These Vengeful Hearts

by Katherine Laurin

  When I called her last night and gave her the entire story in an excited rush, she was reserved. I’d made her a reluctant part of my plan, a plan she didn’t approve of, but it felt like something more. She stonewalled me when I pressed her this morning. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes and I didn’t know why. April had made her position on my plan clear, sure, but she’d never shut me out like that.

  She’d been hurt so badly and seeing me in danger as part of the Red Court had to be hard for her. No matter that she wanted the Red Court to fall, I was taking risks that I knew she didn’t agree with.

  You’re almost there. Just hang on.

  My fingers itched to scribble a quick journal entry, to purge some of the more difficult thoughts. Only enough to take the edge off. The worn leather and cracked spine of my journal felt like butter beneath my fingertips. I had to look insane stroking the binding, but I’d become so attached to its familiar pages. The weight of it alone soothed my nerves, though I’d torn out my last entry. I couldn’t bear to have proof of what I’d wanted staring at me.

  November 24

  I’ve lost so much with very little chance to gain any of it back. Will it be worth it?

  It has to be.

  CHAPTER 41

  WALKING THE HALLS at school was an exercise in avoidance. I couldn’t find a route to any class that minimized the risk of running into Gideon or Chase enough to ease my nerves. When the inevitable happened and I stumbled across one of their paths, I did my best to keep my chin lifted and pretend that seeing them didn’t matter.

  With Gideon, the urge to talk to him pulled at every fiber of my being. I wanted to ask how his day was going or if his dad missed me or if he had plans to see his mom for Christmas and did he need me to come. Instead, all I could do was keep my face neutral when his eyes slid right past me like I wasn’t there, like I was another unfamiliar face in the crowd. Maybe I was.

  When I saw Chase, remorse coated with regret twisted my stomach and a ridiculous longing squeezed my heart to the point of breathlessness. How was it possible to have two very different reactions to seeing someone? My feelings for him were so tangled up with my involvement in the Red Court. I didn’t think it was possible anymore for me to see or think of him without experiencing a sensation like I was endlessly falling backward. I could prepare for class; knowing where he would be made it easy to pretend he wasn’t there.

  The Friday after the art museum was cursed. Mr. Carson gave us a pop quiz in American Lit that I was not prepared for, which was the first time I’d ever turned in a test knowing I failed. When Carson handed the graded quizzes back at the end of the class, mine included a long note that he was both disappointed and concerned.

  After the bell rang, I literally bumped into Chase on my way out of the classroom. His friends all stopped to look at me, their faces acknowledging that he and I had a something that was currently a nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled into my armful of notebooks, avoiding their knowing glances.

  Chase stared at me, and for a moment I thought he might talk to me and smooth things over like he would have only a few weeks ago. Then he gave me his easy smile and said, “No worries.” With a courteous nod, he kept walking with his friends and resumed conversation. Like I was a someone who was now a no one. Maybe I was.

  Tears stung at the corners of my eyes and I hauled into the bathroom before the whole school saw me cry over Chase Merriman. With a great sniffle, I slammed the door to the first open stall in the corner shut behind me and leaned against it for good measure, not that I thought anyone would follow me or attempt to talk to me. The closest thing I had to a real friend was the girl I was plotting to destroy. Everything was so screwed up.

  The warning bell rang, and I thanked whoever was in charge of scheduling that I had my free hour. There was no chance I could pull it together in time to be Ember Williams: Model Student in the next sixty seconds.

  A group of girls giggled their way into the bathroom and took up residence at the sinks in front of the mirrors. I thumped my head hard against the door to dislodge the cackling echo and sighed. There was also no chance of my leaving the bathroom and facing whoever was out there with puffy crying-over-a-boy eyes.

  “So, wait,” one of the girls whispered. “You’re telling me that you asked him to do it?”

  “Shh!” another girl scolded. “I didn’t ask him to do anything.”

  “But you dropped a major hint like a boss,” a third accused. “I was there.”

  I risked a glance through the crack of the door. It was Maura Wright and two of her friends.

  “Well, I guess I did mention to him that it would be the best thing to ever happen to me if I won,” Maura admitted.

  “He asked the Red Court to do it?” The first girl was clearly in awe.

  Maura gave a shrug and a devious smile. “He won’t say so exactly...but yeah. He totally did.”

  The other girls giggled again. “I swear that boy would lie across train tracks if you asked him to.” The third girl was checking her lip gloss and eyeing Maura appreciatively.

  “Maybe I will. Our one-year anniversary is coming up.” Maura laughed her high girlish laugh, one that was nothing like the laugh I remembered from when we were kids. It was 100 percent fake, and I was kicking myself for not seeing through her before. “When will you be at my party tonight? You’re coming early to help me set up, right?”

  “We’ll be there by five.”

  After another few minutes, the girls made their way out of the bathroom, still laughing about Reece and planning for the party Maura was throwing while her parents were out of town for the weekend. Sliding to the ground, not caring about how gross it had to be, I cried in earnest. My one good act with the Red Court—getting a nice, deserving girl like Maura elected Homecoming Queen—was a lie just like the rest of it. It seemed no one was innocent.

