by Rebel Hart
“Yeah,” my mom said. “Connor had to have had something to do with Deon getting framed.”
“He came to me,” my dad said, and then my mom looked at him confused. “He told me about Deon. He said he was a dangerous guy and that I needed to keep my daughter away from him. He told me that, eventually, we would see the kind of person he was, and then when Deon disappeared, he told me why and offered me a promotion and to move to keep you safe.”
My jaw fell slack. “What?!”
“Christian, how could you not tell me that?” my mom asked.
“I thought I was protecting my family.” My dad reached across the island and put a hand on mine. “Cherri, I’m so sorry.”
“Was it just because he felt scorned by Deon? That he’d be willing to do something so harmful to his own son?” I said. “He’s even more psychotic than I thought.”
My parents and I sat in silence for a while, and eventually I made an excuse to leave the kitchen. I couldn’t believe that my parents knew so much more about Connor than they’d let on. My mind was going a mile a minute thinking that every aspect of my life from the moment I arrived in Postings had been so manipulated by Connor and his games. He played with my life and the lives of everyone around me.
I was so angry I could breathe fire.
Just like I promised I would, I went up to Gus’s room and climbed into his bed. He was asleep, so I snuggled in behind him, and he turned without waking to curl into my arms. I held him close and thought about how much more damage Connor could do if we didn’t end him soon.
When I went back to The Royal Court the next day, it was going to be with renewed veracity. I wanted Connor Loche down, and I wanted him down for good.
18
Deon
From casual walks with Concrete to working in the backyard, all outdoor activities for me had come to a complete and total halt. If everything that had happened at the roadshow wasn’t enough to convince me that I needed to stay inside, Felicity felt she had no choice but to come clean to Venom about what we’d done, and we both got an earful.
“I mean, fucking honestly,” he snapped over speaker during his call with Felicity. “The two people I care about most in the entire fucking world are out there doing shit that could get them killed. I feel like I’m talking to my goddamn cell wall. Did I not tell you to let me handle this shit? There’s a reason I’m saying what I’m saying. It’s not to fucking leave you two out of it, it’s because I’ve seen Connor at work. He’s a fucking snake, and he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in either of you. And what, he wasn’t even fucking there? If he’d killed you, D, he wouldn’t have even been the one going down for it. I mean…” He growled. “Shit. Just stay fucking still. I’m not gonna tell either of you again.”
Getting really and truly scolded for the first time ever by the man I’d come to see as my father was equal parts upsetting and enlightening. There were people out there who cared about me. People were expecting me to be smart about the decisions I was making and ensure that I was still alive at the end of the day, and I let my hubris and wanting to end Connor for good get in the way of that. I imagined that if Cherri or Nathan knew what I’d done, they’d be just as mad.
I owed it to the people I loved not to be so dumb.
So I was sitting at home. My anxiety was through the roof, and I found myself peeking through the windows on a near constant rotation, because I’d managed to convince myself that I led the people chasing me back to Felicity. They didn’t see her face, and if I were to take a guess, they didn’t know it was her beneath the mask. That didn’t ease my fear. Venom was right, Connor knew how to dig shit up even if it was twelve feet deep. It probably wouldn’t take him long to figure out we were together if he was given the smallest hint. By now, he knew that someone was helping me, and he was probably already working his resources to figure out who.
“Deon?” Felicity called out as she walked back into the house. It’d become a bad—or maybe good—habit of ours to call out to one another whenever she was coming or going.
“I’m in the living room,” I called back.
I heard Concrete’s collar shaking, and a few seconds later he came bounding into the living room, followed closely by Felicity. If it weren’t for the fact that she had a job and Concrete turned into a monster whenever he didn’t get his walks, Felicity would probably be condemned to the house too, but she at least had a hidden identity, at least for now.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
It’d been a few days since I got shot, again, but luckily the second time around wasn’t as bad as the first. “It’s sore, but other than that, it’s fine. It grazed me really. I took more damage from the fall and then giving it a goddamn seawater bath.” Just mentioning it made my wound sting, like the saltwater was still licking at the open sore. “I’m okay.”
“Did you change the bandages already?” she asked.
“I just did,” I replied. “I’m okay, mama. Really.”
She gave me a half-lidded gaze and then flopped onto the couch. Concrete jumped up next to her and curled up, falling asleep almost immediately. “I can’t get your father out of my head.”
“Me too. We really let him down and I hate thinking that, on top of everything he’s already worrying about, he has to add a fear that the two of us are misbehaving to the list,” I said.
“Well that too,” Felicity said. “But also because I’m not gonna listen.”
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I’m gonna go talk to Nico. Before shit went sideways at the show, I got a good lead on a vendor Connor may have used to secure locations in Postings to hide out. If we can get in touch with the man aiding him, we may be able to find where he is. It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten,” Felicity said. “I can’t just not do it.”
“You cannot leave this house,” I ordered. “I’m sorry, I know in the grand scheme of things we haven’t known each other that long but I love you like a mom. Not only that, but Ven—my dad was clear that he wanted to take care of this on his own. We should trust him.”
