“You know,” Annika said, “if you would use your powers for good, this shit wouldn’t happen, and you could probably be an above-the-board billionaire.”
Sicily waved a hand through the air. “I’ll worry about that when I’m older.” He straightened his shirt out, fixed his hat, and then held out a hand to me. “I’m sorry, Dee. Forgive me?” His sincere expression was almost humorous, but I was still too angry to laugh. I took his hand and shook it, saying nothing, and he smiled. “Good. ‘Cause I’m gonna need your help with this bug job.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Annika said. “Deon’s on parole. If he gets caught, he could be in violation.”
“He ain’t gonna be doing anything crazy, just talking to her,” he explained. “Miss Abrams likes ‘em young with pretty faces.”
“Tank. Use your fucking brain for a sec—”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“What?” Annika asked. “Deon. Think about it for a second.”
“I’m doing it,” I responded. There was a wealth of information to be gained from talking to Miss Abrams and finding out what Cherri was up to. If there was any risk she was getting caught up in something bigger than she realized, whether we were together or not, I needed to protect her.
“Cool. We’ll go after school. I gotta get my stuff together,” Sicily said. “She’s in classroom 419 up on the fourth floor. Meet me there after the last bell.”
The rest of the day crawled by at a snail’s pace. My brain was a mix of concerns that Cherri—and Nathan, for that matter—might be in trouble and that I had no idea what to expect from helping Sicily from a job. I was also concerned about the reaction I had when Sicily called Cherri a bitch. Regardless of what I thought might be in my best interest, it was clear that I wasn’t going to be getting over my hangup on Cherri anytime soon. I actually felt kind of bad that I’d reacted so harshly with Sicily. He was only speaking poorly about her because he thought it’d make me feel better. That was the first real flare-up of the temper I’d developed from being locked up, and I didn’t like that it was against a friend.
When the final bell rang, I filtered into the crowd of students flooding out of the classrooms and made my way down to classroom nineteen on the fourth floor, Miss Abrams’s classroom. I could see the allure. She was tall, even more so with a pair of black pumps on, and she wore a dark gray pencil skirt and a magenta blouse that accented her obvious assets. She had wavy brown hair that was cut just above her shoulders, and she wore a pair of glasses that I was almost certain were for the aesthetic as opposed to having any actual function. They looked like the cheap ones guys who needed glasses behind bars were forced to deal with. She waved goodbye to her students before walking back into her classroom and sitting down at her desk, and a few minutes later, Sicily walked up to me.
“All right. You just go in there and introduce yourself and start talking to her or something. I don’t know. You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart kid. Try and get her over by the windows so that I can get up to the corner above her desk. I’m assuming that’s the angle that’ll give Cherri what she’s looking for.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And hey,” Sicily started. “I’m sorry about earlier. I really—”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to react like that honestly. Just… Even if it’s not going well right now, she’s my everything.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m not normally like that with women, either, so lessons learned all around. We’re good, right?” Sicily asked.
I nodded, patting him on his head. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“Cool. Ready?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Ready.”
Sicily tapped me on my back, and I led the charge, walking into Miss Abrams’ room. There were no other students inside, so apart from those passing by in the hallway, it was pretty quiet and isolated. She didn’t seem to notice me walk in right away, so I made my way all the way over to her desk before clearing my throat.
She looked up and smiled. “Hello. You’re Deon, right?”
She stood up and walked around her desk, to my luck, toward the windows. I walked even closer to the windows to meet her and stuck out my hand to shake. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
She had a fairly normal smile on her face. “Nice to meet you as well.” In the corner of my eye, it felt like I could see Sicily moving into the room, but I didn’t look for fear of drawing attention to him. I just kept my eyes on Miss Abrams and hoped for the best. “So. Can I do something for you?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Maybe I hadn’t thought things all the way through. What did I say to a teacher that I didn’t even have? “I don’t know if you know, but I’m…”
She nodded. “We all had to be briefed as part of your coming to the school,” Miss Abrams said. “Don’t worry. We’ve all been strictly advised not to share your case information with anyone outside of the teacher’s network.”
“Cool. Actually, I need, um… I have Mr. Mead’s history class, and I’m not doing great. I was wondering if—”
She tilted her head. “Oh? I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about you from Wendell.”
Shit. “Really? It, uh, it feels like I’m not getting it, and I was hoping for private lessons, maybe?” That was fine, right? I could come back later and say my mom got me a tutor or that it just got better.
“Private lessons?” Her warm smile faded, and her eyes got creepily wide. “Let me guess, Nathan told you?”
I shook my head. “What?”
“That little brat. He told you, didn’t he?”
“Told me what?” I
