Invincible Chronicles of Nick - By Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 0,57
The next thing he knew, she’d pulled the paper out and was reading it.
His stomach shrank as he tried to take it back. “Give me that.”
She moved like a three-year-old avoiding her parent’s attempt to take away a toy. “What is this?”
Irritated and annoyed, he stopped chasing her. There was no need if she kept prancing out of reach. All it was doing was making him angrier. “It’s mine. Now, give it back.”
She arched a brow at him.
“C’mon, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” she asked doubtfully. “It has a lot of … significant things on it. Stone’s class ring? Have you any idea how much his parents paid for that? The ring rep actually called his father at home just to make sure it wasn’t a mistake and that they meant to order something that cost that much.”
Nick hissed at her. “Don’t talk about this out loud. Okay?”
She walked up to him and lowered her voice. “Nick, tell me what’s going on, or I’ll go to the principal with this. I swear I will.”
That was all he needed. He could see this scenario clear as day.
NICK: Uh, yeah, Mr. Dick, that’s my steal list from the coach that he gave me. If I don’t do it, he’ll kill me. (Sounded nuts to the one who knew it wasn’t. Imagine what it would sound like to someone who hated him.)
COACH: Gautier’s a lying piece of trash. You know how they are. Come into the world as worthless thieves.
PRINCIPAL: Yes, they’re all scheming scumbags out to steal anything not nailed down.
COACH: Here, let me call the police for you.
PRINCIPAL: Very well. I’ll just sit here and look down my nose at him while you do that.
Yeah, it’d be some variation of that play. But no matter the exact scene, the ending would always be the same.
Him dead in jail.
No thank you.
“Casey…” He tried again to make her see reason. “This is between me and the coach. Leave it alone and let me have that paper back.”
She sucked her breath in audibly between her teeth as she pulled the sheet away from him. “I’m not real good at that. Especially not when I see something that looks like a shopping list, and don’t think for one minute I don’t know all about those.”
Of course she would. Shopping was what she lived for.
I’m so screwed. “Please, I’m begging you to forget you saw that.”
“Why?”
He had no choice but to be at least a little honest with her. “Because if you don’t, I’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
And dead by morning. He shuddered at the mere thought.
She glared up at him as if debating whether or not to believe him. “Something tells me you’re already in a lot of trouble. The coach has you stealing for him, too, doesn’t he?”
Nick’s jaw went slack at the last words he’d expected to come out of her mouth. “What?”
She gave him a cocky toss of her head. “I’m not as stupid as people think, you know? But when everyone thinks you are, you’d be amazed at what they’ll talk about around you.”
“Such as who’s stealing for him?”
She nodded. “I overheard them talking about it a few days ago.”
His heart sped up at the thought of having someone who could corroborate his story with the principal. If he could get a couple of the school pets to back him, he stood a chance of bringing the coach to justice. “Who?”
“Dave and Barry.”
His stomach sank. Not good. Not good at all. “Barry Thornton?”
She nodded.
Both dead. Oh yeah, all of this was making sense now. The coach used who he could, then killed them off to keep them from telling on him. No wonder Ash had said the attack on Barry hadn’t seemed right.
It wasn’t.
Nothing more than human cruelty by a coward who was trying to cover his tracks. What a dog …
“You know anyone else?” he asked, hoping to salvage a little of his plan.
“No, just them.” Dang her for dashing his hopes again.
Suddenly, her eyes widened. “You don’t think he had any part in their deaths, do you?”
Absolutely, but he wasn’t about to start slandering a school official when he had nothing to prove his suspicions. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, they stole for him and now they’re both dead. What other conclusion can I draw?”
That Nick was screwed and probably soon to follow them to the grave himself.
He wanted to whimper as he realized just how inevitable that was. He was going to die a poor, pedestrian virgin.…