Wild Fury (Fallen Royals #6)

by S. Massery

  I don’t deserve that.

  “I told Liam and Eli to get out of here,” he says. “So just… collect yourself and come out, and we can formulate a plan.”

  He closes the door behind him, and I shudder again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why did I even come back to Boston? I could’ve stayed in Rose Hill, tried to find her.

  A voice in the back of my mind whispers that I knew she’d already fled. That staying there would’ve been pointless.

  I pick myself up and touch the portfolio. My finger leaves a streak in the dust. My body creaks with old football injuries. The concussion from the night I broke Sebastian’s knee was just the start of a whole slew of issues. My aggression was too much, and other teams were all too eager to return it. Broken ribs, old sprains.

  Yeah, I hurt.

  Fighting with Liam doesn’t help. Just the other week, we were at Howl. I considered jumping in the ring and getting out the crawling sensation. But I didn’t, and the feeling still lingers.

  I drop my hand and return to the main room. Caleb is at the kitchen table waiting for me.

  My best friend looks happy. In high school, he was angry. Like me, but different. He had an actual reason: shitty family and a girl who ruined it all. Or, he thought she did.

  “Talk,” Caleb says. “Just get it off your chest. And if you want to punch something…” He shrugs.

  Ugh.

  “We both witnessed a car accident when we were younger. The guy died in front of us.” I wince and rub at a spot on the table. “I don’t know, it seemed a little fucked up, but Lux hung on to that connection between us. My home life…”

  Not the best.

  Not with my brother around, and my father being an arrogant asshole. He rubbed off on William, unfortunately.

  “You know me.” I lean back in my chair. I can’t even look at him. “I hated everything.”

  I almost killed myself.

  These are things I should be saying to Lux, not Caleb. He’s already aware of my fucked-up mind. He already knows the stuff I’ve let out in bits and pieces. Not the whole story, but…

  “I don’t know how to let go of this anger, because it’s directed at myself. At my own screwups, at my own family. At everything in my life that’s gone wrong.” I scowl. “Seeing someone die messed me up. It was all I could think about.”

  “And now…?”

  “Now Lux is all I can think about.”

  He nods slowly, opening his mouth to say something. His phone’s shrill ring cuts him off, though. He shows me the screen. Eli calling…

  “Hey,” he answers.

  “We have a massive fucking problem,” Eli replies. “Liam’s flipping out. Sky’s missing—and the local detective they’ve been dealing with thinks it’s Masters.”

  “Fuck,” Caleb says.

  “All hands on deck,” Eli says grimly. “Can Theo hear me?”

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “Sorry, man. Can we put your emergency on the back burner—?”

  “Done.” My stomach flips. “We’ll help search…”

  Boston is a big city. It feels small sometimes, but today its size doubles in my mind.

  “Meet us at Liam’s apartment,” Eli says.

  And that’s it. This is what we do for our friends. Caleb gives me a doubtful glance, like he thinks I’m not up for putting Lux out of my mind. But this is Liam and his girl. It’s important, and I can… I can do that.

  “You’re a good friend,” Caleb tells me.

  I shake my head. I’m not, but there’s no use telling him that. Once Sky is located… then I can think about my girl.

  And this time, when I claim her in my mind, there’s no hesitation.

  30

  Lux

  I saunter onto the LBU West campus like I own it. Like I belong.

  The fact that I’m a complete outsider sits heavy on my chest, but I ignore it. You can enter almost any building like you’re supposed to be there, and no one will stop you. It’s gotten me past security, past waitstaff, past receptionists. No one wants to question someone on a mission.

  I’m here for one reason.

  Okay, two reasons.

  The first is my old roommate, Ruby Devereux. A girl who knew a lot more than she was letting on, probably thanks in part to her brother. I don’t know what happened to Sebastian, just that Ruby had been going to see him in the hospital. I don’t know what happened to Hale, either, except for the fact that him and Sebastian would’ve graduated last year.

