with the session. And remember, turn on the jammer before you go inside so the camera doesn’t catch you doing it. See ya.” Raven quickened her pace up the hill.
“Wait, how will I know it’s working?”
Raven was already yards away. “You won’t!” she called without turning around. “But when it comes to this sort of thing, I don’t mess up.”
Name: Matt Dolgens
Session Date: Sept. 27
Session #3
“WHY DON’T YOU TAKE my seat today?” Devon crossed her legs in the bigger leather chair, and held out a stiff arm toward her upright desk chair.
“Whatever,” Matt said as he sat down across from her. His eye was still conspicuously bruised. She let her eyes quickly dart around the room before landing back on Matt. The small camera had been installed behind her old seat, wedged between the ceiling and the wall so Mr. Robins and his cohorts would have a clear view of Devon’s subjects. But, no one said her subjects had to face the camera. Hopefully given how small it was, obscured by the soundproofed walls, nobody would notice it.
“Does it hurt?” Devon couldn’t think of anything to say beyond the painfully obvious bruise staring back at her. Her thoughts were focused on the frequency jammer turned on inside her backpack, sitting below the camera. Sorry, Headmaster Wyler. I guess the monitor malfunctioned. Too bad there’s no footage from the student sessions, Mr. Robins. Bummer.
“Feels great, actually,” Matt said. His good eye glared at Devon.
“Do you want to talk about how it happened?”
Matt shrugged his response.
“Okay, how about I tell you what I saw at the Cove last weekend?”
“You were there?” Matt asked. His head hung a little lower. A witness he probably would have preferred not having.
“I got a ride down there. Wanted to get off campus for an afternoon. I saw you argue with Bodhi.” Devon paused, giving Matt ample opportunity to jump in. He didn’t. “And I saw Bodhi give you that black eye.”
Matt kept silent.
“So, then to get even with Bodhi you had him arrested on campus. Am I right?”
His head jerked up. “You think I did that? That’s funny. I thought you were the rat.”
‘Why did you think that?”
“Duh! Because you’re all Miss Anti-Drug Crusader. So you’d make an anonymous call about Bodhi, knowing he would be on campus for the lacrosse game.”
She blinked, hurt, even though she knew she couldn’t blame Matt for thinking that way. “Wow, that’s what you think of me?”
“Look, I didn’t make that call. Why would I?”
Devon’s mind raced. If it wasn’t Matt, who did?
“Come on, think it through,” Matt said gruffly, with a cruel smirk.
“If Bodhi goes to jail, he’s likely to tell them about your business up here. I get it. Mutually assured destruction. You rat on him, he rats on you. Okay, so it wasn’t you that called the cops, it wasn’t me. Who was it then?”
“Look, I don’t know and I don’t care who ratted out Bodhi. What I’d like to know is who had Cleo give me this.” Matt pulled a green slip of paper from his pocket and flicked it at Devon. It hit her arm and landed in her lap. Devon felt the blush coming to her cheeks. Oh, no. Please don’t be.… She opened the paper to find her handwritten 30Ox/10. It was. “I told you, I don’t deal with this stuff. Not for you. Not for Cleo. Since when do you have Cleo doing you favors, by the way? All this power seems to be going to your head.”
“Look, Matt, I realize this was probably unprofessional—”
“Unprofessional? Really? That’s the first word that comes to mind? I got one. Two actually. City. College. Because that’s the only college that will take you if you keep trying to throw me under the bus. My dad will make sure Stanford burns your application next year.”
She shook her head queasily. “Matt, I wasn’t trying to throw you under the bus. No one else knew, okay? It was for Hutch. I needed to know.”
His eyes held hers, one injured, one blazing. “Let’s just draw this line right here so there’s no confusion. When it comes to Hutch, you don’t need to know anything. He’s gone, Devon. That’s all there is to know.” Matt leaned back in his chair, his chest heaving up and down. “Missing him doesn’t make you special,” he added quietly.
“I really am sorry. It was totally stupid of me. I was still debating about whether or not to give you the paper, but then I