by Ruby Vincent
Jaxson stood when I placed my foot on the platform. “Val, what are you doing?”
I didn’t respond. I skirted around him and climbed onto his chair. Then, I stepped on the table.
All of the Knights were up now.
“Valentina, get down.” I felt a hand on my arm but I knocked it off as I reached for the belt of my robe.
“Oh shit,” someone shouted. “She’s giving us another show!”
The room was quickly awash with catcalls. Guys jumped out of their seats to rush the dais.
“Sit the fuck down!” Ezra roared. He darted in front of the table. “Get out! Everyone out!”
“Come on, Val! Take it off!”
One of the boys tried to grab me again. “Val!”
In one smooth move, I ripped the robe off. The fabric pooled at my feet as the whoops and cheers came to a stuttering halt.
I threw out my hands. “Get a good look!” I cried. “Make sure you get this message!”
I wasn’t naked. Quite the opposite. I stood above the room in shorts and a plain white t-shirt that I had marked up to tell Ace what I really felt: Fuck You.
I glared into the eyes of everyone who looked my way. “Some piece of shit,” I announced, “has been blackmailing me since school started. They thought they would get me to come up here and give you all a striptease, but they forgot who the fuck they were messing with. So listen up, Ace, if you’re in here. You can do your worst. I can handle it. Just like I’ll handle you if I ever find out who you are.
“And one more thing. They’re not yours.” A smirk spread across my lips. “They’re mine.”
I got to bask in my glorious moment for another half of a second before Maverick grabbed my arm.
I yelped as I was unceremoniously thrown over his shoulder and carted out of the room.
“Uh, Maverick? I can walk.”
He ignored me. The other boys were right behind. I rode his shoulder all the way to the Knight room where he dumped me on the couch.
“Explain,” Ryder demanded.
“Gladly.” I told them everything. “Ace was pissed that I was with Ezra. They wanted to turn you all off of me for good.”
Jaxson came to my side. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What would you have done? I had two choices: strip or defy them. You couldn’t make it for me.”
“No,” Ezra spoke up. “You’re right, we couldn’t. But what do we do now? They are going to send the video to the police.”
“They might not release it.”
“How can you say that?” Ezra asked. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because you’re in it. All of you. They’ve only focused on me even though we’re all in that video. They want to keep us apart but I don’t believe they want to hurt you. They said you belong to them.”
“They said that because they’re insane,” Jaxson countered. “We don’t know who the hell that is or why they think they own us. We can’t predict what they will do.”
“What if it’s them.” Maverick drew my eye. “The Ace of Spades. The Spades believe they own everybody.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think you have a Spade on your tail. I think you have a stalker.”
“A stalker?”
“Yes. Someone followed you into the woods that day and was careful to keep themselves hidden. They won’t reveal who they are. They are creepily obsessed with keeping us apart. I don’t know what they will do now, but if this is about you, they won’t send that video to the police.”
“And what about you?” Ryder asked. He moved until he was directly in front of me. “If we have a stalker that is this determined, they will not be happy with what you did today. They could come up behind you and you wouldn’t know it was them.”
“Then let’s do something about that.” I got to my feet. “Yesterday, I took a picture of the phone box after I took mine out. The text from Ace was sent ten minutes before I got there. If Ace is a junior, their phone was locked in that box same as all of us, which means they have to be one of the people who took their phone before me. If we match the names to the student numbers; we’ll have a list of Ace suspects.”
Maverick goggled at me. “Val, that’s... brilliant.”
I smiled. “Yes, it is, and we can eliminate three people from the jump.”
“Airi, Natalie, and Isabella,” Ezra spoke up. “I broke their phones and none of them had time to replace them.”
“Exactly.”
Ryder sprang into action. “Val, get your phone. If Markham puts up a fuss, tell her that it’s Knight business. Jaxson, get the list of student numbers. Ezra, get Val some lunch. We’re ending this shit now.”
WHISPERS FOLLOWED ME the next day. I overheard Ace on the lips of everyone I passed by, but I was watching them as hard as they watched me. We had a list now. We were close to finding Ace. I could feel it.
Jaxson was waiting for me at my locker. There was no hiding now. Not after what I did.
I walked up and boldly kissed him on the lips. “You checking up on me?”
“You mean am I worried about you after you pissed off a psycho? Yes.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” I moved around him and reached for my lock. Arms snaked around my waist.
“I know you didn’t and I’m proud of you. No one gets to see that ass but me... and Maverick and Ezra and—”
I playfully bumped him. “I get it,” I said as I spun the dial.
“We don’t know what they’re going to do,” he said into my ear. “So I’ll be sticking close.”
“How close?”
“Very close.” His tongue darted out and licked me. “I should probably spend the night with you as well.”
“Good idea. Safety first.”
We giggled as I threw open my locker. I reached for my chemistry textbook and something caught my eye. Time slowed down. Jaxson’s voice faded to a dull roar as I lifted my head and saw it.
Stuck to the top of my locker was a joker card.
