Hero Complex (8 page)

Devon drifted off to sleep. She dreamt about Hutch. She saw his wild hair and clever smile as they walked around the empty hillside. He reached out for her hand, but the wind pulled her away from him. She tried calling, but the wind seemed to absorb her voice, and then she was falling and falling down the cliff side until she landed on the hard cement of the Palace. Eric was standing over her with the spyglass in his hands. He used it to take a swing at her—

Devon jerked up in bed.

The bright morning had turned into a gray afternoon.

She took a few deep breaths, shaking off the nightmare, then eyed the diary beside her. It was difficult to imagine a time when this hillside wasn’t dotted with dorms, dining halls, gyms, a pool. It must have been amazing to be up here before the school was built. So Reed had a wife, Athena. She’d never even considered who Hutch’s grandmother was. She’d never really considered The Keaton School as a product of the actual Dr. Keaton, the person—someone who’d led an entirely different life before the school existed. And if Dr. Keaton had a wife, why was there no mention of her anywhere on campus?

Sunday dinners were a generally depressing affair. Devon knew that the stories and the buzz from weekends off campus would fall silent upon arrival in the dining hall. She sighed as she gathered her dinner on a plastic tray. At least tonight was cheeseburger night. Fries, salad, and even a berry cobbler concoction would suffice to dull the buildup of yet another week at Keaton. She approached Dr. Mettier at the check-in table. Another day, another “Devon Mackintosh, check.”

When someone slapped Devon’s butt, she nearly dropped her tray on Dr. Mettier’s lap.

Cleo was standing behind Devon in her uniform of motorcycle boots, black leggings, and a black leather jacket with zippers going in every direction. She pulled the black knitted hat off her head and shook out her chin-length hair. “How did you survive without
me this weekend, Mackintosh?” Cleo waved at Dr. Mettier as he checked her off his list with a satisfied grunt.

Devon’s smile faltered. A wave of guilt washed over her. But … why
did
she feel guilty about Bodhi? He and Cleo were over. He’d made the move. They’d shared a kiss; that was it. “Wanna eat with me?” she finally managed.

Cleo sneered at the lopsided cheeseburger and wilted lettuce they were supposed to call dinner on Devon’s tray. “You okay? The food is supposed to make you sick
after
you eat it, remember?”

“Funny,” Devon said, regaining some composure. “So?”

“Hell, no. I made a point to eat before I got back. How about I just keep you company while you eat?”

Devon made a beeline toward a table in a back corner of the dining hall. Although the dinner rush seemed to have died out, a corner table away from eavesdropping ears was still a minor coup.

“Is this about snooping around my room?” Cleo asked, a twinkle in her eye. “I saw your note when I got back. Come on,
dis-moi
, how much did you enjoy going through my stuff?”

Devon took a bite of her burger. It tasted like foamy filler. Maybe the whole thing wasn’t as big a deal as she thought. “I didn’t see anything that belongs to me, let’s just say that.”

Cleo sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “So? What’s the deal? Is this business or social? With you, I never know.”

Devon put her food down. “I just wanted to check with you. About you and Bodhi.”

“He kissed you, didn’t he?” Cleo asked point-blank.

Devon’s face flushed.

“He did, he did, he did!” Cleo slapped her palms on their table, taunting Devon with a wicked, delighted laugh.

“I really wasn’t expecting it, I swear,” Devon gasped, relief flooding through her. “But it happened, and I guess I was, I mean, I am happy it did. So it’s okay with you? Please say it’s okay with
you.” She took another bite of her hamburger, just to give herself something to do.

Cleo smiled. “You’re sweet, Dev. Bodhi and me … it was just a few hookups, and I felt as guilty as you do now, if you want to know the truth. I always knew something was lurking there between you two. Of course you should go for it.” She shook salt over Devon’s French fries before picking at a few. “And trust me, Bodhi never does anything he doesn’t want to do. He and Raven have been calling their own shots for a while now. If he kissed you, it wasn’t an accident. The guy likes you. My advice? Try to enjoy it. You do know how to enjoy things, yes?”

Devon managed another smirk and dropped her hamburger, resisting the temptation to reach across the table and hug Cleo. “Okay, so here’s the other thing. Remember your waiter crush on New Year’s? Dimples? Eli, or that’s at least what he told me his name was?”

