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I scoff. “Research. Right. You’re an outsider. You’re here to examine and analyze us like we’re little ants in your ant farm.”
“That’s not true!” she insists, her green eyes moving to meet mine. “I work for an important professor, a doctor who is trying to help impoverished communities like yours, to make them better.”
“Newsflash, Princess. We don’t need you or the professor. This town can manage by itself.”
She squares her shoulders, meeting my gaze. “You need to understand. Dr. Thornton genuinely wants to help towns like yours. I took this job because I’ve seen firsthand how his research can help communities and I want that for Caspian Springs too!”
“You aren’t going to get anywhere. Caspian Springs was fine before theprofessorwaltzed in and will be fine long after he’s lost interest in us,” I tell her, annoyance rising.
The girl’s face twists. “I doubt it,” she says, standing up from the table. “You’re just a group of thugs. You couldn’t possiblyunderstand the research that someone as brilliant as Dr. Richard Thornton is doing. You’re trying to intimidate me and it’s not going to work. I know how bullies like you act!”
My jaw drops and I step back, holding my hands up. “Wow.”
Dominic whistles and Caleb lets out a low, nervous laugh. The unexpected defiance from the girl catches me off guard, and for a moment, I can’t find the words to respond. I stare at her for a beat before finding my voice and leaning in closer.
“You think you’ve got it all figured out, huh Princess?”
“Don’t call me that,” she says, pointing a finger at me and jabbing me in the chest. “My name is Sienna, not Princess.”
“Well,Princess,” I drawl. “You’ll find that unless we let you, you’re not going to get anything done around here.”
“I don’t need your help,” she sneers. “I’m sure there are people who are tired of your tyranny around here. They’ll talk to me even if you think they won’t. I met a boy today who was willing to be interviewed.”
“Beau?” I ask with a smirk. “He’s kind of our little messenger boy. He’s the one who came straight over to give us the news of your presence.”
Sienna’s eyes widen for a fraction of a moment before narrowing again. “I’m sure there will be people around here who want to help me out, who don’t care for the way you and your little ‘gang’ have been running things,” she says, using finger quotes around the word gang. “Or maybe you could you know, let me do my own thing and I’d be out of your hair,” she adds.
Under normal circumstances, I might not have cared what she was doing. But ever since I found out who she’s working for, I’ve been invested in getting rid of her. On top of that, she can’t waltz in here and defy me and think she can get away with it.
“You’re not getting it,” I tell her. Shaking my head, I turn to my brothers. “Let’s go.”
We head out to the parking lot, tires screeching as we peel away. “You and Caleb spread the word. The little princess won’t get anything done here. She’ll have to go crying back to her boss that she can’t do it, and she’ll be forced to leave.”
“I can’t believe she called us thugs,” Caleb mutters. “Jesus.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I say, my mind still buzzing with the encounter. “She has no idea who we are. We’re nothing like those Serpent gangbangers.”
As soon as we get home, the two of them head out again to spread the word through town—don’t engage with the outsider.
Once alone, I head up to my room, each step heavier than the last. My head is still reeling from everything that’s happened. I can’t believe he’s back in our lives so casually like this. Two years of nothing, and then he sends some rando out here to “do research.”
I scoff. As if the good doctor isn’t using the little princess to spy on us.
I pace my room, the creaking floorboards beneath my steps mirroring the unrest in my mind. My hands open and close rhythmically, as if trying to grasp hold of the past and rip it out of me.
I need to do something to fight the unsettled feelings that threaten to spill out and consume me. It’s not until I’m halfway out the door, keys in hand that I realize I’m leaving the house. I stop and stare at the keys, wondering what I hope to accomplish with this. Am I trying to confront him? That won’t help anything. He knows what he did. He knows how it felt for us.
Nothing good could come of me going over there to break his door down in the middle of the night.
I force myself to take deep breaths and fight the instinct to break something. Instead, I head back up to my room and crouch down to pull out a box from under my bed, leaning against it to look through it.
The box hasn’t been touched in over two years, and a layer of dust covers the top. Blowing it off, I open the lid and stare. There’s a photo sitting on the top, one of us with her—with Emily. Her smiling face beams back at me and I grasp the edges, ready to tear it apart but something stops me. I can’t bring myself to tear up this last memory of her.
Under the photo is a ticket stub, a matchbox, and a napkin with a doodle—each item holding a piece of our shared history. My fingers linger over the napkin, a portal to a time when life was simpler, before the incident.
I feel the surge of anger inside again looking at these items before shoving them back in the box and stuffing it all back under the bed.
Too restless to stay still, I decide to go for a run. After throwing on some joggers and a tank, I stuff my feet into my worn sneakers and head out the door into the cool night air.