  The campus looks the same, but it feels foreboding.

  It knows I don’t belong better than anyone.

  Ruby would be a senior this year. They have their own residence hall close to the library, and I think its proximity is supposed to encourage more studying and less partying. This early in the day, on a Sunday, no less, everything is quiet. Just a few early birds out, but they keep their heads down.

  Still new, maybe.

  It snowed last night. The sidewalks are clear, but it’s piled high on either side. The quad is an untouched blanket of white.

  I didn’t last long enough to see it snow two years ago, but winter’s hit Boston early.

  I smile and wave at the girl manning the front desk of the senior building. “Forgot my ID,” I say. “Can you buzz me in?”

  She nods, and the doors click open. Once I’m in, it takes me longer to find Ruby’s room. There are only five or six suites on each floor. The girls’ names are written on the little whiteboards beside their doors, and it becomes a matter of searching for the right one.

  Her room is on the fourth floor. I’m slightly winded, but I clutch my bag tight and examine the lock.

  LBU West hasn’t changed its ways.

  Real keys to get into the rooms. All it took was a bump key—in essence, an illegal master key—and a bit of luck. I ease in and twist it, enjoying the smooth motion of the deadbolt sliding back.

  The door opens up into a small living room. There is a hallway that leads to, from what I can tell, a bathroom and two bedrooms. One door is open, sunlight streaming in.

  An early riser, then.

  The other is shut. If it isn’t Ruby’s, this is going to get awkward. But from our interactions at the beginning of her sophomore year, she liked to sleep in on the weekends. I doubt that’s changed, not with the cold weather and Thanksgiving break approaching.

  Sure enough, it’s easy to spot her dark hair peeking out from a familiar comforter. I drag her chair closer to the bed and lower myself into it. I put my feet up on the horizontal wooden support beam running a few inches below her mattress and unzip my camera case. She doesn’t even stir.

  I busy myself flipping through photos I took in the past few weeks.

  I wasn’t going to return to Rose Hill, but then Theo’s flashy yellow car zoomed past me on the street. I was minding my own business after the trial, deciding if it was worth it to say goodbye. To give any answers.

  Honestly, my decision was swaying toward cut and run.

  But then I saw Theo’s car. He’s the only one who would drive a freaking bright-yellow sports car. Liam drove it. Skylar, a girl I knew through my sister, sat in the passenger seat.

  And I was intrigued.

  So I followed them. They didn’t leave, and I walked away. But something held me back. Maybe it was the car, or the thought of seeing Theo again. I don’t know what my deciding factor was, but one minute I was telling myself to leave it be, and the next I was dropping into the driver’s seat.

  It felt familiar, even though it was a new vehicle.

  Familiar in a way that made my chest ache, and loneliness wound through me.

  I had to stop it. Stop the spread of emotions, stop feeling like Theo was the only balm for my internal damage.

  Forever seems to pass. I just have a few questions for her, but waking her up will make it seem like I care. It’s not like Wilder interrupted my shower. He was just… waiting for me. And I’d like to recreate that anxiety for my dear
ex-roommate.

  I zoom in on one of the photos I took: Skylar in the window of her house. She didn’t see me, I don’t think. She just seemed too sad not to capture the moment.

  Ruby stirs after a while, rolling over and stretching. At least she doesn’t do anything embarrassing, like stick her hand down her pants or pick her nose. Her eyes flutter open, but it takes her a long few moments to discover me.

  The room is still dark, after all. Not pitch-black—light filters in around the edges of their shades enough for me to see my way around. I turn my camera on and adjust the settings, then raise the viewfinder to my eye.

  She rolls toward me, and her eyes widen.

  I press the button, and the flash pops.

  I imagine she’s blinded for a moment, so I lower the camera and pull up the photo, zooming in. An open, sleep-hazed gaze. Her hair is wild, sticking up now. A bit of drool in the corner of her mouth.

  Not perfect. Not like I used to think.

  “What…?” She sits up. “Lucy?”

