by Eden O'Neill
She was alone with me, my hands bracing my arms as I lounged back with her. Honestly, I had no idea how I hadn’t made the connection between her and her sister when we initially met. She looked so much like Paige it was scary, same curve to her cheeks, full and pouty lips most girls over lined the hell with their lipstick just to achieve. Paige had a lot of girlfriends my freshman year, easy to see why, and though December was more quiet, they were like mirror images of each other. It only made what happened to her sister all the more chilling. Looking at December was like staring at a ghost.
She looked less and less alive in the passing days since Christmas Eve, all of this today even worse. I wanted to go back to Luke, take his phone and everyone else’s just to make sure not a fraction of what I saw on December’s face now ever returned. She didn’t deserve it.
I dampened my lips. “You all right?” Again, I had no idea about her relationship with Prinze, but it was something. Besides this reaction now, Prinze had pretty much mutated into a fucking monster when I called him out on that. It was like a switch went off, the need for blood in his eyes. They obviously had something going on, at least at one time.
December’s swallow was hard, her breath shallow when she folded her arms. “That was him.”
Yes. Yes, that was Prinze, and yeah, he was a complete and utter dick for doing something like this full well knowing December would see it. It all enraged me, really wanting to know his end game, but since none of this was my business, this between him and her… My jaw moved. “Yeah, seems that way.”
“And the other guys too.” Her expression hardened. “Jax, Knight, LJ…”
“Probably, yeah.” I didn’t know a whole lot about them all, who they were now, I meant. But if they were in these halls and this place, they were acting just like the seniors I remembered when I went here. They were arrogant, self-centered, and threw their weight around. I supposed if I’d stayed that would have been me too. I was a piece of shit back then, and only arrogance would allow someone to do not just what those guys did, but post it somewhere for the world to see. This wasn’t a mistake, a sex tape coming out. If they recorded it, they wanted people to see it. That much was true.
But did they realize the effects of such a thing, the effect on her, December? I continued to wait, December studying her shoes and, honestly, I wanted to call it right there. This was too much, too frickin’ much to her, and maybe even cruel. Her sister had died for fuck’s sake.
And you’re using her.
I didn’t know if that’s what it was considered since December knew the truth about why I’d ultimately come back. She knew why I returned to Maywood Heights, this town and all this drama, and not only did she know, we were along for this ride together. We’d come up with a plan that Christmas Eve night, a plan we were already enacting, but this might all be too much for her. It might be too much for me to make her go through all this. We had to get inside the Court, and she’d been on board with that since holiday break ended.
That was before all this, before whatever all this with Prinze was. Since Christmas Eve, we’d little more than crossed each other’s paths, an unsaid something between us, but we kept in each other’s respective corners. I’d stayed, in his words, “on my side of the yard,” but I wouldn’t be for much longer. December and I were already putting things in motion here.
That was, if she was still on board.
I folded a hand over my eyes. “December…”
I was going to give her an out. If all of this was too much, it didn’t matter what I wanted. I considered her a friend since I’d come back home, and friends didn’t make their friends do things that caused them pain. I really wasn’t the guy I’d been when I lived here anymore.
I dropped a hand. “If you want to call this, not go through with any of this, I understand—”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Surprised, I faced her, a determined look in her eyes I hadn’t seen. Up until this point, she’d pretty much let the talking happen to her. She was with me, but she hadn’t been “with me” if that made sense. True, she was all for what we’d planned to do, but where I’d been making those plans, she’d been sitting in the passenger’s seat.
She didn’t look that way now, her arms crossed when she stood up to me. She looked down the hallway. “We need to do this. Have you changed your mind?”
I hadn’t, so I shook my head. I swallowed. “I just wanted to give you an out if you had.”
Her tongue moved just a bit over her mouth, doing so clearly in thought. Even still, I stared for longer than I should have.
I looked away.
“I don’t want an out,” she said, causing me to find her eyes again. “I want revenge.”
Revenge… so dark in ways again she hadn’t sounded before. She’d been so broken that night on Christmas Eve by the information that had been delivered to her.
I knew because I had to pick up the pieces.
How long had we stayed in my father’s study that night, not even talking to each other? We’d just been together, silent while the fire crackled in the corner. We sat so long I’d been numb when I’d gotten up, and by the end, I’d had to help her too. She was a shell when she’d left that room.
But maybe not now.
“Revenge,” I said, and I got it. I wanted revenge too. My life had been destroyed by this place, Prinze, his Court, and what that Court meant to this town. It ruined lives, and it ruined me. My jaw clenched. “All right.”
She faced me, her breaths even. “You hear from the council?”
She knew all about my proposal to them, no information concealed between us. She knew I put a bid in to be seen, to plead my case amongst the senior members of the Court. I nodded. “They agreed to meet with me, and it’s all a go to do so. If they say I can pledge, there’ll be a vote by what we call the Collective. Every member of the Court will be able to say if they’re either for or against me joining. My odds are really good. I got lots of family in the Court.”
My dad had been over the frickin’ moon when I told him, his estranged son back and finally doing what was destined. It was things he’d destined for me, the mayor’s son.
