Page 144 of You + Me – Against the World

“Relax, Alma,” Vadim murmurs to me. “What are you going to kill him with? Your princess crown?”

“Hold on, I’ll practice on you, just to make sure…”

I was too anxious to stay at home, and I couldn’t resist the urge to tag along with Vadim and his wisecracking sidekick on their mission. So, here we are, the three of us squeezed into a beat-up pickup truck parked a few houses down from Keith’s place.

“Clem, you can do this,” I whisper, as if she could hear me this far away, through the walls.

Two hours later, the four of us are back together at the Sunset Café. No one had to scream or step in, and our special agent completed her mission without a hitch. She looks dazed as she begins telling her story, absently twirling the straw in her lemonade as she talks.

“When he was in the shower, I looked in all his drawers. Nothing. But on his phone…”

“What?”

“There were weird texts from someone named Brooks. I didn’t have time to read everything, but they were talking about the community service group at college.”

“Brooks is Cheyenne’s last name,” Vadim tells us.

He lets out a long breath, and I can sense every ounce of his turmoil.

“Shit, you were right, man!” Felix blurts out, pounding the table with his fist. “He knows her. He set it up so you two would meet!”

“That psycho used her as bait,” Vadim hisses. “The girl who’s exactly like me in every way just happens to end up in the same community service group I’m in, even though no one had ever seen her on campus before. Then she does everything she can to become my friend—maybe even more—and keeps asking me all kinds of questions about Alma. How the hell did I not see it?”

“So, I got played too?” Clem murmurs. “Keith is only dating me to get to you guys?”

I rest my head on her shoulder, feeling bad for her.

“He was so nice to me, though… Why can’t any guy love me for real?”

“Clem, you’re perfect, and this isn’t about you. I swear to you that the man of your dreams will treat you like a queen…”

“And Lancaster knows a thing or two about royalty.”

The sight of Felix trying to comfort my best friend is touching and disconcerting in equal measure.

“At best, I was his cover so he’d look like a normal guy; at worst, I was his informant,” Clémentine continues. “And I didn’t even know it! I talked to him about you guys so many times! I’m such a moron!”

“It’s not your fault. Stop crying, you’ll wash your freckles off.”

“Fe, that’s the first time I’ve heard you say something that wasn’t completely stupid,” Clem sniffs.

“It’s our fault.” Vadim gazes into my eyes with his beautiful gray ones and starts to explain. “We should have told you everything from the start. Every time Keith helped us out of a tight spot, he asked for something in return. At first, we thought it was harmless, that he just needed us to do a few small favors. But we quickly realized the truth. None of it was legal. He had us transport stolen equipment and deal with some shady stuff. We never knew any details, never knew anything beforehand. We were just one link in the chain.”

“When we realized how much he was using us and how much danger we were putting ourselves in, we decided to stop accepting his jobs,” Felix adds.

“But that bastard knows so much about us that he can bring us down whenever he wants. All those times he was our alibi, all the times he lied for us… He just has to snap his fingers, and we’ll end up in jail.”

“So you need to go to the police! Turn him in!”

Anger twists my stomach and tightens my throat.

Vadim smiles at me. “If only it were that easy! He has a solid reputation and a bunch of well-connected friends in the LAPD. Do you really think they’re going to believe two little delinquents like us, Alma? Keith is smart enough never to get his hands dirty. It’s the teens he takes care of who do the dirty work. He controls everything and everyone.”

“As long as we did what he said, he protected us,” sighs Felix. “When you’re young and have nothing, that’s already something.”

Vadim nods in silence.

On the bench beside me, Clémentine is seething.