“Aha.”

“She tried to get in the middle of the fight, you know?”

“Nice!” He taps his pipe on his desk. “I told you I liked this girl.”

“She definitely doesn’t like me. She accused me of stalking her!”

“But you are stalking her, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but she’s not supposed to know that.” I throw my hands up. “This girl makes no sense. First, she calls me a perv and a creep, but then she tries to stop her friend from beating me up? And two seconds later, she’s calling me a stalker. How does that make any sense? And I don’t think being mean to her is working at all.”

“Wait, why are you trying to be mean to her?”

“Because I’m trying to get her to like me, as you said I should. This Web site said that girls like guys who are mean to them, so—”

“What? Haden, I thought I told you not to ask the Internet for dating advice!”

“You forget that I don’t even know what dating is!”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Dax says, rocking back in his chair. “How mean were you?”

“I implied her virginity in front of our entire humanities class,” I say sheepishly.

“Oh harpies, we’re going to have to do some major damage control now.”

“I am all for suggestions.”

Dax chews on the end of his pipe for a moment and I can barely resist the urge to rip it away from him.

“That’s not helping,” I say.

“Oh, hmm. You don’t know something she’s really interested in, do you? Something you could get involved in to show a common interest?”

“Music. I think she’s in the music program,” I say, though I have no idea how I am supposed to use music to get close to Daphne when I know even less about it than love.

Dax cringes. “It had to be that,” he mumbles under his breath. “I’ll see what strings I can pull from my end, and if all else fails, I’ll call on Simon—though I’d like to avoid that as much as possible.” He moves a stack of papers around and then stands up, with his pipe. “Now, perhaps you should scamper off to class, young Master Lord. No more fighting, you scallywag,” he says with a British accent. “I think Mr. Drol should be from Yorkshire, don’t you?”

I shrug. “One more thing … The guy I got in a fight with … He gave me this look that made it seem almost as if he might know who I am.”

Dax drops his pipe and it plinks across the table. “He what? How? Who was this kid? What did he look like?”

“Short. Part Asian. Japanese, I think. Wears a stupid hat.”

“Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell,” Dax says, but a dark look crosses his face. He walks me to the door. “I’ve changed my mind. You shouldn’t go back to class. I’m suspending you for the rest of the week. Go home and lie low.”

“Dax, you can’t do that. I’m just getting started!”

“I mean it. Let’s let this kid simmer down for a few days while we think about what to do next. It’ll probably take me a couple of days to arrange this music program business anyway.”

Waiting. More waiting. I think I might go insane.

Dax ushers me out the door just as that Tobin guy and his mother exit the other office with the man I assume is the vice principal. “I trust we won’t have any more issues with you after your suspension,” the vice principal is in the middle of saying to Tobin. “I would hate to tell Mr. Morgan that he needs to recast your part in the musical.”

The mother barely even gives me a glance as they pass us, but Tobin seems to look right through me—as if he’s trying to get a better look at Dax, who stands behind my shoulder in the doorway. Tobin comes to a complete stop, his face white as ash. Dax steps back into his office and closes the door.

“Are you okay, Toby?” his mother asks.

Tobin turns away. “Yeah. Whatever. I’m fine.” But I can tell from his tone that he’s clearly not.

I watch them pass by the glass windows of the office, fighting the urge to follow them. Instead, I turn toward the chairs where I left Garrick, to find that he’s already gone. I can only hope he isn’t getting himself into more trouble.

That’s the last thing any of us needs right now.

Chapter twenty-four

DAPHNE

The landline phone in my room rings. I can hear it from my private bathroom, where I stand in front of the large, oval, Swarovski crystal–encrusted mirror that hangs over the marble-countered vanity. I’m not used to having my own bathroom—there was only one in the bungalow that I shared with my mom and the varied guests or strays we occasionally had staying with us—let alone one so opulent. If I were in a better mood, I might be tempted to pretend I am some sort of diva in my dressing room before a big show. Instead, I am inspecting the faint red mark that stretches across my right cheekbone. It almost looks like I’d merely gone too heavy with my blush, but the pain that pulses under my skin reminds me of a burn. It is almost exactly the same as the marks left on my arm when Haden had tried to grab me in the grove.

The strangest thing is that I didn’t think the boy, who I assume is Haden’s cousin, based on Bridgette’s description, had actually touched me. Haden had stopped him before his fist collided with my face—and yet, I had felt a burning heat slap against my face. I guess it is possible he’d grazed me with his fist after all, but it had happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure.

The phone starts ringing for the fifth time since I got home. I’m in no hurry to answer it. I am home alone, and it is most likely someone for Joe—probably a reporter trying to get a statement about his new musical endeavor with the high school—and I am in no mood to talk about it. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. When I look up in the mirror again, the mark is gone, but my skin still stings. I prod at my cheek with the tip of my finger, suddenly wondering if I’d imagined the mark there in the first place.

I’d never had to question if I was just imagining things back in Ellis.

Something weird is definitely going on in this place.

Maybe Olympus Hills is dumping hallucinogens into their water supply. Maybe that was the big theory Tobin had wanted to share with me. I laugh at the mirror. Yeah, right.

The phone finally stops ringing, and I assume the call has gone to voice mail. It’s probably better to let Marta get Joe’s messages anyway, I think as I wander back into my bedroom and sit on the edge of my plush bed.