My eyes narrowed. “I’ll be in the Court in no time.”
Because that was the plan, we’d get inside the Court and do so together. I didn’t have any power on the outside, could ask no questions to confirm what was going on behind the scenes. We needed to know more about what happened that night with her sister.
And the only way was to get inside the Court’s house.
December was silent with this new information, silent but not vacant. She wasn’t just a passenger on this ride anymore, something dark in her eyes, and that’s something she probably had to have. She’d never survive this process, this town, if she didn’t and the same was for me. In order to get into the Court, I’d have to do their haze, and it was a haze I’d have to do with a bunch of guys who didn’t want me there. I’d made some of their lives hell when I’d been here, the epitome of a bully.
And I was sure they weren’t going to let me forget it.
“And you’ll get hazed,” December said, pulling the words right out of my thoughts. “They’ll do to you what they did to Paige.”
It’d be what we think happened to Paige. Again, we still didn’t know. “It could be anything, but I don’t think it will be that. The senior members really didn’t like that, and with everything that happened with your sister…” I pushed out a harsh breath. “They’d be too bold to try that again, and I’m sure whatever the guys end up doing, I’ll be strong enough to handle it.”
I’d have to be, if only for her. If I broke, she might break too, no option for retreat.
She faced me, nodding. “We’re going to get them back, Ramses,” she said, more of that darkness in her voice. “We’re going to show this town who they really are.”
Three
December
My feet slammed the track days later, whizzing past girl after girl in
the academy’s rec center. I didn’t see people anymore, not in gym class like now or even in my other classes. They became a blur, an oblong deformity. They became an obstacle.
A hurdle came down the track.
I leaped over it without thought. I must have landed. What went up must come down.
Must come down…
Another hurdle, and I did the same as before, crossing into the path of another girl. I’d been quicker than her, quicker than everyone.
Gotta stay quick…
Breathing must have been optional. I didn’t recall breath. I didn’t recall thought. All memories and physical action were automatic. I breezed through life like I blew down this track, anything not to feel something. Eventually, a whistle pulled me out of the flow state, and it all hit me again. Reality hit. One had to breathe to survive, and life had to continue.
He had to pay.
The sickness I replaced with anger, physically swallowing it back as I sagged forward and attempted to catch my breath in my gym wear. The navy shorts and orange tee kept me cool under the recreation center lights, and the steady breaths kept me from falling. I latched on to them like a bat to a dark cave, the only thing I could do to keep my sanity. To my right, our gym teacher, Ms. Hollis, approached me, shaking her head with a smile as she wrote something down on a clipboard.
“Excellent time as always, Miss Lindquist,” she proclaimed, stepping back when the rest of the class crossed her path. I’d been several seconds ahead of everyone, boys included. Ms. Hollis’s smile widened. “I could have used you on the track team last fall.”
Last fall…
I couldn’t think.
You can’t think.
I shut my eyes, some laughter and giggles saddling up beside me. I turned only to find red hair and a smug expression. Mira and her friends shared a gym class with me this semester, the only class we had together after winter break ended. Hands on their hips, they huffed between laughs, not as fast as me but that hadn’t stopped them from giggling in my direction.
Mira cupped a freckled hand over her mouth, spinning a familiar silver necklace in her other hand. She always spun it, her lifeline apparently.
“Could have used you last fall,” she parroted, mocking me to her friends but not loud enough for Ms. Hollis’s to hear her. She never heard, going on to the other students and reporting their times to them.
Don’t breathe. Don’t feel.
Escaping the giggles, I physically escaped, heading over to the bleachers and grabbing a towel. I took the long way to the showers, the best way since no one else bothered taking the route. I was alone and gratefully when I finally made it into the locker room.
Recall went dormant again under chrome spigots, water hot enough to probably scorch the skin off most people but not me. I liked hot showers, my skin used to it after literally shower after shower this way. I did the same thing at home, well, at Rosanna’s. I was still living there after break, and not only did I shower hot, I slept with noise, so much noise. I had Hershey, my chocolate Labrador puppy, in my bed, but I wore headphones when sleeping. I played rock music as loud as I could, maybe averaging an hour or two of sleep a night. It was the best I could do most nights and better than nothing. If I slept any other way, I had dreams, dreams about train tracks and my sister’s screams.
I hadn’t even been there the night she died and I heard her, the screams agonizing.
I chilled under hot water, her voice coming for me. She called out to me no matter what the time of day, and I couldn’t stop the train. I couldn’t help her.
At least not in the conventional sense.
My sister was gone, but I was not only here and alive, I wasn’t without a means to help her. I may have lost my sister, but her truth didn’t have to be. I had to report what was going on, what truly happened to her.
I had to bring Royal Prinze down.
He was so out of line with everything, that orgy he’d been a part of only consistent. It only showed he didn’t give a fuck. Not about me or Paige. He was getting his itch scratched, and meanwhile, I was broken and my sister was dead. He didn’t have a heart.
He didn’t have a soul.
