by Eden O'Neill
I ignored the mask. I hadn’t even changed my clothes. I was still in jeans and a T-shirt from when I’d showered at Windsor House. They had spare rooms there. In my case and some of the others, we had our own and even kept spare clothes on the property. The Court often held events there, retreats and stuff, so it was nice to be able to quickly change or even sleep if necessary.
Wells lowered the mask as I passed, both Thatcher and him exchanging glances. I nodded at them, then went deeper inside the warehouse.
There wasn’t much to it, dark and dank. In fact, the only light came from floor lights the guys and I had set up for today. It was still pretty early, so there wasn’t much light outside.
Here we go.
This shit was actually happening, and though I knew what I’d find when I came across Wolf, I expelled a breath.
He sat in front of Mayberry, two chairs in the room. Our principal occupied the other, a face covering across her eyes. She panted in a hoodie and sweats and had streaks of dried tears below the mask. The plan was just to take her, do no harm.
Even if she deserved it.
The tears were obviously from the fear of it all, but at least they’d gotten her quiet. At my presence, Wolf shifted, and Mayberry did too, gasping.
“What’s going on?” She jerked around in her chair. “Let me go. Please, I have nothing!”
I snarled at her, but Wolf said nothing to her when he got up. Meeting me at the door, he folded a hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the room.
“Where’s your mask?” he asked outside the door, and I shook my head. I was going to talk to her face to face. I wanted her to see my face. I almost dared the bitch to say something to someone.
I could bury her.
My family ran this town, and though it was a risk, I wouldn’t hide behind a mask.
Though Wolf appeared surprised, he said nothing when I alluded to not wearing one. I started to go back into the room, but he raised a hand.
“So you were with Sloane?” he asked, mentioning her now for some reason. He wet his lips. “I’m really sorry. I…”
I didn’t cut him off. He just stopped speaking, flustered when Wolf didn’t get fucking flustered. I assumed this must have had something to do with our current situation and this woman.
I placed a hand on him. “Thank you for taking care of all this today,” I said, assuming that was what his nerves were. “I appreciate it.”
He’d done it so I wouldn’t have to, and maybe so quickly in part because of our fight. He was trying to make things right.
He was being my friend.
None of these guys had to stand by me now, and I racked up another tally. Another debt. Another sin.
It was time to finish this.
Wolf let me go, and I shut everything out. I closed the door, only Mayberry and me in here. In the case there actually were repercussions from today, only I would receive them. She wouldn’t know anything about my friends.
If she was going to hurt someone after today, it’d only be me.
I was well aware of that when I tugged the blindfold off her and her shock was evident. She blanched, completely wide-eyed, and I’d never seen her in such a way. Her hair was all over the place, disheveled. I assumed that had to do with the kidnapping. Despite being a coke whore, she hid that shit well.
“Mr. Prinze.” She eyed around, gasping but the door was closed. It was just her and me. “What’s going on?”
I took out my cell phone, scrolling to screenshots. I showed her conversations, showed her every message snapped of her talking with Charlie that last day on social media.
Her face paled. “Why are you showing me this? What is this?”
I didn’t put hands on a woman, but in that moment, I questioned the strength I had to hold back.
Really, what was I becoming?
I fought the twist in my gut, this kidnapping today not worse than some of my other sins.
Not anymore.
I’d died earlier this week. I’d dove directly into the dark and came out someone who could do this shit today. This was child’s play here, nothing but a conversation between two people with ugly inside them.
“You know what this is,” I growled. “And I know everything. I know about you and Charlie,” I said, her eyes widening. “I know about the affair. I saw you…”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“I saw you,” I spat, merely inches from her face. “At a party my sophomore year. Pembroke University.” I frowned. “Sound fucking familiar? It should. You were all over my uncle’s jock then.”
She’d been a needy bitch, like stated, taking advantage of him.
Her tears spilled down then, and she didn’t hold them back. I honestly thought it would be harder to break her.
She sniffed, but still shook her head. “Dorian, I don’t know what you believe, but…”
She cut herself off, my chair squeaking forward.
I held up the messages again. “This is what I think. You’re a pathetic drug whore. A lying drug whore.” I showed her shots we’d snapped of her doing drugs. They hadn’t been easy to get. She kept her office pretty locked down.
Her mouth parted during the scroll.
“You’re going to tell the truth about what actually happened to Charlie that night with your husband,” I finalized, getting back to the big picture. “That night he killed him. You’re going to tell this camera and me what really happened.”
She blinked down tears again. “I told the authorities what happened.”
“I know.” I nodded. “But now, you’re actually going to tell the fucking truth. You’re going to tell the world the truth, and you’re going to do it right here in front of me.” My eyebrows narrowed. “You got one chance, Mayberry. One chance to speak the truth and tell everyone what happened in your home that night surrounding my uncle…” My throat jumped. “My brother.”
She studied me, her own swallow hard. “And if I don’t?”
There it was, right there.
This lying bitch…
I leaned in, getting real close.
