Page 13 of The Ruling Class (The Fixer #1)

It didn’t take long for word to get around that I’d taken on Emilia’s case.

Forget the fact that I had not taken on Emilia’s case .

And the fact that random high school juniors didn’t just declare themselves in business and start “taking cases.” To the Hardwicke student body, the fact that I’d been with Asher and he’d managed to evade trouble was evidence enough that I was embracing my fixer title.

Like it or not, I wasn’t a random high school junior. I was Tess Kendrick . And between Anna Hayden and Emilia Rhodes, people were starting to think that meant something.

It was just my luck that Asher was in my World Issues class. He greeted our classmates by name and accepted a wide variety of high fives on his way to the seat next to mine. He blessed me with a goofy, beatific smile.

Kill me now.

“Congratulations,” Dr. Clark called out at the front of the room, clapping her hands together. “As a reward for being my last and favorite class of the day, you get to turn in your internet censorship essays!”

A round of groans went around the room. Once we’d handed in our assignment, she turned on a flat-screen television at the front of the room—to CNN.

“Prepare wisely,” Dr. Clark said.

Prepare for what? I wondered.

“Debates,” Vivvie told me helpfully.

“We are at the mercy of the daytime cable news channel gods,” Asher elaborated, twirling a pencil in his fingers like a miniature baton. “Whatever issue the pundits are discussing, we’re discussing.”

All around the room, people were taking furious notes. I had no idea what the people on the screen were talking about. Five minutes in, I stopped even trying to decipher it, until the show cut one of its hosts off midsentence.

“Breaking news,” the television declared. A wave of unease went through the room as the news feed cut to a man in a military uniform, issuing a statement. All eyes in the room went immediately to me.

No. Not to me , I realized. To Vivvie.

It took me a moment to process the fact that the caption under the man’s name listed his rank (major), his position (White House physician), and his last name.

Bharani.

“It is with great sadness,” the man on-screen said, “that I inform you that Chief Justice Theodore Marquette died on the table a little over an hour ago. This was our second attempt to fix a blockage in the justice’s heart, and there were unforeseen complications with surgery.”

Beside me, Vivvie was sitting very, very still. Asher stiffened. The rest of the room broke into murmurs.

On the screen, Major Bharani continued. “This country has lost a great man today. We ask that you respect his family’s privacy in this time of grief.”