“Now would be a good time for you to leave,” Asher said. His voice was cheerful enough, but I could hear a thread of warning underneath.

“I just wouldn’t feel right walking away,” John Thomas countered. “The least I can do is warn you about what I heard.” He gave every appearance of sincerity, except for the slight uptick of his lips. “Addiction is a disease. I had no idea Henry’s father had gone through such a rough time prior to his death. In and out of rehab—”

Asher stood up. “Don’t,” he gritted out. “Talk. About. Henry’s. Father.”

Asher was a person who was constantly in motion—always laughing, always smiling.

He wasn’t smiling now.

“I’m not talking about Henry’s father.” John Thomas stared Asher down. “I’m just telling you what other people are saying.”

Addiction. Rehab.

John Thomas doesn’t know that Henry’s father killed himself. That should have come as a relief. He doesn’t know that Ivy covered it up.

But apparently, that wasn’t the Marquette family’s only secret.

“Asher.” Emilia’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Don’t.”

Don’t waste your breath. Don’t let him get a rise out of you.

Emilia’s warning drew John Thomas’s attention. The congressman’s son leaned down and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. Emilia stiffened under his touch. Her breath went shallow.

“Don’t touch her,” Asher said, his voice razor sharp. He had seriously considered jumping off a building to save his twin even an ounce of scrutiny. The desire to protect her ran deep.

“Didn’t your sister ever tell you?” John Thomas met Asher’s eyes as he rubbed Emilia’s hair back and forth between his fingers. “I was her first.”

Emilia shuddered. One moment Asher was beside me and the next John Thomas was on the ground and Asher was on top of him.

“If she told you she didn’t want it,” John Thomas whispered, “she lied.”

Asher snapped. There was no other word for it. He moved with manic fury, his fist plowing into John Thomas’s face again and again.

John Thomas smiled the whole time.

“Asher,” Emilia said. He didn’t hear her, didn’t hear me, didn’t hear anything, lost to a haze of fury.

There was a blur of movement to my right as someone pulled Asher off of John Thomas. It took me a moment to process the fact that it was Henry. Asher struggled against his hold, lunging forward. Henry jerked him back. His arms tightened around Asher’s torso.

“Enough, Ash,” Henry said.

When teachers descended on us a moment later, John Thomas was still lying on the ground bleeding. He was still smiling. He caught my eyes, and I could practically hear him gloating, You’re not the only one who can execute a plan.

CHAPTER 24

Asher was suspended for two weeks. He was lucky he wasn’t expelled. Enough people had seen the fight to paint a consistent picture: Asher had thrown the first punch. John Thomas hadn’t even fought back. Fewer of us had heard John Thomas goading Asher into the fight.

When the headmaster had asked Emilia if John Thomas had been bothering her, she’d shaken her head. She didn’t meet Asher’s eyes. She didn’t say a word.

No amount of explaining could compensate for that.

Asher caught her on the way out of the headmaster’s office. “Em—”

“Don’t,” Emilia told him forcefully. I translated: Don’t ask her what John Thomas had been talking about. Don’t ask her why she hadn’t answered the headmaster’s question with a yes. “You finally got yourself suspended,” she snapped at Asher. “Are you happy now?”

“I was just . . .” Asher started to say, but Emilia didn’t let him finish. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him back.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

A very bruised John Thomas declared himself my partner in Speaking of Words.

Henry came to stand between us. “A real man never just assumes someone wants to be his partner,” Henry said, staring at John Thomas with an expression that sent chills down my spine. “A real man asks.”

Henry’s voice was low and rife with the implication that he wasn’t really talking about group projects.

“A real man does not coerce. He does not pressure,” Henry continued. “He does not just take what he wants. He asks.” Henry kept his eyes fixed on John Thomas for a moment longer, then turned to me and demonstrated. “Would you like to work together on this assignment, Kendrick?”