“I’ve done worse things than what I planned to do to you today,” I said, growling, and she twitched. I sneered. “But I’ll do more if I have to.”
I would. I’d go to the ends of the earth.
It was freeing when your soul died.
This was no game. I wasn’t playing around, and now, this woman knew it.
Mayberry cringed as she sat in front of me, her face all twisted up. She appeared at a loss for what to say.
I’d make it easy for her.
I cracked my knuckles. “Well? What’s it going to be?”
She watched my hands, as if I’d strangle her at any minute.
I just might.
Her mouth quivered. “Dorian, you don’t understand.” She looked away, something resembling shame on her face. “My husband was a bad man, and Charlie…” More tears blinked down, the desperate emotion of a broken woman. “You may not believe it, but I loved him. I loved him with all my heart.”
She probably thought she had and maybe she had, but that couldn’t have been love.
If it was, she would have told the truth.
“Tell the truth, Mayberry,” I said, picking up my phone and starting the recording. “Tell the world his truth.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sloane
Dorian hadn’t been there when I woke up. In fact, he hadn’t turned up to school either.
Neither had the other guys.
They’d been out all day, and I knew because I confirmed that with Bru. He gave me a hard time for even asking. He was aware I’d at least had company over and, apparently, had pounded on my door to cut out the racket.
We hadn’t heard him.
Obviously, we hadn’t. That night had been crazy.
Today was crazier.
The boys were missing, but Principal Mayberry had been missing as well. She hadn’t shown up today. Our assistant principa
l, Mr. Keene, had done morning announcements, and it’d been Principal Mayberry’s secretary to let me in for my student assistant period.
That was when I knew something was off.
If the guys were missing and she was missing, something was off, and I’d texted Dorian all day to figure it out.
He hadn’t texted back.
I’d gotten nothing but radio silence all day, making me worry even more. Dorian had said they’d had no opportunities to approach the headmaster.
Maybe that had changed.
The next day at school, the guys’ spots in the lot were also vacant, but I didn’t put much stake in that.
But then a voice sounded over the intercom.
“Classes for today have been canceled for the entire student body,” the voice said, unfamiliar to me. The person was female, but that was all I could gauge as I’d never heard them before. It obviously wasn’t Mr. Keene’s voice. “All faculty please report to the student lounge for further instruction,” the voice concluded.
And that was it. Both Bru and I looked up at the speakers in the hallway. We’d come together today. My Chevelle had been acting up.
The whispers started not long after that.
The hallway flooded with activity, people talking to each other and pulling out their phones. They were all watching something on them. Whatever it was neither Bru nor I seemed to be in on it. We eyed each other, and I nearly asked someone what was up when I spotted Bow down the hall. She too had her cell phone in hand, her palm to her mouth. I exchanged a glance with Bruno, who shrugged.
Together, we headed over to Bow.
“Hey,” I said, gaining her attention. She said nothing, just put her phone in front of Bru and me.
“Someone just posted this to the school’s social media,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s Principal Mayberry.”
“What is it?” Bruno brought the phone closer. The video was posted by an anonymous account onto one of the school’s social media pages. Bow had only watched a couple of seconds, but the image on the front said a lot. It was Principal Mayberry.
She had tears falling down from her eyes.
She was saying something but those whispers in the hall had transformed to high voices. I turned the volume up. Bru, Bow, and I watched together.
“I need to tell the truth,” the headmaster said, her smile small between her tears. “I owe him that.”
“Who?”
Another voice sounded in, and I twitched, Bow and Bru too. It definitely sounded familiar.
Dorian.
That was him as my soul knew he hadn’t been there when I got up yesterday. He hadn’t been at school yesterday either.
Was this what he’d been doing?
“The world needs to know the truth,” I’d said to him the other night. “And you do too. You deserve that.”
I breathed a shallow breath as I listened in.
“Charlie Lindquist,” the headmaster stated on a whisper. “Quarterback for Windsor Preparatory Academy and former student there. I’m the headmaster at the school and held the position when he’d been going there as well.” She breathed into the camera, like it took all she had for her to say what she had to next. “He and I took up an affair his senior year before he graduated. My husband was abusive and—”
Something happened in the background, something that made her obviously decide to pivot. She cringed, nodding as if shaking whatever off.
It made me wonder what he was doing to her. He was probably doing whatever he had to do, and I couldn’t find it in my soul to think anything else should occur. Of course, no one should be kidnapped and held against their will.
But if what Dorian said was true…
The camera shoved closer in her face, and she nodded again. She obviously wasn’t talking fast enough for Dorian.
“I didn’t mean for him to get hurt,” she said, more of those tears down her cheeks. “I loved him.”
Bow gasped, holding her mouth. She let go of her phone, but Bru held it for her. Bow watched the screen, cringing, and I got beside her. I stayed with her. She was Charlie’s family.
All the boys were.
