by Hannah Capin
They say, The hell is she smiling for—
They say, Wipe that smile off your face, you’re in serious shit—
They drag me away. Cameras flash. My heels rip through the grass. My dress shines dizzying in the lights. They lock silver handcuffs onto my wrists. They pull me across the grass toward their cars. They try to make me fall.
I don’t fall.
They push my head down and shove me into the car and slam the door. A metal grate cages me in. They’ve trapped me but I don’t care. Nothing they can do will ever bring the wolves back to life.
I lean close to the shining bars of my cage. The cop in the front seat twitches. He smells like cheap cigarettes.
I say it right into his ear—
What’s done cannot be undone.
He flinches away from me. He says, “You’re going to be sorry you did whatever you can’t undo.”
I think of dead Connor and how everyone swore it was an accident. Dead Duncan and the knife in Porter’s hand. Dead Porter who drove deathwish-fast onto the freeway. Dead Banks with his car waiting at El Matador. Dead Piper with Duffy’s name scrawled in her blood. Dead Malcolm and dead Duffy celebrating drunk and stupid with bloody knuckles and the guilt that finally caught up to them.
I think of Jenny’s father with his front-page headlines and his murderers who walk free. You’ll be a celebrity, said Summer, starry-eyed, just before they turned to birds and flew off into the night. You’ll be his goddamn dream client, said Jenny. You’re the girl who wins, said Mads. And Lilia said, For every girl who wants revenge.
I think of the four boys in the white-sheets room. Walking out. Stalking proud through the halls of St Andrew’s with everyone knowing exactly what they did that night and every other night.
But never again.
The radio gasps static and the scared-stupid cop mumbles into it. The passenger door swings open and another cop climbs in. The door slams.
The car slides back down the driveway. The sky glows bright and breathes with feathers and freedom. Mack watches from the door.
The dazzle-smiled boy who killed for me. Dizzy from my kiss and innocent, innocent, innocent. A bottle of poison hanging from his hand.
He is alone in the dead king’s house.
Far away my coven flits and flies and watches over me. They are mine and I am theirs and I will never lie to them again.
Far away my mother and my father stand tall for me. They will love me always. They will see the little laughing girl always. I am her, still, even with blood on my hands.
I am free.
I am everything I have ever wanted to be.
We drive away from Duncan’s house. Away from the spinning lights where they picked the girl fate had already chosen.
I look back, just once, before it all disappears—
—and Mack lifts the bottle to his lips and drinks the poison down.
I smile with my fangs showing.
I am the queen and the killer.
I’m not sorry.
Acknowledgments
I am so wildly, wildly grateful for everyone who has made Foul Is Fair what it is. My deepest thanks—
To Sarah Burnes, for believing in Jade from the very beginning, for your fierce and fearless advocacy, for your aggressiveness and warmth and brilliance, and for those four perfect words on September 28th.
To Sara Goodman, for understanding this book all the way down to the bone, for your assurance and your razor-sharp notes, for your energy and drive, and for never accepting anything but the best.
To Naomi Colthurst, for seeing Jade exactly the way I see her, for your wit and your eagle eyes, for your thoughtful and incisive ideas, and for loving the lines I thought everyone would hate.
To everyone at the Gernert Company (especially Julia Eagleton) and Wednesday Books (especially Jennie Conway), for your enthusiastic and endless support.
To the early readers whose superb instincts pointed me in exactly the right direction: Ellen Bryson and Lydia Netzer.
To the authenticity readers whose insight and input were essential in making this story intersectional: Haarthi, Namrata, Neha, Quinn, and Kat. Any missteps are my own, and everything done right is because of you.
To the coven, past and present and always: Liana, Cat, Emily, Sony, Katie, Jessica, Michelle, and so very many more. Sisters, by something more than blood.
To all who survive, every day, in spite of everything: those who forgive and those who fight, those who seek justice and those who seek revenge, those who have stood up with the whole world watching and those whose stories will never be told. You are strength and you are power.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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First published in the USA by St. Martin’s Press and in Great Britain by Penguin Books 2020
Text copyright © Hannah Capin, 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Photography © Shutterstock
ISBN: 978-0-241-40498-0
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