  It took nearly the entire period for my tears to dry, but once they did, I pulled myself up and revisited my plan, or lack thereof. How could I stop the madness, this cycle of hurt that the Red Court fed? As long as we existed, girls like Maura were going to manipulate their stupid boyfriends into signing a deal that never expired.

  With a splash of cold water on my face, I stalked out of the bathroom and headed for the closest exit to the parking lot. My mind was on the corkboard at home. I had to get back to it. I had to put the last pieces together and figure out a way to take them all down in one move. It was checkmate time.

  “Ember,” a familiar voice called. A familiar voice that hadn’t spoken two words to me in over a week. A familiar voice that wouldn’t return my calls or texts. I didn’t have anything left for a fight with Gideon.

  I stopped near the door but didn’t turn. Turning meant looking at Gideon and seeing whatever disgusted expression was on his face. Why would he be coming to talk to me?

  “Hi,” he said when he stepped in front of me. The corners of his eyes tightened when he took in my tearstained face.

  I wet my dry lips. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Are you ok?”

  A frustrated noise escaped my throat. There wasn’t an answer to that question. I was so far from ok. If “Ok” was a star, the light could go out and I wouldn’t know for ten thousand years.

  “So, no, not ok?” Gideon’s concerned expression made me want to throw my arms around him and sob or shove him hard. Probably both.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I saw you bump into Chase and then basically run into the bathroom. I waited to see if you were alright when you came out, but you were in there a long time. Crying and hiding at school is not Ember Williams. It was...distressing.”

  Gideon’s face shifted from concerned to skeptical, as if I was about to pull off my Ember mask and show him that I was someone else entirely.

  “No, Gideon, I’m not ok. I have not been ok for years. I
have been plotting to destroy the Red Court since I was in middle school, and the further I get into it, the more I realize that it is so beyond complicated I can’t begin to unravel it on my own. And I am so on my own here. My sister isn’t happy with me, Chase won’t talk to me, and the one person who I have always had on my side left me. You. Left. Me.”

  I dashed around Gideon and pushed open the doors to the parking lot. The cold wind whipped across my face and froze the tears on my cheeks. At some point I must have started crying again, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting to the finish line.

  CHAPTER 42

  PLEAS TO MY DAD fell on deaf ears. He refused to call the school and excuse me for the rest of the day. Worse than that, I landed myself on his “something’s up” radar and would be questioned after dinner. Without him covering for me, I had no choice but to return to class.

  The day dragged, and I checked out of each period. My teachers noticed, and I got more than one stern look for not paying attention. It never occurred to me that my carefully cultivated reputation would backfire so badly on the one day I was off my game.

  When the day finally ended, I tried to duck out of debate practice but was caught in the hallway by several teammates who asked for my help and pulled me bodily down the hall to the debate classroom. After two hours, I excused myself to my car and collapsed into the driver’s seat. My emotional exhaustion manifested into a pounding headache. The ten-minute drive home seemed almost insurmountable, but I started my car and drove out of the parking lot.

  Before I blinked, I was sitting in my driveway, my car next to my mom’s, wondering where the miles went. I stepped through the front door and heard my mom talking to someone from down the hall. I knew Haley’s voice. The cadence of it was imprinted in my mind.

  Before I could throw my bag down on the hall bench, my mom appeared at the end of the hall.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said breathlessly. “I was just talking to your friend Haley. She’s hanging a gift on your wall, as a thank-you for bringing her to the Final Friday event.”

  “A gift?” What would Haley leave for me?

  “Yes, she’s very talented.”

  The corkboard. My stomach flipped as I raced toward my room.

  “Do you think she’d be interested in an internship at the museum?” my mom shouted down the hall. “I could call Henry and see if they’re looking for anyone this summer.”

  “I’ll ask her!” I shouted back. “Haley?”

  I found her with the beautiful blue-and-green piece from her room on the floor in front of her and my corkboard in her arms.

  “What are you doing?” My body flashed cold with dread. It was clear what she was doing. She was looking at pictures of her and every other member of the Red Court. And I was looking at years of planning collapsing in front of me like a house of cards.

  “What is this?” There was a deadly note in Haley’s voice, made all the more terrifying for how quiet it was. Her eyes were glued to the photo in the middle of my spiderweb—it was her.

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Ember. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Haley set the corkboard down on my bed and took a step back from it, like it was a grenade and she was waiting for it to detonate. Finally, she took her eyes from the mess of photos and sticky notes and looked to me.

  “I’m taking down the Red Court. It has to stop.”

  Haley looked at me like I was an algebra problem that just wouldn’t equate. “You’re taking down the Red Court? What makes you think you can?”

  “Because I know who everyone is, and I’ve been planning this for years. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Her expression fell and rebuilt itself as a mask of incredulity. “Years? You’ve been planning this for years? Why?”

  “Because what the Red Court does to people is wrong.”

  “What the Red Court does? Don’t you mean what you’ve done? Don’t act like you’re better than any of us. Your picture is on here, too. You’re just as guilty.”

