Page 45 of Cruel Games

“Lilah,” he said.

I spun around. Mr. Burgh stood at the side of his desk, his shoulders hunched, arms drawn in, looking more nervous than I’d ever seen anyone.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Would you like to visit me in my private quarters for dinner on Sunday?”

Joy burst through my chest like a New Year’s Eve fireworks display at Richley Common, and a happy laugh bubbled through my chest. “I’d love to.”

His features relaxed. “I’ll meet you here at seven.”

I opened the door and stepped out to find Kendrick standing in the hallway, his face grave.

“Lilah,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Chapter 16

I stepped into the hallway, letting the headmaster’s door click shut. Kendrick kept a distance, his gray eyes fixed to mine.

Unlike his twin, Kendrick’s features were even, never twisting into smirks or smug expressions. I’d heard a saying that twins shared a soul, but it didn’t ring true with the Deloraine boys. They were complete opposites with identical bodies — two Ken dolls: the formal one and the bad-boy.

“What do you want?”

“When I asked Elizabeth to make amends, this wasn’t what I’d planned.”

Without acknowledging his words, I walked down the hallway and headed toward my room. Orlando and Maxwell had already proven themselves liars. The same may as well apply to their quieter counterpart.

“Lilah.”

I continued walking.

He wrapped his hand around my arm. “Lilah, please listen to me.”

“Why?” I whirled on him, flashing my eyes.

“What?”

“You’ve barely spoken to me this whole term, then when you do, it’s to make a deal that backfired.”

“And you were supposed to have destroyed—”

“I did!”

“Yet Maxwell and Orlando have been suspended for lewd conduct.”

My jaw dropped. “What?”

“Mr. Burgh suspended them before their staff meeting. Apparently, you uploaded footage to a Dropbox account using the school’s network.”

“But I deleted it.”

He tilted his head to the side, giving me an are-you-as-stupid-as-you-look expression. “Our head of IT monitors all videos and image files uploaded and downloaded through the academy network. It’s to safeguard us from accessing pornography. If you’d used your personal data plan, none of this would have happened.”

My shoulders sagged. There was no way I could use my phone. If Sammy wasn’t in prison, he’d be calling it daily or using his dodgy contacts to get a lock on my location. “I wasn’t double-crossing—”

“You uploaded the file on Sunday morning, hours before we came to an agreement.” He released my arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“What’s going to happen to Orlando and Maxwell?”