“I do, Deon, but I’m panicking now. Every day I think I’m gonna wake up and find you dead in your bed or hear that Venom’s been shanked behind bars.” Felicity’s eyes were low and her voice was strained. “I need to protect my family, you included. Besides, Nico and I… let’s just say we go way back. He wouldn’t hurt me, and he wouldn’t let anyone else hurt me. I’m going straight there and coming straight back, that’s it.”
I didn’t know what to say or do. Felicity seemed so determined, but if Venom found out that I let her go, he’d be the one trying to kill me. “If he asks me, I’m not going to lie to him,” I said.
She scoffed. “You’d sell out your own step-mother?”
“To not get my ass kicked? In a heartbeat,” I said, then I smiled a bit and Felicity returned the sentiment. “I just want you to be safe.”
“And I will be,” she replied. “I called him while I was walking Concrete and set up a meeting for later tonight. You’ll be on your own for dinner, but there’s still leftover lasagna.”
“I mean… there isn’t, because I ate that already, but I’ll figure something out,” I said.
Felicity nodded. “Thanks.”
The rest of the afternoon was tense as Felicity showered, cooked me dinner despite the fact that I told her I could do it myself, and then got ready to go. She wore something much more enticing than I was expecting her to for such a visit. She had on skintight, dark blue jeans, a black crop top, and wore a magenta, sleeveless, anorak-style parka over it, with black stilettos to finish the ensemble off. The outfit showed off lots of skin and she pulled her braids down so that they hung partly in her face. She looked more like she was headed out for a date than to a shady meeting.
“You look good,” I said. “Do you usually put this much effort into back-alley conversations?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s like I said, Nico and I go back a ways. I h
aven’t seen him in a while, but I’m hoping our… history can work to our favor.”
I didn’t like the insinuation in the way she murmured “history,” but I didn’t pry for anymore information. I wanted to have plausible deniability if something came out later. Felicity gave me a quick hug, promised to be back in two hours tops, and then walked through the door to the garage and out of sight. I listened as the garage door opened and her car started, then it closed again, and I was alone once more.
I did just about anything I could think of to busy myself while I waited. Deep cleaning the house and playing video games were two of the things on the list, but those got old fast. Needing something to take my attention for a long time, I decided to try my hand at making a white chicken chili recipe that Felicity had taught me, then I packed the chili into containers and froze it for eating at a later time. Of course, I worked out, but that got old too, and eventually I found myself on the computer, flicking through the social media accounts of The Royal Court once again.
It was white noise across the board as far as they were concerned—a post here and there for optics, but otherwise no activity. Nathan must have instructed them to mostly stay off of social media in case Connor was watching. Smart. I would have done the same thing. My head started to droop as I looked through the accounts, and eventually landed on Avery’s page. She had posted recently about college and her future, and it made me wonder.
What did my future look like?
If I could get out from under Connor and get back home, what did the days ahead hold for me? I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. College didn’t entirely seem like the right path for me, but that could just be because I’d never considered it before. Cherri was in my future, obviously, but was there anything in particular that I wanted to do?
“Deon?” a voice called out.
I opened my eyes and looked around. “Fel—”
I wasn’t at the kitchen table anymore. Somehow, I was in bed, but not the bed in my room at Felicity’s house. The room I was in was decorated with plants and I was laying in a sleigh bed that I didn’t recognize. My heart started to thump faster.
Did they get me?
The door to the bedroom opened and a head peeked in. “Deon?”
My jaw dropped. Cherri was looking around the door. Her long blond hair flowing down over her shoulders, and a bright smile on her face. “Cherri?”
She giggled. “Were you expecting someone else?”
It was Cherri, it was really Cherri. Was I imagining things? Did I get drunk and not remember? How was I suddenly in an unfamiliar home with Cherri smiling at me like everything was fine.
“N-no,” I replied.
“Well, you slept through your alarm, so you’re running late. I’m working on breakfast; you get up and get ready for work,” she said, and then she disappeared from the doorway. “Nathan will be here to get you in like ten minutes, so hurry,” she called out as she retreated.
“Um… what?” I said to no one.
Alarm? Work? Did I set an alarm? Where did I work? Nathan was coming to pick me up?
Uncertain, I climbed out of the bed, and though my mind had no idea where I was or what was going on, my feet moved with confidence into a walk-in closet. There were suits hanging from white racks fastened near the top of the closet and I reached out and grabbed one. It felt like I didn’t have control of the body I was in, so I just relented to its movements. I pulled a tie and socks from a dresser closer to the door of the closet, then walked out and into the bathroom. I took a shower, washed my hair, and then finally got a glimpse of myself when I got out.
My face was totally shaven, and I was back to how I looked before I even went to prison. I touched my face with some trepidation, but my reflection mimicked me and I could plainly see it was me.
What was going on?
