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“Any ideas what that was about?” I questioned Drew.
“Nope. Not even close. I’m sure all will be revealed soon enough. I’ll let you all know as soon as I hear.”
“Thanks, man. In the meantime, what do you know about what’s going on with the paper?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, on what grounds have we had it shut down? How long for? All of that.”
“Well, at the moment, the how long part is kind of a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ type question, and really depends on college red tape, which as you know, can be totally extra. The rest kind of depends on Honey playing ball. The longer she holds out on us, the longer it will be before she gets the paper back, if ever, and the greater likelihood of it being escalated externally. Then who knows how long it could drag on for?”
“Yeah, I feared that would be the case, which is a problem, because I honestly don’t know who’s more stubborn out of the two of them, Honey or Xavier. I do know that it’s a close call, and they’ll both be trying to hang on until the bitter end.”
“Yeah, well, we know there’s no eternity too long for Master Cross, so we’d better strap ourselves in for the long haul.”
“And what’s our play, here? I mean, I know Xavier has connections and favors to pull, and all that shit, but even for him, this is big. To have the ability to unilaterally have a college institution like the Herald cut off on the spot means he must be holding something pretty epic, or somehow have big bargaining power.”
“It’s a combination of both. The main thing is that he’s told the Dean that Honey’s basically a terrorist.”
“What?” Every hair on my body was standing to attention, and all of my senses seemed sharpened.
“Well, not in those exact words, but ‘compromising national security’ is more or less the same thing. That said, Xavier’s leverage also comes into play massively. He cashed in some chips to get her invited to the Hawthorn, then the next day had her paper shut down. If it was anyone else, the Dean would have written him off as a vicious ex, or rejected wannabe-lover, and ignored his ass. As it is, he’s acting like she’s a cold, hard criminal.”
“That’s fucking insane. If she ends up on any of those watch lists as a result, this could ruin her life—employment opportunities, her ability to travel, and even her credit rating, forever. We can’t just play God like that with someone.”
“We can, and apparently we are. And by we, I mean Xavier.”
“And if she won’t back down, which, by the way, she seems determined not to, how are ‘we’ going to deal with the fact that she’s not a fucking terrorist?”
“Well, we know that, but we also know someone who could make it seem like she’s part of a fucking sleeper cell of infidels if he wanted.”
“Dillon?”
“Bingo. He can either make it look like it was all a false alarm, or not...”
“All that from having remote access to her laptop?”
“Totally. She has her laptop rigged up to access the newspaper’s server, so, according to Dillon, setting her up if we need to will be like stealing candy from a baby.”
“Fuck.”
Chapter 39
Honey
“We didn’t kill anybody.”
“Holy fuck! Jesus Christ! Don’t leap out at me like that. You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack. Then that would have been at least one death on your hands. Lurking in the shadows like that isn’t a great way to convince anyone you’re not a murderer.”
“Can I come in?” He jutted his chin toward my dorm door.
“Why?” I folded my arms. I wasn’t about to just let him off the hook.
“We need to talk.” He looked and sounded tired, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him. The merry-go-round of bullshit we were stuck on was consuming, and exhausting.
“Do we?” I was pulling at the door as he spoke, and made no effort to stop him from following me into my room once it was open wide enough.
I perched on the side of my small couch and folded my arms again.
