Julianne’s jaw dropped. I’d never seen her speechless before. Keeping my expression steady, I studied Kennedy’s face. She was on fire and it was hot!
I glanced around us casually, then realized what was happening.
A girl I’d only ever seen whispering things in other people’s ears stood dead still beside the water fountain down the hall. Kennedy would have seen her coming from where she stood, but Julianne had been blocking my view.
Diabolical. I love it. I love—nope, nope, too big, back it up.
I shook my head like an etch-a-sketch, erasing the pulsing anxiety and watery warmth that went along with the thought I’d been half-ready to think, and brought myself forcibly back to the moment.
“I bet that’s what Macy is doing right now,” Kennedy continued. “Making you a big Rudy Seymore poster so you can look at him while you fuck yourself moaning Seymore, Seymore!” Kennedy took a half step toward Julianne, her eyes glittering dangerously. “Just like Sabrina did.”
A strangled, gasping cry of disbelief squeaked out of Julianne’s throat. She moved fast, a lot faster than I anticipated, and I couldn’t block her from striking Kennedy square across her face.
I couldn’t stop the fist Kennedy threw into Julianne’s jaw, either. I was pretty sure I heard the damn thing snap. So much for keeping the violence out of the retaliation, Kennedy.
“Hey now, ladies, no need to fight over me,” I said, putting on a cringy jock-like tone of false humility. It didn’t help.
Kennedy’s fist was tangled in Julianne’s hair, Julianne’s scarlet nails raked at Kennedy’s face, designer heels flew in short, desperate little kicks. Julianne shrieked with rage or pain or both, and the sound echoed down the hallway.
“Okay, seriously, break it up,” I said. “It’s embarrassing.”
People were poking their heads out of classrooms in disgruntled confusion, trying to find the source of the noise disturbance.
Eyes widened when they landed on the vicious catfight, then looked at me for explanation. I shrugged and coughed a little embarrassed chuckle.
“Girls,” I said with a shrug. “They can’t get enough of me.”
A matronly teacher whose name I didn’t know rolled her eyes at me and stalked out of her classroom, rolling up her cotton sleeves.
“Ladies!” She barked like a drill sergeant. “Hands to yourselves! Now!”
Kennedy tried to lurch away from Julianne, but Julianne had hold of her hair and shirt, trying to force her nose into Julianne’s sharp little knee.
“One!” The teacher barked. “Two! I get to three, it’s a letter in your permanent file and a call to the police, ladies.”
That did it. Julianne froze, then slowly unwound herself. She flipped her hair back—a useless gesture, as it was flying out in all directions at that point—and smoothed her torn skirt.
Kennedy, panting and tense, scuttled away from her, arms still up defensively, body crouched to attack.
“Now,” the teacher said, crossing her large arms over her impressive chest. “Do you three want to tell me what this is all about, or would you rather tell the principal?”
Kennedy, still breathing hard, shoved her hair out of her face and shot Julianne a defiant look. She wiped blood from her mouth, then gestured an aggressive invitation for Julianne to do the talking. Julianne glared, her eyes glittering with malice. Then a smile spread slowly across her face, incongruous enough to make my hair stand on end.
“Take us to the principal,” Julianne said, her voice smooth as warm honey. “Please.”
Kennedy shot me a worried look. She was thinking the same thing I was—what the hell was Julianne up to now?
Chapter Twenty-Five
KENNEDY
This bitch had contacts everywhere.
The Vice Principal saw us coming and stepped out of the office, frowning. I’d never met her in person before. I’d never had any reason to come to the principal’s office before, either, not in all my years of school.
I glared into the back of Julianne’s head. It was her fault I was here, damn her. Perfect record, tainted.
“Julianne?” The VP said. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Auntie Jean, I’m so sorry,” Julianne said, her voice wobbling convincingly. “I tried to talk her out of it, I swear, but you know daddy always taught me to defend myself.” She sounded like she was choking on sobs.
