Get Dirty (34 page)

“Come on,” she said, tugging Amber’s arm. “Come sit with us.”

She half-expected Amber to protest, put up a front and act like she didn’t need Olivia’s charity, but instead, she bit her lip. “I’m not sure I’m welcome.”

“Amber,” Olivia said with a smile. “You’re always welcome.”

Kitty stood in the center of her teammates, Mika by her side, and stared at each of them in turn. She stomped her foot once, then clapped her hands, stomped twice and clapped again.

“How do you feel?” she cried at the top of her lungs, continuing the rhythmic stomping and clapping.

The team mimicked her movements and responded in unison. “Fired up!”

“I said, how do you feel?”

“Fired up!” they replied, even louder.

“But how you
feel
?”

“FIRED UP!”

“I’m ready.”

“Set!”

“You’re ready.”

“Set!”

“She’s ready.”

“Set!”

“We’re ready.”

“Set!”

Then Kitty pumped her fist in the air to the beat. “Ready! Ready! Ready! Ready!”

The whole team crouched low, shifting their weight back and forth from left to right, and clapped rapidly together. “Set! Set! Set! Set! Go Dukes!”

The team high-fived one another, fully pumped up for the game, and headed to the bench for their final assignments from Coach Miles. As she left the court, she caught sight of Barbara Ann jogging out of the locker room.

She was suited up and ready to play, her long blond hair was swept up into a tight ponytail with a white headband across his forehead, and her knee pads dangled from one hand.

Barbara Ann paused when she saw Kitty, the look on her face a mix of anger and confusion. She shook her head, casting her emotion aside, then gave Kitty a slow nod.

Kitty smiled and nodded back. It wasn’t thanks, it wasn’t forgiveness, but at least Kitty knew that Barbara Ann now had a chance at a collegiate future.

As Kitty stood there smiling to herself, she saw Donté waving at her from the sidelines.

She jogged over to him. “Hey!”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I never get tired of watching you do that.”

“Do what?” Kitty asked.

Donté smiled, his bright eyes twinkling with mischief. “That little booty shake during the warm-up.” He spun around and did an exaggerated imitation of Kitty’s pregame dance moves.

Kitty snorted. “If I looked like that, I really doubt you’d have asked me out in the first place.”

Donté laughed, and pulled her to him for another embrace. “Kitty Wei, I’d have asked you out no matter what.”

Margot climbed to the last row of the bleachers at the Bishop DuMaine gym and wrapped her arms around her waist. Had it really only been a week since she’d last been here?

One week. The world had changed in one week.

Margot smiled to herself, mirthlessly. The world had changed in an instant, she’d just taken a week to get used to it.

A whistle blew from the gym floor, and Margot took her seat as the game began. She didn’t really care who claimed victory in the match, although her allegiance would always be to Kitty. In the end, both teams had gotten a significant amount of attention from college scouts, which meant that they’d both won.

Margot’s eye strayed to the opposite side of the bleachers, where Olivia sat between her mom and Amber Stevens. Even Amber deserved a second chance, Margot supposed. She could probably forgive Amber for what she’d done, but there was no way she’d ever forget.

Ten rows in front of them sat Bree and John, literally entwined. She snuggled into the crook of his shoulder, her face resting blissfully against his chest while John stroked her back with his free hand.

Margot sighed. She remembered the way she had felt when Logan embraced her. The safety. The protection. She’d wanted
to stay in his arms forever.

The pain of Logan’s betrayal had dulled, the grief ebbed, and now all Margot felt was an overwhelming sense of loneliness. She’d been stoic about her self-isolation in the past, but Logan had been a taste of forbidden fruit that she wouldn’t soon forget. Sure, he was a sociopathic serial killer, but he loved her, and more importantly, he’d made her feel as if she was worth being loved.

Margot took a deep breath and slowly exhaled through her nose. She just had to remind herself that she would be fine on her own. She had friends, she had support, she’d even earned the respect of her parents in a way she’d never believed was possible. She could live without love.

