Page 1 of Twisted Elites

Chapter 1

If I hadn’t wedged my back against the wall of Prakash’s bedroom, I might have fallen onto my ass. My knees had stopped supporting my weight, and my breathing had stopped the moment the police sergeant placed my boyfriend under arrest.

A male constable positioned Prakash’s arms behind his back and fastened cuffs around his wrists, as though he was a dangerous criminal who needed restraining. Throughout this, Prakash’s dull, black eyes remained on mine. His posture slackened, as though he had resigned himself to this fate.

“The cuffs aren’t necessary.” Leopold stepped between the officers and me, obscuring my view. He stood half a head taller than the sergeant and with a broader, more menacing physique. “Mr. Kashaayah is more than capable of walking quietly to your vehicle.”

I blinked myself back to awareness and inhaled a deep breath.

He didn’t do it.

Prakash wouldn’t have beaten Ashley half to death.

A tiny voice in the back of my head—Dad’s, I think—asked me how much I knew this boy. I didn’t engage with it. Didn’t tell it that my confidence in Prakash was based on a gut feeling and on memories that were barely coming together.

As Leopold continued his attempts to negotiate with the sergeant, the sounds of two female voices somewhere on my left caught my attention. The door opened, revealing two male officers barring the entrance of the room and holding back a crowd of students. They parted to let in a pair of female paramedics.

“She’s unconscious but still breathing.” One of the officers backed away, and the paramedics crowded around Ashley on the bed.

A sigh of relief escaped my nostrils, but the first tendrils of guilt snaked around my windpipe. Mom would hate me for being more concerned about Prakash than about Ashley.

While the paramedics covered her naked body with a blanket, a police officer pushed Leopold aside to let his colleagues escort Prakash to the doorway.

“Wait!” I rushed after them.

Leopold placed a large hand on my shoulder. “Follow Ashley to the hospital. When she’s conscious, you’ll need her to clear Kash’s name.”

I turned around. Sorrow radiated from his concerned, aquamarine eyes, making me wonder if something like this had happened when Corrine Gibbons had accused the kings of rape. “But I should be there when Prak—”

“I’ll follow the police in the jeep.”

I gave Leopold a sharp nod and sent Prakash a silent apology, hoping he didn’t think I’d abandoned him. Hoping he didn’t think I believed him guilty.

Because I didn’t.

Even though I couldn’t yet explain how Ashley had ended up on his bed bruised and bloody and beaten.

The door opened, and the crowd parted to let out Prakash and the sergeant. Leopold followed after them, and then a male paramedic wheeled a stretcher into the room.

“Ashley,” one of the women said in a loud voice. “You’re in safe hands. We’re going to move you to the ambulance and take you to the hospital, where you’ll be seen by a doctor.”

The two women crossed her arms and ankles and turned her onto her side, revealing a mass of livid, red bruises over the entire back of her body.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp. Who could have wanted to inflict that much damage on Ashley?

They slipped a board under her torso and hips, lined up the stretcher to Prakash’s bed, and pulled Ashley, board and all, onto the stretcher.

I slumped forward, rested my hands on my knees, and gulped mouthfuls of air. What kind of monster did that to a girl who couldn’t fight back?

As they wheeled her to the door, I grabbed the phone on the desk and said, “She’s my sister. I have to go with her.”

As soon as we stepped into the hallway, a riot of gasps and cries and tear-filled moans filled the air. News had traveled throughout the school because students of all ages lined the walls. Mr. Blunt stood in the middle of the space with his hands clasped, and he led the paramedics through the gangway of students like the leader of a funeral procession. I trailed behind them like the chief mourner.

The caretaker led the paramedics into an empty utility room that smelled vaguely of garbage. A large sink stood at one wall and a goods elevator on the other. He pulled the metal scissor gate open and let them wheel Ashley into the wooden interior.

As we traveled down in silence, I stared into Ashely’s discolored, swollen face. Someone out there must have hurt her and planted her unconscious body in Prakash’s room. It was the only explanation.

“How did you find your sister in this state?” asked a policeman in a conversational tone.