“It seems like a dangerous line to walk.”
“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t at least get a small thrill from the danger of it all.” An uncomfortable sensation of being seen tickled the back of my neck. This, at least, I knew I shared with Haley.
She clapped her hands together. “Let’s start planning.” Haley continued to outline the process for me as we went along.
At the top of the list were ten highlighted spaces. “What are these blank spaces for?”
“These are for the other members of the Red Court. Most teams will use two or three girls. Bigger jobs might need as many as six. We mark these spaces with what we need and the Queen of Hearts does the rest.”
Ten other Red Court members. If you counted the Queen of Hearts, Haley, and me, there were thirteen of us total. I added this fact to my mental inventory to share with April tonight. Every piece of information could be valuable later.
“How many will we use?”
Haley grinned. “I don’t need help. It’s easier for me to do things myself than explain how to do them correctly to someone else.”
“I know how that feels.” I returned her smug smile and was surprised that it was genuine. I was beginning to like Haley, for all the problems it might cause me later.
We fell into companionable silence as we examined the rest of the brief. It read like a giant list of people the Red Court had influence over, including teachers, coaches, and members of the school’s administration, all potential angles we could play to get our girl elected.
I knew Maura a bit; we had an elective business class together, and her family lived in my neighborhood. She was pretty and popular, but she also struck me as nice. The kind of person that would never sell herself to the Red Court.
“Did Maura request this?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. She didn’t.” Haley scrolled to the top of the dossier. “We got the request from Reece Jordan.”
“That’s Maura’s boyfriend.” I’d seen him waiting for her after class almost every day. Which came across as sweet, and a tad nauseating.
“Since Maura didn’t ask for this, will we be collecting from her?”
“Nope, she’s really just a bystander in the whole arrangement. For elections, it’s rarely the targeted winner that asks. It’s almost always a boyfriend or girlfriend or someone hoping to become a boyfriend or girlfriend asking on their behalf.”
“He must really love her if he’s willing to get in bed with us to make this happen.” There was nothing that could make me ask the Red Court for anything.
“Or he’s really stupid.” Haley’s sneer should win some kind of award. “Half the time they break up and then try to back out of the bargain when we come to collect. They just don’t get that there isn’t an expiration date. You make a deal, you pay up. Period.”
Despite Haley’s protestations, I really did think Reece loved Maura. All you had to do was see them together to know that. He was doing this because he loved her and wanted her to win. Love could make even the most sensible person do ridiculous things, which was why I would not be falling in it anytime soon.
Haley roughly pieced together a plan and I marveled at her strategy. She’d broken the job up into three parts: getting Maura nominated for Homecoming Court, methodically dismantling the competition, and securing the votes.
Haley’s gift for election rigging was beyond evident. She had talent and she used it well. We had the added advantage of Maura’s preexisting popularity. Haley mentioned that it wasn’t always so easy, but with Maura already having some notoriety, no one would question her nomination and subsequent win.
“Do you ever fail at a job?” She shot me a dark look, and I cracked a smile. To a stranger, that look would appear capable of peeling paint off the wall. I was slowly learning that Haley just had a dark sense of humor; I would bet my life that she meant that glare as a joke. My reaction was awarded with a quick smirk.
“I’ve never failed at a job. It’s been known to happen, but the Queen of Hearts won’t accept something we have no chance of succeeding at. Our assignments are typically challenging, but never impossible, which is why there is no opt-out clause for jobs. If you’re in, you’re in all the way.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. What should I do now?”
Haley reviewed the pieces we’d need to put in place for the first part. She cautioned me to never tap the shoulders of anyone we needed to collect from until the last second to minimize risk or acts of conscience.
My first task was to secure copies of the nomination forms, which we would be using to stuff the ballot box in Maura’s favor. Based on Haley’s experience, a hundred should be enough to name her a finalist.
“We’ve got Max Stanley on student council. Write up a note telling him to leave a hundred copies of the nomination form in his locker by the end of the week.” She handed me the locker skeleton key and sent a text with his locker number.
When we’d been at it an hour, and my legs wouldn’t stop bouncing from anxiety, Haley told me to get out of her sight.
“Should I text you after I place the note in Max’s locker?” I asked on my way out. She nodded without further acknowledging me. “Ok, bye.”
“Ember.” She shut off her tablet. “Don’t do that.”
“What? Say goodbye?” I thought for sure this was another joke of the ill-humored, but she leveled me with a stern look.
“We’re not friends, Ember. We don’t wave to each other in the halls. We don’t grab coffee on the weekend. We’re a team doing a job together.”
My traitorous face must have looked hurt, because she eased her sour expression the tiniest bit. I cleared my throat. “So, the Red Court is telling me who I can hang out with now?”
“Stop. I’m not trying to be cruel. You go everywhere with Gideon already, and you should still do that. Everything has to look like business as usual for you. But we’re not supposed to be in contact outside of Red Court work, and this makes it easier. We don’t want to slip up if we run into each other. It would be suspicious. We weren’t friends before, and it would make zero sense for us to be close now.”
I nodded, and she went back to her work. I watched her for a moment and realized that I didn’t even know her last name. This girl who knew everything about me, who could apparently have me followed without my noticing it, was still essentially a mystery. If I was going to get more information about the Red Court, it would have to come from her. She was my only link. And if I was going to do that, I needed to get close to her.
CHAPTER 8
“WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?” Gideon whisper-hissed at me. He’d already tried striking up a normal conversation, but I’d shushed him.