THE TEST: Secret Society Dark Romance (4Horsemen Series Book 1)

by Elena Monroe

  “This is my two week notice... I felt bad, so I gave you a runner up prize, since you hate losing so much.” Her lip got trapped under her teeth.

  Justice had just stolen my first kiss and made sure it felt like an overwhelming loss.

  I managed to avoid my lips meeting another’s expertly my whole life until her.

  “I’m not HR. I don’t take two week notices, but nice try,” I retorted in her direction, while pulling away from her completely to walk to the driver’s side of my Porsche.

  Slipping inside against the leather, I took the minute to myself to focus on the tingle of her still on my lips.

  Falling to her ass, she didn’t expect my car to be this low when she grunted in annoyance, “I was only staying this long to find Abigail. I’m being serious, Vic.”

  “There’s plenty of things you don’t know for me to hold over your head.”

  “Care to expand? Enlighten me.”

  “What’s so scary in your past that the Clave is even keeping it from me?”

  Her whole body turned my direction. She was teasing me to look at her every inch until I gave in for more. Ripped jeans, a cropped shirt that said ‘Here comes trouble’ with a crown over the words, and Converse. None of it was something I liked before, but people don’t trip over a shirt. No, it’s always the feeling, the taste, and the way it’s never enough.

  Justice tasted like gold.

  Pure, first place gold.

  “Let me see my file, you fucking freak.” She actually rolled her eyes. I thought that ability vanished when you turned a certain age, but I guess not.

  “It’s two pages and all redacted anyways.” Reaching into the backseat, I fished around for the thin, useless thing to toss in her lap.

  Her silence wasn’t something I was used to. Not saying I didn’t appreciate the break from having come backs though, I did.

  “Peace Corps?”

  Radio silence.

  “That’s not my last name. Is this some kind of joke?” She closed the file with a heavy hand and a temper that flooded out of nowhere inside my small car.

  “What?”

  “It’s Fritz, not MacQuoid. How many Justices have worked for the Clave? Not really a common name unless you have activist parents.” She paused, but not long enough for me to answer. “I just found out my best friend isn’t actually dead, but being held captive by you psychopaths. That’s enough of a mystery for one night. Just take me home, boss.”

  She called a timeout on our games, even though my mind was working overtime now to understand how I asked for her file and got some chick with a different last name instead.

  Without permission, or care, she leaned forward and twisted the knob turning up Parkway Drive filling the silence between us.

  I barely made out her mumble, “They’re playing the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium this weekend.”

  She was looking but not seeing me yet. Big mistake. Knowing thy enemy is the only guarantee to win.

  Parkway Drive was my favorite band, and I bought a ticket during pre-order, but because I wear a suit and work for the Clave, anything that didn’t fit that image was too hard for her to swallow.

  Miss Peace Corps was, dare I say it, judging me. I knew better than to underestimate her again. That same mistake could be a win for me.

  JUSTICE

  All the emotions swirling around my organs were each specifically made to eat away at each other like some chemical warfare created for me and me only.

  My head? Confusion that I didn’t ask for.

  My sex? Wrapped in anger about the lust I felt for Vic.

  My spine? Stung so much I tasted metal on my tongue from the knife in my back.

  My lungs? Burning for old air, air that didn’t take the truth hostage and force me to breathe it in.

  My best friend (debatable now) was alive and well, living her best life with a guy who she’s known for not long enough for this to not be creepy. It was a Lifetime movie waiting to happen.

  All the while, Vic made competition really seem like toying with the parts of me I would rather ignore.

  The parts that wanted him to kiss me.

  The parts that liked knowing he was looking into who I am.

  The parts that felt already fucked over before I even knew him.

  The street lights lining the highway blurred by and strained my vision with light flares whenever I tried to focus on something new.

  MacQuoid. How many MacQuoids could there be with Justice as a first name?

  All my senses told me exactly how many: none.

  I’ve always been Justice Fritz. I’ve never not been myself, this person… me and the folder with all of me in it was making me question everything.

  My grandmother was still alive and well, living in the house my mother grew up in. I visited on weekends when there wasn’t a rally that needed me more. She raised me after the day that I hit a cop in the chest over and over again, because I didn’t like his news.

  Ironically, his news lit a fire inside me to keep fighting—for more, for better, for those who couldn’t.

  I still send his family Christmas cards as a distant thank you.

  The memories of life before their death, even their death in itself, is draped in a kind of haze my mind didn’t want clear. It was easier to make it harder to remember than to be haunted by their death every day.

  Losing a parent is hard. Now try losing both at the same time when you need them most.

  Vic’s voice rumbled through my static-filled mind: “We’re here. Your place.”

  I couldn’t manage to come up with anything to say. Anything I came up with would stem from all the emotions I was drowning in, not anything well thought out enough to compete.

  No exchange with Vic was simply two people talking. It was a tennis match, battleship, an examination of the Art of War.

  Slamming the door behind me a little too hard, I let the silence say goodbye for me. I didn’t even have enough space in my mind to contemplate how he knew to get to my house without GPS, when Abigail’s abduction video sprang to my mind.

