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I closed my eyes. I was glad it was him too.
Twenty-Five
Royal
Mira: You’re going to regret this. I’ll destroy you.
I was so far beyond Mira at this point I actually smirked. I was in another league and a completely different ballpark when it came to this girl it wasn’t even funny. She had no power over me anymore.
No one did.
Opening my desk drawer, I slid my phone inside to prove the point. I didn’t even block her. She could keep her threats.
What shit would I give about it?
Instead, I decided to take a shower, in my dad’s house tonight but not for any specific reason. Maybe I was trying to prove something to myself, that I could be anywhere and still have the power. He had less of a hold over me than Mira these days.
I scrubbed my hair, my body, before placing my hands on warm tiles. I stayed under hot jets for a long time, just thinking. I was thinking about what I ultimately had to do and what this would all boil down to. I tested mentally the means I’d ultimately have to go to for my friend, and I think I’d known that path for a long time. Everything was leading up to this.
It’d be my revenge.
How ironic this all had started a certain way, Paige wanting to get revenge for something and against someone who crossed her. From the beginning, this was all her, and though I hadn’t understood it then, I did now. I personally had stake in this…
Whoever it was that took my friend.
Of course I had no proof, but that was next. I’d find every shred of evidence I could to make sure things ended a certain way, me at one side of the playing field while the person and/or persons who screwed over Paige were at the other. It’d come to a final battle in the end.
And I’d have the smoking gun.
I pushed wet hair out of my face, breathing while the current slid down my nose and body. Taking that time turned out to be very valuable, got me out of my head and back on track. I turned off my personal shower before stepping out into heat and grabbing a towel. I cinched it right at my hips, tucking it tight before putting back on a sliver chain I’d been wearing lately. I found it deep in my things not long ago, a link to my past, and I wore it now as a symbol. I didn’t give a shit. I was going to do what I needed to do.
To hell with what my father felt about that.
Secure in the position, I put on my king ring, then padded out of the bathroom and into the hallway. Dinah, my sister Grace’s cat, played in the hallway with her toy, and I smiled at her, not many things to smile at these days. After tossing her toy, I headed into my bedroom for some clothes. I started to reach for my closet before a change in the wind caused me to grip the doors.
Someone’s in here, my space…
In my periphery, there was definitely another presence, a shadow in the corner of my eye. I recalled failing to enable the security codes before showering.
Playing it cool and pretending I hadn’t noticed, I stepped over to my desk drawer, sliding it open, but not to grab my phone and call the cops…
I got my hand around the nine millimeter, the gun I’d be using in the near future. I didn’t think it’d be needed quite so soon.
I braced the weight of it, ready to end this now, whoever it was in my room.
“Royal?”
The gun slid back into the desk immediately, and when I whipped around, a girl was slipping into my room from behind curtains. She’d climbed a goddamn level to get up here, had to have scaled a tree on the outside. There was no ladder or vinery to climb below.
Em…
I recognized her before she’d even fully gotten out of the curtains, her beauty not able to be masked by any distraction or shadows. She stood out from it all, my little ounce of hope.
My little ounce of light.
She kept me on the right side of the darkness even now, a distraction for me, which was one of the biggest reasons I’d pushed her away yet again at school. I couldn’t have her keeping me from what I needed to do in the end.
So why did I go to her?
