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I took out my phone. My messages were out of control.
Pam
Darren is missing. Come back home.
Pam
I really don’t have time for this, Jesse. We need to talk about this ASAP. I have a manicure between three and four. Any other time is good.
Gail
Chunky Monkey and McMafia date when I finish my shift. Don’t do anything stupid (like going back to your parents’ house. Or…Bane, LOL).
Unknown Number (Maybe: John Beck)
Have you heard from Bane? I’m trying to find the fucker everywhere.
Unknown Number (Maybe: Hale Rourke)
Hey. It’s Hale. Bane is not answering his phone and we have a business meeting in half an hour. Can you ping him?
I didn’t answer any of them. Instead, I opened another text message.
Jesse
Hey, Kacey, it’s Jesse. Some things came up and I can’t visit Juliette this week. What are your plans?
She answered immediately.
Kacey
Booked our flight for Thursday. We’ll be taking it from here. I’ll come back to Todos Santos probably next month to bring Imane and her nurse with us and work out the details with you. Thank you, Jesse. For everything.
My heart was somersaulting in my chest, reminding me that I was still alive.
I loved that Mrs. B was finally going to get what she deserved—her family back. Even though a part of me, and not a small part, was dying a slow death trying to come to terms with the idea that I would no longer have her by my side.
I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to live. No job. No friends. No lead on what to do with my life. And that felt…oddly okay. Liberating, even. I was going to focus on building something of my own. Something that was completely mine.
The first thing I did was drive to All Saints High. It was the middle of a school day, so I had to ask for permission to take pictures with my phone.
“What for?” Principal Gabe Prichard sneered, not even bothering to lift his eyes from his paperwork sitting behind his desk. He was ridiculously young for his position, and this was his first year at All Saints High. Tall, dark, handsome, and disgustingly standoffish, the rumors said he’d completed his BA at the tender age of nineteen and was some sort of an educational maverick. As he asked me this, a trail of fangirls-slash-schoolgirls was standing behind me, waiting to be seen for whatever trouble they’d gotten themselves into purposely.
“A project.” I remained vague.
“What kind of project?” He frowned, finally meeting my eyes. I nibbled at my lower lip, looking shy and wholesome and all the things I needed to be. He hadn’t been here when I graduated. He didn’t know how bad things had been for me.
“For a photography class,” I finally lied.
He nodded. “No faces or students. No teachers. No staff. Nothing personal or intimate. Understood?”
Oh, it was going to be personal. But just for me. “Yes, sir.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon squatting next to a bench under a tree, where Jesse Carter is a SLUT was carved into the wood, and in the gymnasium, where the mirror was still cracked at the edge from when Wren’s friend, Ivory, tried to punch me and missed. I took pictures of every single piece of evidence there was. Most of it was still there, overlooked, much like my existence to the teachers after The Incident. High school is a great place to murder a soul. The deities don’t care, and the mortals are too busy trying to survive.
I dug out the buried underwear Emery had stolen from my drawer and showed everyone, with the stain of my arousal from after we’d made out before things blew up.
The taunts. The laughs. The torment. It was all there, between these walls, in the courtyard. In my heart.
By the time I got out of there, it was close to six in the evening. I drove down to a taco shack and bought myself a foil-wrapped dinner. I knew money was going to be tight and was contemplating asking Mrs. Belfort for a little cash, even though the idea made my stomach toss. I refused Bane’s check, trying to prove a point, but now I couldn’t even afford a Kit Kat. I found myself driving to El Dorado despite my best intentions. I had to pack a bag. I couldn’t walk around in Gail’s weird clothes. Besides, after the text message I had sent Darren, I very much doubted they were going to give me more crap.
I parked in front of the mansion and opened the door. The only sounds noticeable were the crickets outside and the fridge producing some ice. I called Pam’s name a few times, not wanting to be ambushed, and when no one answered, relief washed over me. I proceeded with caution straight into my bedroom and filled my two bags with my stuff. I brought the bags down to my vehicle, about to climb behind the steering wheel, before I slapped my thigh.
