Page 28 of Outcast

“We can cancel that in exchange for deleting the recordings.”

I stood. “All right.”

He inclined his head. “Will you give me the memory cards?”

“The camera deletes the footage as soon as it’s downloaded on my smartphone.” I stood next to him, opened the app, and selected the recordings for deletion. “There. Done.”

A huge breath heaved out of his lungs. “Thank you, Hobson.”

I glanced up into his eyes. “You called me Hobson.”

He smiled. “That’s your name, or have you already adopted the other one?”

“Hobson is fine.”

He gave me a curt bow, stepped out of the room, and shut the door. Rita and I stared at each other for about a minute, then she wrapped her hand around my wrist and pulled me into the bathroom. She turned on all the taps and the shower. I leaned on the door, brows raised at her caution.

“They’ll break their promise, now,” she said in hushed tones.

“I backed up those videos onto a completely different server.”

Her eyes flashed. “But they don’t know that!”

“He’ll report back that he saw me delete the videos of Charlotte and Mr. Carbuncle in my room, but they’ll know I have one more.”

She tilted her head to the side. “The one that doesn’t contain the you-know-what?”

I shrugged. “That video’s going to protect me. Charlotte and Blake think I have it.”

Her brows twisted with doubt. “I hope you’re right.”

Her skepticism made me text Mom and ask her to buy me a ticket to New York for the mid-term break. When she didn’t reply, I called Marissa in New York, who said she would have to speak to her boss, who was on vacation. If I’d had enough money on my cards, I would have bought my own ticket, but I’d used several months’ allowances to buy the security cameras.

Although the triumvirate and their hangers-on ignored me the next morning, with each passing day, Rita’s warnings rattled in my skull. Edward and his group didn’t like to be outmaneuvered, and with the cameras in my room and the recording, I’d done just that. Mom continued to ignore my texts, even when I told her it was an emergency. She’d never, ever been this negligent with any of her previous husbands. The last person I wanted to tell about my dire situation was Dad. If I triggered another relapse, I’d never forgive myself.

* * *

The school trip started with the ringing of a handbell early in the morning. After dressing, Rita and I sat in the front of a coach with Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, Miss Oakley from English Lit, and our sycophantic Latin instructor, Mr. Frost. I slept through most of the journey, and just after midday, we arrived on the roadside at the middle of a landscape of breathtaking hills and valleys.

We all piled out of the coaches into the cold, windy afternoon and met our instructor, a burly army type called Bingham, and his six young assistants who seemed to know Mr. Frost. He told us we would hike up a hill, set up our tents, then have a barbecue dinner, followed by hot chocolate and a motivational movie. I shared a glance with Rita. We hadn’t had our lunch yet. How long would this hike last?

While one of the assistants drove the teachers up the hill in a four by four, the rest of us shouldered on our backpacks and trudged behind the instructors. The wind blew droplets of rain onto our faces, and I kept my head down and gritted my teeth.

Blake hiked at my side, not even remotely out of breath. “Enjoying the view?”

Keeping my gaze away from the top of the interminable hill, I muttered, “Not really.”

“You know,” he murmured in a low voice, “I was looking forward to getting to know you on this trip.”

I gulped and stared at him from the corner of my eye. The bastard looked good even in waterproof gear, but I was still smarting from his lack of reaction when Edward upturned the table at my feet. “How?”

“Well,” he said in a tone both wheedling and seductive. “All those long walks, caves, and secret peaks. A couple could get lost for a very long time.”

“Like in the Blue Lagoon?” It was an old movie where a boy and girl got marooned on a deserted island, grew up, fell in love and had a baby.

“The what?”

I turned my head away, and in my most dismissive tone, said, “Never mind.”