Cal didn’t go straight back to Brookline. He wandered around campus, hoping that a solution would come to him, or that he’d run into Fallon, who would explain that she’d just been asleep in the library or working out at the gym. Maybe her phone had died, and she’d completely forgotten about their tutoring session. Eventually, Cal headed back to his room, convinced that he was being paranoid and there were any number of logical explanations for where she might be.
When his phone finally buzzed an hour later, it wasn’t Fallon or Roger. It was a number he didn’t recognize. Cal read the message with the feeling that his whole world was turning upside down. Any other day he would’ve welcomed this surprise. But today, after everything, he stood in the middle of his room, staring at his phone in mute horror.
Hey, this is Devon. From the other night? We got off on the wrong foot. We should meet up tonight. Maybe grab dinner?
“How did you even get this number?” Cal muttered at the phone. He blinked hard and wiped at the sweat starting to prickle at his temples. Okay. This could still be fixed. All of it could be fixed. First, he would take that stupid pipe back to Roger. He would calmly explain that he didn’t want any part of what was happening here—that making the list at all had been a mistake. Cal didn’t care about any of it—didn’t want anything from anyone.
He certainly couldn’t go to dinner with Devon. Not yet. Not until he knew just what the hell was going on. That lame platitude, “Be careful what you wish for,” flashed mockingly in front of his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, going down on his knees to search under the bed for his lockbox, “I’m an idiot and this whole thing is my . . . fault.”
He stopped. The box was open. That couldn’t be. . . . It had a six-digit combination. Micah didn’t even know he owned it, and they were roomies. Cal pulled the safe out, scrambling to see what was missing. Just the pipe.
Of course.
“New plan,” he said decisively, but he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, the familiar knot of panic twisting up his insides. The phone in his pocket chirped loudly, and Cal almost fell back down to the floor in alarm. “Jesus, you’re losing it, Erickson.”
The message had come from another unknown number. Not Devon this time, but someone else.
Look outside your window.
He was sweating in earnest now, almost to the point where he couldn’t keep a firm grasp on the phone.
Cal threw himself toward the window.
There was the new girl, Holliday, standing down in the quad with her electric-blue hair glowing under the pathway lamps. She held her phone to her ear with one hand and the pipe above her head in the other. Then she lowered the phone, obviously typing something.
Missing something?
Forget the stupid phone. Cal shoved the window open, leaning down to shout, “How the hell did you get my number!?”
Holliday pocketed her phone and the pipe, though how she fit them in her skinny black jeans he could not tell from here. She pointed at the window and mimed marching. So she was coming up. Lovely.
“The room’s not really in a state for company!” he yelled down to her.
“So what!”
Cal leaned back and slammed the window shut. He didn’t trust Holliday even a little bit. The freak had somehow managed to break into his dorm room and crack his safe. She was probably a hacker just like Fallon.
His phone jumped in his hand again, this time with another text from Devon’s number.
Cal? Did you want to get dinner? Don’t leave me hanging here, man.
Yes. No. Goddamn it.
It almost felt good, liberating, to grit his teeth and type back.
Not tonight, Devon. Maybe some other time.