My jaw dropped. Rudy’s clenched so tight I thought his teeth would crack. Our escorting teacher rolled her eyes, but plastered on a poker face when she saw us looking.
Vice Principal Jean looked from the sobbing Julianne to my cracked and bleeding lip. Her eyes narrowed briefly, thoughtfully, before the expression was replaced by one of concern.
“All right, hun, let’s get y’all in here. No reason to let the whole school know. Come on, then. Mr. Seymore. And you are-?”
“Kennedy Lane,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t ring any bells.
But Jean froze, then frowned. She waved the other two inside, then stood in my way.
“Thanks, Gloria,” she said to the other teacher. “I can handle this.”
Gloria nodded and turned away, leaving us alone in the wide, cool hall.
Jean must have been related to Julianne’s dad somehow—she had the same square jaw, same wide shoulders, though hers were more femininely proportioned.
Her intelligent grey eyes flicked behind her glasses, as if reading her thoughts off an invisible white board.
“Kennedy Lane,” she said. “We spent several days trying to get in touch with your parents. Several of your teachers were concerned when you went missing. I checked your records myself, and was surprised that you would disappear so suddenly. Knowing you were friends with Julianne, I did a bit of snooping.”
My stomach twisted in my gut. If she was Julianne’s aunt and the cop was Julianne’s uncle, were they married? Siblings? In-laws?
No matter what, if the principal and the cop were both poking around for answers, they probably crossed paths at some point.
“Oh?” I asked lamely, my voice a reedy whimper.
She pressed her lips flat together and nodded once. “Now, I’m no professional investigator Kennedy, but I know how to spot red flags. I haven’t always lived in backwater nowhere. I cut my professional teeth in Baltimore before you were even born. I didn’t even meet Julianne until she was halfway to adulthood. I like to believe that gives me a touch of clarity—but what it does not give me is omniscience.”
Hope skipped over my heart in a frantic beat. If she only met Julianne a few years ago, then maybe Julianne hadn’t had the chance to get her hooks in the woman yet. Maybe she would actually listen to what I had to say.
“Would you like to tell me where you were, Kennedy?”
My mind was racing. If I told her and she came down in Julianne’s corner, that would make my life infinitely worse—especially if Jean was as manipulative and cruel as Julianne and her mother.
On the other hand, having an authority figure in my corner might offer me protection from retribution—not just from Julianne, but from the rest of her family.
On the other, other hand, telling one of Julianne’s family members what happened could easily be coincidental. She had a big extended family. But two? There was no way Julianne would buy that I hadn’t done it on purpose. She’d attack me for trying to turn her own blood against her, and the evidence would back her up.
Then again, what did I really have to lose? Julianne was already trying to get me killed and ruin Rudy’s life. There wasn’t a whole lot her aunt could do to make that worse, was there? Not without crossing some seriously illegal lines. She seemed like a woman dedicated to her position.
Deciding to gamble that the woman was more invested in her career than in her niece’s reputation, I drew in a deep breath. “I was—”
“Jean! Is Drew in? This is an emergency!” A man wearing a well-worn tweed suit and thick glasses scurried down the hall toward us, his hair sticking
out in odd directions, left hand balled into a tight fist and held away from him as if it contained something foul.
Behind him, close enough so he could glance over his shoulder every few paces to ensure that she was still there, trudged a pink-faced, dewy-eyed Macy.
“What’s the problem, Paul?”
Paul shot me a nervous glance and tugged Jean aside to whisper something in her ear. Her eyes flew wide for a moment, then narrowed.
“How coincidental,” she said in a voice that was almost a growl. “Flash drive, please.”
He put the bit of black plastic in her hand, looked at Macy like he was afraid of her, then scurried away down the hall again.
Macy stood where she was, refusing to meet anybody’s eyes.
“Miss Johnson,” Jean said, her voice ringing with quiet authority. “Is there anything you wish to tell me before we step into the office?”
Macy didn’t respond. The vice principal nodded slowly, then opened the door.