Cleo nodded, intrigued now.

“Get this—he was using someone else’s ID that night.”

“Wait, are you saying my crush was your attacker?” Cleo leaned back. Her boot tapped the wooden floor. “Just my luck. Why do I always fall for the dark and disturbed ones?”

Devon blinked. Did Cleo think she was joking?

Cleo’s face fell. “Oh, Dev, I’m sorry.” She leaned over the table. “I’m totally not belittling your attack. But you get it, right? We have got to find normal, non-betraying boyfriends. And it sounds like you have …” Cleo dropped off in mid-sentence. Her snarky grin returned, and she tilted her head at the table behind them.

Devon twisted around to see Grant sitting down.

He caught their eyes. Devon quickly looked away. What she wouldn’t give to forget that whole Grant debacle of last semester. Her cheeks burned redder than they had last night at check-in, remembering how much she had trusted him.
Lying jerk
, she thought for the hundredth time. Luckily Grant had stayed clear of
her this semester. She secretly hoped he was too ashamed to come near. Living with that kind of shame only seemed fair.

“So I’m going to go into the city next weekend,” Devon whispered, back squarely turned on Grant. “Try to find this Eli guy. You want in?”

Cleo finished Devon’s French fries. “Don’t know. Bodhi going to be there?”

“Yeah, probably. Is that weird?”

“How about this? My mom’s got some spa thing in Switzerland the rest of the month. Why don’t we get signed out next weekend to my parents’ penthouse near the marina? We have a fun getaway weekend, and if the Dreadlocked Duo want to make an appearance and find our waiter, then we’re
all
in?”

Devon had to laugh. “The Dreadlocked Duo. They are gonna hate that.”

Cleo shrugged. “Haters gonna hate. What can you do?” She brought her head closer to Devon’s and jutted her chin out in Grant’s direction. “Wait a sec. Who’s the fresh blood sitting with Grant?”

Devon turned to see a perfect stranger plunking his tray down by Grant. Needless to say, a perfect stranger appearing mid-year at Keaton was newsworthy, especially someone who looked like
this
. Blond hair in an almost buzz cut, dark eyebrows, and deep brown eyes. Devon couldn’t help but stare. Neither could Cleo, of course. Grant leaned over and whispered something. Fresh Blood looked up from his burger and saluted Devon and Cleo.

“Ladies,” he said in a loud, confident voice with an accent Devon couldn’t place. “Good evening.”

Devon whipped around to face Cleo, whose cheeks were pink.

“They must have pulled someone off the wait-list mid-year,” Cleo muttered, smiling in spite of herself. “Man, someone’s parents must have wanted him to get a Keaton education. Starting mid-year has to seriously suck.” She started typing something into her phone.

“What are you doing?” Devon asked.

“Texting a friend at St. Matthews in the city. Wait-listers usually come locally. The international kids have too many visa hoops to jump through to make last-minute decisions. We gotta get the intel on our newbie because you know how it goes; girls are gonna be all over that like the summer sale at Barneys.”

Devon sneaked another peek in his direction, and Fresh Blood smiled back, clearly enjoying the attention. This time she noticed something else: two perfect dimples, one on each cheek. He was almost
too
perfect looking. Her heart clenched for a moment as she turned back to her food, her appetite gone. Had this guy taken the spot in their class that had been freed by Hutch’s death?

“You see that smile? Unbelievable,” Cleo said, as if cursing the people who created him. She went back to her phone, fingers moving faster than before. “This is total trouble. Dev, you know better than anyone, I’m a sucker for a guy with dimples. Way more than dreads.”

Devon still had a few homework questions to finish before first-period chemistry, so she made sure to get to the classroom early to work in silence, far away from the bustle of her dorm. Just her luck—the chem lab doors were locked. She made do sitting in the deserted hallway. Usually Mr. Denny was in his classroom at this hour, slugging coffee from a thermos and prepping for that day’s lesson. So apparently even guys like Mr. Denny had a hard time moving first thing Monday morning. It was reassuring somehow. Teachers and faculty members were human beings, too, after all—including geniuses, Dr. Hsu among them.

