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d if she did this, her presence wouldn’t be challenged. She was breaking the horse that couldn’t be broken before and making us all look subservient to her because of it. Though she was right about what she said, that still didn’t mean I had to like that truth.
“You’ll call me,” I said, pulling her away. “You’ll call if you need anything. My dad’s summoned us tonight, but I’ll try to come back as soon as—”
“You won’t.” She put her hands on my chest, putting distance between us. Dark strands of her short haircut crossed her face, the wind breezing them over coal-black lashes. She pushed the hair away. “Because you can’t. It has to just be me.”
“It’ll be whatever I want. I can be here.” I could do whatever I wanted, my place high in our ranks. My dad owned half this fucking town. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted and would.
Paige shook her head. “I don’t want you to be. You can’t. I need to do this, Royal.”
With every word, she was ripping me apart, and I turned away.
Paige grabbed me this time, pulling me in. A quick hug and she was pulling my head over into the line of her voice. “Now help me.”
Help consisted of me getting her settled. She lay on the tracks, but when she pulled out the ropes, I hesitated again. This was a part of it. The haze had to be tied down to make it more of a challenge, but the whole thing made me sick.
Paige frowned. “Royal, please.”
I’d do anything for this girl and she knew that, taking advantage of that. We were each other’s everything, had been for so long. She was there through all the bruises, all of the pain of my father. In times I thought I’d give up, I didn’t want to because she was there. She was there with her own problems, and I was there for her too. We were an unbreakable unit, bonded through so many hurdles. She knew I’d do anything for her because she would for me.
In the end, I tied those ropes around her wrists, binding her to the tracks, but I kept them so loose it was laughable.
“You tug these if you need to,” I told her, the knots tied in a way so all she’d have to do to get up was move her wrists. “The knots are loose. You can get free easy.”
And she wouldn’t fight me on that no matter what she said. She was tied to the tracks. She was bound, and she could tell people that for the sake of the challenge.
Understanding, Paige let me have my way for once, smiling at me. Her chuckle was light. “Got it, and I’ll be fine.”
She better be, and after making sure she had her phone to call me, I did something rash. I took my own Court ring, pulled it right off my finger and put it on hers.
“This is yours now,” I told her. “I’ll get a new one. You’re Court after you finish this. No one can contest that.”
Her smile widened, and when the tears glassed her eyes, I almost broke down too. I had no idea why she was getting emotional, but because she never did, seeing it fucking did me in too.
Fighting it, I put a hand on her head, leaning down and kissing the top of her hair. She owed me one more thing before I left her, a promise and the only way I’d leave her.
“You’ll tell me who it is after this,” I stated, refusing to leave until she gave me her word. She’d kept certain information under lock and key from me, fearing I’d so something, and I probably would. I’d destroy the person who hurt her. I shook my head. “I want to know who hurt you.”
Her chin lifted after I said that, her smile fading. My best friend wasn’t without her own mistakes. She’d chosen to do certain things. She chose to sleep with a married woman but what she hadn’t chosen was to be promised things, to be told she could have a life with this person, only to be toyed with for nearly a goddamn year. She led my friend on and told her there was hope for them. In the end, there never was hope, there was only pain, and I’d been there for the brunt of it.
“I promise,” she said to me, a grit to her voice that had never been there before. This woman had broken her, destroyed her with her promises and bullshit. She had never planned to leave her husband. She had just wanted a young fuck, a trophy for her wall. It was nothing if not familiar in this town, my own father showing me that with all the pussy coming in and out of my house my whole life.
Touching my forehead to Paige’s, I stayed there, hard-pressed to let her go. I could have gotten the revenge for her, gotten my brothers to destroy this woman’s life, but Paige wouldn’t let me act on her behalf. She wouldn’t tell me who this bitch was on purpose because she knew things would get real ugly if she did. I’d do anything for this girl, truly, and though she definitely wouldn’t admit it…
This haze was her saving me from that.
One
December
Two girls… Two teenage deaths in a matter of months.
What the hell is going on here?
I hadn’t liked Mira. God, had I not liked her, but I never wanted her dead. I never wanted that, for anyone or anyone’s family to feel what I’d felt over the passing months. I honestly hadn’t believed it when we found out, that assembly the weirdest thing. They placed us all in the gym, Principal Hastings at the front with a microphone. He’d told us something, a student dead and…
The sheriff had been there too, Sheriff Ashford basically a mess standing next to our headmaster. At one point, he hadn’t been able to hold it together and excused himself. After that, the headmaster continued, and though he didn’t give too many details, he didn’t have to in the end. Mira’s story spread like wildfire in the halls of Windsor Preparatory Academy, word of her suicide lining the pages of the local paper. She’d hung herself. Right in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
What the fuck?