“No...” he whispered. The horror in Jaxson’s voice didn’t scare me as much as his silence. He was speechless.
“Guys, look. She’s got the card.”
The words were a slap to the face. I sprung forward and ripped it down even though I knew it was too late.
No. No, please. Not again.
“Look at that.” Darren’s voice grated on my ears. “I guess we’re going in for round two. I wonder if you’ll survive—”
Jaxson moved so fast he blurred across my vision. One moment Darren was smirking at me and the next he was slammed against the locker.
“You listen up,” Jaxson snarled. “There is no round two. You or anyone else touches her; I’ll beat you so bad it’ll hurt to cry.”
Jaxson abruptly released him, letting him fall to the floor. “That goes for all of you! Consider it an order from the Knights! You got that?”
“Yes, Jaxson.”
The crowd broke apart, scurrying in every direction as they headed for class. I didn’t know what to do. The roaring was getting louder. A band constricted my chest—one I had not felt for a long time.
Eventually, I staggered to class. Jaxson was next to me but nothing he said was going in. It wasn’t until halfway through first period when Natalie shot me a triumphant smile that it hit me.
I was marked.
I made it through the rest of my morning classes by a miracle. My friends pounced on me the moment the bell rang for lunch. “You’re not going through this again, Val.” Sofia’s grip on my hand was tight. “If anyone tries to bully you, I’m kicking their ass.”
“Seconded.”
“Third.”
I shot the twins a smile over my shoulder. I think it was a smile anyway. It could have been a grimace. “Thanks, guys, but you should know right now that I’m not letting people hurt you because of me.”
“Fuck that,” said Kai.
That got another round of agreement.
I sighed. There was nothing I could do if th
ey were determined to tell everyone they had my back, and part of me didn’t want to stop them. I could not go through this again.
Silence descended on the lunchroom when I stepped inside. I was really getting tired of that. But something that was different was the Knights all standing when I walked in.
“Listen up,” Jaxson bellowed although there was barely a sound. “By now you’ve heard about the card.”
Ezra stepped forward. “We did too and we want to make sure something is very clear.”
“Valentina Moon stays,” Maverick said. “No one touches her.”
Ryder’s voice carried through the room. “Because that card is a fake.”
“What?!”
That first shout broke the sound barrier and suddenly everyone was yelling. Through it all I didn’t look away from the Knights.
What are they doing?
“What do you mean the card is a fake?” Isabella demanded. “How do you know that?”
Ryder turned silver eyes on her. “A real mark is printed on special card stock. The joker is hand-painted and wearing the school colors. This card had none of that. It’s a fake most likely put out by the person blackmailing Valentina. They were relying on you idiots to not know the facts and go off at the sight of any joker card.”
Isabella flicked her hair over her shoulder. “If that’s true, show it to us. Let’s see if it’s fake.”
I saw the moment the light went out behind his eyes. Ryder stepped off the stage and advanced on Isabella. She took the tiniest step back.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
I swear the temperature in the room plunged.
Isabella shook her head. “No, I— I just thought we could make sure this never happens again by showing people what a fake looks like.”
“You don’t need to know what a fake looks like. You just need to listen to me when I tell you it is.”
“Of course, Ryder.” She shrank under his gaze. “Sorry.”
He looked around at those watching. “Everyone got it?”
A chorus of yeses came back.
It took me a while to pick up my feet and join the lunch line. Was that it? Did the Knights truly end this nightmare before it could begin?
I gazed at them and as the line moved, I felt a rush of such powerful emotion that before I knew it, I was racing up the dais. Maverick stood to catch me as I threw myself in his arms.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
His arms were strong, secure, and safe. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again. I—”
“I love you.” The words spilled from my lips. I hadn’t known they were coming, but they felt right. They felt so right I said it again. “I love you, Maverick.”
The others watched us. I had words for them. I was going to tell and show each of them exactly how I felt. No more hiding. No more waiting for the right moment. No more being kept at arm’s length.
Ace had tried to take my Knights away from me. I would never let that happen. I would make them mine in every way.
THE ALARM CLOCK JOLTED me awake the next morning. My hand darted out of the covers and smacked the offending thing to the floor.
A laugh filled my ear as Maverick put his arm over my waist. “You can break my clock, but we still have to go to class.”
“I don’t want to.” I twisted around and snuggled into his chest. “You’re a Knight. Get me out of classes today.”
“I wish I could.” He kissed my forehead. “But we’ve got a paper due.”
“Ugh. You’re a Knight. Get Coleman fired.”
The bed shook with his laugh. “Knights aren’t fairy godmothers. I can’t fix everything.”
“But you did fix one thing for me.” I tilted my head back to show him my smile. “We both know that card wasn’t a fake. I gambled and lost. Not only is Ace a psychopath and possibly a stalker; they are also a Spade.”
He pulled me closer. “I don’t care who the fuck they are. We’re not playing their game anymore. Getting people to doubt the mark was good, but I don’t think it ends here. Whatever happens next; this is war.”
