she slipped out the back door and made her way to the hill.
Tomas spotted her and hooted, waving. He lifted a bottle of what looked like rosé in the air.
Ryann grabbed it and took a swig, and then handed it over to Blake—whose costume looked extremely last minute.
“Where are Ahmed and Shannon? They get lost on the way over?” Tomas joked.
Ryann shrugged. “I wanted to give them a proper time at the dance alone together, you know?”
“You just like someone else.” Tomas draped his arm over Ryann’s shoulder drunkenly and readjusted his wig. “You’re so tragic.”
“You’re lucky I like you,” Ryann threatened.
“You’re lucky I like you,” Tomas teased, giggling.
“How’s your hand?” Ryann asked. “Let me see.”
Tomas showed Ryann his bruised knuckles. “Caught his ear. I was aiming for the throat, but he tried to dodge it,” he explained.
Ryann clicked her tongue in sympathy and rubbed gently at the red spot. “Where’s Alexandria?” she asked.
Blake rolled his eyes.
“I asked her if she wanted to save her first dance for you, but she pushed me and then went home,” Tomas said. “She can’t take a joke at all. You guys deserve each other. You’re both made of layers.”
“Layers?” Ryann said dryly.
Tomas hiccupped. “Firssst layer is the asshole layer. You gotta crack that one first. Second layer is the nice one. You think that’s the last layer, but it’s not ’cause there’s another layer under that and its just more asshole. But if you like … puushhhhh your hand inside that layer, you know what’s in there?”
“What’s in there, Tomas?” Ryann tugged the bottle out of Tomas’s hand and put the cap on. She had to get this guy some water.
Tomas wasn’t done. He swayed dangerously and poked Ryann hard in the chest with one finger. “Fear,” he said, entirely too loudly. “You’re both chickens with layers. Onion chickens. I’m not a chicken.”
“No, you’re not, Tomas,” Ryann said indulgently, patting him gently on the cheek. He slumped over her shoulder and she just barely caught his dead weight as he fell asleep.
She turned to Blake. “Repeat any of that and you’ll regret it.”
Blake just crossed his arms and looked unimpressed. “She looked good. Sorry you missed it.”
Ryann gritted her teeth and wished for the hundredth time that she wasn’t so transparent.
2 DAYS
On December twentieth, the last day before winter break, they gathered in the library. They all sat on the floor in the back where there were old textbooks and travel guides. Tomas and Shannon brought their laptops, Ahmed had his tablet, and Blake had shown up empty-handed.
“I’m not sure what I can offer you,” he said, tossing his bookbag on the floor. “But I didn’t want to be left out of the loop.”
Ryann nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
Alexandria placed her dad’s SCOUT door pass on the floor in the middle of the circle.
“Okay. So. We only have one of those,” Ahmed said. “How are we going to make this work?”
“The ID has a PIN associated with it … which we guessed—my dad’s not creative,” Alexandria said. “If we go to the website, we might be able to log in as an employee and get access to their database in some way.”
“Have you tried yet?” Ahmed asked.
“Yeah,” Ryann said. “The PIN still works, but you have to be using the network from one of their buildings in order for the website itself to allow us in. So when you type in the PIN, it begins to open the webpage, but then a pop-up kicks you out, saying something about security clearance. Username is the first four letters of his first name, first four letters of his last name, no spaces.”
She handed the ID to Ahmed, who tried to access the website from his tablet. He passed the ID to Shannon, who tried as well, and then to Tomas, who tossed it back on the floor without even trying.
“Do you know what kind of security clearance this used to have?” Tomas asked.
“I think he used to do some kind of secretarial work, so the clearance probably isn’t very high. It might be enough to access his old employee email though, which could give us the opportunity to request permissions updates from IT—” Alexandria started.
“Companies like SCOUT have way too many employees for anyone to be keeping track of who still works there,” Shannon interrupted. “I think we have a pretty good shot at being able to get the information sent to us if we ask professionally enough.”
“Who would we ask?” Alexandria said. “It’s not like