by Angel Lawson
“Damn, son!” He looks impressed. “What the hell did they have you doing at that military school? I’ve been training my ass off all summer and I couldn’t bench that much.”
I lie flat for a few moments, my triceps stinging with exhaustion, before I get up to swap places. I wait until Emory’s settled in my spot to say, “Hey, can I ask you something?”
He keeps his eyes trained to the bar. “Sure.”
“What’s the deal with your sister?”
His eyes flick to mine, lips pressing into a thin line. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I’ve just seen her around. She seems really quiet and introverted. Not like…well, you know.”
His eyes narrow a fraction. “Not like she used to be?”
I elaborate, “No, I mean, not like you. Not popular, or outgoing, or uh…” I feel my eyes tighten as I try to find the least insulting way of calling his sister a coddled outcast. “Just not like you.”
“Oh.” Emory grips the bar, jerking his chin. I lift it off the rack, making sure it’s steady in his hands. Emory tests the weight, voice strained as he explains, “Well, she had a hard time after the accident. You know, surgeries and stuff. Everyone just decided to give her a break. Make sure she had the space to heal.”
Surgeries.
Duh. Of course, she’d have surgeries. I don’t know why hearing about it makes something jagged rattle around in my chest, but it does. For some reason, I can’t help but imagine it—Vandy on some table in a well-lit operating room, all opened up like a gaping wound.
I swallow around the nausea and watch as he completes only a few bench presses, struggling through the last two. I help him re-rack the bar, and he slings his legs over the bench, sitting up.
He tugs off the Velcro straps on his workout gloves. “Why do you ask?”
“I guess she just seems kind of…” I tug off my own gloves, trying to find the right words. “Sheltered?”
“Look, I’m not trying to—” Emory’s eyes jump to mine briefly. “I don’t want to make you feel bad about this. But dude, the wreck fucked her up. And then, after everything, she got kind of weird, which is to be expected, I guess. I’m not going to deny that I went into protective mode, especially at school. Not with the jackals lurking around every corner.”
“Right.” I nod, running my towel over my face. “That makes sense.”
He frowns. “I know she feels a little stifled, but it’s for her own good.” He wipes the sweat off his own forehead with his shirt. When he meets my gaze again, his face is creased with a reserved, secret kind of concern. “Honestly? I’m worried about her being alone next year.”
Finally. Maybe if I understood this, I can talk him out of this secret society thing.
“Why?” I ask, even though I already know.
“Because people here are fucking vicious, bro. Vandy’s not like us. She’s good.” He looks down, fidgeting with his gloves. “She doesn’t have that hardness. It’s one of the best things about her, but it’s also...” He pulls a face.
“It could make her an easy target,” I guess. “If the wrong kind of people had the power here.”
“Pretty much.” Emory shrugs. “With me here, people know better. But after I leave? Who knows, you feel me?”
I change tacks. “She’s got friends, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Sydney, for one. That girl is a fucking train wreck, though. I don’t trust her as far as Vandy can throw her.” I slide a weight from one end of the bar as he takes the other.
I keep my eyes fixed firmly to the task as I inquire, “What about a boyfriend?”
There’s a long, tense silence as I rack the weight, but when I turn to get the other from Emory’s hands, he’s assessing me, eyes guarded. “Nah. She’s not into dating.” When I take the weight with nothing more than a mild nod, he seems to relax, letting out a laugh. “Thank god, right? We both know what all these guys around here want, and it’s not to show her their stamp collection. Last thing I need is a murder charge.”
“Wipes,” I interrupt, fanning out my hands.
Emory rushes to the other side of the room to mimic our game-winning throw from last Friday. We spend a few minutes cleaning up, running the cleaning wipes over the equipment, heeding the big lecture we’d gotten from the trainer on the first day about MRSA and other such plagues.