The linoleum floor felt cold on the back of Devon’s legs, even through her jeans. She opened her laptop and tried to concentrate. The door at the end of the hall opened with a
clang
, and Scott Jacoby appeared in his usual Keaton pajama pants and oversized
backpack. A day student with nothing else going on outside of Keaton, he’d no doubt answered the questions by Friday afternoon and done the extra credit work, too. He threw off the grading curve in most of his classes. On the other hand, maybe if she flirted just a little bit, he might be inclined to let her copy the final few answers from his work. She stood up to greet Scott when a classroom door opened down the hall.

Devon froze. It was C.C. Tran, dressed in a white pencil skirt with matching blazer and clutching a Starbucks cup. She exited the room with Mr. Denny. She had a few books tucked under her arm. Devon recognized the blue cover of her own current chemistry textbook.
Maya’s mom is collecting homework. That means Maya is still enrolled
. They may have given up Maya’s room, but presumably she was trying to keep up with the school year. Maya was somewhere doing her homework. Before Devon could fully formulate her thoughts, she’d hurried past Scott and planted herself right in front of Maya’s mother.

C.C. looked at Devon expectantly as if she were an assistant interrupting a meeting with C.C.’s board of directors.

“Hi, Ms. Tran? You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Maya’s. Devon Mackintosh. I just wanted to see if Maya is okay. Does she need anything?”

C.C. pulled her thin lips into a tight smile. She looked over Devon’s head at Mr. Denny as if to say,
These kids just don’t stop, do they?

Mr. Denny took the woman’s hand in an empathetic shake. “Thanks for coming by, Ms. Tran. I’m sure we’ll talk soon.”

C.C. withdrew with the same tight smile and waited until Mr. Denny was opening his classroom door down the hall before turning back to Devon. “Devon, you said?” she asked brusquely. “Maya is doing fine. I’m collecting some work for her so she doesn’t fall too far behind the rest of her year.”

“Is she coming back to Keaton?”

“We’re still discussing next year. There are many options to consider …” C.C. started scrolling through her emails on her gold-plated phone. The silent way of saying,
Get the hell out of my face, kid
.

Devon held her ground. “I’d love to talk with her. Maybe you’ll tell her to give me a ring? Or email or something?”

C.C. looked up from her phone. “Maya’s not taking calls right now. But when she does, I’ll tell her you asked after her. Okay?”

Before Devon could respond, the woman sashayed down the hall. Devon had no idea what C.C. could possibly mean.
Not taking calls?
Had her parents placed Maya under their own version of house arrest? It seemed that way. Since she’d left school, Devon had tried to find her online, but her Instagram and Twitter accounts had become inactive.

But one thing was certain: Maya had not fallen off the face of the earth entirely. She’d be nearly six months pregnant at this point. Devon had a hard time imagining Maya’s small frame with a baby belly. Had Maya purposefully withdrawn from public, or had her parents forced seclusion upon her?

As the first-period bell rang, Devon allowed herself the thought at the root of it all, the one that was nagging at her deep down. If she could find out what was going on with Maya, then she could share that information with Eric. And maybe then Eric would be more inclined to answer
her
questions.

S
ECOND PERIOD WAS EVEN
worse than chemistry; it was her next session with Dr. Hsu.

Devon found a seat on a bench next to the science building. She tried to wrap her head around the idea that in three minutes, she would be expected to pour out her deepest, darkest secrets to a woman who wanted to prove Devon was crazy.

Last session Devon had enjoyed letting Dr. Hsu believe that Devon’s stories were simply paranoia getting out of control. A
part of her was curious just how far she could milk that angle. After all, everyone had thought she was crazy for believing that Hutch hadn’t killed himself.

If the school administration were sidelining her as unreliable and delusional, then they wouldn’t plan on reinstating the peer counselor program anytime soon. Which was fine. Devon didn’t need that distraction right now. Last semester Keaton had lost three students—four if you included Hutch. Between Isla’s parents sending her to rehab, Matt’s choosing to leave school for an indefinite “surfing hiatus” (his words), and Maya’s pregnancy, Devon’s record of helping students cope wasn’t exactly stellar.

Another thought crept into her mind. The powers-that-be at Keaton weren’t trying to pin any of that on
her
, were they?

She had always assumed that implicating a student in negligent peer counseling—the pilot program, no less—would also make the school look bad. But maybe she had Keaton’s puppet masters wrong. Maybe the school was looking for a way to take her down with the other students. One less troublemaker?