Dean’s long arm shot out to stop me, ushering me backward into the coding room. He quietly shut the door. “What are you thinking?” he asked, his tone sharp. “Do you want Tanner to know you saw that? Do you know what he could do to you?”

“Are you?” I snapped, pointing toward the closed door. I’d never seen Dean upset before…but he was clearly more upset about me being willing to go help the girl despite the risks than over what we just witnessed. “You heard and saw the same thing I did!”

He raised his hands in an attempt to get me to lower my voice. “I did.”

“Then how can you stop me from going to talk to her?”

He stopped before me. “Because I did see what you saw. He blackmailed her.”

“Right!” I flung my arms up. “So why are we standing here doing a whole lot of nothing?”

“Because,” he said. “We have to be smarter than that. If he knew we knew what just went down…” He raked his fingers through his hair, and a calculative look flashed behind his eyes. He was somewhere else, working on multiple problems at once.

My shoulders dropped. “I can’t do nothing.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. But I can’t have you in trouble t—” He sighed, cutting off his words. “I can’t, either. Just give me a minute to think.”

He paced the small space before me, the intensity far more than I would’ve guessed for the situation. Was he hiding something? No, he was more open than anyone I’d ever met. I took a deep breath. Watching his mind work was like a shot of clarity and calm to my own brain. Tanner was pushing things too far—the board threatening his job had to be the culprit, but it didn’t excuse this intense personal vendetta he seemed to have.

“I know what to do,” I said, brushing past him. I stopped with my hand on the knob. “You can stay here, if you want. Not be an accomplice or whatever you want to call it.”

He stalked toward me, his hand covering mine on the knob. “DC, remember?”

Something warm and strong pulsed in the center of my chest.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

I motioned for him to follow me then led him into the now-empty hallway. I made the twists and turns, carefully opening the doors to the principal’s office. Tanner’s door was closed; either he’d left or he was in there and wanting privacy. He wasn’t my objective.

The door to his left was.

Ms. Howard was behind her desk, working late, totally absorbed in her computer screen as she clicked away. Dean followed me inside and shut the door, the soft click causing Ms. Howard to jump.

“Holy sh—” She cleared her throat, laying her palms flat on her desk. “You two scared me.”