“That night he was killed—”
“You mean, the night he was murdered.” Clearly, Dorian was in that room with her. He didn’t try to hide his voice. Maybe he was beyond caring. This all meant so much to him, and he wasn’t thinking about himself.
He even blamed himself.
It hurt my heart to hear that. My heart was racing more as I continued to listen.
Principal Mayberry acknowledged what he said, bobbing her head twice. “That night Charlie contacted me. It was a bad night. My husband had been drinking. Things were a mess. Charlie and I had both cut everything off before he went to college, so him contacting me was like a godsend. He always seemed to be there when I needed him.”
A growl sounded, Dorian again but he kept his words to himself.
The camera got closer.
“Anyway, I told him how bad things were, and he said I needed to leave,” Mayberry continued. “He said he’d come for me if I just left, and I was so tired. I couldn’t do it anymore with Richard. He was so toxic.”
“So, Charlie came over.”
“Yes, he did,” she said, obviously volleying with Dorian. “He waited outside. I told him to just wait.”
I waited with bated breath.
I think we all had.
Obviously, everyone in the hallway was watching the same thing. This wasn’t a live feed, but the video had just been posted.
“He didn’t wait,” she said, nodding. “And I’d just told Richard I was leaving him. He was enraged, fuming at me. Things got very loud, and he said I couldn’t leave. He even threw my suitcase across the room.”
“What happened next?” There was a chill in Dorian’s voice, and I had thoughts I wished I had been there. I wished he would have woken me up yesterday.
I wanted to be there for him.
He obviously had the other guys then, but I didn’t care. I continued to have a draw to this boy I just couldn’t understand. It was one that made me destroy houses and send pregnancy tests to women I didn’t know. It was maddening.
It was intoxicating.
Dorian Prinze was a drug I didn’t want to get off, and I hoped to God this video had the words he needed. The truth. What happened with Charlie wasn’t his fault.
I hope you heard that yesterday.
I could only pray now as I watched the feed today, a broken woman admitting her truth.
“That’s when I admitted the affair,” she gasped. “I said I was leaving him for another man, and honestly, Richard was so shocked he did nothing for a moment. He was angry, but he did nothing. He stormed out of the house like a madman. I assumed he went to a bar when he pulled out of the driveway. That’s what he does. Once he left, Charlie came inside, and together, we continued to pack everything we could into a suitcase before he got back…”
Her voice broke off, strained. She blinked down more tears.
“Richard came back with a gun,” she breathed, her head shaking. “He must have seen Charlie’s car. He keeps all his rifles in the garage and stopped there before he came into the house. He obviously knew someone was inside with me. He…” She swallowed. “Richard came into the room, and all I saw was the gun. He shot, two times. He didn’t even see who Charlie was before he did it. He just shot, shot to kill. He goes into these blind rages and…”
“Mayberry.” Dorian’s voice was strained, but the woman needed to go on. She needed to finish.
“It was only after Richard actually looked down at who he shot,” she cried, tears flooding down her cheeks. “He had no idea it was his quarterback.”
The accuracy of her story to what Dorian believed had been chilling. He’d guessed such a thing.
“He turned the gun on himself after that,” she said. The tears pinched between her eyelashes. “My husband had a lot of problems. He probably thought his life was over.”
It probably was in that sole decision. Not to mention the pull of Dorian’s family. Her husband’s life wouldn’t have been what it was before.
Mayberry’s voice sounded haunted during her last statement, and at this point, Bow was crying too. Tears fell over her hand, and I rubbed her arm.
“It was an accident,” she pleaded, cringing. “You have to believe me.”
The image paused after that, the video cut off.
The hall silenced.
No one said a word, just looked at each other.
Bru faced Bow.
“Did you know?” he asked her, handing her back her phone. No doubt he knew at least something about Charlie too. He’d been hanging with all the boys.
“No.” She hugged her arms, but then her cell phone rang in her hands. She studied the device, leaving my hand. “It’s my parents. I…”
Bru let her go, and I nodded. Charlie was her family.
It was a good thing school was out today. Bow could deal with this with them, something she should be doing with the closest people in her life.
Even still, Bow lifted a hand of apology before taking her phone to her ear. The hallway seemed to explode with activity right when she did. People obviously didn’t know what was going on, and I bet all of this seemed to come out of left field for so many.
“Did you know he was going to be doing that?” Bru asked, and I decided to shrug. I had known the dark prince would eventually. But I didn’t want to incriminate Dorian. That may have been his voice, but no names were given. I’d be the last one to connect him to this.
Even if the rest of the world knew his voice too.
*
Bru and I exited the school with the rest of the student body, the parking lot flooding with parents, drivers, and all kinds of activity on the way. People had obviously called whoever to come and get them, but Bru and I simply went home. My fingers itched to call Dorian, but I couldn’t do that with Bru around.
He ended up calling me first.
The call came shortly after my brother and I crossed the threshold of our place.
Waiting, I took the call in the foyer after Bru went upstairs. Ironically enough, my brother said he was going to try calling some of his friends to see what was going on.