I can’t stop thinking about Vandy as we walk into the locker room. Is this my fault, too? Or would her brother and parents still have been this vigilant, regardless? She’d always been a little sheltered, truthfully, and Emory is right. Vandy doesn’t have a hardness about her, never has. Back when we were kids, it used to be an almost fun trait to play with. Teasing her. Coaxing her. Getting her to cover for us, because she was such an honest face and an easy mark. When Vandy lied, butter couldn’t fucking melt.
But the accident had to have made it worse. It’s a question that nags at me, this sense that I have one more sin to add to my pile. Of course, Vandy is bored out of her mind, and why wouldn’t she be? She’s living in the land of gluttony at Preston. Everyone else is off partying, getting laid, spending mommy and daddy’s money, making memories, and leaving a mark in that long corridor of glass trophy cases. And here Vandy Hall just wants to write some dumb fucking article—that’s her pinnacle of significance here—and she can’t even do that.
Instead, she wants to shut Emory’s whole plan down.
I already know I can’t talk Emory out of it—not if he’s doing it for her. At the same time, I know I can't talk her out of getting in the way—not if she’s doing it for him.
Goddamn siblings, man.
I thank God for making me an only child, but something begins brewing in my mind—some connecting factor. Emory needs the Devils. Vandy needs a project. I need to stop getting caught between it.
Maybe, if I handle this exactly right, all three of us can get what we need out of Preston Prep.
You’d think it would be easier to talk to the girl next door, but no dice. It’s not exactly like I can go over, knock on the door, and ask her out for a chat. I don’t have her cell number, and she hasn’t touched the closed curtains on her bedroom window once. She has a couple social media profiles, but they’re sparse enough that I figure she doesn’t bother with them much.
At a loss for anything better, I do what all guys do when trying to catch a girl’s attention; pretend to be doing something else, while lying in wait.
My chance comes after dinner. For me, that means a sad cheese pizza from whatever joint the HOA allows through their gate. And if the smells wafting from next door are any indication, then for Vandy, that means an actual home-cooked meal. The scent of it makes my stomach churn in longing as I take my empty, greasy pizza box to the trash can just outside the garage.
Cat.
The cat is clearly stalking something, crouched low to the ground in front of the bushes. Its fluffy tail flicks to the left and right, ears pointed forward as it listens intently.
“So we meet again,” I tell Firefly, interrupting the cat’s focus. “Come here, kitty-kitty.” I bend down, fully expecting it to either hesitate or book it. It is a cat after all—they’re suspicious as hell—but instead, it strolls right over and rubs a whiskered cheek across my outstretched hand. “What’cha doing out here, huh? Stalking chipmunks?”
The cat purrs greedily and stretches its front paws out, giving me space to scratch under its chin. Firefly is so pleased by the affection that it doesn’t move when its owner comes outside.
“Firefly,” Vandy coos. “Where’s my sweet boy?”
“Over here,” is my soft reply, knowing that I’m breaking all the rules by engaging her like this. School rules, house rules, best friend rules. At least what happened at school wasn’t my fault. This is something else altogether, and it makes me antsy, nervous.
I hear the sound of her stilted footfalls before I see her. Vandy eventually appears around Emory’s massive truck, and crouched as I
am, the first thing I see is the creamy skin revealed by a pair of lounging shorts.
“Oh,” she says, sounding vaguely startled.
I can’t help the way my eyes slide up her calves, skitter over her delicate knees, and land on the pale expanse of her smooth thighs. I tear my gaze away to look up at her, jaw flexing. “He was on the hunt, again.”
She chews on her lip for a moment while she regards the way I’m petting her cat. “It’s dusk. The zombie hour. The best time to kill.”
It’s an odd, aloof statement, but I’m starting to think Vandy may be both of those things.
“So, uh.” I pull my hand away from Firefly to scratch at the back of my own neck now. The cat looks vaguely put out about it. “Can we talk?”
Vandy eyes the driveway shiftily, peering over her shoulder to check her house. “You make a decision?”
