CHAPTER 45
THE SCHOOL WAS mostly abandoned when I arrived early on Monday morning. Only a few cars were scattered across the student lot. I grabbed my bag, heavy with supplies for the final step in my plan, and caught my reflection in the rearview mirror.
“You can do this.”
A sharp rap on my window startled me from my pep talk. A figure in a dark Heller hoodie stood next to the car, back to the blinding sun breaking over the horizon and face in shadow. I scrabbled for my pepper spray, convinced a Red Court member had sent someone here to murder me.
The figure leaned down.
“Chase?”
“I, uh, wanted to talk.” His eyes flicked around the lot, but there wasn’t anyone nearby. He looked paranoid, like I was going to reveal a Red Court ambush at any moment. I swallowed down my irritation. He had no reason to trust me. I was a liar. April wasn’t the only one who had a complicated relationship with the truth.
I climbed out of the car and checked my phone. “Ok.” I had to be in place in ten minutes, not exactly enough time for a heart-to-heart or whatever Chase had in mind. “Can you walk with me to the theater room?”
I didn’t wait for an answer before I started walking as quickly as I could. There were several very likely scenarios to come out of my confrontation with the Red Court and most of them weren’t great for me. I couldn’t handle another round of hearing why I was the worst. I sucked. I thought we’d moved on from that. Next.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
I pulled up short and spun around to face Chase. “You’re what?!” Thank goodness there was no one around to hear me roar at Chase. In my defense, an apology from Chase was about as likely as the entirety of the Red Court politely agreeing to disband over a nice cup of coffee.
He grimaced at my tone. “That day when you told me about the Red Court, I was angrier with myself and what I’d done than with you. I’m the one who made the choice to bargain with the Red Court.”
I dropped my bag to the ground and then promptly joined it. I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the inside of my arms. I was keyed up, true, but I didn’t think this was a hallucination or a stress dream. Chase sat down next to me and I risked a peek at his face. He looked concerned.
I laughed, embarrassed at my reaction. “I...appreciate the apology. But you don’t owe me anything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were trying to stop the Red Court?”
Chase’s presence and apology shifted into focus.
Gideon, I swear to God I will wring your neck when I see you.
“Because it didn’t matter. Some of what you said about me was absolutely true. I got caught up in the worst of what the Red Court stands for.”
He looked at me, and it was then that I noticed his expression. He was looking at me the way he used to, like I was his favorite puzzle.
“I was tired of lying, and you deserved the truth.”
“I should have seen it,” he murmured.
A smile stretched my face. It felt unpracticed. I hadn’t had much to smile about recently. “Seen that I was trying to destroy the Red Court from within and went a little too far down the rabbit hole? Of course. How could you not?”
“I should have seen how conflicted you were. It was tearing you apart. I should have tried to help you.”
I shook my head and placed a hand on his. “It was something I had to do myself. Even Gideon couldn’t bring me to my senses.”
“I’ve been thinking that we both made mistakes with the Red Court, and that no one can understand what we went through better than each other.”
He was right. This was the first time we’d talked without our biggest secrets between us. We knew who the other was, even the darker parts, and we weren’t looking away.
My internal alarm clock chimed a reminder. I had somewhere to be. I stood up and heaved my bag onto my shoulder. “Well, it’s not over yet.”
“Right. Gideon mentioned something about that. What can I do to help?”
“Gideon might need a hand. He’ll be in Carson’s room in a few minutes. I need to do my part solo.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Positive. I’ve got this.”
“If anyone can do this, it’s you.”
Chase pulled me into a tight hug. I leaned my forehead against his chest, drinking in his spicy scent. “I missed scowling at you.”
“I missed being scowled at. It’s not enough to just beat you in everything anymore.” He looked down at me with a smile and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I want to be with you.”
I stood on my toes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for coming back.”
I turned and faced the doors to Heller while Chase went the other direction toward Carson’s classroom on the third floor. One way or another, nothing would be the same after today.
CHAPTER 46
MY HANDS SHOOK as I waited alone in the dark theater room. The damp cold of the basement seeped into me, chilling my bones. I was by myself, but I wasn’t alone in this anymore. Two people I thought I’d lost were backing me up. I felt invincible and quickly checked myself. It could all go south in an instant. I had to be ready.
Unsurprisingly, Haley was the first to arrive.
“What are you doing, Ember?”
I merely motioned to the tattered couch where we first met and invited her to sit. “You’ll see.”
“Whatever you’re planning, watch out. I might be the Queen of Hearts, but I’m not your biggest worry.”
“I know.”
I didn’t want to underestimate Haley, but the more I considered our partnership, the more it seemed like friendship, however unlikely that might have been at the beginning. I had no reason to trust her, but I did. It was also time to trust myself again.
In the minutes leading up to seven o’clock, more girls filed in. I mentally checked them off, picturing my corkboard. The only one who surprised me was Jess Lantz. Jess was a sophomore as well, but she was quiet and unassuming. She led the coat drive for the freshmen class last year. I never considered putting her on the corkboard with other likely candidates. She went right to the list of distant maybes.
