Page 161 of The Broken Note

I run a hand through my hair. Something isn’t right. I can feel it in my chest. All the way down to my bones.

“She still hasn’t reached out to you?” Zane asks.

“She said she’d call.” My ribs feel like someone’s grabbing them, one-by-one, and snapping them like twigs. “She hasn’t called yet. She’s not at school. She’s not answering my texts.”

“I’ll call Vi,” Zane says. “Maybe Cadey’s sick or something.”

Deep in my chest, I know that’s not the case.

But there’s no freaking law against hoping, is there?

I wait while my brother makes the call.

Zane twirls a drumstick in one hand, listening. Finally, he shakes his head. “Vi’s probably in class. She’s not picking up.”

“Dammit.” I surge down the stairs.

Finn grabs my shoulder.

I stop mid-step and glare a hole through his face. “Let me go.”

“You could be over-reacting.”

“If you’re right, I lose nothing. But if you’re wrong…” I stare my brother in the eyes. “I lose everything.”

His fingers slowly drift off my shoulder.

I race down the stairs, jump into my car and speed across town to the south side. Cadey’s old high school. The first thing I see when I slow my car down are the chains. Chains so rusted and sharp they looked like they were guarding a prison.

When I get inside, I have to stop at a metal detector. I’m seething with impatience. Every security check slows me down.

What the hell is this place?

I hate Redwood Prep, but at least we don’t have to freaking strip ourselves of metal every morning before we go in.

“Is that Dutch Cross?”

“No way!”

“Is that the guy from the band…”

“He’s so handsome!”

“Am I dreaming right now?”

I hear their whispers, but I’m on a mission.

Spotting a kid who looks around Vi’s age, I stop her with a hand. “Viola Cooper. Do you know her?”

The kid starts shaking like I asked for her lunch money.

“Answer me,” I hiss.

“Y-yes.”

“Take me to her.”

She turns, drawing the eye of everyone in the hallway as we dip and weave past busted lockers, weathered school posters and classrooms that smell like hopelessness.

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