Since I could still hear the sounds of fighting coming from Scout’s room, she apparently didn’t have any regrets about leaving her partner behind. I stuffed the phone back into my pocket and ran to Scout’s room.
Despite years of being a teenager and months of being an Adept, there in the middle of Scout’s room was probably the strangest thing I’d ever seen.
Lying on the floor was a girl I knew only as “French Horn”—another Reaper who’d previously tried to break into the school with Lauren. She and Lauren hadn’t been friends then, and if Lauren was willing to run away without helping her partner, I was guessing they hadn’t gotten any closer.
She was a larger girl, and she had a thing for black clothes and Goth looks. And she lay in the middle of Scout’s room on her stomach, with a very angry-looking spellbinder sitting on her back, lamp in the air like a samurai sword.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
French Horn spewed some curse words that were pretty typical Reaper.
“Language, language,” Scout said, tapping the bottom of the lamp gently against the Reaper’s head.
“Did she come in through the tunnel again?” I wondered.
More cursing.
“Seriously, I don’t know about your high school for angry misfits and teamsters, but we are classy at St. Sophia’s. Enough with the swearing. Now answer the girl’s question.”
“Tunnel,” she said, then turned her head away. Reaper or not, this couldn’t exactly be a comfortable position for her to be in, especially since her partner had left her at the mercy of two irritated Adepts.
“Tunnel plus fire alarm equals breaking and entering,” Scout said. “And I’m going to guess you’re looking for something that doesn’t belong to you.”
When French Horn began to answer, Scout flicked her on the head. “I wasn’t asking for a response. Hear this, Reaper. What’s in my book won’t help you. If it did, don’t you think we’d have used it already?”
She didn’t seem to have a good answer to that.
“Exactly. So here’s the deal. You’re going to advise your fellow Reapers that my Grimoire isn’t what you’re looking for, and you’re all going to leave me alone. Maybe you could spend a little time working on solving the blackout. After all, it’s probably some irritated Reaper anyway. How about that?”
French Horn opened her mouth—probably to start swearing again—but was interrupted by a tall blonde standing in the doorway.
Foley’s mouth dropped open at the sight. “Green! Parker! What in the name of God is going on in here?”
Scout stood up. Freed from her bonds, French Horn stood up and made a run for the door, before Foley blocked it with her arms.
Go Foley, I thought.
“May I help you, young lady?”
An idea struck. I walked toward Foley and put an arm through the French horn player’s. She seemed sticky.
“As it turns out,” I said, “this lovely individual was walking past the school when she heard the fire alarms and rushed through the building to see if she could help.”
“She did what?” Scout asked.
“She helped,” I insisted, looking intently at French Horn. Yes, I was giving her an escape route, but Scout was right—the Reapers needed to know the Grimoire wasn’t going to help them, and maybe helping her out of this pinch increased the odds she’d take that message back to her sanctuary.
“Scout surprised her and then, you know, fell on her. And then you came in!” I brightly added.
No one in the room seemed convinced of my story, least of all Foley. “You fell on her?” she asked, slowly lifting her gaze to Scout.
Scout looked back at me, and I nodded just a little, hoping she got my silent message: Trust me.
Her expression was easy to read: You better have a good reason for this one, Parker, or I’m bringing the pain.
When I nodded, so did she. “It was the strangest thing.”
“She tripped,” I said.
“I tripped . . . and then I fell on . . . this girl here . . . who was clearly trying to help us out.”
French Horn looked completely flustered, but she wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass. “I need to go now,” she said. “I have an . . . appointment.”
“She’s very busy,” I said.
“Very busy,” Scout grumbled.
Foley looked completely shocked, but she pulled in her arms and let French Horn pass. We heard her scurry through the common room, and then the suite door opened and closed again.
Foley looked pointedly at us. “Is there anything else you’d like to share about this particular incident, ladies?”
Scout and I looked at each other. “Is there, Lily?”
“Um, well, someone clearly trashed our rooms during the fire alarm. Perhaps that’s why the fire alarm went off in the first place. Like it was all a ploy or something.”
“A ploy,” Foley repeated. She didn’t exactly sound convinced, but as she glanced around the room, she hardly could have thought we’d done this ourselves. “I don’t believe your suitemates are going to take this very well.”
She couldn’t have timed it better. The brat pack burst into the suite in a flurry of dramatic wailing. Amie, actually, wasn’t all that loud. Veronica and M.K. were doing most of the yelling, and they didn’t even live here.
And then they caught sight of us in Scout’s room.
“This is your fault,” Veronica said, snapping her gaze to Foley’s. “This has to be their fault. They’re always involved in something, always sneaking around.”
You could actually see the shutter going down over Foley’s eyes. They turned cold and glinty, and she narrowed her gaze at Veronica, then Scout and me.
“I’m not entirely sure what went on in here, although I don’t believe either Ms. Parker or Ms. Green were responsible for the destruction.”
I sighed in relief.
“That said, I also must wonder if their behavior somehow tempted this destruction?”
I opened my mouth to argue with her, but what exactly could I say? It wasn’t like we invited the Reapers to pop in and destroy our stuff, but they’d clearly been here—and in Amie’s stuff—because of us.
When neither one of us answered, Foley turned her attention back to Veronica. “Rest assured, Ms. Parker and Ms. Green have already assured me they’ll take full responsibility for cleaning up the mess. I assume that’s an appropriate solution for all parties?”