107

bed was cov­ered with desk sup­plies, pens in one pile, Post-?its in an­oth­er, pa­per clips in an­oth­er. She stood up, pulling var­ious pads and note­books out of the bot­tom desk draw­er and toss­ing them near her pil­lows. Ap­par­ent­ly she was re­or­ga­niz­ing.

“Good. You're here,” she said. “What's the sta­tus re­port?”

“Sta­tus re­port?”

“On our lit­tle project,” Natasha said im­pa­tient­ly. “Or did our ear­li­er con­ver­sa­tion not get through to you? Be­cause I can show you the slide show again right now if you need a re­fresh­er.” She start­ed for her lap­top, which was al­so on the bed.

Okay. So much for her con­science.

“No. That's not nec­es­sary,” I said grumpi­ly.

I heft­ed my book bag over my head and tossed it on my own un­made bed. The socks I'd worn to bed last night lay crum­pled and dirty on the floor, and so­da cans lit­tered my desk. One thing the fairy tale nev­er talked about was Cin­derel­la hav­ing the messi­est room in the house.

“So? I know you've been clean­ing ev­er since din­ner,” Natasha said, cross­ing her arms over her Eas­ton sweat­shirt. “Any­thing?”

This was not go­ing to be pret­ty. “No.”

Her eyes widened like a doll's. “Noth­ing? Reed, I'm start­ing to think you're not one hun­dred per­cent in­vest­ed in this project.”

“Natasha, these are my friends,” I said, feel­ing des­per­ate. “I don't want to do this.”

Natasha blinked. For a sec­ond I thought I had thrown her. “Well . . . you have to,” she said, sound­ing like a petu­lant five-?year-?old.

108

Well. If that was her strongest ar­gu­ment I was home free.

“Isn't there some oth­er way for you to deal with this?” I asked.

Natasha stepped to the cen­ter of the room and looked me in the eye. “You don't get it, do you? It's not like I can go up to them and ask them to con­fess. I say one word and they're go­ing to take what­ev­er loose ends they might still have out there and tie them right up. They're im­pen­etra­ble un­less we can take them by sur­prise. About the on­ly weak­ness they have is their over­con­fi­dence. They would nev­er even think that you would go be­hind their backs, which is why you're the per­fect weapon.”

I stared at Natasha. She had re­al­ly thought this through. Very thor­ough. And al­so very psy­chot­ic.

“No. If I'm go­ing to con­front them, I need proof,” Natasha said. “And I can't get proof with­out you.”

“Natasha--”

“Do I need to re­mind you of where you'll end up if you get kicked out of here?” she asked.

Ev­ery­thing in­side of me stopped. “What do you mean?”

“I looked up your home­town on the In­ter­net,” she said. “Very quaint. It has its own cham­ber of com­merce and ev­ery­thing. Were you guys just so psyched when they opened the new Blimpie last year?”

My fin­gers au­to­mat­ical­ly curled in­to fists.

“Ap­par­ent­ly you have a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege there too,” Natasha said. “I bet peo­ple re­al­ly go places with that de­gree.”

“You are se­ri­ous­ly de­ranged,” I said through my teeth.

109

“Wrong again,” Natasha said. “I'm the sane one around here. It's Noelle and her satel­lites who are de­ranged. Maybe if you did what I told you to do, you'd start fig­ur­ing that out.” She turned and went back to her bed, flip­ping open her lap­top. “Or, I could just send this lit­tle e-?mail. . . .”

“No!” I blurt­ed. Natasha paused, her fin­gers hov­er­ing over the keys. “Don't,” I said, re­signed. “Fine. I'll do it. But I don't think I'm go­ing to find any­thing.”

Natasha closed her lap­top with a click. “Sure you don't, hon­ey,” she said con­de­scend­ing­ly. “Sure you don't.”

Tags: Kate Brian Private
Source: readsnovelonline.net