Jack handed her two cups. “He’s trying to fit in.”
“The only things he’s trying to fit in are your shoes.”
Jack always denied the worship that Reuben exhibited towards him. “People would like him if they tried.”
“You might be right—that is, if he’d actually talk to someone besides you and Calla.” Earlier that week, Alex had attempted to sit with Reuben at the Ex House. He’d regarded her scornfully, swept up his books, and stomped away. He’d left Alex sitting there, dumbfounded.
When they reached the skate park, a small maze of half-pipes, railings, and ramps, Alex was happy to find that from this area of the fields she had a clear view of the games. If she couldn’t be there with the Lasalles, at least she could watch them. The game of choice that night was soccer, Gabe’s favorite, and no sooner had she begun to search the faces of the players when she saw him skidding across one of the fields, sliding to save a ball from the goal. Her stare must have nudged at him because Gabe stopped to glance over his shoulder in her direction. She spun around and faced Jack.
“So, what are you supposed to be doing?”
Jack pointed to a ball of paper on the ground. “Cleaning. We take care of any littering or sticks or leaves.”
“That sounds easy enough.”
Alex searched for a place to set down the drinks and spotted Reuben on the ground, crawling around on all fours like a bloodhound sniffing for clues. He certainly seemed to be taking his job seriously. He noticed Alex, but didn’t acknowledge her until he found Jack.
“Hey!” he shouted a little too enthusiastically. It was like he’d been caught doing something wrong. He itched his neck furiously.
“We brought you a drink,” Jack said. “And stop scratching.”
Reuben scrambled to his feet. His round cheeks puffed into a grin. He grabbed the drink from Alex without a word to her.
She gave Jack a sardonic glance. “Do you guys ever play the games?”
“I’ve never really been one for organized sports,” Jack admitted, lifting a hand to shield the lights from the stadium. “I was always picked last in gym class.”
“But that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be good at it here.”
“And give those guys an excuse to pound me into the dirt? No thanks.”
Her eyes were drawn to a vacant area of the field moments before Chase appeared from nowhere, using his body as a roadblock to send a boy and the ball catapulting through the air. She wondered about the legality of such aggression, but the referee didn’t blow his whistle. No wonder the Lasalles loved the games. Kaleb leaped up to retrieve the ball, scissor-kicking it downfield to another teammate.
Alex leaned down to pick up an empty cup and tossed it into a trash bag. “You’re a mover, Jack,” she realized aloud. “Why don’t you just pick up all this trash with your mind?”
“I can’t because Calla isn’t here.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “It’s a twin thing, I guess. I can’t really do much without her.”
“Is that why your sister is so quiet?”
“I wouldn’t call her quiet so much as … ” He searched for the right word. “Cautious. She’s paranoid about what people are going to do to her. Spirits around here are lemmings and just follow the Darwins. We have to watch our backs.”
“But you aren’t afraid of the Darwins,” Alex said. “It seems like you ignore them pretty well.”
“The Darwin family has a substantial history here, a history with powerful spirits who still hold office in Eidolon.”
“Aren’t you a multigenerational family too?”
“Sure, we’re as blue blooded as they are, maybe even more so, but you don’t see them inviting us to their little get-togethers, do you? We have much different histories.”
Alex opened the bag to dispose of a bit of paper but stopped when she noticed the writing scrawled across the top: “Initiation.” Alex scanned the page.
“What are you looking at?”
Alex turned the paper so he could see the checklist. She blinked several times to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. But she read:
1. Worthiness
2. Notable trickery
3. Battle the insane
4. Harrowing
Alex looked up at Jack. “What is harrowing?”
“I have no idea.”
“Battle the insane,” she read again. Her eyes drifted to the top of the page. “This says initiation. What do you think this is?”
Jack sniffed. “Honestly, if it was important, do you really think some idiot would leave it lying around?”
Initiation. There were so many little cliques on campus, and it could be any of them. Alex had even heard that the newburies in Duvall’s ABC club used to haze new members.
“Trickery,” Alex said loudly. “That’s the pranks. And the insane? Does that mean banshees?” A thought occurred to her. “Is that why Duvall’s stock of bladderwort was stolen?”
Jack dropped his bag and trash littered the ground at his feet. “How did you know about that?”
“Skye told me.” She studied Jack skeptically. “How do you know about that?”
“Please don’t hate me.” He wrapped his spaghetti arms around his face. “I was partially responsible for that altercation between you and the banshee in Moribund. I didn’t know the flowers would attract banshees when they were concealed.”
“Flowers?”
He peeked through his arms. “Bladderwort flowers. I took them from Duvall.”
“You stole them?” Alex pointed to the list. “Are you a part of this?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Who would invite a Bond into anything important enough to need initiation requirements? If for some odd reason that”—he pointed to the note—“is not a joke, I have nothing to do with it.”
“Then why would you take Duvall’s flowers?”
He laughed coldly. “Because I hate the woman, Alex. Every spare second of her afterlife, she is either trying to embarrass me or she’s sending me to detention. I knew she was going to need the flowers for an upcoming lesson, so Calla and I stole them to get her back for punishing us all the time.” He glanced at Alex apologetically and then diverted his attention to his toes. “And banshees don’t live around here, so I didn’t think anything bad would happen.”
Alex crossed her arms. “How did you steal the flowers?”
He shrugged. “It was easy. She was always making us clean her classroom. We didn’t know the flowers would be so obvious, though. They aren’t your average flowers. They’re giant and bright yellow. We threw them in a backpack to try to keep them hidden.”
Alex felt her stomach do a swan dive. Bright yellow flowers in a backpack? She’d seen that before. No wonder Jonas’s backpack had stunk like a rotten bog that night at the Ex House. It had been filled with swamp flowers.
Initiation … initiation …Was Jonas trying to become a part of some group on campus? It made sense. He would be free of his brothers.
“Should we show that to someone?” Jack offered, pointing to the paper.
“No,” she said firmly. “I’ll hold on to it.” At least until she could speak with Ellington again.
“Are you sure?”
Alex nodded, thinking the note might come in handy if she confronted Jonas. Jonas and his backpack of yellow flowers.
29
Chase continued to avoid Alex during the next few days, and she had no clue why. She searched the campus, the Ex House, and the fields, but they all led to dead ends. She couldn’t hear anything in his head, and if she tried, the fortress around his mind only tightened. After class, she was trudging back to Brigitta when she spotted Gabe sitting at a table in the courtyard, and everything that was bothering her imploded. “Well, you are just the guy I needed to see.”