“Ladies. I think it’s time we all sat down and sorted through this mess, don’t you?”
My head felt buzzy and my belly pitched with excitement’s anxious second-cousin.
Jean led us through the main office, past a lot of curious faces, and toward her personal office beyond. Rudy and Julianne flanked the door, glaring in opposite directions.
“Inside,” Jean ordered.
We all filed in behind her. Rudy’s presence was comforting, but I hesitated to reach out for that comfort. It felt as though reality was pulled tight, and making any move at all would snap it, flinging us all into a chaos I couldn’t predict or control. So I kept close to myself, trying to be as neutral as possible in every movement of my body and facial expression. By some silent agreement, Macy and I sat between Rudy and Julianne, both of whom were visibly seething.
The VP sat behind her desk and studied us for several long minutes. Macy looked like she wanted to melt through the floor. Rudy looked as though he’d be happy to provide the necessary heat to make that happen. Julianne’s face was a friendly mask, reserved only for her aunt. When Jean didn’t return her smile, Julianne’s brow puckered in perfect confusion.
“It’s no secret that the three of you have taken issue with Rudy and his brothers, and vice versa,” she said finally. “But there seems to be quite a lot more than that going on now. Generally speaking, I would be expected to handle these issues one by one—however, a coincidence as strong as this one leads me to believe that the incidents are connected.”
Julianne leaned forward with her most diplomatic smile in place. “I’m sorry, Aunt Jean, which incidents? Apart from me defending myself, of course.”
Jean regarded her with a flat, guileless gaze. “Is that what happened?” she asked. Her voice was cold iron against Julianne’s glamor, revealing the frustrated fury beneath Julianne’s smile for just an instant.
Julianne sat back in her seat, declining the invitation to respond.
“Hm,” Jean said. She turned to Macy. “Macy. Would you explain why you were in possession of nude photographs of Rudy on school property? Or why you appeared to be arranging those photographs on various marketing materials? I believe your class is working on banner ads this week. Explain to me what it is you were attempting to sell, Miss Johnson.”
Macy’s face went from pink to red. Her fingers wrapped around her hard metal seat and squeezed until her knuckles went white. I could feel the embarrassment radiating off of her. It was unbearable. I looked away.
“I wasn’t trying to sell anything,” Macy muttered through clenched teeth. “Those files were supposed to be—”
“Private,” Julianne interjected. She put a cool, long-fingered hand on Macy’s wrist, shooting her the ghost of a warning look as she slid smoothly into the center of the conversation. “Just between the four of us, you know? The world’s a lot more progressive these days. She must have gotten those pictures mixed up with the ones she was supposed to bring for class.”
Macy blinked at Julianne. For a moment I saw the wave of defiance build up in her, the truth struggling to break free of Julianne’s clutches—but then she slumped ever so slightly in her chair and sighed.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It was just a stupid thing between—” she swallowed hard and forced the words out, “—the four of us. I had the real pictures on a different flash drive.”
I could feel Rudy vibrating with barely-restrained fury. I glanced at his face. Fury and disgust. I wanted to put my hand on his, but I was afraid to burst whatever membrane was holding him together.
Jean turned her cool eyes to Rudy and saw the same. She asked him in a perfectly neutral tone, “Is that true?”
Rudy shook his head firmly. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “Of course it’s not true! They should never have had those pictures,” he growled.
“Why not?” Jean asked.
Rudy sputtered and fumed, making a lot of half-words but not getting anything out. After a minute of that, he slumped back in his seat, glowering at the floor. The fire of fury in his eyes dulled to a resentful glint.
I wondered how many times he’d been sat in front of authority with a world of cards stacked against him while his temper burned his vocabulary into useless ash.
I turned to the Vice Principal. “He was at my house,” I told her. “They—” I jerked my head at the girls beside me, “—took the photos without—”
“Warning,” Julianne interjected. “It was a surprise! But we were all fine with it at the time. Kennedy laughed! She thought it was funny! So did Rudy, after he got over being embarrassed.”
