Chapter 1

"Inej, wait up!" someone called. I turned around and saw that it was Jesper. I stopped walking down the hallway to my locker. Jesper catches up to me in a few long strides.
"What's up?" I ask.
"What are you doing this Saturday night?" he asks, smirking. I think for a second.
"I really need to study for my chemistry test next week."
"So you're free! Great. Party at Wylan's place. Be there at eight, bye!" Jesper calls and quickly struts away to invite the next person. I shake my head. Jesper's parties are known for being completely disastrous. If there's one person who doesn't know when to stop, it's Jesper. I decide not to go and head back to my locker. Jesper won't notice if I'm there anyway and I'd rather get a good grade than a hangover.

I'm in AP English class when my best friend, Nina, starts throwing folded up notes on my desk while our teacher is giving a lecture on Macbeth.
I open the first note.
"Party at Jesper's on Saturday. U going?"
I look at Nina, who's sitting on my right and shake my head. She gives me a disbelieving frown and shakes her head. She turns back to her notebook and writes a new note.
I try to look to the front and listen to the teacher, but Nina's note hits my face.
"Yes u r! Pregame at my house. I'll drag u there if I have to."
I smile at her determination but shake my head.
Nina pouts and begins to scribble new notes, but our teacher is already assigning the homework and before Nina can do her best to convince me, the bell rings.
"Ugh finally, lunch!" Nina sighs.

We head for the cafeteria and Nina instantly begins assaulting me with reasons I should go to the party.

"Come on, Inej. It'll be fun! You can wear that new see through top! We can get shitfaced! You can sleep at my house if you want. My parents don't care. You never go out with me!"

"And for good reasons. Last weekend you sent me 50 drunk snapchats. Not classy." I also did not feel like getting shitfaced when I had exams on Monday. I knew Nina wouldn't let me off the hook that easily, so I really needed to change the subject.
"I hope there's waffles for lunch." I say as Nina begins to complain.

"Oh my Gosh, me too! I would die for waffles." We enter the cafeteria and move towards our usual table. Jesper and Wylan are already sitting and eating -thank god- waffles. Nina and I throw our bags down and go to get our waffle fix.

When we come back to the table, Nina is still rattling off a list of reasons that I should go. I sit down next to Wylan. Kaz joined the table while we were gone and Jesper is trying to convince him to go to the party as well.
"Come on Brekker, live a little." Kaz shakes his head.

"Unlike you, Jesper, I live for more than getting drunk every weekend."

Nina and Jesper continue their assault and Kaz and I share annoyed looks an eye rolls.

When Jesper is telling a story about the best party of his life, I see Nina's gaze wondering around the cafeteria. It stops on a table by the window, where a group of football players is joking around. Among them is Nina's on-off right now ex-boyfriend, Matthias. I lean over to Wylan. "Is Matthias invited as well?" I whisper to him. Wylan, being Jespers boyfriend, usually plans the parties with him. Wylan nods slowly, seeing Nina's fixed gaze as well. That would explain why Nina wanted to go, wanted to get shitfaced and didn't want to go alone.

Wylan and I share a glance.

"You know what, I think I can go.", I say, silencing Jesper and snapping Nina out of her trance.

"Oh hell yeah!" Nina and Jesper say at once.
I sigh. This weekend could go seriously wrong.

The lunchbell rings and we all get up to head to our next classes. As I put my tray away, Kaz appears next to me.

"Need a ride home?" I usually catch a ride with Jesper or Nina or I walk home, since I can't afford a car. Kaz lives on the other side of town and his car is sacred to him. He never lets anyone drive with him. I suspect he wanted to talk to me.

"Yeah, thanks." I say and Kaz gives me a short nod.

Kaz and I head to our next class, algebra, together.

Whenever Kaz goes anywhere, people make room. He is the king of this school, without even trying. Everyone knows he's a genius but doesn't care about grades. He's effortlessly cool. He doesn't talk to anyone he doesn't have to. The teachers love him even though he breaks all the rules. Kaz Brekker runs this school.

After school, I try to find Kaz' car in the parking lot. He always shows up later than everyone else, so he doesn't get one of the front spaces. I see his car and walk over. Kaz is already inside, windows down, rock music blaring. I got in on the passenger side. Kaz didn't look up from his phone. He was always on his phone in class. No one knew what he was doing. I suspected he was working on some startup project. Kaz locked his phone and threw it in the back of the car. He turned the keys and slammed the reverse gear into place. Kaz was the only person I knew who drove a stick-shift car. He sped out of the parking lot, hardly looking out for pedestrians. Once we were on a larger road, Kaz shifted up through the gears and turned down the radio.

"I need your help with something." He said, staring at the road.

"And what's that?" I asked. Kaz knew he could always ask me for help, though he hardly ever did.

"On Saturday, I need to get into Wylan's dad's office. He has something that belongs to one of my… associates. I'll use the party as a distraction to get it. But the way I know him, Mr. Van Eck is going to have his office triple locked." He explained.

I wasn't exactly 'in the know' about Kaz' affairs but in hard times, I was there to help.

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"I need someone to get in there. And I think you might be the right person. Wylan's bedroom is exactly above the office. If you were to climb down from the window, I think you should be able to just slide it open."

"You're telling me he's going to triple lock his office, but not his window?"

Kaz shrugs.

"I might have made a deal with a certain someone who lives in the house to leave the window open the day before."

I shake my head. "You're in too deep, aren't you?"

Kaz nods. Whatever business he has going on, it's not something that can go wrong.