“Deon!” Cherri’s voice called back into the room. “Nathan’s here!”Again, the body moved without my command, out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and down a flight of stairs into a foreign kitchen. Nathan was sitting at a kitchen island working on a plate of breakfast foods that had been placed in front of him, and Cherri was in the act of setting another one down on the counter. “Good morning, baby. Breakfast. Hurry so you two aren’t late.”
Nathan smiled up at me. “Hey bro.”
“Hi,” I replied.
He was dressed in a suit similar to mine, but didn’t seem nearly as put out as I felt. I sat down next to him and started to eat the food Cherri had provided for me. All I could do was watch her as she flitted around the kitchen, and finally, I smiled.
Maybe it had all just been a horrible, drawn-out nightmare.
“We have the board meeting today, remember,” Nathan said. “God, I don’t want to.”
“You say that about literally all of your meetings,” Cherri responded. “I thought you liked your job?”
Nathan shrugged. “Sure. I like the job itself and working with my brother, but those meetings are so boring. Right Deon?”
I had no frame of mind to know if the meetings he was discussing were boring or not, but my lips still parted and said, “They’re awful.”
Was this my real life? The one that I’d had all along? It seemed pretty nice. Living with Cherri, getting to work with my brother. Those were all things I’d dreamed of.
A pounding on the door had all of our heads whipping around. Cherri walked around the island and disappeared from the kitchen, and after giving Nathan a confused look, we stood up to follow. We were just about to pass through the door frame when Connor rounded the corner. He had an arm curled around Cherri’s neck, damn near choking her, with a gun pressed to her head.
“Cherri!” I bellowed.
“I’ve had just about enough of this.” Connor moved his gun briefly and shot at Nathan. Two bullets sunk into his chest, and he crumpled to the ground. I looked down at him laying on the ground, his eyes wide open, but he was unmoving and blood was spilling from his chest.
He was dead.
I looked back at Connor. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”
I stepped forward, but his gun went back to Cherri’s head. “No, I don’t think you will. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to kill her.” He ran his gun along her face, pushing some of her hair back. “Though, maybe we’ll have a little bit of… fun first.”
“I’m not going to let you hurt her!” I screamed.
Connor pointed his gun at me. “You don’t have a choice.”
His gun fired and a bullet flew at me. “Deon!” Cherri screamed.
My head whipped up just as Felicity’s computer went smashing to the ground. Concrete let out a loud bark. The screen had a litany of colored lines flashing over it, and pieces of the casing were scattered across the kitchen floor. I’d broken it for sure.
“Fuck,” I said.
Images of Nathan’s dead body and Cherri being held by Connor were permanent fixtures in my mind. It was just a wonderful dream turned into a shitty nightmare, but I was shaking and sweating. Carefully, I started to pick up the pieces of the laptop and put them on the table. I’d have to offer to buy Felicity a new one once I was no longer on the run. Hopefully her stuff was backed up.
I glanced up at the clock above the microwave to see how long I’d been out and my heart stopped.
It said it was just after three in the morning.
“Felicity?” I called out, but there was no response.
In an instant, I abandoned the laptop and opened the door to the garage, but Felicity’s car wasn’t inside. She wasn’t back home yet, and it had been six hours. I rushed around the house checking all the rooms just in case, but there was no doubt about it, Felicity hadn’t yet been home. Dread filled my body as my mind started to imagine the worse.
Did someone trying to find me figure out that Felicity was the one helping me, and if so, did they snatch her or simply kill her?
19
Cherri
To say tha
t I was overwhelmed by the information my parents had given me would be an understatement. After everything The Royal Court had all learned and unearthed together, there was still so much we didn't know about just how wide a net of manipulation Connor had cast. From my friends to my parents, he’d poisoned so many waters that I was beginning to think I’d never swim safely again.
But I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Good morning, angel,” my dad said sweetly as I walked into the kitchen. “Mom and Gus are gone already. They had already planned on breakfast with one of Gus’ friends and his mom.”
“That's okay,” I said. “I would have felt bad if their plans got canceled because of me. I gotta get back to Nathan’s anyway. We've got a few new leads to follow.”
My dad was looking over his phone at the coffee pot, but glanced up at me at that. “Leads?”
“Yeah. We’re trying to find Deon and stop Connor.” I sat down at one of the bar stools. “Some people Nathan knows had some useful info, and my friend Sicily is trying to zero in on where Deon may be using an unknown number he was calling Nathan and me from.”
“Cherri, that sounds dangerous. If you have information, you should give it to the police and let them take care of it.”
“Connor has pull with the police. Any information we give them would just get back to him, and besides, Deon is still on parole from when the police conveniently assumed we had something to do with that dead body. If they catch him, they’ll drag him back to prison, and that’s only if they don’t turn him over to Connor first.”
“But—”
“Dad, I know this isn’t going to make you feel any better, but we’ve already been through much worse. We stick together and have people helping us. I’ll be okay. This is just something I have to do.”
My dad watched me with anguish, likely feeling both guilty and helpless. I got up and walked over to where he was standing and gave him a hug. He squeezed me so tight it started to hurt, and even when I tried to pull away, he held on.