“None of that is true,” I said flatly. I didn’t look at Julianne. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I saw the pleading in her eyes or the glint of malice. “She took the photos—”
“Wait a second,” Julianne interrupted again. “You’re saying I took the photos? That’s a lie, Auntie Jean. You can look at my phone if you want, you won’t find the pictures on it. I never took those pictures.”
“Well then who did?” Jean asked.
“It was sort of a group effort—” Macy began.
“I don’t remember who was holding the phone,” Julianne said at the same time. “But it wasn’t me, and if Kennedy’s lying about that, don’t you think it’s a little bit possible that she’s lying about her reaction to the whole thing, too? They’re just embarrassed that we got caught with them at school, is all. Total accident. It was all in good fun.”
“If it was all in good fun,” Jean said slowly, as if she were trying to speak to a distracted toddler. “Then why don’t you tell me what you and Kennedy were fighting about in the hallway?”
I liked her a lot in that moment. It wasn’t often I got to watch Julianne get cornered in her own bullshit.
“Oh—that,” Julianne said with a dismissive wave and a nervous little chuckle. “Um—there’s a rumor going around that I’m trying to steal Rudy from Kennedy or something ridiculous like that. I mean, we already have an understanding, like I said, but stealing would absolutely cross a line. It was a total misunderstanding. Just a rumor blown out of proportion, that’s all. Kennedy has a bad habit of shooting first and asking questions later, you know?”
Jean raised an eyebrow. “Her academic record would suggest otherwise. Kennedy, anything to add?”
“There’s no agreement between Julianne and us. Everybody I this school knows Julianne hates the Seymores. We got into a fight because they took the pictures of Rudy without permission and I wanted them back,” I said bluntly.
Jean’s steel gaze met each of ours, one after the other. Julianne met her evenly, as did I. Rudy and Macy wouldn’t even look at her. Damn it, that couldn’t have looked good at all. Eventually, when no one said anything else, Jean sighed.
“Well then, we’re at an impasse. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Any of you. As you know, the school has a zero-tolerance behavioral policy about a few things. The most relevant of which are fighting and pornography. Since you we
re all involved in one or both of these to one degree or another, my hands are tied. You’re all suspended for a week, and I will be speaking with your parents about all of this. Rudy, I believe you’ve had two other suspensions within the last calendar year. You know what that means?”
Rudy nodded numbly. All the light had gone out of his eyes.
“Wait,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“Expulsion,” Jean said simply.
My heart twisted in my chest. “No, wait. That’s not fair. He wasn’t even fighting!”
“He is the one in the photographs, miss Lane.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t take them! He didn’t give them permission to take them either! He never had possession of those photos, not for a second! He’s the victim here, why should he be suspended? Expelled? Are you kidding me!” I couldn’t get my voice under control. My hands shook, cold and clammy, as fury and panic twisted together inside of me.
“Oh, please,” Julianne said. “You know he wanted us to have them, Kennedy. This was his bad. You picked a delinquent. You better get used to it.”
Her smirk snapped something in my head and I was hurtling toward her before I even knew I was going to do it.
Macy shrieked and dived out of the way. Jean stood and slammed her hand on the desk, shouting something I couldn’t hear through my rage.
Julianne stared in disbelief, her eyes growing wide. Right before I could sink my nails into her stupid face, my forward momentum was forcibly halted by a steel-strong arm around my waist. It knocked the wind out of me.
“No, Kennedy,” Rudy said gently. “It’s okay. Come on.”
He dragged me back, away from Julianne, and pulled me down into his lap as he sat. He wrapped his other arm around me, holding me tight as anger vibrated through every cell of my body.
“You see?” Julianne said. “It was self-defense! She’s insane. Is this really necessary, Auntie Jean? I have a spotless record. It doesn’t seem fair to mar that with this nonsense. She attacked me!”
Something Wicked: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 2) Page 15