Because she had a goal now. Margot’s hand strayed to her bare arm. No longer obscured by an oversize sweatshirt, the scars of Margot’s suicide attempt were open to the world. Never again would she hide them. Never again would she live in shame of the pain and hopelessness she’d felt that day. She’d go forward displaying them proudly. Because she’d overcome that day, and lived to be a stronger person. And if her story of struggle could prevent just one person from taking the same drastic steps, it had all been worth it.

“Hey bacon, what’s shakin’?”

Ed the Head plopped down on the bench next to her. Margot had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed him sidling across the row toward her.

“Edward,” she said with a nod of her head.

Ed winced as he pulled a small notebook from his back
pocket. A near-fatal bullet wound to his stomach hadn’t been enough to keep him from the biggest school sporting event of the season. “So I’ve got six-to-one odds on Kitty and Bishop DuMaine.” He inclined his head. “Care to place a wager?”

“That’s illogical,” Margot said. “Should be fifteen to one.”

Ed whistled. “You think?”

“The Lady Dukes have a renewed sense of school spirit,” Margot began, laying out the reasoning behind her statistics. “The murderer has been caught, the police presence was removed from campus, Father Uberti officially dissolved the ’Maine Men, and students have returned to normal high school life. Haven’t you noticed the rah-rah attitude around here this week?”

“The little lady has a point.” He dropped his notebook to his lap and leaned closer to her, dropping his glibness for a moment. “And how are you doing?”

Margot glanced at him sidelong. It was a loaded question and he knew it. “Logan’s facing life in prison,” she said coolly, “and the police decided my actions in the boiler room were in self-defense. I suppose that’s a win-win.”

“I see.” Ed leaned back, propping his elbows up on the bench behind them. “So I know your boyfriend tried to kill me and all,” he said with his trademark smirk. “But do you think you could find it in your heart to be my business partner? Clearly surgery has muddled my brain.”

Margot shook her head. She had to give it to Ed—despite all he’d been through, he still maintained his sense of humor.

“You have to answer me one question first,” she said.

“Just one?”

Margot nodded.

“Hit me.”

Margot cleared her throat. “I get that you found out that Sergeant Callahan was Christopher’s cousin.”

“Don’t you want to know how?” Ed asked eagerly. “It was a pretty awesome prank I pulled at the Beemans’ house and—”

“I get,” Margot said, interrupting him, “that you withheld that information from DGM because you thought you were protecting me.”

Ed’s gaze faltered but he didn’t say a word.

“And I even get that you doctored the carbon copy of the speeding ticket from October first to the seventh to give yourself an alibi.”

“If you hadn’t been in a coma,” he said, smiling wickedly, “you’d have seen through that ruse right away.”

“But what I don’t get,” Margot continued, “is how after months of investigation, you never found out about Amber Stevens’ summer at Camp Shred.”

Ed cringed and grabbed his stomach. “Ouch. That hurt worse than getting shot.”

Margot smiled. “So in light of your questionable skills, if we work together, I want sixty percent.”

A look of horror passed over Ed’s face. “Forty.”

Margot arched an eyebrow. “Surely you can do better than that,” she said playfully.

Ed rubbed his chin vigorously as if waging an internal debate. “Fine,” he said at last. “Fifty-fifty split. But this is going
to require long hours working together. Do you think you can handle it?”

Margot turned to Ed. His face was all smiles, but his eyes held a sadness that she alone understood. “Yeah,” she said. “I can handle that just fine.”

DGM

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HarperCollins Publishers

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[A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
TK]

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GRETCHEN M
C
NEIL
is an opera singer, a writer, and a clown. She is also the author of
Get Even
,
3:59
,
Possess
, and
Ten
, a YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. You can visit her online at www.gretchenmcneil.com.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Get Even

3:59

Ten

Possess

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

GET DIRTY
. Copyright © 2015 by Gretchen McNeil. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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ISBN 978-0-06-226087-1

EPub Edition December 2014 ISBN 9780062384768

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