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Chapter 37
Astrid
I can’t do both. The wear and tear on my sore body is starting to show. The sun is still in bed when I get up to go train for track. And on the weekends, there’s no point in climbing into bed after returning home from the Pit. I’m only going to have to get up again to run. Sunday mornings, I get a break from training. My muscles are stronger in places I didn’t know I had them, but on Sunday morning, my body has had enough. I stay in bed.
Roni creeps over to the edge of my bed. With concern, she examines my prone body as I watch her.
“What?” I moan.
She steps away. “Nothing. I rarely see you in bed, and the sun is up. Are you okay?”
“I’m just tired.” I yawn and yank the covers over my head.
“You train like a fiend,” Roni replies, “Did you ask about scholarships?”
“Yes.” My voice is muffled from underneath the covers. “I’ve been filling out applications. Dr. Rawlins is helping me.”
“Whoa.” Roni laughs. “Sounds like you’re off the naughty list and on the nice.”
I mumble something incoherent, and I’m not even sure what I said. By the time I wake again, Roni is gone, and every corner of our room is lit with the noontime sun. I’m worn out, but if I do get a scholarship, I’ll have the opportunity Mom was hoping I’d have by coming to Stonehaven. A chance for a better life, away from Weymouth.
A horrible thought widens my eyes, and I stare at the ceiling as I lie there motionless.
I’ve been accused of promiscuous behavior, luring decent boys from good homes down a path of inequity. I’ve been accused of stealing money after a sexual encounter by distracting an innocent boy with my plain white underwear.
But the one thing I actually did do is steal a laptop, and I haven’t been caught yet. I’m wide awake now as I fling the covers off me and sit bolt upright on the edge of my bed. No one squealed about the laptop. Or the Pit, but the fight club is different. Stealing the laptop is a minor offense compared to the Pit. Why didn’t someone tell Rawlins about it?
Maybe because Justin was involved? But he tried to have sex with me, and Rawlins knew about that. He said getting caught stealing was worse than getting caught having sex, but someone told Rawlins I had stolen the money. I should have been kicked out for that. That’s a bigger crime. Isn’t it?
I lock the door to the hallway and push a chair against the bathroom door, just in case. No one is with me, but instinct makes me look around anyway. I needed a place to hide the laptop, and anyone looking for it would’ve checked the obvious places first, so I had to think deviously.
I pull out the bottom desk drawer until it can’t move anymore and take out the few paperback books I borrowed from Roni. There is all sorts of abandoned crap in the basement, and among the crap, I found gold. A piece of heavy particle board, which fits perfectly in the bottom of the drawer. Slip it in, and I have a false bottom. Anyone looking at it closely could tell it’s fake, but if you aren’t looking, it’s imperceptible.
I don’t understand why the boys keep bothering me, following me, pestering me. My ego isn’t so out of control to allow me to believe that my hotness cannot be denied. I don’t believe that Justin or Pierce couldn’t find another girl to torture with crude comments. But as I take the laptop out of its hiding place, it all makes sense. I have something, and they’re keeping an eye on it by keeping an eye on me.
Fortunately, the battery holds a charge because I don’t have a cord. And even better, there’s no password. I’m in the second the screen lights up. I scroll quickly through the folders, looking for something interesting.
Nothing leaps out at first until I think a little harder. It’s either a photo or it’s money. My finger hovers over the photo folder, but I click on the spreadsheets instead. Voices pass my door, and I watch the door, uncertain when Roni is coming back. I freeze in place, as if whoever it is can see me through a solid piece of wood.
Taking a breath, I start again, and one by one, I open each spreadsheet folder. I don’t understand most of the stuff I’m looking at. Abbreviations and numbers in row after row. Reading through it makes me feel stupid, but what did I expect? That I would attend Stonehaven and instantly understand finances and crap? It takes work, and then it occurs to me that if I trained my mind the same way that I train my body, I could understand this stuff.
I’m thinking I should transfer the spreadsheets up to the cloud or something, when I finally see something on one of the spreadsheets that I understand. My name. In fact, I recognize several names—Nova. Erin. I click on the tab and another sheet pops up with Mask, Brickhouse, Stockade, even Grinder, but he hasn’t fought in years. I don’t know finance, but I recognize a bookie’s spreadsheet when I see it. The numbers are gambling odds, and Justin must be doing the bookkeeping.
Before I do anything else, I download every spreadsheet into my phone. Maybe the others mean something else, and it would make sense to have more proof, not less. I put everything away, hiding the laptop in the drawer again safely and piling a few more books on top.
I can’t stop thinking about what I found, so I head over to Stonier to do research. On what I don’t know, but the first thing is to learn how to read a spreadsheet. The librarian doesn’t laugh or scoff when I ask her for help. I sit at the table for an hour, reading everything that she gives me. In fact, she takes an interest in showing me more and suggests we review a stock market report.
“I’m glad to help a woman who has an interest in finance,” she smiles and hands me another reference book. “You’re talented at it. I can tell.”
I thank her dumbly before she walks away. I think that’s the first time anyone at Stonehaven has shown me true respect. By the time I’m ready to leave the library, I know the Investors Club is a gambling front for the Pit.