Those words banged around in my head as we got dressed and left for homeroom. We walked hand in hand through the quad. I loved being public. Everything would change now.
As we went, my smile faded. I began to notice the looks we were getting.
“What’s going on?”
Maverick stopped dead, pulling me up short. “I don’t know,” he replied as one of the junior girls gave him a wide berth. “But something is up.”
We were a few feet away from Markham’s class when his phone went off.
“Yeah, Jaxson? What? Slow down. What are you talking about?” My alarm grew as his face went ashen. “But— But that’s not possible.”
“Maverick, what?” I grabbed his forearms. “What is it?”
Maverick pulled the phone away from his ear. I could still hear Jaxson’s voice coming through shouting unintelligibly about something.
“Val, we— We’ve been marked,” he forced out. “The Knights have all been marked.”
Unmasked
Prologue
“W-who are you?!” The tight band I had not felt in so long constricted my chest. I thought I knew fear, but nothing compared to the terror that shook me and tore my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about anything other than the horrors I learned that night.
Were these faceless monsters going to kill me?
“Let me go!”
“Let me make something very clear.” That dreadful voice stopped me cold. “You’re done at Evergreen Academy. Goodbye, Valentina Moon.”
I opened my mouth to curse them when the hands reared up and sent me flying through the air. I screamed as I splashed down. Water rushed into my mouth and nose, choking me as I sank below the depths.
Chapter One
“Maybe we shouldn’t go back.”
I lifted my head and met Sofia’s gaze over the computer screen. If I could see my face, I’m sure it would have the same anxious expression as hers.
“It’s not going to get any better,” she continued. “We’re looking at the same hell as last year.”
I lowered my eyes to the Evergreen student portal. It was time to pick our classes for our final year at the academy. No doubt Sofia had the same fleeting thought that I did. I should just put “screw you” in the comment box and move on with my life.
But I can’t.
“I have to go back, Sof.”
“Why? There are plenty of other good schools.” I picked up a hint of desperation in her voice. “None of them are Evergreen, but they would still look great on our college applications. I was reading up on one—Breakbattle Academy. It’s not far from us and—”
“Sofia,” I cut in gently. “I have to go back.”
Her shoulders slumped. Sofia dropped down until her forehead rested on the laptop. “I hate this, Val. It shouldn’t be like this. I’m— I’m scared.”
“I know you are. I am too.” I rose from the kitchen table and went around to my best friend. She let me pull her into my arms. “That place has been a haunted house horror show since the moment I passed through the gates. You’re scared. I’m scared. Everyone is scared. They are afraid of the Spades and always have been. That has to stop. It’s time someone put an end to their reign.”
She pinned me with a look. “That someone does not have to be you.”
“They made it me when they bullied, harassed, violated, and marked me.” My grip on her shoulder tightened. “Ace is coming after me so I’m coming back just as hard.”
“Val, Ace marked the Knights. That has never happened before. They are supposed to be untouchable. Last semester was... bad.”
“It would have been worse if we didn’t have each other’s backs. We’ll watch out for each other, Sof, and we’ll take down Ace and whoever is left of the Spades so that they can’t hurt anyone else. Alright?”
Sofia still looked unsure. Tears had collected in he
r eyes that threatened to fall with every blink. I suddenly had a vision of those tears mixing with dye and staining her red dress. The retribution that came down when Ace marked me and the Knights was swift. It hit just as hard for those that stood with us.
My heart broke thinking of that day. “Why don’t you transfer?” I seized upon the idea as I grabbed her hands. “This is my fight. It was never yours and it doesn’t have to be. You should leave Evergreen, Sof. You’re a science whiz who invented a new shampoo in middle school. You never needed the academy to be successful. You’ll have your pick of universities. You go to Breakbattle and—”
“Not if you don’t come with me.”
I blinked. The tears and desperation were gone. Sofia’s voice was infused with steel.
“I’m not leaving you to face them alone. We both leave, or we both stay.”
I tried another way. “I won’t be alone. I have the boys. We—”
“We’re a team, Val. We were long before the boys came around. You wouldn’t leave if it were me, would you?”
I didn’t reply, but I knew my eyes held the answer. Never in a million years would I abandon Sofia.
A look passed between us and, at that moment, I knew we understood each other.
Sofia took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. “Okay. Let’s pick these classes.”
I couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss her cheek. “I love you, Sof.”
“I know.” There was a trace of teasing in her tone. “I love you too.”
I stood as I heard the sound of barreling footsteps. I knew what was coming before—
“Mommy! Mommy!”
I turned in time to see Adam burst into the doorway. I took in the beaming three-year-old. His perfect head of wild curls, shining green eyes, and complete lack of pants.
A smile tugged at my lips. “Adam Moon. Did you use the potty?”
He threw his hands up. “Yes!”
“And then did you run away before Olivia could put your pants on?”
“He did!” Mom shouted down the hall. “He was so excited; he had to tell you before he did anything else.”