I turned under hot water, secure again in my stance. I was going to handle things the only way I knew how, and I had Ramses there to help me. He’d been burned too by the Court, and together, we were going to make waves. We had to.
Sounds told me I wasn’t alone in the showers anymore, someone else choosing to use the same dirty old showers I chose. I usually came over here after gym because the uppity bitches at this school like to use the new ones.
I turned the thing off, grabbing my towel and wrapping it around me. I didn’t see who’d joined me in the showers, and regardless, I didn’t care. Instead, I made it to my locker, immediately going for my phone when I opened it. I’d been waiting for a text message.
Nothing.
I’d been waiting on a text from Ramses for over two days now, the kid basically ghosting me all weekend. He hadn’t been without reason, though.
Where are you?
He’d had a meeting with that Court council after school the last day I saw him, something he told me in last period via text. I hadn’t even gotten to see him before he left. He simply said, Just notified they’re meeting with me tonight. Here we go…
I thought here we go indeed as I got dressed, trying my best not to freak out and worry. If something unusual went down he’d tell me something. We didn’t keep secrets from each other.
We weren’t like them.
Forcing myself to believe that, I unwrapped the towel from my body, but a buzz in my locker had me closing that towel right up. I immediately reached for my phone with thoughts of relief, but as it turned out that was fleeting. The text wasn’t from Ramses, but Birdie.
I swiped.
Birdie: Hey! Want to hang out after school?
No. I didn’t want to hang out after school. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on with Ramses. Gripping my hair, I shook that freak-out off and focused on my phone.
Me: Did you invite the guys and Ramses?
This was a possibility, and if she had heard from him, I could finally breathe again.
Birdie: I did.
Me: And?
Birdie: They’re coming.
The sigh of relief started too early, another chime bringing me back down to the ground real friggin’ quick.
Birdie: All but Ramses. He must still be sick or something. Didn’t respond. You coming tho?
I didn’t respond, putting both my phone and my head in my locker. My nerves were fucking shot, all this too much.
Don’t feel. Don’t feel.
If I did, they won, and I shut my eyes. Royal Prinze and his loyal band of cronies wouldn’t rule my life. They could have everything in life, win everything, but they wouldn’t rule me. I refused, and sucking all this shit up, I pulled my head out of my locker and got myself dressed. I didn’t know where Ramses was, but by the end of the day, I was going to know something. I’d ask whoever I needed to ask to find out something. I had to, way too fucking worried for my own good.
I slid on my flats with more than a little aggression and only stopped a bit because I heard more giggles. Her giggles. It took all I had not to punch Mira in the face daily and for so many things. It angered me I still cared that she existed and even more that every time she spun that necklace around her neck, I wanted to strangle her with it. I shouldn’t care, but for whatever reason, each and every time I saw her with it struck something in me.
I swallowed hard, putting on another shoe. I started to close my locker when the giggling sounded to inaudible levels.
“Oh my God. I totally can’t believe you guys actually made a sex tape.”
I paused, just standing there. It hadn’t been Mira’s voice but a friend.
“I know,” Mira sighed. Another fucking giggle. “He hadn’t touched me in weeks and then let his freak out.”
The band of girly cackles sounded aga
in, and I shook my head.
Hadn’t touched her in weeks?
Unusual, I listened on, more of that bragging on Mira’s end, but then another sigh.
“He’s such a tease,” she said. “He gives me all that, then totally leaves me hanging all weekend.”
“Yeah. What was up with that?” one of her friends asked.
“Apparently, he was out all weekend making some pledge’s life hell. Must have done a number on him because Royal’s not even at school today.”
My heart stopped, literally about to blast out of my chest.
“Hopefully, you can reach him today.”
“Yeah, hopefully. You can’t tease a girl like that and then—”
Screams, screams because I slammed my locker and scared the shit out of them. I hadn’t cared, grabbing my stuff and leaving. I had my phone to my ear in two seconds, the final bell ending classes for the day right after. The halls immediately filled up, and I dodged people, trying to remain present on my call.
“Yo, this is Ramses—”
“Ramses, what’s going on? Mira was saying all kinds of shit and—”
“You’ve missed me, but I’ll be sure to get back to you soon. Also, leave me a text. Who checks their voicemails anymore?”
Groaning, I hung up, sending him a text. I asked him where the fuck he was and if I should worry. I asked him if I should tell someone… I don’t know, anything about what we were doing. If he was starting to pledge, this may have come as a surprise to him. In fact, so surprising he might not have had time to tell me. Even still, whatever happened would have concluded after the weekend, right?
Dread befell me when I thought about the hazing process. I didn’t know anything about the Court, absolutely nothing, but if Ramses started it and something went wrong, he might not be able to tell me anything. He could be hurt or worse, and my phone to my ear again, I blew up his. I left him another voicemail, rerouting to my locker to get on my coat and grab my book bag. In the next seconds, I had them on and then was sprinting out front.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Lindquist.” My dad’s driver, Hubert, was out front to meet me as per usual. I still was living at Rosanna’s house, but Hubert was there to drive me to and from school. My dad insisted on him assisting me for whatever reason, and I only didn’t fight it because I could use the ride.