Gretchen shook her head sadly at me as she found a seat. Gretchen was clever. She must have figured out that the Red Court’s reign was ending. It was hard to forget the fervor in her eyes when she’d approached me at Alec’s house. I wasn’t most worried about her, but she was a close second.
The last to grace us with her presence was the Fire Alarm. She swept into the room, looking balefully at me before raking her gaze over the rest of the girls, then finally Haley, who held her eye for a full five seconds before the Fire Alarm plopped onto the floor with her back against the door.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you for coming—”
“Cut the shit,” Shauna said. “What do you want? Favors? How many?”
Clearly some of the other girls thought the same thing as they nodded their agreement. Half of the girls had malicious twinkles in their eyes, which seemed to say they were angry at themselves for not blackmailing the whole of the Red Court for their own gain. Others seemed unsure, disbelieving.
“No, I don’t want favors. The Red Court is done. I want it all to stop.”
Several dramatic gasps cut through the tension.
The Fire Alarm scoffed and stood up, dusting invisible bits of lint from her skinny jeans. “I can’t believe I woke up early for this. There is no stopping the Red Court.” Each terse word was thrown at me.
“Yes, there is.”
I picked through the stack of manila folders in my bag, each labeled with a different name. I removed the one for Jenna Lowell and grabbed what I had collected for Jess from the collection of backups, glad I’d overprepared despite how unlikely some of the candidates seemed. I handed the edited stack to Haley. “If y
ou wouldn’t mind, Haley?”
I noted Haley’s curious expression before she delivered a folder to each girl. She didn’t seem angry. The mood in the room shifted slowly as each girl was faced with her own photo and the words Red Court Member emblazoned across the top. Under that was a list of each member’s friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, exes—anyone they knew—who’d been targeted by the Red Court or owed us a favor.
“You all have been under the protection of the Red Court for long enough. Now it’s time you understood what it’s like for someone to hold a secret over your heads, to bend to someone else’s will because of your choices.”
Olivia, a pretty blonde junior, slammed her folder shut, causing soft-spoken Jess next to her to jump. “We all stop or you rat us out? To who? Our friends? Our parents?” All the color in her face drained away, and her mouth was pulled into a tight, colorless line.
I nodded, casually checking my nails. “That’s the gist of it, but just in case a piece of paper doesn’t feel immediate enough, there’s this.”
I picked up my phone and brought up the video Gideon had texted me. The screen filled with more than a dozen bewildered kids sitting in Carson’s otherwise empty classroom. “I’ve called a few friends of the Red Court for their own little meeting this morning.”
I turned my phone toward the other members. “How do you think your boyfriend Nate will feel, Brianna, when he hears you’re a part of the same Red Court that broke up his last relationship? Or your best friend Cecelia, Taylor? Do you think she’s still going to want anything to do with you when she learns that the Red Court sabotaged her bid for varsity soccer captain? Each one of you has someone in this room, someone I’m sure you don’t want to know what you’ve done or what you are.” I slipped my phone into my back pocket before anyone could examine the video too closely. Gideon and I had gathered as many students as possible on such short notice to cover nearly every possible Red Court member, but there were bound to be some people missing.
Haley rose from her seat and moved to stand in front of me. She looked at the burner in her hand for a long moment before turning to Shauna.
“Maybe Ember’s right. What we did to Mrs. Martin wasn’t right. I’ve regretted accepting your favor request ever since it happened. I let you bully me into it and that is something I’ll have to live with forever. We ruined her life and destroyed her family.”
Even the Queen of Hearts had a line in the sand, one she had to cross to realize it was there. Whispers began to rise as every person in the room recognized Haley for what she was: their leader.
Shauna sneered at Haley, like her display of conscience was deplorable. “She only got what was coming to her.”
“Don’t pretend like that was why you did it.” Haley’s eyes shifted to me.
Me?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Haley turned to me. “When you said that everything with Alec and Gideon and Mrs. Martin felt personal, it was.”
“Be quiet, Haley.” Shauna was shaking with anger.
“It was Shauna’s idea to use Alec even though he’d graduated. We could have done that job a hundred different ways.”
“Haley!” Shauna looked around the room in a panic. “Stop it.”
“The request from Matthew was real, but Shauna wanted you to take down Gideon, and when I objected, she told me I was going soft. I’m sorry, Ember. I knew it would hurt you, but I let her convince me that it would be better if you did it. It wasn’t until she asked for the job on Mrs. Martin and you told me that you knew Gigi that I figured it out. All this time, Shauna was trying to hurt you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shauna snapped. “Why would I care about her? She’s nothing to me.”
Haley rounded on her. “And it just so happened that your friend asked us to break up Chase and his girlfriend. That your same friend came back again when Chase showed interest in Ember. Come on, Shauna. I wasn’t born yesterday. You knew I couldn’t accept the request, but that I’d warn Ember off of Chase, anyway.”
“This is about Chase?” I thought I was the only one with a surprise up my sleeve.