  “In the flesh.”

  She draws the blankets up with her, covering her chest. Like I give a shit about if I can see the outline of her nipples through her shirt.

  “You…”

  “I think the more appropriate term is, ‘I’m sorry, Lucy.’” I take another photo, the flash brilliant white. For a second, even I see stars.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I take my time examining this photo. Maybe it’s my imagination, but there seems to be a bit of fear in her expression. Some fear is expected—I’ve practically come back from the dead. But still, I figured it was either her or Felicity who let Wilder into my room that night.

  What would I have done with a heads-up?

  Everything could’ve been different. I might’ve had the chance to call Theo. To ask for his help—or not let the DeSantis family dictate my future. Now, I have a hollow feeling in my bones that won’t go away. The feeling of the rug under my feet being pulled loose, again and again.

  It hits me now, sitting in this room with Ruby, that my future was literally yanked out of my grasp.

  My choices were to go with Wilder or go to prison. That’s what he presented.

  “Tell me about what happened after I went to see Theo? After Sebastian was taken away for his broken whatever.” It’s a blur—that part, anyway. What came after for Theo and me isn’t. It’s one memory that played on repeat in my dreams.

  She swings her legs over and reaches for the bottle of water on her nightstand. After a few gulps, she wipes her mouth. “The group of us stayed for a little while, but the game had sort of lost its magic. Hale wasn’t put back in, and obviously Sebastian and Theo didn’t return. So we came back to campus. Miranda and I went to see Sebastian at the hospital after Hale told me he needed surgery.”

  I motion for her to speed it up.

  “He seemed awful,” she says, twisting the bottle in her grip. “In the hospital bed, hooked up to machines…”

  “Wait.” I drop my feet and lean forward. “You didn’t, say, run into Felicity and offer to bring my camera bag back to the room?”

  She blinks. “No. Well, Felicity was scrolling through your photos. Just curiosity, you know? She showed us some of your landscapes, and I was surprised how good they were. But then she got kind of quiet.”

  She found the photos I took of her. “Then?”

  “Well, by then we were getting back to campus, and Felicity said she would meet us at the hospital later. She’s not that close with Seb, so I didn’t really take it to heart.”

  “Uh-huh.” I pop the memory card out of my camera and insert one I haven’t looked at in years. I took it out because it was nearly full, and all the images of Theo were too hard to bear. But I’d bet anything Felicity didn’t think to delete the ones I took of her. I scroll to them and flash the screen at Ruby. “Did she show you these?”

  My former roommate gasps. “Whoa. Do you know who that is?”

  I shake my head.

  “Professor Higgins,” she whispers. “Shit. That would’ve been totally against the rules…”

  Ah, shit. But I examine the screen closer. “Wait. How can you tell?”

  She points to the tattoo peeking out from the collar of his shirt. “He’s got some sort of tribal tattoo that goes up onto his neck a bit. He still works here, you know. English Lit.”

  I grimace. “How long were you at the hospital?”

  She sucks her lower lip between her teeth as she thinks. “Hale and I stayed until Seb’s parents arrived, I think. They didn’t get there until the next morning, after he had the surgery.”

  “And then…”

  “I came back, and your stuff had been cleared out.”

  Overnight.

  She shrugs. “Felicity is still here, you know. She switched to part-time, so she has another semester or two left. Hale graduated last year.”

  There’s one person she didn’t mention, and judging from her expression, she knows it. Of course, right when I was leaving, Theo was framing him for steroid use and academic cheating. There’s no way their fraternity-slash-secret society was going to stand up for all of that.

  “He transferred,” she whispers. “Someone sent a photo of him and me from the movies. You know, the date you made me go on with you. Hale freaked out and basically disowned him.”

  I raise my eyebrow. “Like you stayed long. I heard you traipsing around the woods not long after I left.”

  She blushes. “We got called in to help set up for an initiation type thing…”

  “In the woods? Dancing around a fire pit, sacrificing a virgin?”

