"You really think," Maya said softly, "that I would bring the only copy of that letter out into a hallway with you?"
Trent froze. The muscle in his jaw twitched violently.
"What did you do?" he whispered.
Chapter 2: The Silver Watch
The heavy silence in the hallway felt suffocating. Trent stood motionless, his eyes boring into Maya, trying to decipher the quiet confidence radiating from her. For three weeks, she had been a ghost in this school. Now, she was holding the detonator to his entire future, and she didn't look the least bit afraid to press the button.
"What did you do?" Trent repeated, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.
"I'm a very careful person, Trent," Maya said. She adjusted the strap of her backpack, letting her hands fall to her sides to show she was completely unthreatened by the wall of jocks blocking her path. "Did you really think I just stumbled across that letter by accident? That I was just digging through the trash for fun?"
Trent blinked, the gears in his head turning sluggishly as panic clouded his judgment. "You... you were looking for it?"
"I was looking for anything," Maya corrected him. "You see, when a guy spends his entire life stepping on people, he tends to leave a very messy trail. I just had to figure out where to look. The academic suspension notice was a lucky break. But it wasn't the only thing I found."
Brody shifted uncomfortably, glancing nervously at Trent. "Man, maybe we should just go. Coach is gonna be looking for us before film study."
"Nobody is going anywhere!" Trent snapped, throwing an arm out to keep Brody in place. He glared at Maya. "You're bluffing. You don't have anything else. You're just a nobody who got lucky."
"Am I?" Maya took a slow, deliberate step forward. The crowd of students held their collective breath. She closed the distance between herself and Trent until she was standing less than two feet away from him. She was inches shorter, but right now, she commanded the entire space.
She raised her hand and pointed a single finger at Trent's left wrist.
"Take off the watch," she said.
Trent flinched, instinctively pulling his arm back and covering the silver diving watch with his right hand. "What? No. Are you crazy?"