Shauna’s eyes were wild with anger. “Don’t you dare say his name. Do you think he’ll want anything to do with you when I tell him what you are? Your little game works both ways.”
“He already knows. I told him.” I added a small smile to throw her off balance.
Shauna stepped back, considering me. The trump card in her hand held no power over me. When you lived honestly, it was hard for people to use your secrets as weapons against you.
“Was it you leaving those notes on my car?”
Haley narrowed her eyes at Shauna. “What notes?”
I looked back at Haley. “Someone has been threatening me to stay away from Chase. It started after you told me someone asked for a takedown on me to break us apart. The last one threatened me with an accidental fall from the theater catwalks like my sister.”
Haley paled and looked to Shauna for an explanation. “That’s so messed up. Even for us.”
Shauna pursed her lips, refusing to meet Haley’s eyes. Haley gave a frustrated shake of her head. “You don’t get it, Shauna.” She glanced at me before saying, “Neither did I for the longest time. But I’ve ruined enough reputations and cheated too many people out of the things they’ve earned. The Red Court doesn’t make me happy. It just makes everyone else as miserable as I am. It’s not worth it. I’m out.”
Shauna was glaring daggers at Haley. This was a girl used to getting what she wanted, and watching her partner call it quits had to be killing her. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be, Haley.” Shauna jabbed an accusatory finger in my direction. “You’ve let her ruin everything we’ve worked for. This was going to be our time to make the Red Court better than ever before. You can’t just walk away. I won’t let you.”
Haley handed me her folder. “I don’t speak for anyone else, but I can’t do this anymore.” Haley dropped the burner in the trash can to my left.
The other members of the Red Court shifted uneasily. Olivia whispered something to Jess and she nodded back. They must have been partners.
“We’re out,” Olivia said. “I thought being in the Red Court meant immunity from this kind of thing. If members are turning on each other, I think we’re better off on our own.”
Both Olivia and Jess rose and handed me their folders. They followed Haley’s lead and dropped their phones in the trash before walking out, shooting wary glances at Shauna. That gave me an idea.
I turned my eyes back to the rest of the girls. “If Shauna did this to me, who’s to say she won’t turn on you? You can’t trust her.”
Shauna stalked to the middle of the room, taking center stage. “We don’t need them. We can still be the Red Court and I’ll be the Queen of Hearts. It will be like it was before except better. Haley has been holding us back, denying requests she thought were too much. No one in this place is scared of us anymore. It’s time to remind them all who really runs this school. I’ll admit that I pulled some strings for myself recently, but haven’t we earned more than one favor? I’m offering you more. We can be more together.”
A few of the girls, Gretchen included, were nodding their heads. I had to hand it to Shauna. She was good.
I cut in, eager for my rebuttal. “She might have you do bigger jobs, but how will you know that they’re legitimate requests and not self-serving ones to settle her petty arguments? Or even if they’re against other members. She’s proved that she comes first. Take the deal and save yourselves.”
A handful of other girls rose and followed Olivia and Jess, giving me their folders and tossing their identical phones in the trash. Once the last of them filed out, only seven remained, including Haley and me. No matter what went down between us, I was grateful she was on my side in this.
I struck first. “We’ve all done things
we’re not proud of.” Matthew’s face flashed to my mind, followed by Gigi’s. “Things we’re going to regret for a good long while. Just like Haley said.”
A few girls shifted uncomfortably in their seats. These were the ones whose consciences had already been nagging at them. All they needed was a little extra push.
I looked to each girl for a moment before starting. “How many more sleepless nights are you going to give to the Red Court? And for what? The promise of a favor? Look around at how few of you are left. What kind of favor is this group even going to be able to pull off for you?”
Silence met my words and I let it settle, let them consider if a watered-down favor was worth their souls.
“I, for one, got tired of looking in the mirror and hating the person I see.” My voice cracked, but I pushed through. “And I was sick of changing my route between classes all so I could avoid seeing someone whose relationship I’d destroyed.”
A few scattered nods bolstered me. “I’m not the only one. Tampering with people’s lives is wrong, and decisions we make can affect people for the rest of their lives, not just high school. We can all get out of this together. Start making amends.”
Two more girls stood and dropped their phones and dossiers off with me. When they’d left, the Fire Alarm came forward, tore her folder in half, and tossed the remains on the floor in the middle of the room. It felt like a challenge from medieval times, as though she was throwing a gauntlet for a duel.
But I didn’t fight fair.
CHAPTER 47
SHAUNA’S SUPPORT WAS all but depleted, but that didn’t stop her. “Your little sob story might have worked on the others, but you don’t fool me. I know who you are, where you come from. For girls like you and your sister, being part of the Red Court is in your blood. That’s why we tapped you, Ember. Your sister was one of the best. So don’t act like you’re all holier than thou when we both know what you’re capable of.”
The mention of my sister shook me. Shauna would stop at nothing to keep her position. She needed power like boys needed cheap body spray—it masked the things she didn’t want the world to know.
These Vengeful Hearts Page 26