  “Lucy—”

  I hold up my hand. “Is Felicity still on this campus?”

  “N-no, she’s an RA on the main campus now. Dillard Hall.”

  I nod curtly and rise, stowing my camera back in its case, then in my bag. I travel light, but sometimes even this feels heavy. If Lucy Page is making a comeback, at least temporarily, I need a new phone.

  Ruby doesn’t say anything as I pack up, and I get the impression she’s afraid I might change my mind and come back. A part of me does feel bad about what happened to her and Sebastian. After all, she liked him. I manipulated it to avoid a date, and then Theo extorted it.

  My hand is on the door handle when she says, “He’s still searching for you, you know.”

  I glance back. “Who?”

  “Theo.” Her brows lower. “He hasn’t been the same since you left. Everyone says so.”

  I grunt. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  The salesman at the phone store gives me an incredulous look. “You lost your phone?”

  “Is this the first time anyone’s lost a phone?” I keep my tone bland. “I just need to replace it and get everything downloaded from the cloud.”

  “Okay.” He takes my number and finds my account. He’s got to be an LBU student. The kid has bright-orange hair and a smattering of freckles. Tall and lanky, he might be a year younger than me. Or older. Either way, he hums under his breath as he types.

  I’m sure my parents kept paying for it. One of those just in case things. Like, just in case the police are keeping an eye on suspicious behavior. Or just in case I turn up dead. They’ll be able to sleep at night because they did what they could to let me have a lifeline.

  A way to reach out, beyond just… showing up.

  “Lucille Page?”

  I nod once.

  “You’ve got a free upgrade, actually. Or you could—”

  “Free is good.” I force a smile.

  “Okay. I’m deactivating your current SIM card, and then—”

  “Wait, sorry, was it not already deactivated?”

  He spins the monitor to show me the activity. “No, appears like it’s been in intermittent use for the past two years. Nothing consistent, though.”

  A series of incoming calls, each lasting only about thirty seconds.

  “Am I going to get my texting threads back?”


  He shrugs. “Depends on how much got backed up before you lost it. Usually it requires being connected to WiFi and plugged into power.”

  “Right.”

  “But, we’ll see.” He points to a row of newer model phones. “Any of those you can upgrade to.”

  I pick one at random, and he disappears into the back. A moment later, he returns with a box and cuts it open. He activates the phone and hands it to me for my information, then takes it back.

  “Huh,” he says a few minutes later.

  I jerk, my cheeks heating when I realize I had zoned out. “What?”

  “You’ve got some voicemails saved. That’s unusual—normally they stay with the phone, not the account. You must’ve manually saved them.”

  “Ah.” I nod like I know what he’s talking about. I don’t have a clue—I can’t remember the last time I had a voicemail. Then again, the last time I had a phone that didn’t flip open was when I lived on LBU West…

  “All set.” He extends it. “Should be good to go.”

  “Thanks.” I slide it into my pocket and head outside.

  I put some distance between myself and the store, then stop. All the while I’ve been walking, the phone has buzzed with incoming notifications. The curiosity has me burning.

  Unlocking it, I ignore the little red flags from my social media accounts. I have over a hundred texts and three voicemails.

  Voicemails first, I guess.

  The number isn’t saved, which is weird.

  I click on the oldest one, from eight months ago, and raise the phone to my ear.

  “Fuck, Lux.”

  I automatically shiver at Theo’s hoarse voice.

  “I know you won’t answer. I know I’m fucking crazy. But tonight’s one of those nights where I can’t sleep, and all that seems to be between me and insanity is your voice.”

  It ends at that.

  I click on the next, dated six months ago. I was in New York City then, taking photos of the governor.

  “I had a bad hit tonight,” he says quietly. “I just let myself get fucking destroyed in order to block out everything, but it didn’t work. Now it’s quiet, but I have a ringing in my ears. And I’ve gotta say, I’m contemplating fighting again. Howl is starting back up. I think about you and I get murderous.