I finally rise, glancing around in much the same way, neck prickling as I shove my fists into my pockets. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"
She points to the path between our houses. It leads up a hill and into a wooded area that we spent a lot of time in when we were kids, playing games and exploring. She says, “Meet me back there in fifteen minutes?”
Without further explanation, she lunges for the cat, grabs him, and vanishes back in the house.
Ten minutes pass, taking with it the soft glow of evening sunset as I watch from my kitchen window. Putting on my sneakers, I head out first, not wanting to be seen following her like some fucking creeper. One minute I’m on the well-manicured lawn, and the next I’m in the thicket of trees. I use my phone for a flashlight and wonder exactly where I’m supposed to go. Just then, the beam of my phone’s light illuminates something old, familiar. I take a few steps forward and touch the weathered strips of wood attached to the big oak that straddles the property line. I point the light upward and see the tree house our dads had built when we were in elementary school.
A twig snaps behind me and I spin. Vandy stands a few feet away, the light from her own phone blinding me. I shield my eyes with my hand, glancing back to the tree house. “I can’t believe this is still here.”
She watches me for a long moment before her blue eyes follow my gaze. “I’m pretty sure they forgot about it.”
We stand there for a suspended moment, just looking at the structure, before the sounds of her shuffling steps pass me. I watch as she tests the first rung of the ladder with her toe, eventually putting her weight on it and beginning to ascend.
I jump forward and burst, “Wait, we don’t have to—” But she ignores me. Her steps are slow, deliberate, cautious, and my heart hammers as I track her form with the beam of light. If she falls and breaks something, I’m fucked.
No.
I’m beyond fucked.
I’m still locked in a whirlwind of panicky indecision about dropping the phone—I’ll need both hands to catch her, but I’ll also need to see if she falls—when she reaches the top.
“Come on,” she says, face peering out of the door opening.
I still need to take a moment before my heart stops thundering, allowing some of the tension to bleed from my shoulders. I put my phone in my back pocket, and use her light to guide me. The wooden steps are old, but still perfectly sturdy, thank fucking god. Way to give a guy a heart attack.
Just as I crawl through the narrow door and get to my feet, the bright light of a camping lantern fills the room. I dust off my hands and glance around the space, surprised that even after all this time, it looks and feels exactly the same.
Professionally built, the structure isn’t one of those slapped-together shacks perched precariously in the top of a tree. No, this shit is like the McMansion of tree houses. It was big enough for a whole group of us back then, and now, Vandy and I fit comfortably in the space together. An old hammock hangs catty-cornered against the wall, and a bookshelf filled with faded comics slouches under one window. There’s a dartboard, two bean bag chairs, and the old futon that’s seen better days. It smells a little damp, musty, but it’s obviously still watertight.
“This is surreal,” I say, absorbing it all. “Like a fucking time capsule.” There was happiness here. Laughter. Crude jokes. Boyhood mischief. Long stretches of golden summer afternoons. Bright winter evenings spent huddled in sweaters and avoiding homework. Everything had felt so easy and certain, back then.
Now, everything seems grey and anemic, paltry in the face of recollection.
While I’m caught up in my own nostalgia, Vandy is all business. “If you asked me to meet you to try to talk me out of my ultimatum, forget it.” The look in her eye tells me she’s ready to call me on any and all bullshit.
I scoop a baseball from the shelf, testing the weight in my hand. “I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but—” I meet her gaze. “I do have a proposal.”
She stares back, face blank. “A proposal.”
“A plan B, I guess.” I shrug, tossing the ball from hand to hand. “Something that benefits all of us.”
Her eyes narrow, hands settling on her narrow hips. “I don’t think I care if it benefits all of us. I just want to protect my brother.”
Another golden flash from childhood slams into me. Vandy, standing stubbornly in the tree house, same position she’s in now, barking orders at me and her brother. Like the tree house, some things never change.
I thunk the ball back onto the shelf. “Will you just hear me out?”
Her arms move to cross her chest and her hip juts out. The position draws my attention to her chest, then down to her curves below her waist. Okay, maybe some things do change.
