His mood continued well into the rest of the evening. Nobody dared to ask him what was wrong, not after Edwin had the misfortune of happening to be in front of the TV when he got home.
The usual suspects spoke at dinner about the usual things—Casey about her play, Marti about some various mishap, and so on and so forth. Derek offered no part in any of the conversations, and not even Marti attempted to draw him out of his silent rage. His dining utensils screeched against the plate as he ate in a violent manner (which drew a disgusted sneer out of Casey, but she kept her mouth shut).
His footsteps thumped and echoed in the house; the sound of his door slamming doing the same.
The rest of his night had been spent wandering aimlessly on the internet. He only half-paid attention to what he was doing; his eyes flickered to his phone every few seconds.
By ten thirty, there had been no contact with the alleged "prankster", and he collapsed on his bed, drifting off the sleep quickly. He didn't wake up until his alarm went off.
Breakfast went much smoother than the morning before. While a little voice in the back of his head nagged at him, curious as to why he hadn't been bothered by another odd message or call, all, he ignored it and had the feeling that today was going to be a very good day.
Casey's usual retorts didn't provoke much of a heated response out of him, and he smirked at her bewildered expression.
"Oh, Derek," George said, seconds before rushing out the door, "I called the cell phone company for you. Remind me to give you your new number tonight, okay?"
Derek responded with genuine thanks.
Casey looked at him, eyes narrowing into suspicious slits.
"What's up with you?"
"Nothing. Are you riding with me or not?"
Not even Casey and her creamsicle moron of a boyfriend could shake his good mood—even if she did fawn over him and go all girly and air-headed on him like she always did.
All of that, however, had quickly shattered by third period. While the teacher droned on about a Gerund Phrase (whatever that was) his phone vibrated with a text message notification. His heart sank.
The text was brief, clichéd, and annoying.
I will show you how far the rabbit hole goes.
It was in that moment that Derek decided he needed help. And he couldn't turn to Sam or Ralph about this—they'd laugh and be absolutely useless. No, Derek Venturi needed a special breed to help him with this—a smarter breed.
That breed was defined as Nerd, pure and simple. Worse than Casey, but smarter than her, too. He didn't need any run-of-the-mill asthmatic geek, either. No, he needed the smartest, the ringleader. The invisible—but still widely known—Alan Wright.
This might be a problem. Not only was he Derek Venturi, and it would be social suicide to seek help with someone as invisible and obviously uncool as Alan, Derek would also have to figure out how to get him to help the most popular guy in school.
Alan wouldn't fall all over him like some geeks would. He would treat him with icy contempt, much like Casey did.
The bell rang, and fourth period was beginning. Derek needed to find the socially awkward enigma—and fast. His guess was that Alan would probably be in the computer lab during lunch. He'd just tell Sam and Ralph he got lunch detention or something.
With people either distracted by going to class or going to lunch, it was going to be relatively easy to slip into the technology hallway. His sneakers squeaked as he walked down the narrow and silent hallway.
Computers hummed as he entered. The warm air brushed past his face. In the back of the room, hunched in the corner, was Alan Wright.
From his position, Derek guessed he didn't want to be found—which implied he was doing something he shouldn't be, like hacking into the school's sprinkler system or whatever it is he spent his time doing.
He walked toward the hunched figure, and Alan's eyes flickered to his at the sound.
His lips curved into a wry smile. "Oh, it's my very favorite person! What's the matter, Venturi—get lost on your way to the janitor's closet?"
Jeez, he really was a male Casey.
Derek took a seat next to him. "Cut the crap, Alan. I need your—"
"I don't play well with others," interjected the blonde, sneering slightly. The boy's blue eyes flickered back down to his desk as though he didn't care what he needed.
"—help." Derek finished flatly, sighing.
"Look, Alan, I know you think I have issues with people like you, but I don't. I could care less who you date or who you have sex with."
"Wow, the amazing Venturi doesn't care. Should I be falling all over myself now with relief? I've heard you're scrappy," Alan shot back, his eyes not leaving the keyboard, though his hands hadn't moved since Derek entered.
Derek knew the words behind that statement. You never stopped the harassment, and you very well could have.
"I'm sorry about what happened last year, okay? And I'm sorry those assholes didn't get kicked off the team or expelled."
Derek tried to appeal to his ego instead. "I wouldn't be going to you if anyone else could be doing the job I'm asking of you."
It worked. "Okay," he said, "What do you need me to do?"
The brunette pulled out his cell phone, showing him the text message. "I need you to find out who sent this."
Alan's brow lifted lazily. "Amateur stuff. Let me load the text onto my computer and I'll see what I can do." He fished out a long black cord, plugged it into his laptop, and extracted the message from his cell.
The phone was plopped back into his hand. "When do you think you'll have some info?"
Alan smirked. "Meet me after school, at the dot-com café. Five. Don't be late, hockey boy, I got stuff to do."
Derek nodded. "I'll see you then." He got up, stopping at the door.
