”

According to the text, Ivy had done what Ivy Kendrick did. There was a problem. She’d solved it. Congressman Wilcox had been taken into federal custody. She’d found evidence—concrete evidence—linking him to Senza Nome.

I pushed my way through the crowd, trying to get to Henry. Cold air hit my face the moment I left the chapel. I called Henry’s name, but he kept walking back to the main building. I caught up with him in the hallway, my face numb from even a brief encounter with the wind outside.

“Ivy can connect Congressman Wilcox to Senza Nome.”

Henry came to a standstill at his locker. For a moment, he twisted the dial this way and that. When the locker door popped open, he turned his head slightly toward me. I took that as encouragement—however paltry—to continue.

“The congressman is in custody. If John Thomas’s death is connected to this somehow, Ivy won’t let anyone sweep that under the rug.”

Henry shut his locker. He was going to turn his back on me. He was going to walk away.

“Henry,” I said. “Look at me. Please.”

He met my gaze head-on. Almost immediately, I wished that he hadn’t.

Kendrick, what you don’t know could fill an ocean.

I’d done to him what Ivy had done to his mother. I’d let him believe a lie. I had decided what he did and did not need to know.

“Not to interrupt an incredibly tense and subtext-filled moment”—Vivvie popped up beside us—“but is anyone going to catch me up on our status vis-à-vis Project Free Asher?”

Without another word, Henry walked away. He didn’t even say good-bye. Vivvie turned to me, wide-eyed and bewildered. My stomach twisted sharply.

Henry wasn’t the only one I’d kept things from.

I told Vivvie then, the way I should have told her weeks ago. I told her that there was a chance that the person who’d orchestrated Justice Marquette’s murder—and her own father’s—was still out there. Still alive.

Vivvie blinked rapidly, her lips pressed together and forced into a smile that told me she was trying not to cry. “You knew it wasn’t over.”

“Vivvie.” I reached out and took her arm, but she jerked out of my grasp.

“You listened to me talk about my dad,” Vivvie said.

“And you knew. You knew it wasn’t over. You’re supposed to be my friend.

My best friend.” She shook her head. “And I know that I might not be yours. I know that you have Asher and Henry, and you probably have tons of friends back in Montana, but you’re my best friend.

Sometimes I think you’re my only friend.

I trusted you when I didn’t trust anyone, and—”

The flow of words cut off abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” I told Vivvie. “I thought I was protecting you. And it was just a theory.”

A theory I’d believed from the moment I’d heard it.

“It’s fine,” Vivvie said, her voice dull. She forced herself to smile, even as a tear broke free and started carving a path down her face. “I’m not mad.”

Henry was angry with me. Vivvie was heartbroken.

“I’m not mad,” she repeated. “I just—I need to go.”

“Viv—”

I didn’t even get her whole name out before she was gone, bolting down the hall before anyone—myself included—could see her cry. As she disappeared around the corner, a member of the security staff walked by and told me to get to class. I waited until he’d passed, then turned and walked away.

I wanted to go after Vivvie, but I wasn’t sure I had the right to, so I did what I always did when my brain was too loud and there were no right answers to be found: I walked. I walked down the hall. I looped around and found myself standing in front of the library.

And that was when I heard the first shot.