Chapter 3

She slammed her red pen onto the desk.

“It takes two to start a fight, Mason. Maybe you should reflect on yourself and consider what you did to provoke them.”

I lowered my head slowly.

Then I went back to the classroom.

By the time school let out, rain was pounding against the streets.

I had not brought an umbrella.

I ran to the trash bin outside and dug through it until I found my ruined binder.

The pages were swollen from the filthy water.

Most of the words had blurred into nothing.

Then the old flip phone in my pocket began to buzz.

It was chipped and outdated, the phone I kept only so my family could reach me.

A text from Claire lit up the screen.

*'Mason, I’m out of town on business. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning.*

*Don’t worry. Anyone who bullies you or spreads rumors about you will regret it.'*

I looked down at the dark ink running across the pavement and the foul-smelling bundle of wet paper in my hands.

Then I typed back carefully.

*'Claire, it was just a misunderstanding. They were only joking.'*

She did not reply.

I stopped breathing for a second.

I was scared she might really go after them.

Then none of my classmates would be able to come back to school.

I was still trying to figure out how to calm her down when I turned around.

Lucas was standing behind me.

Before I could react, he snatched my battered flip phone from my hand and smashed it against the concrete.

It broke apart instantly.

“Idiot,” he sneered. “Your rich backer is supposedly so generous. Why can’t she even buy you a decent phone?”

He pulled out the newest smartphone from his pocket and waved it in front of me.

The wallpaper showed him with his arm slung around a middle-aged man.

I stared at the man for two seconds.

A few days earlier, he had been kneeling in my living room, begging my sister to give him a chance to work with her.

Claire had called him Mr. Hale.

I looked up at Lucas honestly.

“The man in that picture was kneeling in my house a few days ago, asking my sister for a meeting.”

Lucas’s face twisted.

He thought I was trying to humiliate him.

“You useless freak!”

He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face.

“You’re a nobody whose own parents didn’t even want him. Who are you to talk about my dad?”

My ears rang.

The world spun.

But I barely felt the pain in my face.

Only one thought kept circling through my mind.

He had insulted my mom.

Before she died, Mom had spent every day trying to teach her son how to understand people.

She endured the whispers and the mockery from everyone around us.

In the end, the strain had worn her down completely.

He should not have talked about my mom that way.

Guilt and panic swallowed me whole.

My hand shook as I reached for my watch.

Hidden inside was a tiny emergency transmitter.

Claire had given it to me.

I had never used it before.

Without hesitation, I pressed the red button.

Three days later, the school auditorium was packed.

Today was the official public announcement for the guaranteed-admission offer.

Lucas had replaced me as the new recipient.

He stood in the center of the auditorium, surrounded by my classmates.

He wore an expensive tailored suit, his hair perfectly styled, as though he were about to accept some major award.

A few students crowded around him, their voices dripping with flattery.

“Lucas, I heard the Harrison Group gala is tonight. Your dad got an invitation, right?”