  Being named Justice came with automatic hard lines, like hating liars. Ironic because now I was surrounded by them.

  Without stopping, I grabbed a pint of dairy-free Ben & Jerry’s before heading to my room with everything that just happened still sinking in.

  I gave Vic a two week notice, right after my hand was wrapped around his dick and my lips pushed against his.

  Our lips touching felt more taboo than my hands around how well-endowed he was.

  Out of all the bad news, that had to be the worst—that intimacy became an open invitation to destroy me, and Vic didn’t even pass up that invitation.

  People don’t leave Vic as often as he leaves people; that much was obvious when I pulled away from his kiss to see this flicker of hope in his eyes that I had never seen in someone.

  Like compassion was some abstract thought that he had never understood before.

  Pushing down my jeans and kicking off my Converse, I plopped down in the middle of my bed, folding my legs under me in front of my computer. I needed to Google search my first name and the weird last name, before someone other than Vic realized it wasn’t me.

  Every website I clicked on yielded an error 404 message, like a giant middle finger.

  Frustrated, I gave up and texted Meadow, hoping she had some hacker friends who could do me a solid. I didn’t want to willingly drag more people into Clave bullshit, but unsolved mysteries drove me crazy.

  I don’t know how Abigail watched the 40 minutes of mystery only to end up with a fade to black screen and so many theories it makes my brain hurt.

  I liked answers, proof, honesty- everything so crystal clear it was practically see-through.

  Checking my phone, I saw the missed call and voicemail from our doormat landlord. Only this time, his voice was firm, demanding, and made my stomach clench up into a tight fist when he said he’d been trying to get ahold of me.

&nb
sp; Rent was late.

  I was late.

  And short on last month.

  Covering Abigail’s half of rent was another reason to find her, but now it was clear she wasn’t coming back here anytime soon. I felt rejected in a blindsided way, the worst way. I was nothing but a supportive friend, but the wool was still pulled down on me for the millionth time in my life. Always when you get the most comfortable.

  Rejected.

  Betrayed.

  Left for dead.

  I wanted to bolt, but I never actually did. Instead, I make reckless decisions that only push people away more so I don’t have to worry about them leaving me first.

  Abigail was opening old wounds without realizing it.

  Then there’s the fact that my temper spoke for me when I decided to quit the Clave without another job lined up.

  Screwed wasn’t the right word.

  I was fucked.

  Browsing the ads where I found my topless maid jobs, I picked up a gig after work. Short notice, but I had no choice with the betrayal and my now aggravated doormat landlord forcing my bad-decision muscle to flex. The money was good, and I couldn’t be picky at this point. I needed cash faster than payday next week.

  That’s the thing about morally corrupt jobs: they pay in cash, and they pay more for discretion.

  I could justify everything if it meant putting my money towards what really mattered, like the protest next week.

  Justice doesn’t come free, and anyone who says it does has never been on the short end of the stick.

  In the morning, I woke up, half brushed my teeth, smoothed down my hair without a comb, and threw on whatever was half dirty on my floor.

  Vic didn’t care enough to say anything, so I wasn’t going to care until he did.

  I was still half asleep when I walked down the small hill leading to our apartment complex to the street to flag down the blue city bus.

  My carbon footprint was prestigious, thanks to the way of life I had grown accustomed to. Public or carpool transportation, no plastic unless I could reuse it, vegan diet, and planting trees monthly. I was the poster child for living clean.

  Pushing the volume up on my phone, I let the same song that boomed over Vic’s speakers flood between my ears. It was basically replaying since I poured out of his car, and no matter what I heard since then, it drowned out anything trying to take its place.

  My phone buzzed in my hand, and I cursed the vibration that jolted me more awake when I saw Vic’s name across the screen.

  VIC: I’m leaving work early today.

  ME: Why are you being so nice?

  VIC: Do you want me to punch you when you get here? I mean, I can. I don’t have a problem hitting people who ask for it.

  ME: You’re still an asshole.

  I was still shaking off last night, and now I was just bitch slapped by Vic being nice to me out of nowhere.

  His newfound niceness was making me half regret putting in my two weeks. I was going to pretend I hadn’t said anything out of anger until he brought it up. Angry or not, I needed the paychecks.

  The office was quiet, like it always was this early; the only people here were ass kissers and Vic. There was no middle ground. I didn’t know where I fell exactly. I wasn’t kissing his ass, but I also wasn’t as dedicated to the work we did here, not like Vic. Work was simply routine and somewhere else to be other than my apartment.

  Dropping my bag down onto the floor, I sat back and kicked my feet onto the desk, pulling out my phone, anxiously awaiting any information Meadow got from our resident hacker.

  I knew better than anyone that the resistance was full of night owls, and I was about twelve hours too early, but I checked my phone notifications every minute regardless.

  Vic’s voice sounded off behind me, and my spine shivered, “You decide if I’m punching you? Maybe it can be a parting gift.”

  With a sarcastic laugh, “Let’s not make this awkward. I wasn’t being serious about what I said… about the two weeks.”

  Way to go, Justice. Really stood strong in not mentioning it unless he did.

