Page 11 of The Ruling Class (The Fixer #1)
The next morning, Bodie was the one who dropped me off before school. I made my way sluggishly to the Hut, wondering at the cruelty of a student coffee shop that did not sell coffee .
“I have a job for you.” Apparently, that was the Emilia Rhodes version of hello. She’d appeared out of nowhere and waylaid me on my way to a bagel. When I didn’t reply immediately, she arched an eyebrow. Clearly, she was expecting that eyebrow arch to engender some kind of response.
“Hello to you, too,” I muttered. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and it was too early in the day for this. I edged past her and toward the counter. She sidestepped directly into my path.
No bagel for me.
“You can pretend you’re not interested,” she told me, “but if you’re smart, you’ll bypass playing hard to get and jump straight to negotiations.” For all the sense that Emilia was making, she might as well have been speaking Latin.
“I have literally no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
Emilia pressed her lips together into an expression that was, at best, a distant cousin of a smile. “I have a problem.”
“Yeah,” I replied under my breath. “You have several.”
“It’s my brother,” Emilia continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “His best friend isn’t at school this week, and that means he’s bored.”
Again, my response—or lack thereof—must have left something to be desired, because Emilia fixed me with a look.
“When Asher gets bored, things get broken. Laws, standards of decency, occasionally bones.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “There was an incident in his chemistry class yesterday—suffice it to say, he’s skating on thin ice with the Hardwicke administration.”
I wondered if the incident in chemistry class had involved an explosion, but figured that asking would only encourage her to block my bagel consumption for that much longer.
“I’m applying to Yale next year,” Emilia continued, “and I am going to get in.” Her tone strongly implied that she’d burn anyone and anything that stood in her way.
“Unfortunately, Yale has an unofficial admissions policy on twins. Most of the time, either both twins get in, or neither of them do, and my twin seems intent on getting himself expelled.” Emilia let out a huff of air, summoning her zen.
“I just need someone to do damage control until Henry gets back. Three days, maybe four.”
If I stood there long enough, she’d tell me what any of this had to do with me.
“You’re going to make me say it again, aren’t you?” She forced a smile. “Asher is a problem.”
I waited. “And?”
“And,” she said, as if she were talking to someone either very young or very slow, “you fix problems.”
“I … what ?” My voice rose up on that last word. All around us, people were beginning to stare.
Emilia hooked her arm through mine, like we were the best of friends. “You solve problems,” she said again. “I have a problem. Ergo …”
“You have a job for me.” This conversation was starting to make so much more sense. And it was becoming that much more an after-coffee kind of endeavor. “You’re barking up the wrong tree here, Emilia.”
“So you’re not the Tess Kendrick that Anna Hayden is swearing is a miracle worker?” Another eyebrow arch. “Anna’s not exactly sharing what the miracle was, but she’s a big fan, and she has a big mouth.”
“Hayden,” I said out loud. “The girl I … helped … yesterday—”
“Hayden comma Anna.” Emilia dropped my arm. “Freshman wallflower, beloved youngest daughter, and the only person at this school with a Secret Service escort?”
I flashed back to the day before. I remembered thinking that the crying girl had looked young and scared and vulnerable and pissed . The one thing I hadn’t thought was that she looked familiar . She’d never told me her name.
Emilia snorted. “You honestly expect me to believe that you came riding to the rescue of the vice president’s daughter with no idea of who she was?”
No wonder Anna had been freaking out—and thank God that jerk whose phone I’d confiscated hadn’t e-mailed the pictures of her to anyone. I didn’t even want to think about the kind of media storm it might have kicked up if he had.
“Believe what you want,” I told Emilia. “I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not a problem solver. Whatever’s going on with your brother—”
“Asher,” she supplied.
“I can’t help you,” I said firmly.
“I’ll pay you.” Emilia clearly wasn’t acquainted with the word no —but the two of them were about to get downright cozy.
“I don’t want your money.” I pushed past her—successfully this time—and she amended her offer.
“I’ll owe you.”
I wondered who or what I had offended in a previous life to end up in this position: sister of famed fixer Ivy Kendrick, endorsed as a miracle worker by the vice president’s daughter.
“Sorry, Emilia,” I said, almost meaning it. “You’ve got the wrong girl.”