“I…I just do,” Simon says.
“Well,” I say turning back to Monica with a cocky smirk. “I guess we’ll find out who sent it after all.”
Noah hands the phone back to Simon and after a beat of him not doing anything, Noah grunts. “What the fuck are you waiting for? Find out who sent it.”
“Oh,” Simon says, sucking in a breath. “I need a computer.”
“Right, then,” I say, standing and stepping around to his desk. “Lead the way.”
Simon looks back at Mr. Barrett who studiously ignores him, not wanting anything to do with this. I watch Simon swallow and nod, probably cursing himself for getting himself involved.
As we walk towards the door, I refrain from smirking when Noah takes the long route, passing slowly by Tiffany’s desk and making her shrink back into the wall, terrified of what’s going to come.
As we step out into the hallway, Simon leads the way. He walks before us as Noah takes my hand. “Are you ok?”
“Think so,” I murmur. “I just want to get to the bottom of this.” I let out a sigh. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think Monica had anything to do with it, you know apart from being the star of the show and having Tiffany record it.”
“I think you’re right,” he murmurs into the too quiet hallway. “I just can’t work out who the fuck would have done it.”
“That’s the million dollar question,” I grumble to myself.
I hear someone walking quickly from the opposite end of the hallway and spin around, ready to take down whoever dares come at me now. “Henley,” Principal Evans calls out. He jogs a little to catch up with us. “I heard you were here.”
“News travels fast, huh?” I murmur.
“Yes, look. I know you’re not supposed to be back at school yet, so I wanted to catch you before you left,” he says. “I won’t keep you long, but I’ve just had a…colorful conversation with your dad. He informed me of what’s been going on this morning and I wanted you to know that we will get to the bottom of this. A full investigation will be held and the girls responsible for hurting you will be punished.”
“Thanks, but we handle our own drama.”
A dissatisfied look pierces across his face before he tries to right himself, remembering that despite my attitude, I’m the victim here. “No matter how you decide to handle it, it’s now a school matter as the video involves my students and has been spread throughout my school.”
“I said that we-”
“Henley,” Noah mutters beside me before looking up at Evans. “Thanks.”
Principal Evans nods and realizing that’s the best he’s going to get; he turns and walks away.
“What the hell was that?” I demand, giving Simon a nudge to get him moving again.
“It was principal Evans finally stepping up and doing something about the bullshit that goes down in this school. Candice and Monica have been dealt with by us, but they’re still walking through these halls every day. We might have taken away their social status, but have they really been punished for what they did? They deserve to suffer for putting their hands on you.”
“Yeah, but-”
“But nothing. It is what it is. Deal with it,” he tells me as we follow Simon into the computer lab.
He instantly sits down as Noah and I hover behind him, watching every move he makes. Simon powers up the computer and I impatiently wait while my phone burns a hole in my pocket, knowing that Tully is waiting for something from me.
The computer finally gets up and running and I watch in awe as Simon’s fingers move across the keyboard like lightning. He instantly hacks into the school network and starts doing something that I can’t even keep up with. “Are you able to somehow remove the video from all the people who got it?”
“Ahhh, maybe,” he says. “A lot of people got that blast. I could, but it’d take a while. I’m not exactly working for the FBI. I just play around.”
“Can you try?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “But I can’t guarantee that the people who have already seen it, haven’t forward it on to other people.”
Damn it. I was worried about that. I need to know for sure.