  I tried to roll my eyes and act as if it was the world’s greatest joke that went over his head. Not much would go over his head; he was a tower covered in frost with no sense of humor—only because he was always the one probably laughing at us peons.

  “Awkward is right for the word vomit still dripping from your lips. Don’t forget I’m leaving early. You can work at Khaos's desk; his PA is off today.”

  Everything in me jumped at the thought of working for Khaos. I had heard Abigail and Ethan’s horror stories. He was the kind of reckless I recognized in myself—a flaw in our design meant to keep people at arm’s length.

  “Absolutely not,” I gritted out.

  “That’s the first time he’s fielded a rejection.” Finally looking up from his phone, he made a face at me that looked similar to questioning my sanity. “Go clean up your mess you left last night. Bowen is down in the garage already, so make yourself useful if you wanna be in a bad mood.”

  Vic was always this kind of aggressive, but my bad mood wasn’t down for letting it slide. Sitting up, I kicked my feet off the desk and stared at him longer than I had before, only just now noticing the green that bloomed into blue, like when the ocean creates an ombre in its pattern. There was something so contrasting about his eyes that made me take his personality with a grain of salt.

  “I can be in a bad mood without you being an asshole.” Pushing past him, I made sure I collided with him even though he didn’t move one inch, and I basically used all my strength. It was like a bad metaphor for how giants never fall easily.

  Bowen was the lesser evil. My demons didn’t recognize his in the slightest, and I preferred them not to become cohorts in some scheme to bring down humanity.

  Thankfully, my bad decisions lately just meant finding a stranger and leaving it to a one night stand. Khaos probably wouldn’t be against that, which was the problem. Helping Bowen expand my moral outlook was the lesser I had to apologize for later.

  You know, if my best friend ever came back.

  The garage was a murky kind of hot and dim, letting everything make a shadow. It was creepy in a way that made you tense, waiting for something to pop out and scare you.

  A domain fit for Bowen.

  I watched guys I had never seen before—new men with low morals and faces that hurt to look at. If you looked too long, the shit they’d seen and done might rub off on you.

  “Vic sent me down here to help. What can I do?” I said it loud enough over the noise of moving crates and metal snapping together, but no one acknowledged me.

  Bowen finally looked at me, with a bandana over his mouth with only his piercing murky gray eyes showing. “How did you manage to piss him off now?”

  “Don’t start with me. I get it. You’re all big and bad. I’ll kiss the ring tomorrow.” Sitting on the stairs, I watched them move all the illegal goods into a van, just like the one that dropped it off. “What is all this for anyways?”

  I was fishing. It couldn't hurt to find out some inside information. The thought of planning a future protest solely around the dirty work of the Clave gave me butterflies.

  Bowen turned towards me, facing me head on with his hands busy quality checking a gun with no regard to how it was aimed. “Just because Vic lets you talk to him anyway you please doesn’t mean you can come down here demanding answers. I know exactly who you are.”

  “And here I was thinking you might be the nice one…”

  Cocking the gun in his hand, he looked down the chamber. “That was your mistake. None of us are nice. We’re all different types of evil. Some demons shout and others are silent. Which ones did your dead parents leave you with?”

  My body turned hot almost on command, and I could feel my veins clog with anger at Bowen’s question.

  Who asks someone about their dead parents so casually?

  Who gets this fired up at the mere mention of their dem
ise?

  Clearly, someone who was holding onto it like it was yesterday…

  I stood up ready to take the gun from him and show him exactly how messy my emotions inside were when I caught myself.

  I was mid bad decision, and I was letting these four assholes yank something buried down too deep to dig up, yet they did—all the anger I suppressed. These four assholes dug it up every time their mouths opened to let some privileged comment spew out, and their elitism they loved to rub in everyone’s face felt like a slap down. They all acted untouchable, like mundane pains didn’t lick their tough skin and that made the anger inside me turn into something I had mastered ignoring: violence.

  I had a history of violence I choked out when I threw myself into the movement—every movement. There is no place for hate when you’re trying to create change. I chose the high road.

  My past was buried, but not gone.

  Getting into fights that had me expelled from school multiple times a year wasn’t something I was proud of. I grieved for longer than normal. I wore my parents’ death like a fuzzy sweater, and people started judging that when it was an entire year later.

  The mean girls of my school decided my grieving was something they could point out on a daily basis, until I hit Sabrina so hard in the face I broke her nose. The violence was controlling me at that point. It took years of digging up dirt in my mind before I could bury it.

  With one stupid question about my demons and dead parents, Bowen managed to wipe away years of work on myself.

  Heading back to my desk, I stomped the whole way there, pissed off, even more angry than I normally was, and seething at the betrayal still lodged in my spine like a slipped disc. All I wanted to do was leave early, just like Vic was going to. I just had to figure out how I was going to do that without explaining myself.

  I didn’t owe the world any explanations, and certainly not Vic.

  Snatching up my bag and phone, I pushed Vic’s office door open, only to see him on the phone. This was perfect. I could mouth some simple sentence with a hand gesture and get out of there. I stood, planted with my hand holding the door open for a quick getaway with my bag slung over my shoulder and my phone in hand, when I caught his attention.