"Hey, Alan?" The dark-haired boy looked at him with disinterest. "Thanks."
"Tell anyone about this and your computer will not survive the week."
Derek snorted. "The feeling's mutual, Wright."
The rest of the day was uneventful—not even his phone went off. Hockey practice went well, and his coach was relieved to see his star player back on track.
He was the first one out of the locker room.
Casey met up with him, wrinkling her nose at the smell of his bag. Derek looked at her, shadows of annoyance forming across his face.
"What are you doing here, Spacey?"
"I need a ride home."
Dammit. That would mean he'd have to figure out some other way to meet Alan. Derek sighed heavily, grumbling about how she should get her own damn car.
"Sorry to interfere with your oh-so-pressing social life," Casey sniped.
She bitched and moaned the whole way home. About her mannequin boyfriend, about the smell in the car, and about the fact that the radio was broken.
"Casey, we're home. Get out." Derek commanded. Her jaw dropped.
"Excuse me? Who died and made you boss? And where exactly do you think you're going?"
Derek rolled his eyes. "Away from your whining ass. Go call Mr. Creamsicle and bitch to him. Last time I checked, I wasn't your boyfriend, or even your friend."
Casey's eyes flashed. She took off her seatbelt and exited the car, giving him a classic heated Casey expression. "You are an ass, Derek. I don't know what any girl sees in you—"
"Except an amazing body and lips that would make you scream my name, Space Case." Derek said in a bored tone.
He is getting sloppier with his rapport lately, he notes.
Casey blushed at his comment. "De-rek!" she exclaims, slamming the door.
Finally.
He notes that she doesn't deny his comment, shooting him a glare before she enters the house, and Derek smirked.
He squealed out of the driveway, turning on the radio as he turned left. Casey hadn't checked the volume when she turned it on, and he didn't volunteer this information.
When he got to the café, it was four-forty five, and Alan was already there, sipping an iced tea as he shifted through a folder of papers and tapped a key on his laptop. Spying Derek through the sparse crowd, Alan regarded him with a cool gaze and a bored tone.
If Derek wasn't so dense, Alan thought lightly, he would be able to see through his whole 'bored' and 'disinterested' façade. The truth was, he was very interested. However, crushing on a very straight, very popular hockey player—no matter how attractive that smirk was—was an extremely stupid idea.
So he played up the hatred, there was a fine line between hate and desire anyway.
He thought someone needed to inform Casey McDonald of this because she did a poor job of not making it seem like she wanted Derek.
There was, however, a collection of whispers he well-guarded from her that avidly painted pictures about them since the time the two joined forces to get him elected (pictures she would blush about). It was really only a matter of time before it all began to surface.
Derek slid into the booth parallel from him.
"Cell phone." Alan commanded, and Derek gave him the cell phone. His fingers brushed against the hockey player's hand lightly when he grabbed it—Derek didn't even notice—and his stomach flipped.
"Okay," Alan said, his voice momentarily shaking before he forced an ornery expression across his face, "The thing with text messages is that the font cannot be changed—it's universal, mostly."
Derek looked at him blankly. Alan continued.
"However, the message you got employs an unusual font. Probably for cliché emphasis. The only way this could happen is if this was emailed to you."
"But it showed up as a text message." Derek argued, clearly confused.
"Whoever sent this to you didn't want you to know that he was using a computer. Now, the way he made it appear as a message from a phone as opposed to a computer—it implies that he's not going to be easy to find."
"Can't you track him through the email?"
"In theory."
"So what's the problem?"
"He's using a public email server to send these messages, which would typically be easy for me to track."
"I'm sensing a big 'but' here."
"When I tried to find his IP address, it wiped my computer. He knew I was looking for him. Whoever this is has an extensive knowledge of computer viruses and how to write them."
"So basically, you can't find him?"
"I can tell you this guy, he's not at Thompson. The kind of level he's at—the sophistication of his viruses, they're well beyond any student at Thompson."
Derek sighed. "Great."
Alan shrugged. "He'll get bored with you, Venturi. You're not that great."
You are such a liar, you worm. Alan thought to himself.
"Gee, thanks." Derek muttered sarcastically. "Thanks for the help anyway."
"Later." Alan called out weakly as he exited the shop. Derek gave him a salute with a smirk before starting his car and leaving.
That fucking smirk… Alan thought miserably. His muscles had turned to absolute mush. Well, all except one…
He was jolted out of his woes by a pop-up on his computer. "GrimmSin" was the website's title.
I know what you're doing, you little faggot. Did you really think I'd let you find my email address by mistake? You don't want to know how far the rabbit hole goes. Keep helping Venturi and you lose.
Alan frowned. How mature. He rolled his eyes. This little stalker of Venturi's thought he was hot shit.
"Time for a reality check," he murmured, snagging the website address before his computer crashed for a second time.
Derek would be pleased about this new discovery. Maybe he'd even show some concern for the sarcastic geek.
Alan's stomach flipped.
Oh, he had it for Venturi. Bad.