I run my hand through my hair and try not to blow the fact she’s obviously giving me the chance to plead my case. “You said you wanted to write a big story about the school, right?”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Yeah?”
I nod, looking away. “What if I told you there’s something big going on at Preston Prep. Something that falls right in line with what you want to expose about the school, like all the way down to the elitist foundations and principles of a place like Preston.”
Some of the apprehensive tension leaves her face. “I’m listening.”
I hedge, “I can’t tell exactly you what it is—”
She huffs, “Are you kidd—”
“But!” I hold up my hands. “I think I can get you access. Like a real, undercover, deep dive into the bowels of the true culture of the school. You’ll just have to give me a chance to get it together.” Her face scrunches up and I tilt my head. “What? I thought you’d be into this?”
“I guess I am,” she explains, “but I think I’m trying to figure out how you’ve been here like eight days and you know more about the school than I do.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I suspect it has more to do with me being a white male football player than anything else.”
She snorts. “God, you’re probably right.”
“So,” I say, trying to get this ball moving. The way her and Emory made it sound before, it doesn’t seem entirely unlikely that people might come looking for her. “Are you interested?”
She agrees, “Yeah, I’m interested,” but that gleam in her eyes is pure suspicion. “But there’s obviously a catch. You said this would benefit all of us.”
“If we can make this work, I need two things from you.”
She still looks skeptical. “Like?”
“First, you can’t tell on me, Emory, or anyone else involved.” She opens her mouth to speak, but I hold up two fingers. “And two, you can’t turn in whatever you write to the school or paper until after he and I have graduated.”
Her jaw sets as she thinks it over. I’m asking a lot from her. I haven’t even told her what it’s about. She’s going to have to trust me—me. The guy who fucked up her life, and—although she isn’t aware of it yet—is responsible for Emory needing to do this in the first place.
“Okay,” she finally says, “but if you can’t get me access to whatever this is
, then I’m going straight to Dean Dewey, my parents, and your dad, and telling them you guys are up to something.”
I know this is going to be a hard sell, on my end. I might not even be able to do anything at all. But if she agrees to this, then that’s flexibility. I can work with this.
“Deal?” I hold out my hand. She looks down at it and hesitates for a second before sliding hers into mine, gripping it in a firm handshake.
She holds my gaze, her blue eyes full of something steely and resolved. “Deal.”
“Let’s talk about chicks,” Carlton says, reaching for another piece of pizza.
“What about them?” Ben asks. “The fact you haven’t seen one naked in over a year?”
Carlton shoves his hand out, slamming into Ben’s shoulder. The baseball catcher falls off his chair, landing hard on his ass. Emory barks a laugh and I lean back in my seat, chomping on my own slice of pizza. It’s steadily become ninety percent of my diet.
Personally, I’m still trying to figure out if Ben is actually as dumb as he looks.
“Shut the hell up,” Carlton says, cheeks red. “I admit I’m in a bit of a slump, but that’s because I’m picky. I’m not putting my dick just anywhere, unlike you indiscriminate fucks.”
“Your loss,” Ben says, righting his chair and flopping back into it.
We’re seated in a small circle inside the bunker beneath the Devil’s Tower. So far, it’s only the four of us making up the Devils, which is kind of sad, if I’m being honest. Four dudes sitting in a dank dungeon eating room temperature pizza does not an elite secret society make.
Since we need a couple more guys, we’ve made a list of who we plan on inviting. Some new kid named Tyson from the swim team was tossed around and given approval. For the last guy, we needed a legacy—someone whose family is Devil-made—and that’s how we settled on Sebastian Wilcox, Heston’s younger brother. I don’t know a lot about Sebastian, but I know just enough about Heston to feel like it’s a bad idea.
Narrowing down the girls is a bit harder.
“I think the best thing to do,” Emory says, propping his feet up on the small table in the middle of the room, “is to have each of us invite a girl to tryout to be a Devil’s Plaything.”
