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She faced me, her breaths even. “You hear from the council?”
She knew all about my proposal to them, no information concealed between us. She knew I put a bid in to be seen, to plead my case amongst the senior members of the Court. I nodded. “They agreed to meet with me, and it’s all a go to do so. If they say I can pledge, there’ll be a vote by what we call the Collective. Every member of the Court will be able to say if they’re either for or against me joining. My odds are really good. I got lots of family in the Court.”
My dad had been over the frickin’ moon when I told him, his estranged son back and finally doing what was destined. It was things he’d destined for me, the mayor’s son.
My eyes narrowed. “I’ll be in the Court in no time.”
Because that was the plan, we’d get inside the Court and do so together. I didn’t have any power on the outside, could ask no questions to confirm what was going on behind the scenes. We needed to know more about what happened that night with her sister.
And the only way was to get inside the Court’s house.
December was silent with this new information, silent but not vacant. She wasn’t just a passenger on this ride anymore, something dark in her eyes, and that’s something she probably had to have. She’d never survive this process, this town, if she didn’t and the same was for me. In order to get into the Court, I’d have to do their haze, and it was a haze I’d have to do with a bunch of guys who didn’t want me there. I’d made some of their lives hell when I’d been here, the epitome of a bully.
And I was sure they weren’t going to let me forget it.
“And you’ll get hazed,” December said, pulling the words right out of my thoughts. “They’ll do to you what they did to Paige.”
It’d be what we think happened to Paige. Again, we still didn’t know. “It could be anything, but I don’t think it will be that. The senior members really didn’t like that, and with everything that happened with your sister…” I pushed out a harsh breath. “They’d be too bold to try that again, and I’m sure whatever the guys end up doing, I’ll be strong enough to handle it.”
I’d have to be, if only for her. If I broke, she might break too, no option for retreat.
She faced me, nodding. “We’re going to get them back, Ramses,” she said, more of that darkness in her voice. “We’re going to show this town who they really are.”
Three
December
My feet slammed the track days later, whizzing past girl after girl in
the academy’s rec center. I didn’t see people anymore, not in gym class like now or even in my other classes. They became a blur, an oblong deformity. They became an obstacle.
A hurdle came down the track.
I leaped over it without thought. I must have landed. What went up must come down.
Must come down…
Another hurdle, and I did the same as before, crossing into the path of another girl. I’d been quicker than her, quicker than everyone.
Gotta stay quick…
Breathing must have been optional. I didn’t recall breath. I didn’t recall thought. All memories and physical action were automatic. I breezed through life like I blew down this track, anything not to feel something. Eventually, a whistle pulled me out of the flow state, and it all hit me again. Reality hit. One had to breathe to survive, and life had to continue.
He had to pay.
The sickness I replaced with anger, physically swallowing it back as I sagged forward and attempted to catch my breath in my gym wear. The navy shorts and orange tee kept me cool under the recreation center lights, and the steady breaths kept me from falling. I latched on to them like a bat to a dark cave, the only thing I could do to keep my sanity. To my right, our gym teacher, Ms. Hollis, approached me, shaking her head with a smile as she wrote something down on a clipboard.
“Excellent time as always, Miss Lindquist,” she proclaimed, stepping back when the rest of the class crossed her path. I’d been several seconds ahead of everyone, boys included. Ms. Hollis’s smile widened. “I could have used you on the track team last fall.”
Last fall…
I couldn’t think.
You can’t think.
I shut my eyes, some laughter and giggles saddling up beside me. I turned only to find red hair and a smug expression. Mira and her friends shared a gym class with me this semester, the only class we had together after winter break ended. Hands on their hips, they huffed between laughs, not as fast as me but that hadn’t stopped them from giggling in my direction.
Mira cupped a freckled hand over her mouth, spinning a familiar silver necklace in her other hand. She always spun it, her lifeline apparently.