  Haley stabbed an accusatory finger at the web as proof positive. I was just as bad, just as guilty for what I’d done, but she didn’t understand that I wasn’t in it for the same reasons as her and the rest of the Red Court.

  “I know I’m responsible for my actions, but I didn’t join the Red Court for myself like you did.”

  Haley threw her arms up and looked around, eyes furious. “You’re some kind of vigilante superhero? Taking us down for the good of the school?”

  I’d never seen her so angry, not even when her stepdad was tearing her down. She expected that kind of behavior from him, but not from me.

  The front door opened, and my dad’s and April’s voices floated down to us, reminding me how dangerous it was to have this conversation in my house. What if my parents heard? What if April heard? I wasn’t sure which was worse. April didn’t know Haley, and if they came face-to-face, I wasn’t sure how April would handle it.

  “I started planning to end the Red Court the day I found out what it did to my sister.” My voice was quiet, my anger gone. I knew what I was doing was right. The Red Court had hurt so many, and I allowed the sharp edge of my focus to be dulled by the sense of power and importance that came from belonging to something bigger than myself. Not anymore. With Haley, here in my room, in the house I shared with my sister, it was never clearer. The Red Court was done.

  Comprehension surfaced on Haley’s face, but I could tell she didn’t understand the depth of my anger.

  “This is all about your sister?”

  “The Red Court hurt her, hurt countless others. It’s over.” I kept my voice low and prayed that everyone stayed down the hall.

  To my surprise, Haley laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. She laughed until tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “Did she tell you that?” she asked between gasps.

  “She did. She tells me everything.” I didn’t feel the confidence I put into my words.

  A noise behind me caught my attention. April was in the doorway, staring at Haley, a look of shock covering her face.

  “What is she doing here?” April asked me without taking her eyes from Haley.

  “She was just leaving, actually.” I ignored the frustrated noise Haley made and kept my eyes on my sister.

  A look of warning crossed April’s face as Haley began to speak.

  “Ember,” she said. “It’s true. The Red Court was involved in April’s accident. I would know—I was a sophomore when it happened. It was my first year as a member.”

  Hearing someone else talk about April’s accident was surreal. Finally, I was getting somewhere.

  “But we weren’t the ones who hurt her.”

  “Haley. Stop it.” April’s voice cut through the thrumming in my head. It was too high maybe, or her words too fast.

  Haley kept talking. “Her accident wasn’t part of some plan to do anything to her. She was part of a plan to hurt someone else. April was one of us, part of the Red Court. She was my partner, the one I inherited the theater room from. What goes around, comes around. That was our saying. Right, April?”

  The sound of blood rushing in my ears muffled April’s response. Dizziness came over me as my eyes unfocused. As I inched backward, my knees bumped the edge of my mattress and I collapsed onto it.

  “What?” I looked to my sister convinced that whatever she said would explain away Haley’s story.

  April’s eyes shifted to me, and the truth of Haley’s words was written on her face. I couldn’t believe it.

  April had been part of the Red Court.

  CHAPTER 43

  “APRIL, NO.” My voice was nothing more than a whisper. Still, the words cut through the silence like a shout.

  No one said anything for several beats. Had I said that aloud or were the words only spoken in
my head?

  “You should leave.” April’s words scraped out of her in a rasp.

  “Happily.”

  Haley’s eyes dropped to the painting she brought me, and an uncomfortable corset of guilt squeezed my sides. Haley was many things: a liar, the Queen of Hearts, and, somehow, a friend. “Enjoy your painting.”

  Haley moved past me and out the door. My dad’s voice filtered through my haze, alarmingly jovial. Haley wouldn’t say anything to him, would she? No, that would reveal her own part in this Greek tragedy. Mutually assured destruction was not part of Haley’s game plan.

  “Do you want to stay for dinner?” he asked her.

  “No,” she quickly replied, before adding, “Thank you.”

  Haley quietly excused herself and my dad’s feet padded down the hall.

  Coming back into myself, I scrambled across the room and moved my corkboard to the floor before he appeared behind April.

  “Your friend Haley seems nice. Is that the painting she brought you? Your mom said she was very talented.” His voice, so light and familiar, pricked at my skin. My whole body felt like an exposed nerve.

  “Yeah, she is.” I managed to keep my voice steady, though tension shimmered in the air like heat waves in the desert.

  Dad looked between the two of us, about to open the lid on Pandora’s box, but April rallied quickly. “Ember was telling me about Haley’s home life. Her stepdad is a nightmare.”

  It seemed April knew Haley better than I did. It seemed I didn’t know April at all.

  “Oh, that’s terrible.” Dad’s brow furrowed in concern. “I wish she’d stayed for dinner.” Food, the universal cure-all in the Williams household. “You girls should head into the kitchen. Get it while it’s hot.”

  April looked at me with a sad stare before following after Dad. I couldn’t look at my corkboard or at the painting Haley left, so my eyes fell on my reflection in my mirror. I watched, detached, as tears filled my eyes and fell down my cheeks. This wasn’t me. This crying girl, whose heart had been ripped out moments ago, wasn’t me. It wasn’t even the ruthless girl I’d grown accustomed to being, the one who could endure the horrible things I’d done.