The Risk (Kings of Linwood Academy 3)

My tone is hard as I level a warning finger at her. I’m done taking her shit, and I didn’t bring her in here to get into a stupid catfight.

Savannah grips the edge of the sink counter to steady herself, then slowly turns around to face me. I can tell by her expression that she’s tallying up everything I know about her, weighing it against the satisfaction of trying to kick my ass. My blackmail material wins—this time.

She holds up her hands in a sullen, placating gesture and huffs a breath. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“You told me that Iris was seeing an older guy. Someone she called her gray fox. Remember?”

“Of course I remember, you idiot. I’m the one who told you.”

“Did she say anything else about him?”

Savannah scowls at me. “Why the hell do you want to know?”

I grit my teeth. “Because I’m collecting boyfriends, and I want to raise the average age of my harem.”

Her brows bunch up in confusion, and I roll my eyes. Should’ve known math jokes would go over her fucking head.

“I just want to know if she said anything else about him, all right? You mentioned that she met him through someone they both knew. Who was that?”

She still looks suspicious. “Why do you keep asking me about Iris?”

“Savannah!” I swear to God, I can feel my blood simmering in my veins. “Just fucking tell me.”

She throws up her hands, glaring right back at me. “I don’t know who it was, okay? Some girl she knew from another school. Waverly Prep, I think. I don’t know anything about her, except that she apparently had some amaaazing tattoo that Iris wouldn’t stop talking about. Iris kept saying she was gonna get one too. Like she ever would’ve had the guts.”

Savannah rolls her eyes, then bites her lip. I think she might feel a little bad for speaking ill of the dead.

Fuck. A girl from Waverly Prep with a tattoo. That’s all we have to go on?

“Iris never even mentioned her name? Never told you anything else about her?” I ask desperately.

“No!” she glares at me. “We didn’t tell each other every fucking thing. This girl was like her ‘rebel friend’ or whatever. She never told me much about her, but she obviously fucking worshipped her. And Iris told me that’s how she met the older guy she was seeing on the side—through this girl.”

“Are you—”

The bell blares loudly, cutting me off, and Savannah shoves away from the sink, tugging on the hem of her shirt. It got twisted and bunched up when I spun her around.

“I told you everything I know. Are you happy now?”

“Not really,” I say honestly.

She laughs hollowly, then steps toward me, lowering her voice a little. “Good. I know you think you’ve got all this fucking power over me now, and that I’ll just be your little bitch for the rest of the semester. But don’t think I’ll come running every time you call. And don’t think I won’t find some way to get you back.”

Before I say anything, she whirls and stalks toward the door, yanking it open and disappearing from sight.

Great.

7

None of the guys have any idea which girl Savannah was talking about. Waverly Prep is a rival school, so they don’t know a lot of kids who go there. But they start putting out feelers, asking around Linwood. Someone here has to have an idea who this mystery girl is, or at least have an in with the Waverly crowd so we could ask someone there.

I hold on to hope for the first few days, but by Thursday, I’m starting to get antsy when we still haven’t turned up any useful information. This is the best lead we have, so I refuse to let it die, but it’s taking too damn long—and we don’t have that kind of time.

There are other things we can try, other avenues we can pursue, but they’re more risky. They involve getting closer to Judge Hollowell, which increases the chances of him finding us snooping around, so the guys are adamantly opposed to trying any of those options until we know we’re out of better ones.

I get what they’re saying, but by Friday, I’m about ready to crawl out of my damn skin.

It’s a struggle to keep up with classwork. I managed to get all my homework done just before the winter break ended, but I’m already falling behind again. I don’t want to flunk out of school, mostly for Mom’s sake, but I can’t focus on homework at all right now.